Visit our website Cokie Roberts joins us regularly to talk about how politics and the government work. Her final assignment with NPR was a series of segments on Morning Edition titled "Ask Cokie", in which she answered questions submitted by listeners about subjects usually related to U.S. politics. Visit our website Ask Cokie: Executive Orders President Trump says he's considering using an executive order to … That's the handle on Twitter. And it's aggressively promoting the moon shot and a human on Mars. Morning Edition Weekend Edition Saturday ... MARTIN: Cokie Roberts - you can ask Cokie your questions about how politics and government work … The language, Steve, is so similar to what I heard in the 1950s.The program will provide for American leadership in space, expand the U.S. global impact, but also that it will create a whole new generation of science, technology, engineering and math - STEM learners. The problem with an executive order is any subsequent president can undo them. Truman desegregating the Army. She appears on Morning Edition, … And I remember it well. Here's President Dwight Eisenhower talking about Sputnik 1, the satellite first launched by the Soviet Union in October 1957.DWIGHT EISENHOWER: We congratulate Soviet scientists upon putting a satellite into orbit. Tell me what you're up to. Then the Soviets shocked us again by sending a man into space in 1961, which led to President Kennedy's famous goal for putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade.INSKEEP: One of the question comes from Vance Cotrolla (ph), who wants to know if there is political support for space exploration today.VANCE COTROLLA: Is there any congressional appetite to actually allocate funding for the next moon shot, whatever it might be - a trip to Mars or a different project?ROBERTS: If you go by the budget numbers, there absolutely is congressional support. Steve Inskeep recently talked with commentator Cokie Roberts, who took listener questions about the history of executive orders.First question comes from Andrea E. Maze (ph) on Twitter, who asks, where is the authority in the Constitution or in law for issuing an executive order?COKIE ROBERTS, BYLINE: There is none in the Constitution or in law, but there is the right of an executive order. Then the U.S. tried and failed to send up our own satellite. Later today, the president could announce an executive order to try and push ahead with this. And President Harry Truman worried that there wouldn't be enough steel for the soldiers, so he issued an executive order which he broadcast to the American people.HARRY S TRUMAN: I'm directing the secretary of commerce to take possession of the steel mills and to keep them operating.MARTIN: Within weeks, the Supreme Court had overturned the president's decision. That feat grew out of a U.S. space race with the Soviet Union that changed much of American life. It seems the hype was huge when the program started years ago but appears it's become a joke with Space Force.ROBERTS: Actually, recent polling, Steve, shows a good bit of interest in the program. Hi, Cokie.BRIDGET HALLIGAN: I'm Bridget Halligan (ph) of Des Moines, Iowa. The United States satellite program has been designed from its inception for maximum result in scientific research.INSKEEP: Now, the U.S. is turning its eyes upward again.
Ike putting the Arkansas National Guard under federal control to desegregate the schools. All rights reserved.
And space is our topic as we ask Cokie. Certainly, the most famous time was when Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus during the Civil War.INSKEEP: Well, we have one more question now, and it comes from @Mainefly. A Pew survey in May and June does show significant opposition to that - about 60%. Because if the president is going to exercise his broad powers issuing executive directors, serving as commander in chief, basically running the executive branch of the government, then he needs to have this power. In present times, President Trump wanted a citizenship question added to the 2020 census. A CBS survey conducted in June showed fully 3/4 saying the moon shot was worth it in terms of time and money. Since 1992, she serves as a senior news analyst and commentator for NPR. When was the first executive order issued, and was it then challenged in the courts?ROBERTS: Well, not surprisingly, the first executive order came from George Washington, who, on June 8, 1789 - so not long at all after the first Congress started - he basically asked the heads of the various federal agencies, what are you doing? These were enormous policy changes for our government. Hosted by Steve Inskeep, David Greene, Rachel Martin, and Noel King, Morning Edition takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday.