0:00

This is Chris Hedges, and

0:02

you're listening to the Ralph

0:04

Nader Radio Hour. Stand up.

0:06

Stand up. You've been sitting way

0:08

too long. Welcome to the

0:10

Ralph Nader Radio Hour. My

0:12

name is Steve Scroven, along

0:15

with my co-host, David.

0:17

Hello, Steve. And our

0:19

industrious producer, Hannah Feldman.

0:21

Hello, Steve. And our industrious

0:24

producer, Hannah Feldman.

0:26

Hello everybody it's about the rising

0:29

opposition from many quarters to the

0:31

tyrant Trump and his musketeers. That's

0:34

right Ralph on the program today

0:36

we welcome back friend at

0:38

the show co-president of Public

0:40

Citizen Robert Wiseman Public Citizen

0:42

has eight lawsuits in the works

0:44

against the illegal dismantling of

0:46

the United States government being

0:48

conducted by the Trump administration and

0:51

the Doge Bros. Rob is going to

0:53

update us on those actions, specifically what's

0:55

going on with the IRS, the EPA,

0:57

and one of the most truly efficient

0:59

government agencies of all time, the Consumer

1:02

Financial Protection Bureau. Then

1:04

resident constitutional scholar Bruce

1:06

Fine joins us to talk about the Public

1:08

Interest Law Day, held at Harvard Law

1:10

School this past week, and the importance

1:12

of training lawyers to be more than just

1:14

corporate chills. Plus he'll fill us in on

1:17

what's going on with the Trump

1:19

administration's assault on the district courts.

1:21

that have been blocking some of

1:23

his worst initiatives. Then we're going to

1:25

take a long overdue dive into the

1:27

mail bag and have Ralph answer a

1:29

few listener questions. As always, somewhere in

1:31

the middle we'll check in with

1:33

our relentless corporate crime reporter Russell

1:35

Mokieber. But first, let's hear how

1:37

public citizen is leading the

1:40

resistance. David. Robert Wiseman is

1:42

a staunch public interest advocate

1:44

and activist as well as

1:46

an expert on a wide

1:48

variety of issues ranging from

1:50

corporate accountability and government transparency

1:52

to trade and globalization to

1:54

economic and regulatory policy. As

1:56

the president of public citizen,

1:58

he has spearheaded the effort

2:00

to loosen the chokehold corporations and

2:02

the wealthy have over our democracy.

2:04

Welcome back to the Ralph Nader

2:06

radio hour, Robert Weisman. Great to

2:09

be with you. Yeah, welcome back,

2:11

Robert. You know, every day the

2:13

papers are full of Trump's violations

2:15

of federal laws, federal regulation, constitutional

2:17

provisions. He's the most impeachable president

2:19

in American history. Makes no bones

2:22

about it. He said with Article

2:24

2 in the Constitution he can

2:26

do whatever he wants as president

2:28

and he's proved it. And he

2:30

talks about being a dictator half-chokingly

2:32

before he was elected to be

2:34

a dictator by a plurality of

2:37

voters. He's talked about being a

2:39

king. So he's not like Nixon

2:41

slinking back into a corner. He's

2:43

right up there basically declaring war

2:45

on the American people. overthrowing the

2:47

US government, destroying or dismantling the

2:49

federal civil service, and taking one

2:52

agency at a time that protects

2:54

the health, safety, and economic well-being

2:56

of the American people, either wanting

2:58

to shut it down like the

3:00

Department of Education or the Consumer

3:02

Financial Protection Bureau, which is partially

3:04

reopened, or to get rid of

3:07

the enforcement agencies. or weaken them

3:09

to the point where they can't

3:11

perform their job and that would

3:13

include the Justice Department, the antitrust

3:15

division, as well as the Federal

3:17

Trade Commission. He's fired the two

3:20

Democratic Federal Trade Commissioners confirmed by

3:22

Congress and he's methodically going after

3:24

the countervailing restraints in our Republic.

3:26

He's going after the media, he's

3:28

going after labor unions, he's going

3:30

after citizen groups, going after universities,

3:32

He has neutralized Congress with the

3:35

slim majority of the Republicans controlling

3:37

the House and the Senate and

3:39

he's been handed some presence to

3:41

do what he's doing by the

3:43

Supreme Court, including the notorious decision

3:45

known accurately as Trump versus the

3:47

United States. States last June when

3:50

the Supreme Court six to three

3:52

said that in his official capacity

3:54

he could not be criminally prosecuted

3:56

without defining official capacity. So with

3:58

that background Robert Weizman, tell me

4:00

what the civic groups led by

4:02

public citizen are doing both in

4:05

terms of a litigation strategy and

4:07

an overall strategy because you do

4:09

have Congress watch. and you do

4:11

have supporters around the country who

4:13

are active in showing up at

4:15

town meetings. Well, thanks Ralph. It's

4:17

exactly as you say. I think

4:20

it's the nation is facing an

4:22

authoritarian onslaught that really has no

4:24

precedent in our history. I think

4:26

it's really important for everyone to

4:28

wrap their heads around it. It's

4:30

a hard truth to face, but

4:33

we have to face it. I

4:35

think for people in Washington DC,

4:37

it's been very visceral because so

4:39

many people have been fired or

4:41

fearing. that they may be fired.

4:43

It's very personal. There's fear in

4:45

the air and people are well

4:48

aware of it. I think outside

4:50

of DC, if you're a politically

4:52

engaged person, you're aware of it.

4:54

But if you're not, it may

4:56

feel like a little bit like

4:58

it's just more theater in Washington

5:00

and it's not. And we have

5:03

to make sure that everyone understands

5:05

that. So we're doing everything from

5:07

litigating to trying to mobilize the

5:09

public. And we've filed so far.

5:11

we're going to be up to

5:13

I think over a dozen by

5:15

end of next week with a

5:18

lot more to come after that

5:20

in a variety of areas from

5:22

illegally shutting down government agencies to

5:24

illegally accessing private information and people

5:26

through a lot of Mosk-dosh operation

5:28

towards suppressing and censoring information that

5:31

should be available to the public.

5:33

And we think that the efforts

5:35

in the courts are really vital

5:37

to stem the illegal unconstitutional actions

5:39

of the administration, but also to

5:41

show that there's a way to

5:43

fight back in these early days

5:46

and months. administration. There's been a

5:48

sense that Trump is inevitable and

5:50

unstoppable and the actions in the

5:52

courts I think have been really

5:54

critical to illustrate that that's not

5:56

true. Ultimately, we're going to defeat

5:58

Trump by putting people on the

6:01

streets in big enough numbers to

6:03

counteract his power and also instill

6:05

some spine in the congressional opposition

6:07

and maybe even break off some

6:09

of the Republicans who may choose

6:11

not to go down with the

6:13

Trump ship. I think we've been

6:16

a little slow to get that

6:18

moving, but there's big actions planned

6:20

around the country for today on

6:22

April 5th, and those are going

6:24

to be, I think, a really

6:26

big scale and going to start

6:28

to really supercharge the opposition. Combined

6:31

with the defeat of the Elon

6:33

Musk effort and the Supreme Court

6:35

campaign in Wisconsin, I think it's

6:37

going to reset the national narrative

6:39

about who has political power and

6:41

political momentum, and we're going to

6:44

have an opportunity to really push

6:46

back in a much bigger way

6:48

on this authoritarian nightmare. Let's parse

6:50

this what you're commenting on. The

6:52

musketeers' poisonous tusks of Phelan Musk,

6:54

which is what it should be

6:56

called, has targeted the IRS. They

6:59

want to cut 45,000 jobs, one

7:01

out of every two IRS staff,

7:03

which will severely reduce the amount

7:05

of revenue collected and aid in

7:07

a massive high-level tax evasion by

7:09

the super-rich and the corporation. What

7:11

is being done to stop him

7:14

there? Because as you know, these

7:16

firings of the federal civil service

7:18

without cause have been already decided

7:20

by some courts, I think, Robert,

7:22

to be unlawful. So what's the

7:24

strategy on the IRS? Yeah, well,

7:26

I think it's important to underscore

7:29

what you just said, Ralph. So

7:31

they're trying to fire people from

7:33

the IRS. One of the things

7:35

that happened under the Biden administration

7:37

was finally infusing some money into

7:39

the IRS, and people should understand

7:41

that. is a really pro public

7:44

pro equality measure. Because what all

7:46

this new. staff at the IRS

7:48

are designed to do exactly as

7:50

you said, is to crack down

7:52

on tax fraud by the rich

7:54

and corporations. And the moves that

7:57

Musk and Trump are making at

7:59

the IRS are projected to cost

8:01

$300 billion in revenue, $300 billion

8:03

because people and corporations will be

8:05

able to cheat better. So that's

8:07

what's a year. I think that's

8:09

over multiple years, but gigantic amounts.

8:12

And it's true throughout all of

8:14

what Musk is doing, but maybe

8:16

no more clear here. the idea

8:18

that they're going after waste and

8:20

fraud. They are enabling waste and

8:22

fraud as well as committing waste

8:24

and fraud through their own actions.

8:27

So the efforts, there's a couple

8:29

different efforts at this agency and

8:31

others. Part of it is dealing

8:33

with the employees themselves. So there

8:35

have been some significant early successes

8:37

in bringing cases first on behalf

8:39

of the probationary employees. So they

8:42

tried to basically fire everyone in

8:44

the government who's a probationary employee

8:46

because their employment protections are lesser.

8:48

than longer term employees. However, although

8:50

they don't have the stronger rights

8:52

of longer term employees, they are

8:55

supposed to be given individualized consideration.

8:57

So there have been cases now

8:59

moving forward where judges are saying,

9:01

well, you can't just buy everybody

9:03

with a formula that says you've

9:05

been found to be unsatisfactory when

9:07

it's obvious that there was no

9:10

individualized review. So these cases are

9:12

going to take a while to

9:14

filter out. There's more than one

9:16

of them. And what they're going

9:18

positively so far. The other thing

9:20

that's going on is for the

9:22

longer term employees, in some cases

9:25

they've tried to close the whole

9:27

agency, just try to get rid

9:29

of everybody. In other cases, they've

9:31

had a little bit more respect,

9:33

a modest about more respect for

9:35

the proper process, which is called

9:37

in the government's terms, reduction in

9:40

force, RIF, so I talk about

9:42

riffing people. They're trying to do

9:44

that at a major scale, but

9:46

again, without really following the proper

9:48

process, so there's lawsuits going on

9:50

about those. One challenge where those

9:52

cases with those cases is Inside

9:55

the government and point cases are

9:57

supposed to be channeled, it's called,

9:59

to an administrative process not handled

10:01

in regular courts. That administrative process

10:03

is not equipped to deal with

10:05

a huge number of cases we've

10:08

got going forward. So it's going

10:10

to take some time to sort

10:12

this out or to see if

10:14

the cases can bump to real

10:16

courts because the administrative process is

10:18

unable to deal with them on

10:20

a timely basis. So that's a

10:23

long answer to saying it's going

10:25

to take some time to sort

10:27

this out. There's some ways the

10:29

IRS is like other agencies and

10:31

there's some things that are probably

10:33

not as good in the IRS

10:35

case as it is where they're

10:38

trying to shut down agencies or

10:40

plainly violating statutory directives from Congress.

10:42

Well, apart from the people who

10:44

are dying in Africa and elsewhere

10:46

with the cutoff of humanitarian aid

10:48

by the Agency for International Belmont,

10:50

which he has closed down physically

10:53

and a lot of the funding

10:55

for AIDS medicines for tuberculosis, for

10:57

malaria. which are saving lives every

10:59

day in these countries that have

11:01

now cut off. One of the

11:03

most dangerous forays of Trump and

11:05

Musk is what they're doing to

11:08

the Environmental Protection Agency and its

11:10

mission to reduce carcinogenic products, pollution

11:12

of air, water, soil, food, handle

11:14

climate violence and other environmental disasters.

11:16

Can you describe what's happening there

11:18

in particular because there's so many

11:21

strong environmental groups with a lot

11:23

of lawyers? like NRDC and environmental

11:25

defense, describe what's happening to EPA,

11:27

especially since Trump promised pure air

11:29

and pure water constantly on the

11:31

election path before November. Yeah, it's

11:33

more like pure pollution or pure

11:36

profits for the polluters. There are

11:38

a lot of things going on

11:40

at the Environmental Protection Agency, all

11:42

bad. They parallel what's going on

11:44

at other regulatory agencies. One is

11:46

reducing staff or closing parts of

11:48

the agency. that do important functions.

11:51

Not surprisingly, they're closing. down the

11:53

environmental justice portions of the agency.

11:55

Those were really significantly expanded under

11:57

Biden and did a lot of

11:59

important work that wasn't appreciated, including

12:01

by making general standards stronger to

12:03

take care of particular environmental justice

12:06

considerations. So for example, the Biden

12:08

administration strengthened rules on lead and

12:10

pipes and was moving to get

12:12

lead pipes removed faster. because of

12:14

the environmental justice considerations. The whole

12:16

part of the organization that dealt

12:19

with that is gone. They're also

12:21

both going to roll back a

12:23

vast array of new standards that

12:25

have been issued in the recent

12:27

years against polluters so that exactly

12:29

the opposite, but those standards that

12:31

would have made our air cleaner

12:34

and our water safer, those are

12:36

being pulled back. They stopped all

12:38

enforcement of existing actions, at least

12:40

criminal enforcement against polluters, and they've

12:42

made clear that there really isn't

12:44

going to be much, if any,

12:46

enforcement going forward. So it's open

12:49

season for the polluters. And of

12:51

course, they're also promoting in a

12:53

variety of ways a rush towards

12:55

climate catastrophe by undoing the positive

12:57

measures that have come recently from

12:59

the Biden administration to deal with

13:01

the climate crisis and trying to

13:04

promote further fossil fuel production and

13:06

use, including even coal, which is

13:08

completely uneconomic at this point. So

13:10

I think we're seeing both, we're

13:12

going to see chronic illness and

13:14

chronic problems significantly rise and it's

13:16

between this agency and others. It's

13:19

a near certainty that we're going

13:21

to see significant industrial disasters. If

13:23

you pull back all the enforcement

13:25

rules and you say we're not

13:27

going to force the rules that

13:29

are left over, you know, corporations

13:32

get the message and they're going

13:34

to be more reckless and it's

13:36

a near certainty that we're going

13:38

to have many more serious industrial

13:40

disasters as a direct result. and

13:42

what they're doing at EPA and

13:44

other agencies. Many of these industrial

13:47

disasters may well come from the

13:49

chemical plants. are near cities all

13:51

over the country well documented. The

13:53

conclusion here is that more people

13:55

are going to get cancer, respiratory

13:57

ailments, and more people are going

13:59

to die. His message basically based

14:02

on what he's doing, not what

14:04

he's blowviating, is let him die.

14:06

In another area, he's cutting back

14:08

on CDC funds dealing with the

14:10

studying and anticipating pandemics and other

14:12

epidemic diseases. He's cutting down on

14:14

the National Institutes of Health research

14:17

in this area and indirectly affecting

14:19

state health departments. There's an article

14:21

recently on how they are severely

14:23

being weakened as a result because

14:25

of the federal government's role in

14:27

funding these departments. So what we're

14:30

seeing here is a cataclysmic. There's

14:32

no better word to describe it.

14:34

Let's talk about the Democratic Party

14:36

opposition here. A few days ago,

14:38

we had a small informative demonstration

14:40

from the Democratic National Committee headquarters,

14:42

not far from the Congress, passing

14:45

out materials about how Democrats can

14:47

defeat the Republicans with kitchen table

14:49

issues, increase the minimum wage, crack

14:51

down on corporate crooks who are

14:53

stealing people's hard-earned money and savings.

14:55

make it easier to form labor

14:57

unions, increased taxes on the super

15:00

rich and the rich. That comes

15:02

in at 85% by the way,

15:04

and 65 million seniors would benefit

15:06

from a raise in the benefits

15:08

of Social Security which have been

15:10

frozen for 45 years. A couple

15:12

hundred Democrats voted for that a

15:15

couple years ago in the House

15:17

of Representatives, but it never went

15:19

to the floor. and our allies

15:21

were standing there, Robert, and they

15:23

realized it was like a mausoleum.

15:25

There wasn't anybody there to receive

15:27

the materials or to say, come

15:30

on in, you stand for what

15:32

we stand for, and let's talk

15:34

about around the table. Finally, somebody

15:36

poked its head out of the

15:38

door. said, you mail that stuff.

15:40

We don't accept that stuff. In

15:43

the meantime, at the side door,

15:45

Democrats were leaving their offices in

15:47

Congress to go into the bullpen

15:49

where they had cubicles, where they

15:51

had a staffer with a list

15:53

of names dialing for dollars. So

15:55

the problem with Trump is not

15:58

just Trump. It's with a weak

16:00

Democratic Party. So let me ask

16:02

you a number of questions here.

16:04

We have urged the... Democratic Party

16:06

to have informal hearings on Capitol

16:08

Hill. You know, there's a minority,

16:10

but there's nothing stopping them. Elizabeth

16:13

Warren had an informal hearing on

16:15

the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau a

16:17

few weeks ago. She had a

16:19

committee room. The media was there.

16:21

She got reports. Now Congress Watch

16:23

is pressing for informal hearings at

16:25

all these committees. That way... The

16:28

Democratic Party can indicate what it

16:30

stands for, it could counter the

16:32

Republican majority, it could inform the

16:34

public, it could invigorate and lift

16:36

the morale of citizen groups, on

16:38

and on. Tell us what Congress

16:40

watch is doing. Well, in general,

16:43

it's pushing for Democrats and any

16:45

Republicans who want to go on

16:47

to oppose Trump's authoritarianism and his

16:49

pro-billionaire corporate class agenda. There actually

16:51

been quite a few of these

16:53

shadow hearings going on there. a

16:56

couple this week on Social Security

16:58

and other issues where they've done

17:00

a decent job of bringing up

17:02

people who are directly affected to

17:04

tell their stories and they get

17:06

the media attention they do. I

17:08

think there's sort of two pieces

17:11

for the big work to move

17:13

the Democrats to be more forceful

17:15

opponents. The first is to stop

17:17

being timid and to just be

17:19

ready to be aggressive and challenging

17:21

Trump. You know, after the election,

17:23

there's a certain normalcy to this,

17:26

but there was a lot of

17:28

uncertainty. not just the finger pointing,

17:30

but also kind of a loss

17:32

of sense of clarity and, you

17:34

know, I think an over interpretation

17:36

of a bad election result. And

17:38

we really had not seen aggressive

17:41

pushback from congressional leadership. I think

17:43

that's beginning to change and I

17:45

think there's a pretty clear theory

17:47

of how to make a change.

17:49

It's not, the Democratic leaders are

17:51

harder who they are, but they

17:54

will be more aggressive if people

17:56

are pushing them to be more

17:58

aggressive. So if we have hundreds

18:00

of thousands of people out on

18:02

the street, that will make them

18:04

more aggressive. I think that's beginning

18:06

to happen and I think that's

18:09

gonna happen. They're looking forward. to

18:11

the big fight over what's called

18:13

budget reconciliation, the big tax and

18:15

budget bill that's going to be

18:17

the only significant legislating for the

18:19

year in which Trump and the

18:21

Republicans are trying to cut taxes

18:24

on the rich and billionaires paid

18:26

for in part by cutting Medicaid,

18:28

boot stamp, snap and other key

18:30

programs. And they're lined up to

18:32

be tough on that. And I

18:34

think that as momentum builds from

18:36

the public as they see there's

18:39

really demand at these town hall

18:41

meetings at big demonstrations, as Corey

18:43

Booker and gets massive support. I

18:45

think momentum is going to grow

18:47

for them to be reasonably tough

18:49

in opposition, as in fact they

18:51

were in the first Trump administration.

18:54

The other piece, though, is not

18:56

just to be in opposition, but

18:58

to actually before something and just

19:00

take up the agenda points that

19:02

you were talking about. And that's

19:04

going to require more from us.

19:07

So it should be easy for

19:09

them, and it actually is easy

19:11

for them to say no to

19:13

tax cuts for billionaires. But are

19:15

they ready to say yes to

19:17

making billionaires? pay more. Easy to

19:19

say don't cut Medicaid. Are they

19:22

ready to say expand Medicare, Medicare

19:24

for all or even the more

19:26

easier incremental steps of expanding and

19:28

improving Medicare by lowering the eligibility

19:30

age and making sure we have

19:32

coverage of dental hearing vision home

19:34

health care and so on? Are

19:37

they going to take up and

19:39

be serious as you say about

19:41

raising the minimum wage? Are they

19:43

going to say not just we

19:45

oppose Trump's attacks? on labor unions,

19:47

which are of historic importance. But

19:49

we actually think it's vital that

19:52

we change labor law to make

19:54

it possible for workers to organize

19:56

again and we support. legislation, not

19:58

just pretend to support it, but

20:00

plan to deliver on that legislation.

20:02

Are they going to do those

20:05

things? Well, they're not ready to

20:07

do that yet, and that's going

20:09

to take a lot more pushing

20:11

from our side. Well, they don't

20:13

seem to be ready to do

20:15

what they did a few years

20:17

ago to extend the child's tax

20:20

credit, which provided about $300 a

20:22

month for 61 million children in

20:24

this country and cut child poverty

20:26

by almost 40%. That ought to

20:28

be an easy one. That comes

20:30

in huge support from left-right voters.

20:32

Not to mention the European and

20:35

Canadian social nets for maternal care,

20:37

child care, family care, all the

20:39

things that other Western countries have

20:41

had for many years. I mean,

20:43

it's wide open for the Democratic

20:45

Party, the landslide, the Republicans. Well,

20:47

the most optimistic playbook here is

20:50

that with Trump going crazy against

20:52

the livelihoods and dire necessities of

20:54

the American people, that the polls

20:56

drop for him. The economy starts

20:58

tanking, prices start going up higher

21:00

and higher, and the market collapses

21:02

with loss of pension money and

21:05

savings for tens of millions of

21:07

Americans, and the demonstrations increase with

21:09

one message, you're fired. That's a

21:11

phrase you understand, isn't it? You're

21:13

fired, tyrant, Trump, dangerous, Donald. You're

21:15

fired, fascistic, Now that will bolster

21:18

the Congress. Forces and the Congress.

21:20

When the public and party realizes

21:22

that with the upcoming 2026 election,

21:24

it's their political skin or trumps,

21:26

they're going to do what the

21:28

Republicans did for far less provocation

21:30

of the Nixon administration when they

21:33

sent a delegation of senators to

21:35

Nixon and said, your time is

21:37

up and you resigned. So right

21:39

now people say impossible, this will

21:41

never happen. Well, that's what they

21:43

said about Nixon. But what? Trump

21:45

and... musk are doing to the

21:48

american people is far far more

21:50

devastating right down to their livelihood

21:52

their health safety economic well-being freedom

21:54

of speech civil rights civil liberties

21:56

you name it the second playbook

21:58

is that it results in a

22:00

serious impeachment drive the one thing

22:03

he cannot control and violate is

22:05

what our founders put in the

22:07

constitution exclusively for congress it did

22:09

not want another monarch They were

22:11

very, very fierce in their drafting

22:13

the Constitution to avoid another King

22:15

George III. And the swelling of

22:18

pressure from both right and left

22:20

in Congress, red state and blue

22:22

state, will lead to a successful

22:24

impeachment and removal. That's the optimistic

22:26

playbook. You know, everybody says that's

22:28

impossible, but once the people rise

22:31

and not just filling town meetings.

22:33

But rallies all over, vigils in

22:35

Washington and so forth, in front

22:37

of the White House, he will

22:39

overreach, he will provoke, he'll send

22:41

police out, there'll be beatings, and

22:43

there'll be more resistance against them.

22:46

As people say, hey, we were

22:48

your voters in this crowd, and

22:50

look how you're treating us. What's

22:52

your view of that scenario? I

22:54

think it's the only direction we

22:56

can go. whether or not it

22:58

leads to impeachment, which I think

23:01

we should be open-minded about it,

23:03

we have to do the same

23:05

set of things. And unfortunately, I

23:07

think you're right that we're likely

23:09

to be aided by a chaotic

23:11

economy. And it's unfortunate because that

23:13

means people are going to be

23:16

hurt. When the economy is hurting,

23:18

more people get hurt. That's not

23:20

something to wish for. But I

23:22

think it's something that we're inevitably

23:24

headed for. I was struck by

23:26

something as a slight divergence. They're

23:29

not optimistic about the future of

23:31

the markets, even though they're anticipating

23:33

tax cuts, even though they're anticipating

23:35

deregulation that lets corporations impose costs

23:37

on everybody else and get props.

23:39

They're not optimistic because they think

23:41

the rule of law is so

23:44

much in doubt that whether you

23:46

can even count on contracts being

23:48

enforced properly or whether we have

23:50

a stable society, which is the

23:52

underpinning and foundation of a strong

23:54

economic, they're not sure they can

23:56

count on those things anymore. So

23:59

in those scenarios, I don't really

24:01

care where the market's going, but

24:03

I do care about people having

24:05

jobs and their well-being and people

24:07

are likely to feel some pain.

24:09

But that coupled with, I think

24:11

the anger over the authoritarianism. and

24:14

the cruelty of the Trump agenda,

24:16

I think is going to generate

24:18

that mass mobilization. And whether it's

24:20

through impeachment or through elections, I

24:22

think that's how we win. But

24:24

that's not guaranteed. We have to

24:26

worry seriously about the integrity of

24:29

elections. And you know, you've taught

24:31

me about this Ralph. Other really

24:33

serious authoritarian measures that this man

24:35

may be willing to deploy. Like

24:37

those are real threats that we

24:39

face in a way that's never

24:42

been part. of our history, at

24:44

least not since the Civil War.

24:46

So you can see the path

24:48

forward for a better outcome, but

24:50

the risk of a different scenario

24:52

is real. Well, you were pointing

24:54

out, you know, he just issued

24:57

an executive order trying to override

24:59

state law under the Constitution in

25:01

terms of running election. So he's

25:03

got his eye on rigging elections,

25:05

but if he starts losing the

25:07

support of the business establishment, especially

25:09

the small business establishment whose finding

25:12

its contracts severing and repealed, in

25:14

the last few weeks, I think

25:16

that will be the final push

25:18

to basically have the country roar

25:20

back, your fired, resign, and feed

25:22

the impeachment drive. Because the one

25:24

thing the business establishment can't stand

25:27

is total chaos and unpredictability. Look

25:29

at the auto companies now. The

25:31

chief executives are, decide themselves with

25:33

these tariffs. The head of Ford

25:35

said, this is going to put

25:37

a huge hole into our industry.

25:39

Anyway, for our listeners who may

25:42

be dejected and depressed, that's the...

25:44

And of course, you can make

25:46

it happen. Once the people arise,

25:48

nothing can stop the destination that

25:50

they're pressing for. So take heart,

25:52

people. On that point, Steve. Rob,

25:55

with all this dismantling of government

25:57

agencies, it's easy to take a

25:59

chainsaw to all of this. How

26:01

hard is it going to be

26:03

to put Humpty Dumpty back together,

26:05

assuming that a new administration can

26:07

defeat this? We call a Trumpty-dumpty,

26:10

Steve. Not a Humpty-dumty. Well, I'm

26:12

not looking to put him back

26:14

together. I'm looking to put the

26:16

government back together, which is obviously

26:18

being illegally dismantled. I mean, it's

26:20

easy to move fast and break

26:22

things, but then you've got to

26:25

rebuild it. It's going to be

26:27

tough. And it'll depend in part

26:29

on how successful we are with

26:31

some of these lawsuits. So for

26:33

example. if we can protect the

26:35

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, so that

26:37

it continues to exist, then it's

26:40

way easier for a new administration

26:42

to come in, put good people

26:44

in charge, and get it working

26:46

again. If it literally no longer

26:48

exists anymore, there's no building, there's

26:50

no staff, there's no contracts, the

26:53

records are destroyed, a lot harder

26:55

to get that going again. In

26:57

the case of this really vital

26:59

humanitarian work by the U.S. Agency

27:01

for International Development, as we cut

27:03

off all these contracts and close

27:05

the agency, notwithstanding the ongoing litigation,

27:08

you know, organizations are shutting down

27:10

around the world. They can't just

27:12

snap their fingers and come back

27:14

into being for a new administration.

27:16

There's going to be an additional

27:18

problem, which is for government workers,

27:20

the basic deal has always been,

27:23

you're not going to get paid

27:25

a ton of money, but you've

27:27

got a fair amount of job

27:29

security. You can count on the

27:31

job being there so long as

27:33

you do your job. And Trump

27:35

has broken that promise that people

27:38

are going to be suspicious about

27:40

their prospects of coming back in.

27:42

That's going to be an additional

27:44

problem. But there's an opportunity as

27:46

well, which is as vital as

27:48

it's going to be to reconstruct

27:50

and rebuild the broken agencies and

27:53

institutions. government that they did have

27:55

problems. Depends by agency, how effective

27:57

they were or how ineffective they

27:59

were, how much they were focusing

28:01

on advancing the public interest or

28:03

how much they were to capture

28:06

by corporate interests. There will be

28:08

an opportunity to do things a

28:10

little bit differently and really build

28:12

a government that is responsive to

28:14

public demands and that does not

28:16

operate at the behest of the

28:18

industries they're supposed to be regulating.

28:21

So that'll be a big challenge

28:23

to plan that out. and then

28:25

to push a new administration to

28:27

make sure it happens, that's the

28:29

small little bit of opportunity we

28:31

have amidst this nightmare. David. After

28:33

Watergate, we gave the president hundreds

28:36

of emergency powers, and right now

28:38

the president is invoking the Alien

28:40

Enemies Act, declaring that we're at

28:42

war. If he gets away with

28:44

shipping these migrants to El Salvador,

28:46

then it's over, right? If he

28:48

can get away with invoking the

28:51

enemy... alien Zach, then he can

28:53

invoke any of those hundreds of

28:55

emergency powers he has. Is that

28:57

correct? Well, it's never over. So

28:59

I refuse to concede that part

29:01

of it. It's certainly a problem.

29:04

He's already declared a wide range

29:06

of emergencies. And this is a

29:08

very tricky situation where, you know,

29:10

Congress over many years is given

29:12

the president emergency powers, basically assuming

29:14

good faith in an actual emergency.

29:16

In an actual emergency, you do

29:19

want to have some flexibility for

29:21

the president. Now with a bad

29:23

faith president, who will declare emergency

29:25

where they don't exist, we're really

29:27

in danger. The Alien Enemies Act

29:29

is one, of course, that law

29:31

that goes back to 1798. But

29:34

we're seeing, you know, he's declared

29:36

an energy emergency as well as

29:38

a way to justify more oil

29:40

and gas drilling and even possibly

29:42

subsidies for coal, which is far

29:44

too expensive as well as being

29:46

far too polluting. notably in his

29:49

definition of energy and the executive

29:51

order declaring an energy emergency, there's

29:53

a long list of what constitutes

29:55

energy and it specifically excludes it's

29:57

solar and wind energy. So that

29:59

itself mocks the whole idea that

30:01

there's actually anything to do with

30:04

a legitimate emergency. And we are

30:06

going to see the courts have

30:08

to grapple with does the president

30:10

have the authority and right to

30:12

just snap his fingers and say

30:14

emergency and make it so? Or

30:17

is there some objective determination of

30:19

what constitutes an emergency? And he's

30:21

smacking his lips about the insurrection

30:23

act. Can you explain that? Well, there

30:25

are a variety of statutes

30:27

that an emergency context give

30:29

the president the ability to basically

30:31

deploy military force, national guard or

30:34

otherwise, in the United States. And,

30:36

you know, that's a phase we're not

30:38

yet in. Either, in quotes, legitimate

30:41

deployment of military force

30:43

or illegitimate, not in quotes,

30:45

deployment of paramilitary forces

30:47

to crack down on protests and

30:49

dissenters. Those are real words. You

30:52

can say the antecedents of it.

30:54

are in these efforts around immigration

30:56

and picking up people in the

30:58

United States who are here with

31:01

proper documentation but are being abducted

31:03

because of their political viewpoints

31:05

and statements. There's a lot

31:07

to worry about here. He has

31:10

no reluctance to impose a police

31:12

state on this country. He's already

31:14

shown it with the kidnapping of

31:17

graduate students, for example, masked men,

31:19

plain clothes, representing ICE, kidnapping,

31:21

a 30-year-old doctorate. student at

31:24

Tufts University the other day

31:26

and disappearing her into a

31:28

Louisiana prison and Trump said

31:31

afterwards this is only the

31:33

beginning. So it's not like

31:35

he's hiding his treacherous and

31:38

dictatorial purposes and that's why

31:40

so many psychologists back in

31:42

2017 signed a letter saying

31:44

this is a seriously unstable

31:46

personality and a lot of

31:49

people scoffed. I don't think as

31:51

many are scoffing these days. Hannah

31:53

one thing that all of these layoffs

31:55

in in DC the reduction in

31:57

force has done is it's created.

32:00

a pool of people who used

32:02

to have job security. They used

32:04

to have something to lose. I've

32:06

been very curious about is there

32:08

going to be a new bonus

32:10

army. Let's call it a RIF

32:12

army. Are there laid off government

32:14

workers forming a class for a

32:17

lawsuit? Obviously, the group contains multitudes.

32:19

Some people are probably just struggling

32:21

to stay up of water, but

32:23

is there a mobilization of these

32:25

laid off government employees? either becoming

32:27

whistleblower or they had or joining

32:29

in the legal efforts to defy

32:32

the administration. There's a lot going

32:34

on. So we're still in early

32:36

days. I think most of them

32:38

are still being paid. So they

32:40

don't have the economic consequences of

32:42

us yet, even if they're on

32:44

administrative leave. And hopefully we can

32:47

get their jobs back before they're

32:49

permanently separated. But there's a ton

32:51

of organizing going on among these

32:53

workers, especially within agencies. And as

32:55

they've seen what's going on, people

32:57

are really rapidly networking among themselves

32:59

in different offices to make sure,

33:01

for example, everybody's got to refuse

33:04

phone number if they're suddenly fired

33:06

because their government numbers are not

33:08

going to work anymore. So we're

33:10

seeing that and we're seeing a

33:12

lot of the employees moving forward

33:14

in the lawsuits. As I was

33:16

mentioning, it turns out that as

33:19

it regards the challenging of closing

33:21

of an agency, the employees are

33:23

not the best plaintiffs because they're

33:25

being forced into. an administrative process

33:27

to deal with employment claims, but

33:29

they have been involved in a

33:31

number of them, including a number

33:34

that we've brought. There's also a

33:36

number of cases being brought forward

33:38

challenging the actions about laying off

33:40

these workers, and those are having

33:42

some significant success early on. I

33:44

guess maybe one last thing to

33:46

say about this is federal workers

33:48

are, to a considerable extent, but

33:51

it's varies unionized. And what we've

33:53

seen in these early months of

33:55

the Trump administration is really the

33:57

central importance of organized labor. Folks

33:59

in Washington DC know that there

34:01

is a fear that's pervasive in

34:03

the city and the metro area

34:06

that has no precedent. I don't

34:08

think even in the McCarthy period,

34:10

which is before my time, but

34:12

I don't think ever everybody knows

34:14

someone who's been fired or who

34:16

fears are about with reason that

34:18

they're about to be fired. It

34:21

might be you might be your

34:23

family member, your neighbor, people in

34:25

your yoga class, whatever. And so

34:27

it's really, really pervasive. And people

34:29

are terrified about if they speak

34:31

up. Well, someone come after them,

34:33

well, they pay a really harsh

34:35

personal price. We've seen in the

34:38

case we had about recipients of

34:40

foreign aid grants, organizations that thought

34:42

they'd be put out of business

34:44

are so fearful that they didn't

34:46

want to move forward with lawsuits.

34:48

The single exception to this have

34:50

been the labor unions. They have

34:53

been dynamic. They have not been

34:55

fearful. They show the power of

34:57

people coming together of collective action

34:59

and collective power. They've brought these

35:01

lawsuits as plaintiffs and as lawyers.

35:03

And it's exactly for that reason

35:05

that Trump is now issued another

35:07

executive order trying to decertify about

35:10

three quarters of the organized workers

35:12

and the federal workforce. Again, climbing

35:14

fake national emergencies, by the way.

35:16

So there's a lot of activity

35:18

going on. Yes, and among these

35:20

workers who are either laid off

35:22

or facing firings. A lot of

35:25

it's heroic. A lot of them

35:27

are really scared for good reason,

35:29

and a lot of it's going

35:31

to play out in the courts,

35:33

and hopefully we're able to keep

35:35

these people jobs. And just to

35:37

round up the corporate state intensification

35:40

mission of Trump. Let's remember that

35:42

they're attacking in the name of

35:44

waste inefficiency and corruption people's programs

35:46

like Medicaid, for example, or feeding

35:48

programs around the country. But they're

35:50

leaving alone corporate welfare, which is

35:52

hundreds of billions of dollars a

35:54

year in subsidies handouts, giveaways and

35:57

corporate tax expenditures. Leaving a loan,

35:59

corporate criminal rip-offs of programs like

36:01

Medicare, 60 billion dollars a year

36:03

just on... Medicare, ripping off these

36:05

programs funded by taxpayers, and the

36:07

trumpers and the muskers that want

36:09

to expand the bloated wasteful military

36:12

budget. So we know what their

36:14

game is. They're leaving it on

36:16

the corporate vested interests in Washington

36:18

and going after the service programs

36:20

of the US government for all

36:22

Americans around the country and abroad.

36:24

Before we conclude, Rob, tell us

36:27

how people can access public citizen

36:29

and its various programs. You can

36:31

see all the work we're doing

36:33

at citizen.org catch up on the

36:35

lawsuits, see about our research on

36:37

Elon Musk, figure out how we're

36:39

responding to everything from chaotic tariffs

36:41

to sweetheart deals for musk related

36:44

companies, all at citizen.org. Very important

36:46

to hold musk accountable. He'll probably

36:48

leave in about two to three

36:50

months. saying his work is done,

36:52

but he can't get away with

36:54

it. He can't be allowed to

36:56

get away with it. And more

36:59

and more people are boycotting Tesla,

37:01

by the way. I'm surprised by

37:03

the spontaneous expansion of consumer boycotts

37:05

against Tesla. Well, thank you very

37:07

much. Robert Wiseman, president of Public

37:09

Citizen, to be continued as always,

37:11

Rob. Great. Thanks so much. We've

37:14

been speaking with Robert Wisman. We've

37:16

a link to Public Citizen at

37:18

Ralph Nader Radio Hour.com. Up next,

37:20

an update from our resident constitutional

37:22

scholar. Plus, Ralph will answer some

37:24

of your questions. But first, let's

37:26

check in with our corporate crime

37:28

reporter, Russell Mokhiber. From the National

37:31

Press Building in Washington, D.C., this

37:33

is your corporate crime report a

37:35

morning minute for Friday, April 4,

37:37

2025. I'm Russell Mokhiber. A West

37:39

Virginia law signed this week, and

37:41

synthetic dies and preservatives and preservatives

37:43

and food. A first in the

37:46

nation consumer protection. led by Republicans

37:48

in the face of vociferous industry

37:50

opposition. That's according to a report

37:52

from the Guardian. West Virginia's law

37:54

is one of dozens of bills

37:56

introduced across the country. As Republican

37:58

state lawmakers get on board with

38:01

one of the most powerful forces

38:03

to emerge from the 2024 election,

38:05

the movement to make America healthy

38:07

again, or maha, the result has

38:09

been an explosive growth in proposed

38:11

legislation to ban synthetic dies, preservatives,

38:13

and chemicals in consumer advocates have

38:15

railed against in some cases for

38:18

decades. For the corporate crime reporter,

38:20

I'm Russell Mokhiver. Thank you, Russell.

38:22

Welcome back to the Ralph Nader

38:24

Radio Hour. I'm Steve Scroven, along

38:26

with David Feldman, Hannah, and Ralph.

38:28

He's back. Bruce Fine is here

38:30

for an update on Donald Trump's

38:33

assault on the United States Constitution.

38:35

David? Bruce Fine is a constitutional

38:37

scholar and an expert on international

38:39

law. Welcome back to the Ralph

38:41

Nader Radio Hour. Bruce Fine. Thank

38:43

you for the invitation. Welcome back

38:45

Bruce you went up for that

38:48

preeminent day at Harvard Law School

38:50

your alma mater with Rob We

38:52

call the the vigorous public interest

38:54

law day in contrast to the

38:56

vigorous corporate everyday law day at

38:58

Harvard to develop a better balance

39:00

of horizons for the law students

39:02

and invigorate some of the faculty

39:05

into working harder to equate the

39:07

law with justice as you say

39:09

has no meaning unless it generates

39:11

justice you were there for better

39:13

part of the day talked with

39:15

the students you saw what is

39:17

like in the lecture halls where

39:20

the presentations were made we'd like

39:22

your observations you've written articles for

39:24

the Harvard law record on the

39:26

morality and Harvard law school so

39:28

give us your take were you

39:30

disappointed were you surprised and what

39:32

do you think should be done

39:35

about it. I wasn't disappointed with

39:37

the speakers. They are all brought

39:39

luster to the program, the importance

39:41

of litigation on behalf of those

39:43

who don't have power and money.

39:45

to hold the government accountable. The

39:47

crisis that the country confronts now,

39:49

being run, as you say, with

39:52

a dictator who didn't have to

39:54

burn the Reichstag to get Congress

39:56

to disappear into an inkblot and

39:58

rules by executive decree, even overriding

40:00

the Constitution, we may expect very

40:02

soon an executive order saying the

40:04

22nd Amendment doesn't exist, and now

40:07

we'll run for a third or

40:09

a fourth term, all of those

40:11

things, were, I think, highlighted by

40:13

the speakers, including Mr. What was

40:15

disappointing was the attendance. The high

40:17

watermark was basically about 30 or

40:19

40 at the beginning before classes

40:22

began in the afternoon, but it

40:24

quickly dwindled probably to 10 or

40:26

something like that. And many of

40:28

those were outside citizens of Cambridge.

40:30

They weren't even students. They weren't

40:32

even students. The other thing that

40:34

was disappointing was not a single

40:36

instructor was pressed. Even though the

40:39

fact is that if we don't

40:41

inform the public and with the

40:43

law students, as well as others

40:45

in the lead, we're not going

40:47

to have rule of law in

40:49

Harvard Law School will become an

40:51

irrelevancy and irrelevancy. it will be

40:54

a museum piece. And I spoke

40:56

to somebody after one of the

40:58

sessions, and he said he had

41:00

recently visited Meinenmar, formerly Burma, and

41:02

visited its capital city and asked,

41:04

what's the law school look like?

41:06

Taken to the third floor of

41:09

a three-floor apartment building and had

41:11

about six by eight feet. It

41:13

has nothing there but cobwebs. That's

41:15

what law schools look like when

41:17

you have tyrannies, when you have

41:19

dictatorships, which is where we're heading.

41:21

So all the students, their Harvard

41:23

law degrees are going to be

41:26

worth nothing if they end up

41:28

being like lawyers in China or

41:30

Russia, where any of the decrees

41:32

they get in a court of

41:34

law are simply rubber stamps of

41:36

what the executive branch has done.

41:38

And yet, you know, the interest

41:41

was very dame tiny, not completely

41:43

inaudible, but almost close to inaudible.

41:45

And I think the country and

41:47

the law students are going to

41:49

pay a price. They're being very

41:51

narrow and myopic with regard to

41:53

their immediate preoccupation with their trade

41:56

school. where they're going to work

41:58

the next day in very little

42:00

given. the fact that if we

42:02

don't have a country anymore, they

42:04

aren't going to have a legal

42:06

career. David? There are close to

42:08

200 lawsuits right now challenging Trump's

42:10

executive orders. We have district judges

42:13

issuing temporary restraining orders and or

42:15

injunctions locking or slowing down these

42:17

executive orders. So Speaker Johnson is

42:19

threatening to defund or eliminate some

42:21

of these courts. Congressman Darryl, I

42:23

said just introduced legislation blocking district

42:25

judges from issuing nationwide injunctions. He

42:28

wants these injunctions to apply only

42:30

to localized plaintiffs and then have

42:32

the rulings find their way up

42:34

to the Supreme Court in order

42:36

for them to be nationwide. So

42:38

what is an injunction? I think

42:40

a lot of people don't know

42:43

what an injunction is. Does the

42:45

Constitution provide for federal district? courts

42:47

or are the courts a construct

42:49

of Congress and how much power

42:51

does the House and the Senate

42:53

have to pass legislation? First of

42:55

all, you know, the idea of

42:57

being against these nationwide injunctions by

43:00

district courts, Johnny come lately when

43:02

Biden was there, the conservatives were

43:04

suing him up and down and

43:06

they got nationwide injunctions and clapped

43:08

and were running victory laps. This

43:10

is a totally expedient view just

43:12

because Trump's there. They don't like

43:15

what they thought was wonderful when

43:17

Biden was there. But an injunction

43:19

is simply an order to a

43:21

government official or a defendant to

43:23

do something. It can do something

43:25

affirmative or to not do something.

43:27

But it's unlike damages, which is

43:30

an award of money to somebody.

43:32

An injunction is an order that

43:34

somebody has to do or refrain

43:36

from doing a particular thing. And

43:38

it's directed at, usually at an

43:40

official, but it can be a

43:42

private individual as well. Putting. The

43:44

only actual court that's recognized in

43:47

the Constitution is the United States

43:49

Supreme Court, and even the Supreme

43:51

Court, does not have the number

43:53

of justices enumerated. that is a

43:55

matter for Congress. They set the

43:57

number at nine, most recently in

43:59

1869, and it stayed at that

44:02

number ever since. Franklin Roosevelt wanted

44:04

to jump it to 15, so

44:06

we could pack it with his

44:08

new dealers. He didn't succeed. So

44:10

we're still back at nine, although

44:12

there's nothing in the Constitution that

44:14

forbids that from being changed. With

44:17

regard to other courts, other than

44:19

the Supreme Court, they are entirely

44:21

creatures of Congress. Initially when federal

44:23

courts were created, they didn't even

44:25

have jurisdiction. to entertain claims under

44:27

the Constitution or federal law. They

44:29

were entirely claims when the plaintiff

44:31

and defendant were of different states,

44:34

called diversity jurisdiction. It was until

44:36

1891, when Congress decided to confer

44:38

federal question jurisdiction on the federal

44:40

district courts. But from the outset,

44:42

it was called the Judiciary Act

44:44

of 1789, Congress decided to break

44:46

lower federal courts, and they've been

44:49

in existence since 1789. So they're

44:51

almost part of the Constitution. But

44:53

if we're just talking about authority,

44:55

it's possible if Congress wanted to,

44:57

they could just abolish all of

44:59

the courts and just leave state

45:01

courts with the U.S. Supreme Court

45:04

at the top. There was something

45:06

a little bit similar that happened.

45:08

Under Thomas Jefferson, of John Adams'

45:10

administration, he appointed what's so-called 16

45:12

midnight judges, judges who were created

45:14

in the lame duck session by

45:16

the Federals, because they thought since

45:18

they were going to lose control

45:21

of the Congress and the White

45:23

House, they wanted to control the

45:25

judiciary. so that these judges were

45:27

confirmed but when Jefferson came in

45:29

they didn't repeat the judges they

45:31

just repealed the judges said we

45:33

really don't need them they're superfluous

45:36

and that repeal was upheld in

45:38

a case called Laird and Tatum

45:40

in 1807 written by Chief Justice

45:42

John Marshall. So the fact is

45:44

that there's very little in the

45:46

Constitution that protects the judiciary from

45:48

being destroyed if Congress wants to

45:51

destroy it. The American people basically

45:53

said... with regards to Roosevelt in

45:55

1937? No, we like the court

45:57

says they are, but the sentiment

45:59

may have changed in the ensuing

46:01

night. years. And circling back to

46:03

the public interest law event, if

46:05

we set aside the question of

46:08

how the administration is dismissing the

46:10

program, motivating students to attend is

46:12

a different thing. I'm curious, when

46:14

you were a law student, what

46:16

was it about any particular event

46:18

that got you to go? What

46:20

was a difference maker for you

46:23

when you made those choices as

46:25

a student? I mean, if I

46:27

want me to respond, I mean,

46:29

the Harvard Law Forum had wonderful

46:31

speakers at the time. You know,

46:33

this was the height of, there

46:35

was a lot of debate over

46:38

the constitutionality, the Vietnam War. We

46:40

had the Chicago, the attempt to

46:42

prosecute those who had crossed state

46:44

lines that were participating in the

46:46

protests against the Democratic National Convention

46:48

in Chicago. Anyway, they had wonderful,

46:50

wonderful speakers, and I didn't need

46:52

to get any motivation. They were

46:55

more interesting than understanding. know the

46:57

rule against perpetuities or trespass on

46:59

case in medieval England. And I

47:01

remember at that time, and in

47:03

the morning, I would get out

47:05

of Hastings Hall, walk down to

47:07

Harvard Square, by the New York

47:10

Times and Washington Post, see what's

47:12

in the newspaper. That was exciting

47:14

time. This is a place that

47:16

can be very, very intellectually vibrant,

47:18

but you have to have an

47:20

incentive to do that. Today, the

47:22

students don't seem to have any

47:25

of that energy, if you will,

47:27

intellectual curiosity, and the Harvard Square

47:29

doesn't have the newspapers anymore because

47:31

everyone's on Tiktaka, social media. They

47:33

don't even see newspapers on camp.

47:35

Speaking for myself, Hannah, I was

47:37

at the law school in the

47:39

apathetic 50s, and when Robert Hutchins,

47:42

who was president of the University

47:44

of Chicago, abandoned its star-studdered football

47:46

team saying that's not a proper

47:48

function of university of university. It

47:50

was a maverick creative intellectual. Came

47:52

to speak at the Harvard Law

47:54

School. The dean and the faculty

47:57

in effect told us you will

47:59

be there in attendance and Austin

48:01

Hall was packed. with students because

48:03

the faculty and the dean said

48:05

you must go and hear Robert

48:07

Hutchins who then must have upset

48:09

them because I remember that the

48:12

one question he posed to us

48:14

was what is the purpose of

48:16

the Harvard Law School? So we

48:18

don't have that leadership anymore among

48:20

the faculty in the deanship and

48:22

Bruce Fine and some other alumni

48:24

along with myself. wrote a letter

48:26

to the director admissions a few

48:29

months ago saying, what's your criteria

48:31

for admitting active applicants to go

48:33

to Harvard Law School if they

48:35

show that they're activists, are you

48:37

screening them out? And we gave

48:39

examples of two students who were

48:41

superbly qualified to be admitted and

48:44

were denied admittance because they were

48:46

very active. And the dean of

48:48

admissions refused to answer the letter.

48:50

And we've requested an answer for

48:52

three times. So it's a more

48:54

cowardly timid type of law school

48:56

whose explanations are still ready to

48:59

be discovered. It's a real puzzle,

49:01

isn't it, Bruce? Because they have

49:03

tenure, they have status, they have

49:05

wealth, and they have the ability

49:07

to defend themselves because they're skilled

49:09

lawyers. You can say the same

49:11

Ralph about the law firms, the

49:13

big law firms, all white scadden

49:16

arps, totally folding to Trump. offering

49:18

$150 million worth of free Pobono

49:20

services to advance any crazy cause

49:22

that Trump identifies as a national

49:24

emergency? By the way, that you

49:26

described as extortion. Yeah, that's right.

49:28

They extorted the free services so

49:31

that Trump wouldn't go after them

49:33

and they could get access to

49:35

federal buildings. I mean, if that

49:37

ever happened, you'd think that a

49:39

law firm would want to use

49:41

that as a badge of honor.

49:43

Now, if Trump then scorned you,

49:46

you knew you must be doing

49:48

something right then. And instead, let's

49:50

not uniform, there have been some

49:52

that stood up, but he'd figure

49:54

that these law firms, they should

49:56

be subject to discipline by the

49:58

bar, you know, there. casting the

50:00

administrative of justice to be cast

50:03

into disrepute. And the other

50:05

thing, and I raised this at the

50:07

session, what about these government lawyers now

50:09

who are making utterly deranged arguments, you

50:12

know, in favor of limitless executive power?

50:14

Why aren't they subject to discipline

50:16

too? Yeah, and that can't be

50:18

emphasized enough. In fact, they're offending

50:20

Trump appointed judges with their zeny

50:23

assertions, which flunked them out of

50:25

law school in a month, and

50:27

there are code of ethics that

50:29

restrain lawyers to making... deliberately frivolous

50:31

arguments as these Trump lawyers are doing

50:34

now. Well, we're out of time. Thank

50:36

you very much. We've been

50:38

talking with Bruce Fine, once

50:41

again, a tremendous reservoir of

50:43

intelligent constitutional retention and judgment.

50:45

Thank you very much, Bruce.

50:47

Thanks, Ralph. We've been speaking

50:49

with Bruce Fine. We have a link

50:52

to his work at Ralph Nader Radio

50:54

Hour.com. Okay, so now it's time

50:56

to delve into the mailbag a little

50:59

bit here and answer some listener questions

51:01

and Ralph this one I don't know

51:03

if you know the particulars of this

51:05

one, but I think the theme is

51:07

something that you ran on when you

51:10

were running for president This question

51:12

comes from Peter Davoli from

51:14

Scarborough, Maine. He says what happened

51:16

to Howard Dean's 50 state strategy

51:19

that delivered the Congress to Obama?

51:21

What happened to Howard Dean? Is

51:23

this now ancient history? I'm afraid

51:25

it is, although the new head

51:27

of the Democratic National Committee, Ken

51:30

Martin, wants to have a party

51:32

competing in all 50

51:34

states as Dean proposed. Basically

51:36

his idea was rejected by

51:38

the commercial consultants who raised

51:40

the money and advised the

51:42

Democratic candidates for Congress and

51:44

the President. And their argument

51:47

is, well, look at the

51:49

polls. You don't want to

51:51

throw... Good money after bad

51:53

in losing races in Texas

51:55

and Alabama and Mississippi. Let's

51:57

concentrate on our base in the

51:59

various other... states, the blue states,

52:01

and when the swing states. Well,

52:03

as you know, that's a very,

52:06

very risky, thin ice tactic, because

52:08

if you lose three swing states,

52:10

you lose the presidency under our

52:12

electoral college, despotism. So Dean made

52:15

some headway in the dialogues within

52:17

the Democratic Party. He got some

52:19

sweet talk from some of them,

52:21

but eventually they rejected it. and

52:24

he's no longer pursuing it. Ralph

52:26

this next question comes from longtime

52:28

listener Mark Abizide and he says

52:30

I just listened to this interview

52:33

Ralph did with Chris Hedges. Chris

52:35

asked him about the campus protests

52:37

against Israel's genocide in Gaza and

52:39

one comment Ralph made but didn't

52:41

elaborate on was that the students

52:44

shouldn't have focused so much on

52:46

divestment meaning divestment from Israel Link

52:48

companies and weapons manufacturers because there's

52:50

things they could have done to

52:53

produce far more impact. Can you

52:55

ask him to elaborate? What are

52:57

those things and how are they

52:59

going to have a greater impact

53:02

on ending complicity and genocide and

53:04

empire than the work towards divestment?

53:06

By focusing on their members of

53:08

Congress, summoning them to speak at

53:11

the university, and if not holding

53:13

town meetings with empty chairs, because

53:15

the real leverage over the Israelis

53:17

starts with the Congress, which is

53:20

in the pockets of APAC. And

53:22

I think the students, because of

53:24

their numbers, because of their Israel,

53:26

because of their moral authority, should

53:28

have put their attention on vulnerable

53:31

members of Congress and not secretive

53:33

corporate executives with indirect or direct

53:35

investments in the operations that the

53:37

students are objecting to. And in

53:40

the process they can demand hearings

53:42

in Congress on the investments by

53:44

their universities and other similar leverages

53:46

that they envision having an effect.

53:49

So it's a matter of... Where

53:51

do you want to focus the

53:53

leverage? And as you know from

53:55

prior podcast. I always start with

53:58

the Congress. This is from Levy.

54:00

He writes, more must be done

54:02

to fight Trump's relentless sabotage. There

54:04

must be Republican senators willing to

54:06

act to protect the government. Ralph,

54:09

can you please share with your

54:11

podcast listeners a list of those

54:13

conservatives who you believe may be

54:15

willing to abandon ignorant party loyalty

54:18

to help derail Trump's agenda and

54:20

restore checks and balances? We should

54:22

all... be making daily appeals to

54:24

any of those we believe may

54:27

still have a moral compass. Well

54:29

you want to pick on the

54:31

conservatives in the Congress who are

54:33

up for election in 2026. Those

54:36

are the ones that tend to

54:38

be a little bit more open

54:40

to doubt and anger from the

54:42

electorate. And also Tom Massey, Republican

54:44

from the rural area of Kentucky,

54:47

considering running for Senator to take

54:49

McConnell's place, he's a very independent.

54:51

legislator, he's willing to buck the

54:53

party and has as a minority

54:56

one against the near unanimity of

54:58

Speaker Johnson's loyal troops. He's one.

55:00

Ran Paul on some of the

55:02

issues. He's not his father, like

55:05

Ron Paul, who was more bold,

55:07

but he sometimes breaks ranks. So

55:09

those are some of the... conservatives

55:11

that can be worked on, but

55:14

focus on the ones that are

55:16

up for election, especially ones in

55:18

districts won by a Democratic presidential

55:20

candidate. I have one question to

55:23

the listeners. Listeners, if you want

55:25

us to have an entire program

55:27

on listener questions, if a thousand

55:29

of you email us saying yes,

55:31

we'll do it. All right. That's

55:34

the challenge, listeners. So thank you

55:36

for your questions. And I want

55:38

to thank our guests again, Robert

55:40

Weisman and Bruce Fine. For those

55:43

of you listening on the radio,

55:45

that's our show. For you, podcast

55:47

listeners, stay tuned for some bonus

55:49

material, and we've got a fair

55:52

amount of it. We call that...

55:54

wrap-up and it also features Francesco

55:56

DeSantis with In Case You Haven't

55:58

Heard. The transcript of this program

56:01

will appear on the Ralph Nader

56:03

Radio Hour Substack site soon after

56:05

the episode is posted. Subscribe to

56:07

us on our Ralph Nader Radio

56:09

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56:12

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56:14

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56:16

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56:18

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56:21

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56:23

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56:25

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56:27

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56:32

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56:34

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56:36

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56:39

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56:41

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56:43

and post a comment at question

56:45

in this week's episode. The producers

56:47

of the Ralph Nader Radio Hour,

56:50

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56:52

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56:54

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56:56

Up, Rise Up, was written and

56:59

performed by Kemp Harris. Our proof

57:01

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57:03

next week on the Ralph Nader

57:05

Radio Hour. Thank you, listeners. Let's

57:08

have a thousand people tell us

57:10

yes. We'll have a full day's

57:12

program on your question, and we'll

57:14

try to keep the answer short.

57:17

Yes, just email us at Ralph

57:19

Nader Radio Hour at dot com.

57:21

Hi, this is Jimmy Lee Wert

57:23

and welcome to the wrap-up. First,

57:26

Ralph has an extended conversation with

57:28

Rob Weisman of Public Citizen. Let

57:30

me ask you a question. Probably

57:32

no one's asked you yet. Robert

57:34

We're talking about Robert Weisman, president

57:37

of Public Citizen. By the way,

57:39

another thing that Robert did, he

57:41

took on big tobacco worldwide when

57:43

he was working with us. and

57:46

help curtail that carcinogenic industry. The

57:48

silence is what is absolutely stunning

57:50

by prior presidents of the Democratic

57:52

Party. They represent... millions of people

57:55

who voted for them. We're talking

57:57

about Biden, Obama, Clinton, and they

57:59

have been essentially quiet. Trump attacks

58:01

Biden six times a day, according

58:04

to press reports. He blames him

58:06

for everything. Even something he starts

58:08

yesterday. He blames Biden. And Biden

58:10

is up there in Delaware shutting

58:12

his mouth. Well, you know, one

58:15

would think he'd want to defend

58:17

his reputation. One would think he'd

58:19

want to... stand up for all

58:21

the people voted for him and

58:24

the same for Obama. I think

58:26

Obama spent more time on March

58:28

Madness basketball, which is his fetish,

58:30

then he's spending figuring out how

58:33

to oppose Trump. All these presidents

58:35

are fairly well off. They can

58:37

raise money. They can start citizen

58:39

groups specializing in stopping Trump around

58:42

the country. They can help fund

58:44

litigation. What is holding them back?

58:46

What are the various factors holding

58:48

them back? Holding them back. into

58:50

the realm of cowardliness. It's probably

58:53

a question you can answer way

58:55

better than me. But I think,

58:57

you know, in the case of

58:59

Biden, I'm just not sure there's

59:02

a lot of capacity right now.

59:04

I think the tradition obviously is

59:06

for the loser president or the

59:08

prior president to stay relatively quiet.

59:11

I think Biden himself probably would

59:13

be willing to disregard that tradition

59:15

and norm. I'm just not sure

59:17

there's a lot of juice there

59:20

with Biden these days. I'm not

59:22

sure. you know, in the wake

59:24

of the Me Too movement, his

59:26

presidency was kind of recalibrated and

59:29

he's lost a lot of the

59:31

popularity and stature he had, but

59:33

he still has enough that I

59:35

think it would be very helpful

59:37

to be speaking out more. With

59:40

Obama, all I can guess is

59:42

that it's some sense of propriety

59:44

and what the role of a

59:46

prior president should be. I can't

59:49

really answer it. He's a uniquely

59:51

respected person. in American politics with

59:53

an unmatched kind of authority. He

59:55

obviously knows what we're facing. There's

59:58

nothing that we've discussed in this

1:00:00

conversation that he doesn't know as

1:00:02

well. as well as we do

1:00:04

and agree with us, I think.

1:00:07

Why he's choosing the path he's

1:00:09

choosing, I cannot say. Well, here's

1:00:11

my take. The reporters I've talked

1:00:13

to are begging for these people

1:00:15

to speak out. It's not that

1:00:18

they're ignoring them. They're not getting

1:00:20

any response. Number two, I'm sure

1:00:22

a lot of their followers and

1:00:24

supporters and voters are saying, defend

1:00:27

us, respond to this monster in

1:00:29

the White House. So they have

1:00:31

a good climate here. My guess

1:00:33

is number one. They're living comfortable

1:00:36

lives and they don't want to

1:00:38

get into a spitting match with

1:00:40

a viper because they know that

1:00:42

Trump will respond again and again

1:00:45

with often bad language. The second

1:00:47

I think is that they have

1:00:49

a low estimate of their own

1:00:51

significance. His outsiders and you know

1:00:53

the traditions and all. It really

1:00:56

comes down to their intellectual fortitude

1:00:58

and whether they're serious people. He's

1:01:00

not an ordinary president that you

1:01:02

give deference to because you've preceded

1:01:05

him. He is overthrowing our government.

1:01:07

He's a total timer. A recent

1:01:09

scholar said that in the first

1:01:11

days of Hitler and Hitler's rise,

1:01:14

he didn't do as much damage

1:01:16

as Trump has already done in

1:01:18

the same number of days. Trump

1:01:20

is an early admiring reader of

1:01:23

Mein Kamp, by the way. He

1:01:25

likes dictators. He said that all

1:01:27

over the world. He's praised dictators.

1:01:29

He's praised dictators. And these past

1:01:32

presidents know that. By the way,

1:01:34

the same thing is for George

1:01:36

W. Bush. I mean, his triumphant

1:01:38

legacy was the funds to reduce

1:01:40

AIDS deaths in Africa and elsewhere,

1:01:43

which have been wiped out by

1:01:45

Donald Trump. He hasn't spoken out

1:01:47

either. There seems to be a

1:01:49

serious lack of fortitude here of

1:01:52

moral purpose, betraying tens of millions

1:01:54

of supporters around the country. Well,

1:01:56

enough of that. Just recently you

1:01:58

went to Harvard Law School. We

1:02:01

had a great agenda. of speakers,

1:02:03

most of them Harvard Law grads,

1:02:05

public interest law days, called vigorous

1:02:07

public interest law day, April 1,

1:02:10

building solidarity with lawyers challenging government,

1:02:12

corporate power, crime, and control. And

1:02:14

I think you agree that it

1:02:16

was a sterling lineup. We had

1:02:18

people who really changed things, justice

1:02:21

fighters, some of them with public

1:02:23

citizen, some of them on their

1:02:25

own, and there were two segments.

1:02:27

speakers like you who went in

1:02:30

person and then speakers who couldn't

1:02:32

attend but had zoom presentations and

1:02:34

I spent a lot of time

1:02:36

on this and I tried to

1:02:39

get the dean to greet the

1:02:41

event he wouldn't do it. I

1:02:43

tried to get him to encourage

1:02:45

students to show up. He wouldn't

1:02:48

do it. I spoke with some

1:02:50

faculty to get them to tell

1:02:52

their students to show up. They

1:02:54

wouldn't do it and basically it

1:02:56

was an attempt on our part.

1:02:59

to rebalance the severe emphasis at

1:03:01

the law school of corporate law

1:03:03

and developing new recruits to enable

1:03:05

and immunize plutocrats and oligarchs nestled

1:03:08

safely in their giant corporations which

1:03:10

have their own set of privileges

1:03:12

and immunities. And the result was

1:03:14

the presentations were terrific, the videotapes

1:03:17

will be sent around the country

1:03:19

to other law schools and citizen

1:03:21

groups, but very few students showed

1:03:23

up. and even fewer faculty. I

1:03:26

call Harvard Law School a dead

1:03:28

zone intellectually when it comes to

1:03:30

furtherance of justice. They're violating their

1:03:32

own mission statement of graduating students

1:03:35

to further justice in a society.

1:03:37

They're basically a finishing school for

1:03:39

corporate law firms and they're enabling

1:03:41

corporate criminal and other nefarious and

1:03:43

unjust activities against innocent tens of

1:03:46

millions of millions of people. With

1:03:48

that sermon, let's have your take.

1:03:50

What did you? see up there.

1:03:52

Give us your observations. Well, the

1:03:55

students who were there when I

1:03:57

was there were highly engaged. I

1:03:59

tell you, one thing that I

1:04:01

found disappointing, this is for myself,

1:04:04

this is not a judgment about

1:04:06

them at all, my choice. Given

1:04:08

the moment, I chose to talk

1:04:10

about the Trump administration and what

1:04:13

we're doing, because I think there's

1:04:15

just nothing more important than confronting

1:04:17

this authoritarian onslaught. And we talked

1:04:19

about the intersection of that and

1:04:21

corporate control. I would have preferred.

1:04:24

to have been able to just

1:04:26

talk about the issue that you

1:04:28

were highlighting, just the issue of

1:04:30

the corporate orientation of the law

1:04:33

school and how people can think

1:04:35

about using the law for justice

1:04:37

and consider alternatives to going into

1:04:39

corporate firms. But the exigencies of

1:04:42

the moment, I think, pushed me

1:04:44

in a different direction. As it

1:04:46

happens, just the day before the

1:04:48

conference or two days before the

1:04:51

conference, the Trump administration announced it's

1:04:53

threatening billions of dollars in funding

1:04:55

for Harvard University. That's probably a

1:04:57

story that's going to play out

1:04:59

over the next several weeks. And

1:05:02

this relates to what we were

1:05:04

just discussing with the old presidents.

1:05:06

The issue of how Harvard responds

1:05:08

and how powerful institutions respond to

1:05:11

threats and bullying is maybe decisive

1:05:13

for how our democracy continues to

1:05:15

function or doesn't. If these powerful

1:05:17

institutions cave, it's asking a lot

1:05:20

of regular people to stand up.

1:05:22

We got off to a bad

1:05:24

start with all the big tech

1:05:26

companies. The most powerful corporations in

1:05:29

the world. abandoning long-held principles and

1:05:31

cutting deals with Trump. He's going

1:05:33

after a number of the big

1:05:35

law firms with whom I have

1:05:38

no sympathy, but he is attacking

1:05:40

them and some of them are

1:05:42

standing up and choosing to assert

1:05:44

their constitutional principles in the courts,

1:05:46

but others are cutting deals. He

1:05:49

went after Columbia University first, they

1:05:51

capitulated in a matter of days

1:05:53

to a preposterous series of demands

1:05:55

based on illegal threats. And now

1:05:58

it's at Harvard, but I really

1:06:00

hope that the students there will...

1:06:02

organize and mobilize and try to

1:06:04

encourage the administration to stand up

1:06:07

for really basic principles of academic

1:06:09

freedom and not capitulate to the

1:06:11

bully. Because I was trying to

1:06:13

express to them a lot more

1:06:16

is at stake than just whether

1:06:18

Harvard gets to keep its money

1:06:20

or not. It's really going to

1:06:22

be foundational for how civil society

1:06:24

chooses to stand up or be

1:06:27

steamrolled by Trump. Well, let's extend

1:06:29

that. Trump has targeted Harvard now.

1:06:31

contracts and grants with the federal

1:06:33

government and he's using that as

1:06:36

extortion to try to get Harvard

1:06:38

to crumble on some of his

1:06:40

absurd demands. They've already fired the

1:06:42

director of the Middle East and

1:06:45

Asian studies program. Harvard has no

1:06:47

reason to expect there is no

1:06:49

reason other than an early sign

1:06:51

of capitulation. But when someone like

1:06:54

Trump targets Harvard, the vanguard of

1:06:56

resistance and offense... There's got to

1:06:58

be the law school, obviously. I

1:07:00

mean, they think they're the greatest

1:07:02

law school in the world. You

1:07:05

don't believe it? Just ask them.

1:07:07

And what we've seen in recent

1:07:09

weeks is anxiety, fear and dread

1:07:11

among the students that I've been

1:07:14

contacting and being told about. The

1:07:16

students themselves, they're afraid of their

1:07:18

jobs. They've lined up jobs with

1:07:20

these corporate law firms that Trump

1:07:23

is picking off one after the

1:07:25

other. But most upsetting is that

1:07:27

the administration itself and the faculty

1:07:29

are showing grave signs of weakness.

1:07:32

And I think one of the

1:07:34

reasons why they did not want

1:07:36

to encourage students to show up

1:07:38

on vigorous public interest law day

1:07:41

on April 1 is because they

1:07:43

looked at the agenda. They said,

1:07:45

look at Mark Green. He co-authored

1:07:47

with Ralph Nader, two books going

1:07:49

after Trump. Let's see. They look

1:07:52

at John Bonifaz. He's leading an

1:07:54

impeachment drive with hundreds of thousands

1:07:56

of signatures around the country, building

1:07:58

pressure for congressional... impeachment and

1:08:01

they look and they see Robert Weisman

1:08:03

by public citizens filed these

1:08:05

lawsuits and you've won one

1:08:07

before the Supreme Court already

1:08:09

against Trump's crimes and they

1:08:11

said we don't want any part of this.

1:08:14

Of course they always lay out

1:08:16

the red carpet for corporate

1:08:18

executives from Goldman Sachs and Citibank

1:08:20

and so forth who are

1:08:22

happening to be alumni as an

1:08:24

aside. That's what's at stake here. It's

1:08:26

really quite remarkable. I never

1:08:29

thought that the law school

1:08:31

in its totality, there's hardly

1:08:33

a maverick, hardly a maverick

1:08:35

there, is not signaling

1:08:37

a powerful assertiveness against

1:08:39

what Trump plans to

1:08:41

do to Harvard University.

1:08:44

Your observation? Well, you know,

1:08:46

shortly before the administration

1:08:48

made the threat, the overwhelming

1:08:51

majority of Harvard law

1:08:53

professors. authored a letter to the

1:08:55

students basically saying, let's stand strong

1:08:57

against authoritarianism. So there is some

1:08:59

signs of life among the faculty.

1:09:01

It was notable that that was

1:09:03

a faculty letter and not a dean

1:09:05

letter and a not an administration letter.

1:09:08

You know, there's some randomness of who

1:09:10

is the dean in any one particular

1:09:12

period of time. Right now there's an

1:09:14

interim president who has whatever orientation he

1:09:17

does. There have been over the many

1:09:19

years at Harvard. It's not a

1:09:21

place of radical leadership, obviously. But

1:09:23

there have been people with more

1:09:25

integrity or less, more willingness to

1:09:27

defend poor academic freedom principles, which is

1:09:29

just a liberal notion and others with

1:09:31

less spine for doing that. I'm not

1:09:33

sure that the university is

1:09:36

well positioned right now, but it's kind

1:09:38

of like the Democrats in Congress. If

1:09:40

the students and the faculty demand it

1:09:42

and if the alumni demand it, they'll

1:09:44

be better. And if they don't, they

1:09:46

won't. You know, we can bemoan who's

1:09:49

there. but how they respond to this

1:09:51

moment is going to depend in large

1:09:53

part on what their stakeholders and what

1:09:55

the constituencies at the university demand of

1:09:57

them. Well, the letter you mentioned was

1:09:59

dated. March 29th, 2025 from the

1:10:01

faculty about 90 members of the

1:10:04

Harvard Law School faculty to their

1:10:06

students and it reflected weakness. For

1:10:08

example, they never mentioned the Trump

1:10:11

administration and they just focused on

1:10:13

Trump threats to pro bono lawsuits

1:10:15

and to law firms that might

1:10:17

have challenged them in the past.

1:10:20

So it was very limited. It

1:10:22

didn't have proper names in it

1:10:24

and it didn't have the requisite

1:10:27

level. emergency that Trump presents Harvard

1:10:29

in the law school with so

1:10:31

I thought it's better than nothing

1:10:33

but inadvertently they really showed a

1:10:36

very weak hand in what they

1:10:38

communicated to the students. We'll put

1:10:40

that letter up on our website

1:10:42

so people listening to this program

1:10:45

can judge for themselves. What Trump

1:10:47

is doing to Columbia and to

1:10:49

Harvard is the definition of extortion.

1:10:52

Extortion is a crime. and he

1:10:54

is using the threat of suspending

1:10:56

federal grants and contracts to get

1:10:58

what he wants, which is millions

1:11:01

of dollars of pro bono representation

1:11:03

for his own causes. I mean,

1:11:05

imagine the conflicts here. And I

1:11:08

want to ask you, Rob, because

1:11:10

you have a litigation group full

1:11:12

of experts. The Supreme Court in

1:11:14

Trump versus US was a case

1:11:17

last June that was interpreted as

1:11:19

immunizing. Trump from criminal prosecution for

1:11:21

actions in his official capacity. Well

1:11:24

extortion can never be interpreted as

1:11:26

action in official capacity and the

1:11:28

Supreme Court majority didn't define what

1:11:30

official capacity was. So two questions.

1:11:33

One is can a state prosecutor

1:11:35

not under the control of Trump's

1:11:37

justice department like federal prosecutors are

1:11:39

bring in action? if this extortion

1:11:42

violates the criminal statute of the

1:11:44

state and the second is what

1:11:46

else can the litigation group do

1:11:49

about this blatant display of extortion.

1:11:51

I mean, there's no clearer definition.

1:11:53

And he's using leverage that itself

1:11:55

is illegal, as some judges are

1:11:58

beginning to say. They cannot suspend

1:12:00

congressionally appropriated funds for these kinds

1:12:02

of purposes. On the extortion question,

1:12:05

I think that Supreme Court decision

1:12:07

basically means Trump himself personally cannot

1:12:09

be criminally prosecuted. There's a reason

1:12:11

we're talking about no kink. That

1:12:14

was a decision making the president

1:12:16

and certainly this president. a monarch,

1:12:18

or at least in this regard.

1:12:21

That's a matter for the president

1:12:23

personal. Other people in the administration,

1:12:25

I'm not sure what the answer

1:12:27

is. They definitely have immunity when

1:12:30

they're doing things within their job

1:12:32

scope. If one can characterize this

1:12:34

as outside of the scope of

1:12:36

their authority as extortion, as you

1:12:39

say, then maybe I'm just actually

1:12:41

not sure about the law on

1:12:43

that and have been talking about

1:12:46

people inside public citizen. I just

1:12:48

don't have a good answer on

1:12:50

that yet. I hope you pursue

1:12:52

it because as you say there

1:12:55

are other officials high in the

1:12:57

administration that are not immunized. But

1:12:59

I think even a case against

1:13:02

Trump would force the Supreme Court

1:13:04

to clarify how they define official

1:13:06

capacity activities on that. I think

1:13:08

that decision was so bad that

1:13:11

it's pretty clear. But I hear

1:13:13

you beyond that these entities that

1:13:15

are targeted. There's some people who

1:13:17

are going to be targeted or

1:13:20

some organizations are going to be

1:13:22

targeted who may not really have

1:13:24

many options available either. They don't

1:13:27

have good legal arguments or they

1:13:29

don't have the resources to go

1:13:31

up against the administration. That's not

1:13:33

true for either the law firms

1:13:36

that have been targeted or for

1:13:38

these universities. So in the case

1:13:40

of the universities, number one, they're

1:13:43

being prosecuted for viewpoints. So they

1:13:45

have a plain First Amendment defense

1:13:47

against anything that's being alleged against

1:13:49

them. Number two, there are rules

1:13:52

about restricting contracts and taking contracts

1:13:54

back. And the things that the

1:13:56

administration is complaining about, even if

1:13:59

they were... validate and they are

1:14:01

all universally invalid. But even if

1:14:03

they were valid... can't have a

1:14:05

complaint about one thing at the

1:14:08

university, you know, let's just say

1:14:10

there's an issue at the Middle

1:14:12

East Study Center. That is not

1:14:14

a predicate for taking away grants

1:14:17

to the biology department. And there's

1:14:19

federal law about this and there's

1:14:21

terms in the contracts. The university,

1:14:24

if they choose to stand up,

1:14:26

have slam dunk winning arguments in

1:14:28

court. These universities have massive resources.

1:14:30

They've got huge general counsel offices.

1:14:33

They've got their own law schools

1:14:35

if they want to borrow from

1:14:37

them. They have every ability in

1:14:40

the world to stand up. And

1:14:42

it's just a matter of choice

1:14:44

about whether for political reasons they

1:14:46

choose to do it or do

1:14:49

not. And again, it's unfortunately, it's

1:14:51

not a matter just limited to

1:14:53

institutions. The choices they make are

1:14:56

going to impact the entire civil

1:14:58

society, our entire country. So it's

1:15:00

really vital that we're pushing them

1:15:02

to stand up and fight back

1:15:05

and not just cut whatever deal

1:15:07

they can to evade the uncomfortableness

1:15:09

of being in conflict with an

1:15:11

authoritarian administration. Listeners, no, we've been

1:15:14

focusing on domestic issues and we

1:15:16

don't have the time right now

1:15:18

to extend our prior programs on

1:15:21

empire, but just a few words

1:15:23

on that. Rob, Trump is continuing

1:15:25

the US co-beligrancy supporting Netanyahu's vast

1:15:27

mass murder genocide of the Palestinian

1:15:30

people, but he's up to it.

1:15:32

Even Biden didn't support expulsion of

1:15:34

the Palestinians from Gaza and Trump

1:15:37

is doing that. And even Biden

1:15:39

didn't advocate annexation of the West

1:15:41

Bank and Trump is supporting efforts

1:15:43

in the extremist government of Netanyahu

1:15:46

in doing that. And I've just

1:15:48

learned from sources that he is

1:15:50

going to seize Greenland. The plan

1:15:53

that his Secretary of Defense was

1:15:55

ordered to prepare. And you've got

1:15:57

to take Trump seriously when he

1:15:59

makes these crazy. statements about seizing

1:16:02

the Panama Canal and Greenland. He

1:16:04

really wants to take Greenland. He

1:16:06

wants to be another president. McKinley

1:16:08

who took over the Philippines and

1:16:11

Hawaii Guam and Puerto Rico. The

1:16:13

plan is pretty diabolical. There's only

1:16:15

53,000 people in Greenland. It's more

1:16:18

than three times the size of

1:16:20

Texas. We've had an air base

1:16:22

there for decades and the plan

1:16:24

is called love and kisses. That

1:16:27

is, he seizes in less than

1:16:29

24 hours control of Greenland. He

1:16:31

promises them all kinds of goodies.

1:16:34

and he has Musk providing thousands

1:16:36

of dollars for each resident of

1:16:38

Greenland. And he sweet talks him,

1:16:40

but essentially he takes Greenland, which

1:16:43

is of course part of Denmark,

1:16:45

autonomous part of Denmark, which is

1:16:47

of course a member of NATO,

1:16:50

so is attacking NATO, and under

1:16:52

Section 5, NATO countries are expected

1:16:54

to defend. any member of NATO

1:16:56

that is attacked. So we got

1:16:59

a total madman here that's operating

1:17:01

because he lied sufficiently persuasively and

1:17:03

got a plurality of votes, a

1:17:05

mere switch of 240,000 votes in

1:17:08

Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin would have

1:17:10

defeated him. But that's another story.

1:17:12

You have any comments on anything

1:17:15

that the litigation group can do

1:17:17

on such impeachable offenses I've just

1:17:19

described? Or is that going to

1:17:21

be stymied by the Supreme Court

1:17:24

saying that you don't have standing

1:17:26

or it's a political question? Any

1:17:28

elbow room there? Well, I think,

1:17:31

you know, impeachment is not a

1:17:33

matter for the courts, as you

1:17:35

know. I don't know. I heard

1:17:37

you say this, we just did

1:17:40

the event at Harvard Law School,

1:17:42

that you have to take seriously

1:17:44

his unpredictability. He may say something

1:17:47

randomly, because I came to the

1:17:49

top of his head, but then

1:17:51

kind of like the idea of

1:17:53

the idea of Greenland, notwithstanding some

1:17:56

other. underlying strains. If that scenario

1:17:58

were to play out, would there

1:18:00

be things along the way that

1:18:02

we could stop? maybe with litigation

1:18:05

and court action, certainly with congressional

1:18:07

action. If it happened in a

1:18:09

24-hour period, it probably would be

1:18:12

outside the scope of the courts.

1:18:14

The plan is to do it

1:18:16

so quickly that he creates facts

1:18:18

on the ground, but it clearly

1:18:21

would be an impeachable offense because

1:18:23

it's basically a declaration of war

1:18:25

by the executive instead of exclusively

1:18:28

by the Congress. Tell us about

1:18:30

your book that you published over

1:18:32

a year ago, and I think...

1:18:34

Anybody interested in corporate power has

1:18:37

got to read this book? Well,

1:18:39

it's the corporate sabotage of America's

1:18:41

future. And it looked at how

1:18:44

corporations leverage their political influence, particularly

1:18:46

money in politics, but not only,

1:18:48

so their lobbyists, the reliance on

1:18:50

the revolving door, their PR campaigns,

1:18:53

and more to entrench themselves to

1:18:55

escape accountability for their wrongdoing and

1:18:57

to extract. masses of amounts of

1:18:59

corporate subsidies from the government. So

1:19:02

the drug companies, for example, having

1:19:04

Medicare pay for drugs but not

1:19:06

negotiate the price costing American consumers

1:19:09

$100 billion a year or more

1:19:11

through oil and gas industry leveraging

1:19:13

their political influence for $20 billion

1:19:15

a year. and direct subsidies but

1:19:18

far far more in the sense

1:19:20

of imposing the cost of catastrophic

1:19:22

climate change on us with no

1:19:25

say so for everyday people the

1:19:27

ability of big tech to leverage

1:19:29

its political influence to get all

1:19:31

kinds of local and state subsidies

1:19:34

we're seeing this explode right now

1:19:36

the efforts as AI companies which

1:19:38

are just the big tech companies

1:19:41

need more and more energy they

1:19:43

want to have all kinds of

1:19:45

government subsidies for new expansion of

1:19:47

fossil fuel. development to fuel data

1:19:50

centers and AI centers, as well

1:19:52

as to escape any kind of

1:19:54

regulatory controls over the way they're

1:19:56

harming children adults and really thinking

1:19:59

and functioning. society. So that was

1:20:01

the book. And I think it's

1:20:03

humbly. I think it's going to

1:20:06

stay timely for a long time

1:20:08

because this is a pervasive problem.

1:20:10

But it's also part of I

1:20:12

think how we can understand how

1:20:15

Trump came to be. It's the

1:20:17

level of dissatisfaction with society that's

1:20:19

ruled by corporations that made it

1:20:22

possible a demagogue like Trump to

1:20:24

sell a story that seems to

1:20:26

give a different explanation and partially

1:20:28

acknowledges these felt grievances by everyday

1:20:31

people. So that's the book. still

1:20:33

available, corporate sabotage.org. Folks can check

1:20:35

it out on the web. And

1:20:38

by the way listeners, Rob Weiss,

1:20:40

who knows what he's talking about.

1:20:42

For years with us, he edited

1:20:44

the globally distributed magazine called the

1:20:47

multinational monitor. I think its contents

1:20:49

are still online. Aren't they Rob?

1:20:51

Yeah, multinational monitor.org, getting older and

1:20:53

older, but the history is is

1:20:56

amazing. And a lot of it

1:20:58

remains really timely to explain what's

1:21:00

going on. individual stories may change

1:21:03

every time, but the basic processes

1:21:05

are still pretty much the same.

1:21:07

As well as your editorials, pressing

1:21:09

it and still applicable to today's

1:21:12

enormous expansion of corporate power. I

1:21:14

was thinking when you were talking

1:21:16

of how the tech companies and

1:21:19

AI companies need enormous amounts of

1:21:21

energy. They're building these data centers

1:21:23

and they want more fossil fuel

1:21:25

energy that they want to revive

1:21:28

some nuclear plants and Microsoft wants

1:21:30

to revive a plant in Pennsylvania.

1:21:32

And so they are the hearts

1:21:34

delight for the big oil and

1:21:37

gas and coal companies. I've just

1:21:39

figured a name to label them

1:21:41

with. They should be called the

1:21:44

tech companies and the energy companies

1:21:46

collaborating should be called the omniside

1:21:48

axis. Next. constitutional scholar Bruce Fine

1:21:50

adds a thought about Trump's use

1:21:53

of emergency powers. If I could

1:21:55

just add one point Ralph Steve

1:21:57

about the the national emergency. See

1:22:00

Congress never ever has defined that

1:22:02

from emergency and Trump is using

1:22:04

that now to justify the tariff

1:22:06

on a country-by-country basis. He couldn't

1:22:09

do it under the old law

1:22:11

of 1962, the Trade Adjustment Act.

1:22:13

And it shows you, and there's

1:22:16

nothing in the International Emergency Economic

1:22:18

Cars Act that mentions tariffs whatsoever.

1:22:20

So he just yells tariffs and

1:22:22

then proceeds to do whatever he

1:22:25

wants to undertake war, surveil us

1:22:27

or anything else under the sun.

1:22:29

Now, part of it is that

1:22:31

this is created by the National

1:22:34

Emergency Act of 1976. Now, this

1:22:36

was before the Supreme Court banned

1:22:38

the so-called legislative veto. At that

1:22:41

time, Congress could basically shut down

1:22:43

a national emergency by just a

1:22:45

legislative veto. But when that went

1:22:47

out the window, Congress never came

1:22:50

back and revisited the act, and

1:22:52

now it's completely abandoned any effort

1:22:54

to define national emergency. No standards,

1:22:57

no criteria, no oversight. No, no,

1:22:59

absolutely right. Finally, Ralph and Bruce

1:23:01

have a lot more to say

1:23:03

about what is going on at

1:23:06

Harvard and other universities in light

1:23:08

of the Trump administration's threats to

1:23:10

take away federal funding of programs.

1:23:13

Well, you know, I've never been

1:23:15

known to overestimate Harvard Law School.

1:23:17

In fact, I sponsored a book

1:23:19

on Harvard Law School by Joel

1:23:22

Seligman and Lynn Burnaby. decades ago,

1:23:24

which the law school promptly ignored.

1:23:26

But I was surprised by what

1:23:28

can only be called as a

1:23:31

dedicated boycott by the dean, the

1:23:33

associate deans, and the faculty of

1:23:35

this wonderful presentation. We're talking about

1:23:38

listeners, graduates of Harvard Law School,

1:23:40

going back to 1970, who have

1:23:42

really helped change America for the

1:23:44

better. These are the law graduates

1:23:47

that fulfilled a declared mission. of

1:23:49

the law school, which is to

1:23:51

graduate lawyers to pursue a more

1:23:54

just society. Can you imagine? And

1:23:56

that's the way they were treated.

1:23:58

They were disrespected. They were boycotted.

1:24:00

I was astonished, Bruce, that even

1:24:03

some of the progressive faculty didn't

1:24:05

show up. They have about 150

1:24:07

faculty. There were about 2,000 law

1:24:10

students, including graduate law students, and

1:24:12

less than 1% showed up. They

1:24:14

even had a free lunch of

1:24:16

burritos. It didn't matter. So this

1:24:19

is a very serious. documentation I

1:24:21

might say it's not speculation anymore

1:24:23

listeners it's documentation of how number

1:24:25

one the corporations have taken over

1:24:28

law schools like Harvard and number

1:24:30

two more contemporaneously why are they

1:24:32

behaving this way? They're afraid of

1:24:35

Trump literally just a day or

1:24:37

two before vigorous public interest law

1:24:39

day Trump targeted Harvard said he's

1:24:41

going to take severe measures with

1:24:44

the nine billion dollars in committed

1:24:46

federal grants and contracts to this

1:24:48

huge university unless Harvard bent to

1:24:51

its will. They already fired the

1:24:53

chair of the Middle East Department

1:24:55

and it looks like the vanguard

1:24:57

the Harvard Law School of resistance

1:25:00

and defense is quivering with fear.

1:25:02

So I think what the dean

1:25:04

decided in not even greeting this

1:25:07

assemblage, not encouraging students to show

1:25:09

up. I think what he saw

1:25:11

on the agenda was a leading

1:25:13

alumnus, John Boniface, class of 92,

1:25:16

he's leading an impeachment drive with

1:25:18

hundreds of thousands of signatures. He

1:25:20

saw we can't be associated with

1:25:22

that, or somebody like Robert Wiseman,

1:25:25

who is leading litigation against the

1:25:27

Trump criminal behaviors. And so he

1:25:29

looked at this and he said,

1:25:32

I'm out of here and he

1:25:34

would never respond to invitations. to

1:25:36

even meet with you and your

1:25:38

colleagues when you had a space

1:25:41

of time in the afternoon. This

1:25:43

is not a minor issue, is

1:25:45

it, given the role of law

1:25:48

schools around the country? It's a

1:25:50

major issue, Ralph, and if we

1:25:52

can think back even to the

1:25:54

closest parallel Watergate, you know, Harvard

1:25:57

was in the league with Archibald

1:25:59

Cox and others coming and working

1:26:01

on the special prosecution force. It

1:26:04

didn't blink, and we know that

1:26:06

Richard Nixon did not have high

1:26:08

regard for Ivy League schools. He

1:26:10

viewed them with contempt. Maybe was

1:26:13

envious. but there wasn't any reluctance

1:26:15

to come down and challenge the

1:26:17

president of the United States. I

1:26:19

mean, Mr. Trump is tenfold worse

1:26:22

than Mr. Nixon at Mr. Nixon's

1:26:24

worth. And the running away, crouch,

1:26:26

posture, a horrible example for all

1:26:29

the students. And I do think

1:26:31

that students being a yonder, if

1:26:33

they had proper leadership in example,

1:26:35

they would come up. But they

1:26:38

feel all their superiors living in

1:26:40

a crouch. They feel, wow, this

1:26:42

must really be dangerous and do

1:26:45

nothing. And that's really the death

1:26:47

knell of having a democratic free

1:26:49

society. One said that freedom is

1:26:51

when the government is fearful of

1:26:54

the people. The people are not

1:26:56

fearful of the government. But right

1:26:58

now it's the otherwise around. The

1:27:01

people fearful of the government. That's

1:27:03

tyranny. Democracy is government fearful of

1:27:05

the people. But I think that

1:27:07

applies to the Dean Goldberg, the

1:27:10

acting dean of Harvard, because I

1:27:12

had a nice conversation in December

1:27:14

and he said, send me your

1:27:16

materials, I'll look them over and

1:27:19

we'll have another conversation in January.

1:27:21

And then something happened, didn't that

1:27:23

Bruce Fine? Trump was inaugurated, and

1:27:26

then anxiety, fear and dread flowed

1:27:28

through Harvard Law School's fabled campus.

1:27:30

And that is a very serious.

1:27:32

failure of leadership failure of trust

1:27:35

in the public interest by what

1:27:37

is often called the greatest law

1:27:39

school in the world. So listeners,

1:27:42

check out your own law school.

1:27:44

Maybe they have a little more

1:27:46

fortitude. Maybe some professors are more

1:27:48

willing to speak out and engage

1:27:51

and what has to be a

1:27:53

massive resistance demanding that Trump resign

1:27:55

as a prelude to giving backbone

1:27:58

to the Congress to initiate what

1:28:00

Bruce Fine once said, was the

1:28:02

only power left under the Constitution

1:28:04

that Trump cannot repeal? You want

1:28:07

to elaborate on that, Bruce? The

1:28:09

impeachment power, Ralph, is one that's

1:28:11

entirely within the hands of Congress.

1:28:13

The Supreme Court said they don't

1:28:16

get involved, political question. Congress decides

1:28:18

the president has no involvement in

1:28:20

the impeachment. It starts in the

1:28:23

House, it goes to the Senate,

1:28:25

and the Senate votes, and you're

1:28:27

removed. So there isn't any outside

1:28:29

fact. It's the last safeguard that

1:28:32

we have against an imperial dictatorship

1:28:34

in the White House. But it's

1:28:36

got to be huge. As happened

1:28:39

by spontaneous combustion. And by the

1:28:41

way, as we discussed on a

1:28:43

prior program, you've drafted 16 articles

1:28:45

of impeachment. We expect them to

1:28:48

be introduced shortly in the House

1:28:50

of Representatives. Now, out there are

1:28:52

people saying impossible. Tell me how

1:28:55

it can become probable and then

1:28:57

actually occur. Yeah, we have something.

1:28:59

Again, history speaks volumes. Again, around

1:29:01

the time of Watergate, Mr. Nixon

1:29:04

had ordered the firing of Archibald

1:29:06

Cox, the special prosecutor. This was

1:29:08

October 20th, 1973, and the time

1:29:10

said he was not going to

1:29:13

surrender White House tapes of grand

1:29:15

jury. And once he made that

1:29:17

clear... 20 or 30,000 telegrams a

1:29:20

day poured into Congress, not just

1:29:22

one office, but all of Congress.

1:29:24

And that was a graphic representation

1:29:26

of the sentiments of the people.

1:29:29

And Nixon backed down, Congress began

1:29:31

serious hearings, impeachment hearings as well,

1:29:33

and when it began, I know,

1:29:36

because I was there, you were

1:29:38

there, Ralph. It was said, impeachment

1:29:40

hearings, it's not going to go

1:29:42

anywhere. But it did, because the

1:29:45

evidence was there, and the people

1:29:47

were engaged, and they understood. It

1:29:49

was a grave threat when a

1:29:51

president could burglarized, could burglarize, you

1:29:54

know, the psychiatrist's office of Daniel

1:29:56

Ellsberg without a warrant committing crimes.

1:29:58

It was a threat when the

1:30:01

president could obstruct justice and say,

1:30:03

yeah, we can pay off the

1:30:05

Watergate burglary. And everyone could recognize

1:30:07

a whole danger of anticipation if

1:30:10

the president would disobey a court

1:30:12

order. And with the public expressing

1:30:14

that sentiment, and it was one

1:30:16

by one, it wasn't one $30,000

1:30:19

telegram. It pushed Congress to do

1:30:21

the right thing. And if the people

1:30:23

react with the same strength that

1:30:25

happened in 1973 and 74, Congress

1:30:28

will turn around. They have loyalties to

1:30:30

their jobs that are stronger than

1:30:32

the loyalty to Trump. But if they

1:30:34

feel the heat from their constituents, they

1:30:37

will do the right thing. That's

1:30:39

why we're ultimately the last

1:30:41

guard race. One might point out

1:30:43

that the impact of Trump on

1:30:46

the American people is far more

1:30:48

personal, economic, health, safety, livelihood,

1:30:51

freedom of expression that

1:30:53

whatever Nixon did in Watergate,

1:30:55

which was more seen as

1:30:57

inside the beltway, obstruction of

1:30:59

justice as you pointed out. So

1:31:01

even though the people may not be

1:31:03

quite as active as they were back

1:31:05

in the 70s, they're losing social safety

1:31:08

nets for their children. They're

1:31:10

losing protection from toxic

1:31:12

from pollution. They're losing

1:31:14

investments in public services.

1:31:16

They're seeing their solar

1:31:18

and wind energy programs

1:31:21

undermined or unfunded. Many of

1:31:23

them in red states in the South.

1:31:25

They're seeing freedom of expression

1:31:27

being suppressed in violation of

1:31:30

freedom of information. American

1:31:32

people don't like this kind of

1:31:34

censorship. They don't like the government

1:31:36

being used as a spear against their

1:31:39

rightful interest and the proper use

1:31:41

of their tax dollars being returned

1:31:43

back home in their community.

1:31:45

They don't want to see Medicaid split

1:31:48

in half leaving millions of people

1:31:50

without health insurance. There's about

1:31:52

75 million people or more.

1:31:54

on Medicaid, including a lot of Trump

1:31:56

voters, by the way, and families.

1:31:59

Just wrapping up... Bruce, people obviously

1:32:01

are startled. The economy

1:32:03

is shaky. Prices are starting

1:32:05

to go up. Their pension investments

1:32:08

are shrinking in the stock market.

1:32:10

Chaos is spreading throughout the small

1:32:12

business community. What would you predict

1:32:15

is going to happen before the

1:32:17

end of the year? First observation,

1:32:19

Ralph, is to compare Mr.

1:32:22

Trump with Mr. Nixon, the

1:32:24

Mr. Nixon had won 49 out

1:32:26

of 50 states in the electoral

1:32:28

collar, right? His victory in 1972

1:32:30

before he had to resign under

1:32:32

the threat of impeachment was vastly

1:32:35

greater than Trump's. Trump's is tiny

1:32:37

compared to Nixon, and yet Nixon

1:32:39

was out a little less than two

1:32:41

years. So things can change rapidly in

1:32:44

politics. My view is that the sentiment

1:32:46

will grow daily against Mr. Trump. I

1:32:48

don't think he has any clue about

1:32:51

how to deal with the economy. He

1:32:53

has no clue about all these wars

1:32:55

that we have, whether it's Ukraine one

1:32:57

day, Gaza the ceasefires. but the one

1:33:00

thing that stays constant as the military

1:33:02

industrial complex budget continues to climb no

1:33:04

matter what the weapons the killing continues

1:33:06

to climb and I do believe that

1:33:09

the public will turn against him he'll