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Published January 25, 2017
This is a rush transcript from "On the Record," July 29, 2014. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX HOST: This is a FOX News alert. Multiple Capitol Hill sources confirming to ON THE RECORD that the full House will likely vote tomorrow to allow speaker of the House, John Boehner, to sue President Obama. Republicans accusing President Obama of abusing his executive power with a unilateral decision to delay the ObamaCare employer mandate. And while the planned lawsuit is limited to the president's action on ObamaCare, Republicans are outraged by the president's constant threats to use his pen and his phone to bypass Congress to take action on his own.
Now, we are only hours away from the vote. House Republicans getting ready to take action. Karl Rove joins us. Good evening, Karl.
KARL ROVE, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR/FORMER BUSH SENIOR ADVISER: Good evening.
VAN SUSTEREN: Karl, is this something you would advise the House Republicans to vote for?
ROVE: Yes, this is not the end all, be all. I acknowledge their limitations with this approach. But it is an appropriate and a constitutional way to try to get clarity on what many feel is an improper use of executive power. President Obama has unilaterally decided not to impose the so-called employer mandate contained in the Affordable Care Act, nor to have the tax that goes along with it.
I have read the Affordable Care Act. There is no language the president has the latitude in delaying the effective date of the employer mandate and the date at which that tax begins to be collected. Yet the president has. Why? Because he doesn't want it to fall into -- it would be enforced now and it would cause people to lose their coverage and create a great deal of consternation. He wants that to happen after the election, not before the election. That's not a good enough reason for the president to violate a law, to take a part of the law that was passed by the House and passed by the Senate and that he signed into law, and to say I'm not going to enforce that law. There is no such privilege to a president under the Constitution.
VAN SUSTEREN: The lawsuit, as we understand, is narrowly written as to ObamaCare. But there has been a complaint from the Republicans that this is not the president's only time where he has been rather expansive with executive orders. And of course, other presidents have done executive orders. Your former boss has done them as well, and presidents for decades have.
ROVE: Right. Well, look, this is an executive action that doesn't even take place -- he didn't even issue an executive order. He had the Treasury Department say they were using authority under the Internal Revenue Service code that gave them authority to help with the transition to changes in rules. They are using that as the authority that they are using to not impose the employer mandate in the Affordable Care Act.
And, look, there is a constant tension between the executive branch and the legislative branch. In this instance, the legislative branch is arguing in the House lawsuit that its powers as the legislative body in Section I, Article I of the Constitution, the so-called Vestment Section, that those powers to be the legislative body are being violated by the president when he takes a law and blatantly ignores it and delays the enforcement of that law and the implementation of that law.
Now the Supreme Court has held a couple of time this year that the president has overstepped his bounds. It did so when he claimed that he got to decide when Congress was out of session and he could make recess appointments. On a 9-zero decision, they slapped him back.
My suspicion is that this is going to be a very seriously heard and very seriously considered case. Because it's so clear that the president has taken a unilateral action that is not contemplated in the law.
VAN SUSTEREN: Let me ask you about the impeachment that we have heard -- that's been discussed a little bit by some in the past week. It turns out that it looks like it's a great fundraiser for the Democratic Party.
ROVE: You have to take your hat off to the "Cynic-in-Chief" who sits in the Oval Office of the White House. The president of the United States is cynically suggesting a constitutional crisis in order to fatten the bank accounts of Democratic fundraising groups and in order to try and energize Democratic turnout for the fall elections.
The Speaker of the House has said we will not -- we will not consider or take up this issue. There is no serious Republican leader who has stepped forward and said here is the bill of particulars that justifies his extreme action. Yet, the President of the United States sends out his press secretary last week to stir the waters and suggest this is real.
How cynical? How pathetic? This man is playing with the American people by suggesting a constitutional crisis where none exists. Shame on him and shame on those people in the administration who participate with him. Shame on conservatives and Republicans who help him along. The president wants nothing more than Congressman Yoho, of Florida, to step forward and say we must do it.
He wants nothing more than Republican and conservative leaders to step forward and say we agree, we ought to try and impeach him. That's what the president wants. Just like he wanted people to step forward on the birther issue, because he knew it undermined the credibility of Republicans and conservatives and served his, President Obama's purposes.
VAN SUSTEREN: Karl, as always, thank you, sir.
ROVE: Thank you, Greta.
https://www.foxnews.com/transcript/rove-shame-on-cynic-in-chief-for-stirring-impeachment-rumors-and-trying-to-undermine-gop-and-shame-on-republicans-and-conservatives-for-helping-him