Carte Blanche: Question Time With President Trump

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Imagine if there was a better way for Congress to confront the president other than Twitter wars, and a better way for voters to interpret these confrontations other than endless political columns dissecting these Twitter wars. Every week in the United Kingdom, this is done with “Question Time”. For about an hour, prime minister Theresa May must answer questions from the opposition parties in front of parliament and defend her policies. Rather than baseless conjecture and straw-man arguments, Question Time allows the minority parties, in this case, the Labour Party and Scottish National Party, to question and challenge the policies of May and the Conservative Party. In practice, the vast majority of questions come from the leaders of opposition parties and the responses come from the prime minister, as opposed to other members of their party on parliament. The most recent session, in this case, was compromised of debate and questioning between Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn of the Labour Party. Corbyn, backed by his party members, questioned the Conservative stance of possibly leaving the European Union on March 29, with or without a deal. Labour takes the stance of only leaving with a deal in place (where a “deal” is a gargantuan stack of trade regulations and tariffs to protect the politically well connected in Britain). To counterargue as expected, Theresa May gets to question Corbyn and Labour about suggesting to not respect the results of the Brexit vote and the recent departure of members from the Labour Party over apparent anti-semitism.

When considering how Question Time would look if put into practice between President Trump and the United States Congress, it is difficult to say whether the concept “works”. By what parameters does it work for the UK or not? Question Time could be considered a device to advance and refine the arguments and agreements in Congress, or possibly a mechanism to increase transparency of politicians to voters. With a free questioning of the president from the opposition, we would hear a weekly debate between Trump and the Democrats on key issues like the border wall, trade talks, and healthcare reform. A major difference for the US, however, is that we have a congress of only two parties (that are not quite ideologically different), and many different factions make up those two parties. Therefore Question Time would be largely made up of House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader, Charles Schumer questioning and debating the president on his policies.

Question Time begins with a summary of the president’s (or prime minister’s) relevant policies of the week and a brief defense of them. The obvious policy defense in recent weeks for the president is the national emergency declaration to redirect funds to a wall along the Mexican border, without approval from Congress. He claims that this order will pull together $6.7 billion in funding from military sources, therefore drawing opposition from both Democrats and defense hawk Republicans. Now that Trump must answer before Congress in his defense, it suddenly seems like every argument can follow a different logical structure that will have different ramifications. Everything changes now that he is standing before Congress and before any citizen that happens to watch. This is not a yellow Twitter war where members can back out at any time. In private between Republican and conservative supporters of the Trump administration, the national emergency can be justified by the fact that its funding could not receive Congressional approval. However, now Trump must defend the idea that the illegal immigration that hypothetically can be stopped by a border wall actually constitute a “national emergency”. He would likely begin with his inflammatory rhetoric used since his declaration, calling mass illegal immigration an “invasion of our country”. (Here Republicans automatically assume private property along the border belongs to politicians, who invoke the collective term “our” to describe peoples’ backyards). He would likely also invoke the reluctance of Congress to allocate funding for the wall and the idea that the funding will be redirected from other sources, and therefore not expand the federal budget.

The Democrats’ would ask their questions with the power of having passed a measure to block the border wall funding from the national emergency declaration. This measure has already passed the House and has a solid chance of passing the Senate, with some Republicans already on board. In a Question Time format, Nancy Pelosi would likely preface her questions to the president introducing this measure and how it is being made in the name of checks and balances mandated in the Constitution. The House Speaker recently made a similar speech to Congress, stating, “the founders had a great vision. They did not want a king… They put forth a Constitution, the heart and soul of which is the separation”. So this week’s Question Time would leave us with Nancy Pelosi arguing with President Trump, touting limited government and separation of powers in the Constitution, kind of like eating too much before bed and having a very strange dream. However, in this case, the law is clear with the 1976 National Emergencies Act that allows Congress to terminate an emergency declaration. If questions were asked to attack Trump’s policies in this way, the president would have no other option than to logically explain how the illegal immigration problem is actually a national emergency.

On this note, he can reason the emergency of non-citizens attaching themselves to various state welfare programs and handouts (although the problem here is the state program, not the individual). This is a response that would gain more support from Republicans, which would be important for Trump in the US political system. Being a two party system, we still have many different factions in both parties, shown by the fact that some Republicans have already backed the measure to block the emergency wall funding. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Thom Tillis have already come out in support of the House bill and could possibly be joined by more senators in the protection of the defense budget, which will lose to the border wall funding. Question Time for senators in this situation would be extremely interesting, because of the factor of transparency. They have the ability as well to openly question the president as well as possibly be required to answer questions of other members. With this concept, a senator turning against their party as a deciding vote carries a lot more weight, if more voters watch them defend themselves on Question Time. Furthermore, this weight could be positive or negative.

In conclusion, it is hard to conceive of anything negative coming out of a United States version of the UK’s Question Time. In terms of positive results, there might not be that many other than transparency for voters, however, this small positive result could be worth the cost of Congress and the president taking over an hour a week to have these discussions. This is just one scenario for what is probably the most relevant topic between President Trump and the opposition party this week, and it takes an interesting form of questioning. An interesting form where the Democrats defend separation of powers and Republicans defend the declaration of national emergency for political gain. Unfortunately for the concept of Question Time, nobody would be there to ask the burning questions we are all wondering. Like what is President Trump going to do about all the private property along the border that the government will have to seize? Furthermore, why does Nancy Pelosi invoke the Constitution on this particular issue and make a joke of the document on literally everything else? Obviously, both politicians do everything for political reasons only, but it's important to remember these questions to remember the true self-interest of politicians and government.