Does Obama really have the authority to bypass Congress?

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Does Obama really have the authority to bypass Congress?

Panel debates president taking executive action on immigration

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," November 10, 2014. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: And yesterday, President Obama doubled down on his intention to use executive action on immigration before the new Congress is sworn in before the end of the year. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I've got legal authority to make improvements on the system. I'd prefer and still prefer to see it done through Congress, but every day that I wait, we're misallocating resources. We're deporting people that shouldn't be deported. We're not deporting folks that are dangerous and need to be deported. So John, I'm going to give you some time. But if you can't get it done before the end of the year, I'm going to have to take the steps that I can to improve the system.

BOB SCHIEFFER, HOST, ''FACE THE NATION'': So are you saying here today their time has run out?

OBAMA: What I'm saying to them-- actually, their time hasn't run out. I'm going to do what I can do through executive action.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Here with reaction, Fox News contributor Pat Caddell, Fox News legal analyst Peter Johnson, Jr., and the co-host of "Outnumbered'' here on the Fox News Channel, Katie Pavlich.

Let's-- let's start from the legal standpoint.

PETER JOHNSON, JR., FOX LEGAL ANALYST: Sure.

HANNITY: We have a law that exists now.

JOHNSON: A lot of them.

HANNITY: We have a lot of laws. We have laws on immigration.

JOHNSON: Yeah.

HANNITY: OK. The president wanted another law, but Congress didn't go along with it.

JOHNSON: Correct.

HANNITY: We have co-equal branches of government, separation of powers.

JOHNSON: Got it.

HANNITY: Does he have the authority he says he has?

JOHNSON: No. Unconstitutional. And the ends do not justify the means.  And he can't say, Well, listen, I need to get this done. I've waited long enough, so I'm going to do it by executive fiat. I'm going to ignore the Constitution. I'm going to ignore the statutes on the book, which they're not enforcing to begin with, and then say everything's OK. It's not.

It's going to force a constitutional crisis. It's bad for America. It's bad for government. It's bad for divided government. It's bad for the balance of power. It's wrong.

HANNITY: All right, so another legal-- a constitutional crisis, Jonathan Turley, liberal Democrat, says constitutional tipping point.

JOHNSON: Of course.

HANNITY: So-- all right, I agree with both you and Jonathan Turley.

JOHNSON: Yes.

HANNITY: So the next question is, impeachment. Are Republicans going to take the country down the road of impeachment? I doubt it. So then the president what? He just takes Congress's authority away and--

(CROSSTALK)

JOHNSON: Maybe they'll come up with a weak lawsuit in order to stop that type of action. But it sends a signal to young Americans, especially-- we were talking with Katie about that-- that you can get away with basically anything without any cost. And if the Constitution--

HANNITY: Rip it up.

JOHNSON: Means nothing, rip it up!

HANNITY: All right, let's talk about politics, the political side of this.  You're a liberal Democrat. Sorry, you are.

(LAUGHTER)

HANNITY: I'm sorry you had a tough night the other night, Pat. Seriously- -

PAT CADDELL, FOX CONTRIBUTOR: Hard. Very hard.

HANNITY: So I believe this election was a repudiation of this president.  So my question to you, politically, that he's going to stick it in the Republicans' face?

CADDELL: No, no. This is what's amazing to me is not only what Peter's saying, which is a disregard for the idea that we should have law, as though we were a banana republic in which I have the-- I can do whatever I want, they can't stop me.

But it is what we don't talk about in the mainstream media. And I watched all the shows yesterday, Sean. No one talked about this, about, Oh, it will upset the Republicans. It's going to be poison. No! This is going to blow up the country.

Three months ago, four months ago, when we had the crisis with the unaccompanied children at the border combined with ISIS and then finally Ebola, American attitudes on immigration have changed dramatically in four months!

HANNITY: Prop 88, Oregon, legal licenses for illegals--

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: --70 percent.

CADDELL: This is-- it's going to blow up the country. It's not only going to be a constitutional crisis. What's interesting is there's not been enough polling on this because a lot of the mainstream media doesn't want to touch it. But the numbers exist. Even Democrats are split. And overwhelmingly, the country believes he does not have the authority to do this, nor should he do it!

KATIE PAVLICH, CO-HOST, ''OUTNUMBERED'': Right.

CADDELL: And this is-- and by the way, they can do some things.

HANNITY: All right, let me--

CADDELL: Come January, they've got the purse strings. They can shove--

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: Prop 88, Oregon, liberal state, would give legal driver's licenses to illegal immigrants-- shot down 70 percent against!

PAVLICH: Overwhelmingly.

HANNITY: Overwhelmingly! OK. So the president can't do it. Normally, if a president does something that would bring the country to a tipping point, the first thing people would say is impeachment. I don't think it's going to happen. I don't even know if it's-- I don't think it's wise politically for it to happen.

PAVLICH: Yeah, well--

HANNITY: What do Republicans do?

PAVLICH: Touch on something that Pat just talked about. I wrote a column last week on election day for The Hill talking about, Will Republicans hold President Obama accountable? Because they haven't been able to so far because they haven't had the Senate. Now that they have the power in the Senate and the House to hold him responsible, they should in some ways.  They have the power to defund some of the programs that he wants to put forward. They have that. They have unions that they can actually work with in border patrol and ICE to kind of hopefully turn President Obama's ideas on this thing.

But the bottom line is the president doesn't care about the Constitution in this aspect. He's flagrantly violating Article 1 of the Constitution when it comes to what he wants to do on illegal immigration. And he's not taking into consideration--

(CROSSTALK)

PAVLICH: --what people on the ground wants. He just doesn't really care about--

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: But he's already done this. He hasn't enforced immigration law.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, he hasn't.

HANNITY: And the president has basically rewritten ''Obama care'' five different times, maybe more. And the president hasn't enforced welfare laws in this country. And of course, he made appointments-- recess appointments when the Senate wasn't in recess.

JOHNSON: And when you have a Republican electoral mandate, and the reaction of the president of United States is, I need to go the other way, even though the people have spoken out in a way that repudiates and rebukes this president on every issue, including immigration--

(CROSSTALK)

PAVLICH: Learned Peter Johnson, let me just say--

JOHNSON: (INAUDIBLE) Pat Caddell.

CADDELL: Thank you, sir. I just want to say because this man is a raving narcissist! He has--

JOHNSON: Me?

CADDELL: No, not you. Obama!

(LAUGHTER)

HANNITY: This is your president, Pat! You're saying he's a raging narcissist?

CADDELL: He's a raging narcissist who has no grip on reality! What he's doing-- what he has been doing, which is that, I'm king and I can rule like a king, and the Republicans I have to say before, lay down for him.  McCain, Graham-- they all laid down (INAUDIBLE) when he did the--

(CROSSTALK)

CADDELL: Now they've got to stop it because this will destroy any--

HANNITY: Now, here's an interesting tidbit.

CADDELL: They should have used it in the election, and they didn't!

HANNITY: Well, they didn't need to.

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: They ran against Obama and it worked. You can't really second guess a winning strategy.

(CROSSTALK)

PAVLICH: Well, the president can't have it both ways, though. The president deliberately delayed this action for a year when he had the power to do it. If he says he has the power to do it, why did he delay (INAUDIBLE)

HANNITY: He was waiting for the election.

PAVLICH: And now he's saying, Well, Republicans, their time is up, when he had all the time in the world to do this before. It was an election issue, and now he's saying--

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: What are we to make of Biden, apparently in this meeting on Friday, says to John Boehner, How long do you need? And Obama, like--

PAVLICH: You know why he did that?

HANNITY: Why?

PAVLICH: You know why he cut him off, Obama cut off Joe Biden when he asked the question of how much time do they need? Because President Obama has no interest in working with Congress, despite saying on national television that he does. He wants to go--

(CROSSTALK)

JOHNSON: The vice president knows in order to change immigration policy--

PAVLICH: You have to go through Congress!

JOHNSON: --as was done by Ronald Reagan, it needs to pass both houses of Congress, and then be signed by the president.

HANNITY: But Peter, I'm going to tell you, if the Republicans go along with comprehensive immigration reform, conservatives like me are going to be angry. and I'll tell you why. Every time we're told we're going to get spending cuts and tax increases, you always get the tax increase, you never get the spending cut. With comprehensive reform, you're going to get the amnesty. You're never going to get the border secure! They should pass a border security bill!

JOHNSON: The sine qua non-- what must happen first is border security.

HANNITY: First.

PAVLICH: Right, but that's exactly why--

JOHNSON: Then you can have comprehensive immigration reform, whatever form that takes. But first--

(CROSSTALK)

PAVLICH: But that is exactly why the president wants to do it with executive action before the new Congress comes in in January because he wants-- he doesn't want to go through Congress!

HANNITY: i got to break.

PAVLICH: He wants to do it that way.

HANNITY: I hate to shut you up because I love you to death. And you just called the president a raging narcissist.

HANNITY: Well, he is.

PAVLICH: He is.

HANNITY: I agree.

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: He's also a radical-- he's a radical ideologue raging narcissist.

CADDELL: He has no respect for his office or this Constitution that he has sworn to uphold, and he's shown that time and time again.

HANNITY: I guess you'll be at the White House Christmas party, as usual.

PAVLICH: Once again, I'll be a guest-- I'll be right there at the head of the line.

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