September 29, 2026 - Cornell Confirms Chi Phi Expulsions

Did Donald Trump change the presidency, or simply reveal it?

That's the question behind the fourth episode of Can We Agree?, now live on my YouTube channel. My guests are John Yoo of UC Berkeley Law, one of the country's leading scholars of executive power, and William Galston of the Brookings Institution, a Wall Street Journal columnist.  As I told them at the outset, I had the only liberal at the Journal and the only conservative at Berkeley.

Galston argues Trump has transformed the office and that the next president, Democrat or Republican, will inherit those powers in full. Yoo says Trump is using powers that were always there, just more boldly than his predecessors did. When I suggested Congress had handed presidents the keys, Galston said, "Presidents have picked the lock." Yoo's reply: "There was no lock to pick."

We played Trump telling Axios there are "no limits" on his power. Neither guest agreed with that. But they split sharply on whether Trump obeys the courts, whether Lincoln, FDR and George W. Bush had already done much the same, and who is supposed to stop a president who goes too far. My radio listeners weighed in, too.

Then I asked whether a future President Josh Shapiro could tear down Trump's ballroom. I had each guest switch jerseys and argue the other's case for 90 seconds. And I asked whether George Washington would recognize the job he created.

Nobody leaves until we agree. They found common ground in a place I didn't expect.

Please watch the full episode on my YouTube page, subscribe and set yourself up for notifications.

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Cornell denied that essay-writing was the sole punishment for defendants in an alleged 2024 Chi Phi fraternity gang rape, with a university spokesperson confirming expulsions and suspensions were issued after a Title IX investigation into the incident that sparked a lawsuit and a reopened criminal probe.

The Cornell Daily Sun

Tompkins County's District Attorney says Jane Doe's 2024 sworn statement described the drug use and sexual encounters at Cornell's Chi Phi fraternity as consensual, but the office is reopening the investigation and will present the case to a grand jury following the graphic allegations in her recent civil lawsuit.

Tompkins County, NY

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USA Today

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CNN

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ABC News

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Al Jazeera

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Associated Press

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The US Sun

Longtime Republican strategist Karl Rove told the Texas Tribune Festival that his party is being infiltrated by “Nazis” and bigots like Bo French and Nick Fuentes, and said Ken Paxton is losing the U.S. Senate race to Democrat James Talarico despite a $100 million-plus cash infusion.

San Antonio Current

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The Atlantic