‘Let Me Stop You Right There’: Kaitlan Collins Clashes with J.D. Vance on Trump’s ‘Immunity’ Claim

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins grilled Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) about Donald Trump’s insistence that he should be immune from acts he undertook as president.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments last week as to whether the former president can be prosecuted over his attempt to overturn the 2020 election, which Trump falsely claimed was rigged against him. In the weeks after the contest, he sought to subvert the results in states he lost. Ultimately, Trump was indicted in federal court in Washington, D.C. where he is being prosecuted by Special Counsel Jack Smith.

Trump’s lawyers argue that he is immune from prosecution and even claim a president may order the assassination of a political rival and not be held criminally responsible.

Vance, a former Trump critic, embraced the ex-president ahead of his 2022 Senate bid, which he won with Trump’s backing. The senator and Collins had a lengthy exchange on Wednesday’s edition of The Source:

COLLINS: You’re a Yale-educated attorney and I want to get your take on what we saw happen last week – those immunity arguments before the Supreme Court where Trump’s team, his attorney argued that a president could order the military to stage a coup and to have their political opponent assassinated and be immune from prosecution unless this theory that they were impeached and then convicted by the Senate. Do you share the view that presidents are basically above the law?

VANCE: Look, Kaitlan, I think we need to be careful about imputing words into the president’s attorneys that they didn’t actually say.

COLLINS: He agreed with it.

VANCE: What the president’s attorney said, Kaitlan, to be clear, is that there is a checks and balances
system in our Constitution.  Now, some things the president does – private acts – are liable to criminal penalties, but most of the things that the president does in their official duties, we have a system of impeachment. We have a system of checks and balances. The legislative branch that I’m a member of, the judicial branch. I did not read the president’s attorneys as saying that the president could order a coup. The president’s attorneys are saying that the constitutional checks and balances system–

COLLINS: No, no.

VANCE: –would address that problem. And I think–

COLLINS: Let me stop you right there.

VANCE: –it’s an important distinction.

COLLINS: But let me stop you right there because I listened to this. It’s John Sauer, Trump’s attorney. And when he was asked by one of the justices if the president could order the military to stage a coup, and would it count as an official act – meaning he couldn’t be prosecuted for it – he said it would depend on the circumstances. I mean, what circumstances warrant a president ordering the military to stage a coup?

VANCE: Well, first of all, he did say it depends on the circumstances. That opens up a whole lot of avenue for contexts there. But more importantly, Kaitlan, he’s just saying that would count–

COLLINS: But that’s an official act in your view too?!

VANCE: Could I finish the answer to the question, Kaitlan? An official act, there are a number of checks and balances in our system. There’s the impeachment process, there’s the budgeting authority that Congress has. There are a number of ways where Congress has a check and balance control over the president United States. All he’s saying is that the criminal liability procedures that exist in this country don’t cover the president’s official acts. And by the way, how could anybody disagree with that? Kaitlin? Should Barack Obama be prosecuted for killing an American citizen via a drone strike? There are a number of examples in American history where if you apply the standard, the lawfare standard of the Biden administration against Donald Trump, it would make the presidency impossible to actually execute the law. So, in the name of taking down their political opponent, Kaitlan, these guys are really pushing a legal theory that I think would destroy the presidency, whether a Democrat or Republican is in charge.

COLLINS: Well, I don’t think Jack Smith’s is running for office. But on what you’re saying, you’re basically saying that if the president orders the military to stage a coup, you believe the only remediation for that is that he can be impeached or that Congress can restrict the budget?

VANCE: Well, Kaitlan, first of all, you’re dealing with hypotheticals here that are completely outside the bounds of this particular situation. Donald Trump did not order a coup despite the fact that a lot of media people say that he did on January the 6th. He encouraged people to protest peacefully. And of course, most people on January 6 did protest peacefully. What I’m saying is that you have to have some measure of liability for the official acts of presidency of the United States. And the way to create a check and balance on that system is what the Constitution prescribes here. You can have prosecutors, many of whom of course are deeply embedded with the Democratic Party trying to destroy the life of a former president who is now running for president because they think that they have a better argument for what that president should’ve done. You can have a political disagreement with Donald Trump and that’s totally reasonable. You shouldn’t destroy the presidency in the process. And I think that’s what a lot of what the Biden administration and the Department of Justice is trying to do.

COLLINS: But you essentially are agreeing that presidents should not be able to be prosecuted.

Collins then moved on to the next subject.

Watch above via CNN.

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