#Jamie raskin loss how to#

Mental health parity is a very important pledge by society. It's not clear to me that there are universal solutions. For some people, um, work can be a terrible stressor, but for other people work can be a kind of therapy and liberation from their illness and isolation. It's a tough question because it seems like everybody's situation is so individualized. What would you say to people who know someone going through the throes of mental illness who want to help, and have you thought about mental health policies - such as insurance parity - any differently? You write in the book about the loss of your son, Tommy, to suicide. It underscores the central role that Donald Trump played in it, but it does create a problem for assigning guilt at different levels of conduct. They just thought that the number one person in the US government had invited them to be there, and therefore they had a right. They didn't have any kind of subtle understanding of the separation of powers. And when they were told that they were trespassing and invading the Capitol, they said the president invited them to be there. And then the officers quickly got on the phone and said, yeah, just give us your name, your address, your social, and we'll tie up those loose ends.īut what's so fascinating to me about that there really were people who felt as if they had been summoned to Washington by the president. Is there one person who jumps out to you as the most consequential in that final ring aside from Trump himself? Then you have the second ring of militia groups who had plans to disrupt the election certification, and the smallest ring of those around Trump. You've talked about there being three rings to January 6: The biggest ring is the tens of thousands of people who came to Washington for a protest and many of them ended up storming the Capitol, but didn't necessarily plan to. So a 'self coup' is one that a president undertakes toward the normal constitutional process in order to seize, continuing control over the presidency. This was a coup that was orchestrated by the president against the vice president and against Congress and the people. Usually we think of a coup as something that takes place against a president. How did we get to a point where high ranking government officials have some kind of incentive and interest in denying the reality the first attack on the US Capitol since the war of 1812? But why do we concede that? All I'm saying is that we should consider this as a moral and ethical proposition, as well as a legal one. Before we get to the legalities of any of that, I would like people to focus on the fact that we have a former President of the United States who refuses to turn over information that he has about a violent insurrection against the union and an attempted political coup - and that's just an extraordinary thing, but everyone walks around assuming that, of course, Donald Trump won't cooperate in an investigation.

#Jamie raskin loss how to#

The media has hurried to get to the question of subpoenas, and contempt of Congress and how to coerce compliance. Could you explain how strong of a case the committee would have in enforcing a subpoena if a member of Congress refused to comply? You were a constitutional law professor earlier in your career. But for some reason, that was the thing that struck me hard. I know I saw a lot more bloody things that day, far more extreme situations. And now I was getting the message from my daughter that my workplace was a danger. You know, I had always wanted to involve my kids in my political career and have them get to know my colleagues, and I've always just wanted them to be excited about government.

She was essentially telling me that my chosen career path and engagement in politics had become a negative thing in our lives. When Tabitha said that, it was shocking and dismaying to me. What was going through your mind at that point, and how do you make sense of it now after writing the book? Could take me back to the first moments you had to yourself on the night of the insurrection, particularly after your daughter told you she never wanted to come back to the Capitol again after witnessing that day first-hand.