Expert slams GOP pundit's analogy for controversial Supreme Court case: 'Ridiculous'

A Constitutional law expert slammed a GOP pundit's "absolutely ridiculous" analogy about the Supreme Court's decision to overturn more than nine decades of precedent on presidential power. On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Trump v. Slaughter that President Donald Trump has the authority to fire members of the previously independent Federal Trade Commission. The decision overturned a precedent known as Humphrey's Executor, which had stood for more than 91 years, and prevented the president from firing employees of independent government agencies. Trump celebrated the opinion in a post on Truth Social, saying it "greatly increased presidential power at a time when it is needed most." Hogan Gidley, a senior advisor to the America First Policy Institute, argued on CNN's "The Arena" with host Kasie Hunt that the Supreme Court was right to rule that Trump has a right to fire people, just like a new head football coach is allowed to bring in a coaching staff of their choice. Michele Goodwin, a Constitutional law professor at Georgetown Law, replied that the analogy, if applied by the Trump administration, "should cause all of us to worry about the reach of the decision.""Let's be clear. We just experienced a global pandemic, and during that pandemic, we had a president who suggested that if people looked at the sun and just drank bleach, bathed in bleach, or something along those lines, COVID might not reach them," Goodwin said. "That was absolutely ridiculous." "This is exactly why you need experts who are learned and in agencies, and it is why they need an arms-length distance not only from the President, but also from Congress and the Supreme Court, to be able to do the work," she added.