CHRIS WALLACE (HOST): One of the ways that he's been moving the country forward is though executive action, not working through Congress. And I want to just take a look at a list of some of the executive actions over the last 14 months. November 2014, carbon emissions deal with China. Same month, temporary amnesty for 5 million illegal immigrants. December 2014, normalized relations with Cuba. July 2015, Iran nuclear deal. December 2015, Paris climate deal. This week, tighten gun controls. Mr. McDonough, whatever happened to Article I of the Constitution, which says, “all legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a congress of the United States”?
DENIS MCDONOUGH: Yeah well look, I was actually happy to see that list because when I was on your show a year ago, you asked me whether the president was done, whether he recognized that he was basically had lost the election and there was nothing left for him to do. Everything you just laid out are things that he got done in the last year, which of course we are very proud of, most particularly this climate deal, which will protect this country and its people for decades to come and the Iran nuclear deal, by the way, which fulfills his promise to not let Iran get a nuclear weapon.
WALLACE: But he did it on his own. He didn't do what the Constitution says, which is observe Article I that all those legislative powers reside in the Congress.
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WALLACE: The Constitution doesn't say well all legislative powers are vested in the congress unless they don't act, in which case the president can do whatever he wants. It doesn't say that.
MCDONOUGH: Let's take the guns announcement from earlier his week. Very simple question. Everybody -- in fact many of the Republicans and many of our Fox commentators I'm sure as you've seen throughout the week have urged us to enforce the laws we have. So what the president did is two things. He clarified, using guidance from the attorney general exactly what the law expects. A law that was passed by Congress three decades ago. The second thing he did is he asked for 200 new agents to enforce those laws. I don't know why that's so objectionable or whether this is a constitutional question, Chris. I think this is not a constitutional question. This is a question of protecting the American people, 30,000 of whom last year died from gun violence. That's too many.
