Have you ever wondered with the White House counsel does? Who it is? Whether that person is the president’s personal lawyer…or something else? And what about the Justice Department? Where do all those legal types fit in?

Our guest is political science professor Nancy Kassop. She’s an expert on many things, but her extensive experience interviewing White House counsels helped us dig deep on this topic. We also dive into the legal norms and traditions that are being strained under the Trump administration.

Civics 101 is hosted by Hannah McCarty and Nick Capodice. Christina Phillips produced and anchored this episode.

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• CLICK HERE: Visit our website to see all of our episodes, donate to the podcast, sign up for our newsletter, get free educational materials, and more!
• To see Civics 101 in book form, check out A User's Guide to Democracy: How America Works by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice, featuring illustrations by Tom Toro.
• Check out our other weekly NHPR podcast, Outside/In - we think you'll love it!

It's a term thrown around quite a bit lately, but what does it actually mean? This is an episode about the basics of the Law of the Land, the three branches of government and what happens when they're don't work the way they're supposed to.

Our guide is Aziz Huq, Professor of Law at the University of Chicago. His books include The Rule of Law: A Very Short Introduction, The Collapse of Constitutional Remedies and How to Save a Constitutional Democracy.

If you want some extra context for this one, check out these other episodes:

Checks and Balances

So Long, Chevron

What is "originalism"?

How Should We Govern the Algorithm?

The Fourteenth Amendment

Want our new "Civics is my cup of tea" mug? CLICK HERE TO DONATE AND GET YOURS!

• CLICK HERE: Visit our website to see all of our episodes, donate to the podcast, sign up for our newsletter, get free educational materials, and more!
• To see Civics 101 in book form, check out A User's Guide to Democracy: How America Works by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice, featuring illustrations by Tom Toro.
• Check out our other weekly NHPR podcast, Outside/In - we think you'll love it!

Every president (with the exception of William Henry Harrison) has issued executive orders. Most recently, Donald Trump issued several on his first day in office. Some have been published in the Federal Register, others are facing legal challenges.

So what IS an executive order? How do they differ from other executive actions, like proclamations or memoranda? Who writes them? Who reviews them? All that and more with our guest Andy Rudalevidge, professor of Government at Bowdoin and author of By Executive Order: Bureaucratic Management and the Limits of Presidential Power.

Click here for our episode on the Federal Register.

Here is a link to every single proclamation issued by a president.

Want our new "Civics is my cup of tea" mug? CLICK HERE TO DONATE AND GET YOURS!

• CLICK HERE: Visit our website to see all of our episodes, donate to the podcast, sign up for our newsletter, get free educational materials, and more!
• To see Civics 101 in book form, check out A User's Guide to Democracy: How America Works by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice, featuring illustrations by Tom Toro.
• Check out our other weekly NHPR podcast, Outside/In - we think you'll love it!