August 31, 2025

Recently, I sat down with my good friend Congressman Jamie Raskin for a conversation. We had a lot to catch up on. We chatted about the need to expand voting rights, the administration’s overreach into state powers, and Trump’s desire to be a dictator. We hope you enjoy, and maybe even learn something from this great constitutional law professor along the way.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Marc Elias: Congressman Jamie Raskin, welcome back to Defending Democracy.

Jamie Raskin: I'm delighted to be with you, Marc, and I have to thank you for your participation in Democracy Summer. You were a favorite of more than a thousand young people across the country, and now we've got hundreds of young people who want to become election lawyers fighting for democracy like Marc Elias.

Marc Elias: Well, it was great to do it. For those of you who don't know, Congressman Raskin, rather than raising money to win by 85% instead of 82%, raises money to train a corps of young people to be engaged in politics, elections, and issues. It is a great program he runs every summer called Democracy Summer, and I was happy to speak at it. Thank you, Congressman, for running it.

Let me jump right in with the latest from Donald Trump. It's one of those things where once might be an accident, but twice is never an accident. On Monday, he said, "a lot of people are saying maybe we'd like a dictator." That perked my ears up because, honestly, I don't think I've ever run across anyone who has said maybe they'd like a dictator.

Then on Tuesday, he had a cabinet meeting, which, by the way, would have made Kim Jong-un blush. It was literally one cabinet official after another saying how great he is. Anyway, he again mused about this idea that people may like a dictator because he's tough on crime. What do you make of him floating the idea of being a dictator?

Jamie Raskin: Well, we remember he said during the campaign that he wanted to be a dictator on day one. He's flirted with that language for a long time.

In a sense, we shouldn't play into it because all we need to know is that our Constitution does not allow it...