0:03

Happy Monday and welcome to

0:05

another week of the Trump administration

0:07

We are getting awfully close

0:09

to the 100 -day mark and

0:11

just to Just to put this

0:13

in perspective think about how

0:15

tumultuous this first 90 plus days

0:17

has been on the American

0:20

economy on the American judicial system

0:22

on the American democracy on

0:24

foreign affairs Just think about the

0:26

things that have happened that

0:28

we have not had

0:30

follow -up on. I think about

0:32

here as a DC person

0:35

who uses National Airport a lot,

0:37

I'll be honest with you, I

0:39

still would like to know

0:41

what happened the night

0:43

that we had that deadly

0:45

plane crash where a military

0:47

helicopter was essentially got in

0:50

the way of the landing.

0:52

of a commercial airliner. We've

0:54

not gotten the after -action

0:56

report. There's not been the

0:58

congressional investigations that you would

1:01

expect yet. We really haven't

1:03

had anything. And, you know, in part

1:05

of this, you can maybe

1:07

chalk up to the news cycle. Part

1:09

of it is the whole Trump administration's

1:11

throw a thousand things at the wall and

1:13

things get lost. And

1:17

you sit there and it appears

1:19

as if we only have the ban

1:21

that generically. The media only has the bandwidth

1:23

to do one story at a time. So

1:25

when we were in the middle of the

1:27

rescue operation, we got a lot of details

1:29

on everything we could figure out in the

1:31

72 hours in and around that plane crash.

1:34

But we haven't had any good reporting since. Congress,

1:37

as usual, has been sitting on its

1:39

hands. I mean, look, we have an issue

1:41

here where we have a very tumultuous

1:43

period in American government and in American history.

1:46

It's a busy executive branch and a

1:48

busy judicial branch. The legislative branch

1:50

is sitting on its hands. It

1:52

doesn't appear to be doing anything other

1:54

than figuring out how to not, at

1:57

least the Republican majorities, not

1:59

to alienate Donald Trump or Donald Trump's

2:01

MAGA base. Beyond that, it

2:03

doesn't look like Congress is doing much. There's

2:07

there's some rhetoric and about things that

2:09

they could be doing or should be

2:11

doing I think we're all waiting for

2:13

the oversight hearing on signal gate and

2:15

exactly what did what did peak

2:17

Hegseth declassify to put on

2:19

Vulnerable private communication systems We think

2:21

we have the backstory is

2:23

how the National Security Advisor put

2:25

a reporter on that group

2:27

But we still don't know why

2:29

there was so much ease

2:31

with which the Secretary of Defense

2:33

shared what was classified information

2:36

on that. We're still waiting for

2:38

those hearings. We're still waiting

2:40

for that investigation. We know that

2:42

Donald Trump fired so many

2:44

inspector generals that it is slowing

2:46

down investigations that would really be

2:48

sort of routine. I mean, the fact

2:50

of the matter is there's always

2:52

issues that the government has to figure

2:54

out what went wrong. Bob

2:57

Gates, the former secretary of defense

2:59

for George W. Bush and Barack Obama,

3:01

once said, One said

3:03

that he tells president said on any

3:05

given day somebody is fucking up

3:07

and Pardon my French there in your

3:09

name. Mr. President and he has

3:11

said that to President Bush and he

3:13

has said that to President Obama

3:15

meaning the federal government is so big

3:18

That no matter how well it

3:20

is run how efficient things are there

3:22

is somebody making a mistake in

3:24

your name causing you at a minimum

3:26

a political problem and a maximum

3:28

a policy problem that impacts the public

3:30

and yet we seem to be

3:32

almost paralyzed in our ability to deal

3:35

in totality everything that's going on. In

3:37

many ways, I would argue the first

3:39

90 days of Donald Trump have been

3:41

my demolition man. He is

3:43

just trying to demolish

3:45

norms all over the

3:47

place. He is forcing

3:49

the judiciary branch and

3:51

trying to see how

3:54

much executive power he

3:56

can get the judiciary

3:58

to essentially approve

4:00

of or not stop. And

4:03

the way any administration works, this

4:05

is why this is such a dangerous

4:07

period in the history of this

4:09

country, because if this judiciary essentially allows

4:11

some of these things to go,

4:13

they become precedent. And what happens

4:16

is future presidents take whatever minimum

4:18

they have and then push even

4:20

further. So, you know, this is

4:22

why we're sitting here with essentially

4:24

vulnerable to one individual's Belief on

4:27

how the economy should work rather

4:29

than having Congress make these decisions

4:31

on tariffs We're sitting here because

4:33

the congressional branch handed all this

4:35

power to the executive branch and

4:37

went back to Arguably,

4:39

this started with 9 -11. Actually,

4:43

it started before then when more trade

4:45

authority was being handed to the Clinton

4:47

administration. Then 9 -11, more

4:49

national security authority got handed to the executive

4:51

branch. With Barack Obama, his

4:53

party had full control of

4:55

the trifecta. He got handed

4:57

more executive power. Donald

4:59

Trump grabbed more executive power

5:01

the first term. Joe Biden grabbed more

5:03

and pushed the envelope with what he

5:05

tried to do with. student

5:07

loans which was another essentially

5:09

executive branch power grab and

5:11

now of course this one

5:13

which is really doesn't have

5:15

any precedent arguably and unless

5:18

you go back to FDR

5:20

and Lincoln who did grab

5:22

extra executive power

5:24

under the guise of war and

5:26

those were actual wars. Right now

5:28

we have these various emergencies

5:30

that that the president has declared

5:32

in order to try

5:35

to fast -track deportations in this

5:37

country, try to fast -track trade

5:39

authority in this country, try to

5:41

fast -track a few things here.

5:43

So the point is he has

5:46

done the, you know, the

5:48

Steve Bannon, had taken Steve

5:50

Bannon's advice, which is just

5:52

essentially just flood the zone

5:54

and try to knock your

5:56

political opponents and make them

5:58

woozy and only sort of

6:00

pick one. And this is the

6:02

cynical aspect of what the Trump administration

6:04

is doing. Ironically,

6:07

if a Democratic administration were doing, I'm

6:09

sure Stephen Miller would be filing all

6:11

sorts of legal briefs to claim that

6:13

this is an abuse of executive power.

6:16

All he's doing is essentially

6:18

testing the electric fence of

6:20

executive power and pushing the

6:22

envelope, pushing the envelope at

6:24

the border, pushing the envelope when

6:27

it comes to what

6:30

what say so a government should

6:32

have over a private organization

6:35

like the University of Harvard, pushing

6:37

the envelope on

6:39

trade and tariff authority. And

6:42

you have a Democratic Party that is

6:44

divided in how to respond, right?

6:46

You have some that are nervous about

6:48

drawing a full line in the

6:50

sand. For instance, when it comes to

6:52

due process having to do with

6:54

Kilmar Garcia, the

6:56

accidentally deported El

6:59

Salvador migrant who is

7:02

now sitting in a prison

7:04

cell in El

7:06

Salvador over on Friday.

7:09

Chris Van Hollen, Democratic Senator

7:11

from Maryland did meet with them.

7:13

We saw that the El Salvador

7:15

president tried to create some propaganda

7:17

claiming they were sipping margaritas and

7:19

sort of the absurdity of our

7:21

of our information, of our misinformation

7:24

ecosystem that we all now have

7:26

to navigate these days. The fact

7:28

that Chris Van Hollen had to

7:30

spend five minutes explaining, hey, look,

7:32

if you notice, nobody took any

7:34

sips out of this, this

7:36

was essentially the El Salvadoran government

7:38

trying to create a warped

7:41

picture of the situation. The

7:43

most important piece of news, though, out

7:45

of that meeting is the fact that

7:47

Garcia is not in the more notorious

7:49

prison that is nicknamed Seacot. The fact

7:51

that they put him in another prison,

7:53

I think, tells you the El Salvadoran

7:55

government is a bit nervous and the

7:57

Trump administration is a bit nervous. So

7:59

they want to make sure nothing happens

8:01

to him physically. So

8:03

if nothing else, the attention

8:05

has probably kept him alive or

8:07

at least kept him physically. more

8:10

safe than he would be if

8:12

he were in that more notorious

8:14

prison. But

8:17

the question I keep coming back to is, there

8:19

is a legal way to do this, but

8:22

the Trump administration doesn't want to do it. They

8:25

don't want to abide by a court order.

8:27

They don't want to even get caught trying. They

8:29

don't even want to fake it. They don't

8:31

have the ambassador, you know, getting a

8:33

meeting with the president of El Salvador and the

8:36

president saying, sorry, we're not releasing. At

8:38

least that could, they could claim they were

8:40

following the court order that said that the

8:42

government had to facilitate and essentially

8:44

make an effort. Give it the

8:46

old college try guys to try to get him

8:49

out. And they're not even doing that.

8:51

They're not trying at all. And that's what

8:54

you got to ask yourself. Why aren't they

8:56

doing that? Do they just think

8:58

this is good politics for them?

9:00

Well, I do think that they believe

9:02

that everything they've done so far,

9:04

that individually, If Democrats try to push

9:06

back on any one thing individually, they

9:08

can somehow win an argument, at least have

9:11

their base come up and help them own

9:13

the lips, right? Just

9:15

notice the sort of demagogic rhetoric that

9:17

the White House has been using, having

9:19

to do with Kilmar Garcia, that

9:21

the fact that anybody questioning whether

9:24

they followed the law. In

9:26

in in deporting him and giving him

9:28

due process, which I promise you they

9:30

did not by my count and you'll

9:32

hear this in the interview with Ben

9:34

witness I think he's violated the 1st

9:36

the 4th the 5th the 6th the

9:39

78th and the 9th amendments Okay And and

9:41

on Garcia alone. I think they

9:43

have violated the 4th 5th 6 7th

9:45

8th and 9th amendments Okay, all of

9:47

them the first amendment has been violated

9:49

in other ways including with with their

9:51

dealings with the Associated Press I don't I

9:54

don't see any evidence yet that they have violated the

9:56

second or the third, and we can have a

9:58

debate about whether they violated the 10th yet. But again,

10:00

we're not even at day 100, so give

10:03

them time. There's always a chance. But

10:07

the cynical view of this

10:09

administration is that they believe

10:11

they have the Democrats all sort

10:13

of standing up. For

10:16

Garcia because of the lack of

10:18

due process that instead they can

10:20

say hey look Democrats are willing

10:22

to fight harder for non -citizens

10:24

than they are for you They

10:26

weren't fighting for you when they

10:28

were letting these folks in And

10:30

so it's a mindset where they

10:32

believe the ends justifies the means

10:34

as long as they have shut

10:36

the border down And they have

10:38

used some very aggressive means to

10:41

shut the border down but frankly

10:43

there there means that The

10:45

Biden administration only started using in the

10:47

last six months of that administration.

10:49

The fact is, the

10:52

Biden administration

10:54

in the first two years

10:56

refused to let DHS do its

10:58

job. Secretary Mayorkas, when he

11:00

was deputy with J. Johnson in the second

11:02

Obama administration, they knew how to control

11:04

the border. And he was trying to implement

11:07

the exact same policies that they did

11:09

the first time. And the fact of the

11:11

matter is that the first White House

11:13

would not do it. There

11:15

was absolutely an

11:17

ideological brick wall that

11:19

Mayorkas ran into during the

11:22

Ron Klain era of the

11:24

White House. And then when that

11:26

went from Klain designs, the thing

11:28

that changed the most, if you

11:30

actually look at border policy, that

11:33

was the biggest dramatic change. So I

11:35

don't want to sit here and

11:37

say that the Democrats didn't help create

11:40

the mess at the border.

11:42

and certainly didn't do enough that could

11:44

be done. Donald Trump left them

11:46

a legal quagmire when he left office

11:48

during the COVID era at the

11:50

border, but it's not as if the Biden

11:52

administration managed it very well in the first

11:54

two years. They did get their arms around it

11:56

eventually, but it was after there was a

11:58

new chief of staff and after, frankly, it

12:01

had already become a political problem. So

12:04

the Trump folks just believe that

12:06

if they can just make this

12:08

an immigration issue, First of all,

12:10

notice what we're not talking about

12:12

tariffs. We're not talking about the

12:14

economic disaster that is coming. Now,

12:17

this is a bit of a lagging indicator,

12:19

right? All of the current economic figures that

12:21

have been coming out are what's happened in

12:23

the previous 30 days or the previous 60

12:26

days or the previous 90 days. The

12:28

fact is, we're going to

12:30

start to see a rise in prices

12:32

probably in the next 60 to

12:34

90 days. You're not seeing them right

12:36

in the moment, right? Because Plenty

12:39

of American companies have inventory that they

12:41

got in before the tariffs hit

12:43

so prices are only just now starting

12:45

to creep up and that of

12:47

course will then start this spiral that

12:49

could get really ugly for a

12:52

while. Rising prices, inflation, stagnant wages, layoffs,

12:54

you can see where this is

12:56

headed. But in the short

12:58

term as all the focus has

13:00

been on on the

13:02

one issue, because apparently only one issue

13:04

can be done at a time, there's

13:06

been this debate in the Democratic Party

13:08

about whether how hard they should go.

13:10

You have had Gavin Newsom who sees

13:12

the Kilmar Garcia story as a distraction.

13:16

You have others that say, if you don't draw

13:18

a line in this hand somewhere, then

13:21

what's the point

13:23

of being a political party? You're

13:25

in the opposition. The fact of the

13:27

matter is I do think the

13:29

party needs to figure out how to

13:31

have one message and I think

13:33

the chaos message Which worked in the

13:35

first administration, right? The fact is

13:37

the public doesn't like the chaos Individual

13:39

goals that Donald Trump has outlined

13:41

are things the public would like to

13:43

see right a safe and secure

13:45

border more manufacturing jobs in America

13:48

But how he's gone about doing

13:50

it, upending the world economy, upending

13:53

due process and the rule of

13:55

law, that

13:57

isn't what the public

13:59

wants. They don't like how this

14:01

is being done. And

14:03

the political opposition, I don't think, has

14:06

done a good enough job sort of

14:08

framing this as that, as

14:10

incompetency. Because ultimately, that's what

14:12

this has been. Complete

14:14

and utter incompetence on the tariffs. If

14:16

you wanted to do this, there

14:18

was a more systematic way to do

14:20

this. On the border, if you

14:22

wanted to do this, there was a

14:24

more systematic way to do this. But

14:27

ultimately, the only conclusion

14:29

one can come to is it looks

14:31

like the conclusion that our friends

14:33

at National Review came to over

14:37

the weekend when it seems

14:39

as if the administration

14:41

wants to test the limits

14:43

of executive power so

14:45

they don't care if they knowingly

14:49

essentially violate the law and see

14:51

how hard is the judiciary going to

14:53

push back? How hard is the Supreme

14:55

Court going to push back? And I

14:57

promise you, this is, you know, I

14:59

keep using this metaphor, but if you

15:01

give this administration a cookie, they're going

15:03

to come back and take more and

15:05

take more and take more and take

15:07

more. So it is a very cynical

15:09

view of the executive that this administration

15:12

has taken and you have people

15:14

around the president that are looking

15:16

to essentially Turn this

15:18

country into

15:20

a It's not a

15:22

republic if this is if the

15:24

executive gets too strong it's

15:26

a borderline monarchy and in fact

15:29

I do find it interesting

15:31

that the governor of Massachusetts

15:33

on April 19th

15:35

The anniversary of the shot heard around

15:37

the world had this to say at

15:39

a rally She

15:41

said the following this is more

15:43

healing Democratic governor of Massachusetts. She

15:45

was in Concord, Massachusetts again Home, Concord

15:48

and Lexington, right? Home of the shot heard around the world. We

15:51

live in a moment when our freedoms are once again

15:53

under attack from the highest office in the land. We

15:55

see things that would be familiar to

15:57

our revolutionary predecessors, the silencing of critics,

16:00

the disappearing of people from our streets, demands

16:03

for unquestioning fealty. So

16:06

that was an attempt by

16:08

at least one Democrat to try to

16:10

take everything President Trump has done and

16:12

try to put it in a larger

16:14

context. And I think that

16:16

what the Trump administration is counting on is

16:18

to be able to isolate each of these

16:21

criticisms into one and turn it in. Oh,

16:23

so you want terrorists to be roaming free

16:25

around the country type of type of, you

16:27

know, have you stopped? You know,

16:29

in one of the metaphors we like to use

16:31

in media, when did you stop beating your

16:33

wife? Right? What's a what's an example of the

16:35

worst kind of leading question? What I just

16:37

said, when did you stop beating your wife? So

16:39

when did you stop supporting terrorists is essentially. the

16:42

conversation that the Trump administration wants to

16:44

have every time a Democrat says,

16:46

hey, how you did this, how you

16:48

are deporting these people is unconstitutional

16:50

and against the law. What's interesting

16:52

is that there's plenty of Republicans that

16:54

believe this. Most of them don't want to say

16:56

a word. By the way, have you

16:59

noticed you may need to put an APB out for

17:01

Lindsey Graham. One of the patterns to Lindsey Graham

17:03

in particular, if you want to know, when

17:05

he can't defend what Donald Trump is

17:07

doing, he goes, radio silent.

17:10

completely radio silent. He has sort of two

17:12

versions of it. Sometimes what he does

17:14

is he doesn't defend the actions, but he

17:16

defends the goals. But

17:19

here's this guy who

17:21

was in the Jaguar in the military, I think

17:23

actually does care about the rule of law. And

17:26

I think is probably, I

17:28

would like to think, I

17:30

don't know if he's personally outraged by

17:32

how this administration

17:35

is dealing with the rule of law, but

17:37

it's clear he's not supportive of it. because

17:40

it is crickets. You don't see him

17:42

anywhere. You don't see him. This

17:44

is a guy who knows his

17:46

state has benefited from a

17:48

open and free market

17:50

economy with a company like BMW

17:52

and Mercedes, both I believe with

17:55

plants in South Carolina. And

17:58

here's a guy who actually seems to

18:00

care about the rule of law. And

18:02

clearly this administration right now doesn't

18:05

care if it's following the rule of law. You

18:08

can see sometimes by

18:10

the lack of positive affirmation

18:13

from some of these folks, that

18:15

if they can't defend it, they're staying

18:17

silent. Because as

18:19

Lisa Murkowski admitted last

18:21

week, speaking out

18:23

comes with a threat of

18:25

retaliation. And that is

18:27

something that many Republicans are very,

18:29

very nervous about. All right, I'm going

18:32

to sneak in a break. When

18:34

we come back, my conversation with Ben

18:36

Whittis says we try to

18:38

understand exactly if there is

18:40

any actual legal strategy behind

18:42

what the executive branch is

18:45

up to or if this

18:47

is all lawsuits that are

18:49

designed for maximum political advantage

18:51

and

18:53

or

18:56

and joining

19:00

me now is the editor in chief

19:02

of law fair which is a

19:04

publication that's devoted to legal

19:07

issues having to do with national

19:09

security but these days the definition at

19:11

least what the White House uses

19:13

for national security keeps broadening which means

19:15

in many ways I'm going to

19:17

be counting on Ben Wittes here to

19:19

be our our tour guide in

19:21

understanding frankly all of the legal

19:23

fights that the Trump administration

19:25

has decided to take on whether

19:27

it's we'll concentrate for first

19:29

and foremost on the on the

19:31

immigration case But

19:34

I'm hoping to tap into Ben's

19:36

nimble legal mind on all

19:38

sorts of things, including what's going

19:40

on with Harvard and thus far. Ben,

19:42

what is good to see you, sir. Great to see you.

19:45

It's been a while. It has been a

19:47

while. Back when both you

19:49

and I took financial rewards

19:51

from NBC. It

19:53

might be one way to put it. But

19:56

one thing you can't

19:59

be upset about. is that

20:01

Donald Trump is giving

20:03

lawfare plenty of material. I

20:06

mean, I guess he's

20:08

made people paying attention

20:10

to the law great again.

20:12

Not to mention that he

20:14

keeps using our name. You

20:16

know, when we named the site

20:18

Lawfare, which was

20:20

back in 2010, this

20:24

was a very specialized

20:26

term. And now Donald

20:28

Trump tweets about lawfare.

20:31

He, you know, he completely... He's

20:33

decided the word means engaging in

20:35

against him. Yes. Is that what it

20:37

is? Yeah. Yeah, it's litigation against him

20:39

or it's any litigation he doesn't like

20:41

is lawfare. And so he keeps, you

20:44

know, it's like somebody tweets out

20:46

Ben Wittes all the time. And it's

20:48

it makes me feel all warm and

20:50

fuzzy. Well, congratulations. That's

20:52

nice. Thank you. That's nice. We look

20:54

at the bright side. You have to. So

20:56

I was preparing for this and I

20:58

was looking at, you know,

21:00

this handy dandy list of rules

21:02

that I thought we all abided by.

21:04

It was called the Bill of Rights, the Constitution,

21:06

this crazy thing. And I

21:09

have him violating the first, the fourth, the

21:11

fifth, the sixth, the seventh, the eighth

21:13

and the ninth amendments. I

21:15

can't find evidence as he violated the

21:17

second and third and we'll see on

21:19

the state front right Yeah, what about the tenth? Well,

21:22

that's what I mean. I don't

21:24

have an easy case to say

21:26

he's violated the 10th yet, although

21:28

I think what he's doing with

21:30

the Department of Education arguably might

21:32

be doing that. But well, that

21:34

might be a stretch. But when

21:36

you just look at this one case, am

21:40

I crazy to say

21:42

that in some ways the Trump

21:44

Justice Department and what the immigrate?

21:47

I mean, we may say a

21:49

violation of the 4th, 5th, 6th,

21:51

7th, 8th and 9th. I mean,

21:53

these are the amendments that are

21:55

there to essentially put

22:00

some boundaries on what the state can

22:03

do to somebody that they think might be

22:05

a criminal. You

22:08

would think that if the

22:11

notion of human liberty

22:13

and rule in a society

22:15

of ordered freedom had

22:17

any meaning at all, it

22:19

would be that when

22:21

you have been, you

22:24

know, you're living here, your

22:27

deportation case

22:29

has been adjudicated

22:31

six years

22:34

ago, and the...

22:36

courts have said you can't be

22:38

deported to El Salvador. You

22:41

would think that if the

22:43

notion had any meaning at

22:45

all, it would mean that

22:47

the government can't arrest you

22:49

apropos of nothing with no

22:51

criminal allegation that you

22:53

did anything wrong, stick you

22:55

on a plane and

22:57

send you to a kind

23:00

of supermax prison in

23:02

the one country that

23:04

they are not allowed to

23:06

deport you to without

23:08

anybody, without a judge ever

23:10

hearing about it. And your

23:12

wife only finds out about

23:14

it because the head of

23:16

DHS goes and poses in

23:18

front of your jail cell

23:20

for a picture. You would

23:22

think that that's what it

23:24

would mean, but apparently not.

23:28

So it

23:30

is Let's

23:33

talk about the Supreme Court ruling here and

23:36

the word they chose to use. The

23:40

administration does not believe the

23:42

Supreme Court has ordered them to

23:44

have him returned. They

23:47

believe that the Supreme Court simply

23:49

says, said, and this is I'm

23:51

sort of interpreting based on what

23:53

you wrote, you seem to think

23:55

that their interpretation is if El

23:57

Salvador chooses to send him back,

24:00

the United States has to

24:02

accept him. Correct. That is

24:04

their interpretation. So the word

24:06

that the district judge used

24:08

was facilitate. And

24:10

the genuine complexity here is,

24:13

let's say... And how do you

24:15

interpret the Supreme Court order?

24:17

Well, so the Supreme Court says,

24:19

the district court said, facilitate

24:21

and effectuate. And the Supreme Court

24:24

says... careful with the word

24:26

effectuate because that implies

24:28

that the court can order

24:30

the government of El

24:32

Salvador around. It implies

24:34

that the court can order the

24:36

outcome of a U .S. foreign

24:38

policy thing and the president

24:40

kind of runs foreign policy. So

24:42

be careful with the word

24:45

effectuate, but you're certainly

24:47

within your rights district

24:49

court to order that

24:51

the government facilitate his return.

24:53

So the district court turns

24:55

around and says, okay, you

24:58

have to facilitate his return. And

25:00

the government interprets the

25:02

word facilitate as

25:05

in exactly as you said,

25:07

that if the government

25:09

of El Salvador wanted

25:11

to send him back. We

25:13

wouldn't erect domestic obstacles

25:15

to that. And Christie Noem

25:17

actually, or Pam Bondi even said,

25:19

we would send a plane. That

25:24

is not, if you

25:26

read the Supreme Court's ruling, I

25:28

think, what the Supreme Court

25:30

had in mind, which is they

25:32

were saying, basically, We

25:34

want to be careful of ordering

25:36

around a sovereign foreign government and

25:38

ordering the mechanics of the way

25:41

the president interacts with that government.

25:43

But the government clearly screwed up

25:45

here, and it's totally reasonable for

25:47

the court to try to get

25:49

it to correct its error. So

25:53

do you

25:56

believe the Supreme Court watered their

25:58

order down? No,

26:00

I think this is very much the

26:02

order I would have expected from this

26:04

Supreme Court, which is let me let me

26:06

stop this Supreme Court. Would you

26:08

that's what I mean? Like this is

26:10

what you expected from this version

26:12

of the Roberts Court, not

26:15

what you would have expected from a

26:17

generic Supreme Court on this issue. So

26:19

to be fair, I think there is

26:21

the Supreme Court. The conservative

26:23

justices here do

26:25

have a. quite

26:28

legitimate, in my view, care about

26:30

interfering in the way the president

26:33

conducts foreign policy. And I don't

26:35

ever fairness, for the most part,

26:37

this court's been consistent on that

26:39

stuff. Yeah, yeah. They're very light

26:41

on the executive branch in general.

26:43

Correct. And particularly in foreign policy

26:45

and national security matters. So I

26:48

don't have a problem with that,

26:50

actually. And I think if John

26:52

Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett want

26:54

to say, you

26:57

know, the district court is wholly

26:59

within its right to demand a

27:01

remedy here. It's got to be

27:03

a little bit careful about how

27:05

it does that. That doesn't bother

27:07

me a bit, actually. And

27:09

it cheered me, in fact,

27:11

that nine justices of the

27:13

Supreme Court agreed on the

27:16

premise, which is, A, this

27:18

is not okay for this to have

27:20

happened, and B, that the district court

27:22

has Some real

27:24

latitude to require

27:26

a remedy now

27:28

We're because the

27:31

district judge whose name

27:33

is Paula senus

27:35

has been pretty aggressive

27:37

about doing that the

27:39

Justice Department is now appealing

27:41

the matter again, and you'll

27:43

see We'll see this time

27:46

around whether the Supreme Court

27:48

means something as narrow as

27:50

what the government interprets it

27:52

as having said. And I

27:54

don't believe that will happen

27:56

or whether it's going to

27:58

give her some latitude to say,

28:00

hey, when I said facilitate

28:02

his return, I mean, you kind of

28:04

do some stuff to get him

28:06

back. So let's come up

28:09

with some things that might fulfill

28:11

facilitate. Does that mean

28:13

the ambassador? formally

28:15

petitions the Salvadorian government

28:17

is that, I

28:19

mean, what do you think

28:21

will generally fall under that

28:24

umbrella? What actions? So

28:26

I think the first thing is

28:29

something, right? So

28:31

what's happened so far

28:33

is nothing. except that

28:35

the president met with the Salvadoran

28:37

president in the White House and

28:39

the two of them made fun

28:41

of the court's order. Right. So

28:43

that's what's happened so far. So

28:45

I think if you were going

28:47

to satisfy the Supreme Court that

28:49

you were facilitating, you would probably

28:51

have to do more than zero

28:53

and then mock the court.

28:55

And by the way, bald -facedly lie

28:57

about what the Supreme

29:00

Court did. So.

29:03

Look, if you were dealing

29:05

with a normal administration, what

29:07

you would expect would

29:09

be for a

29:11

official to either come into

29:13

court or file a declaration

29:15

that listed all the steps that

29:18

they had taken and said,

29:20

I mean, you've read 100 of

29:22

these executive branch declarations. Here

29:24

are the steps we've taken to

29:26

comply with the court's order. Here

29:28

is the results that we've gotten.

29:31

We're planning to do the following

29:33

things. And this is what the

29:35

judge has asked for. And I

29:37

think if you did all those

29:39

things, first of all, if

29:41

the president asked President

29:43

Bukele to send him

29:46

back, they would. The

29:48

Salvadorans don't have a

29:50

particular interest in detaining this

29:53

guy. But the hard

29:55

place would be you know,

29:57

if you did all those things,

29:59

you went through that pro

30:01

forma exercise, but

30:03

then you also had a wink and

30:05

a nod understanding with Bukele that

30:07

he would say no. And that would

30:09

put the court in a very

30:11

difficult position because all of its formal

30:13

boxes would be checked and yet

30:15

the guy, but

30:18

short of

30:20

articulating something that you've

30:22

done. I don't think you

30:25

can actually go back to the district

30:27

court and claim to be in compliance

30:29

with the order and expect the Supreme

30:31

Court to accept that. And

30:33

now she's asking for daily update.

30:35

And the updates are no, we

30:37

have no updates from yesterday. The

30:40

updates are we, the first day,

30:42

first update is he's alive and

30:44

in this Salvadoran Supermax and the

30:46

subsequent updates are we have nothing

30:48

further for you. You

30:51

know. I look at this case,

30:53

and I look at the AP case, just

30:55

those two specifically. And

30:58

you and I both know that

31:00

if

31:03

the White House wanted to pretend it

31:05

was following the law, they could. I

31:07

am just shocked that

31:09

they're choosing to brazenly, essentially,

31:12

not even try, not

31:14

even fake it, like

31:16

with AP. They used

31:18

an unconstitutional rationale to bar

31:20

them. Like it was blatantly

31:22

obvious, which is why it

31:25

was easy court case to

31:27

win. Now they're, you know,

31:29

they, the irony is how

31:31

they've responded since is actually

31:33

why they, they could have done that the first

31:35

time and never had an

31:37

AP doesn't have a leg to

31:39

stand on. They seem to almost

31:41

want the confrontation with these judges.

31:43

Like they're almost going out of

31:46

their way to say, I

31:48

don't care. And

31:50

it, you know, to me, you

31:52

just sit there and I'm like, I don't

31:54

know why you'd accumulate more political. You're just

31:56

daring more members of the judiciary to say, you

31:58

know what, these guys aren't even pretending to

32:00

respect what we do. So

32:02

I, you know, I'm not asking you to

32:05

figure that out. I mean, I that, you

32:07

know, I think, you know, but the problem

32:09

is worse than you say. Yeah. OK, ahead.

32:11

Because they're also doing the same things with

32:13

the law firms. And

32:15

so the the law firm. Issue

32:18

is and there they're

32:20

extorting, you know hundreds

32:23

of millions of dollars in legal

32:25

work from from these firms

32:27

so this another Justice Department could

32:29

actually charge extortion here if

32:31

they chose to might

32:33

think about it But

32:36

the you know if we're

32:38

gonna commit if we're gonna

32:40

commit lawfare and like the

32:42

AP these court the

32:44

the the firms that

32:46

have gone into court have

32:48

won in a matter of hours.

32:51

No firm has gone into

32:53

court and challenged one

32:55

of these executive orders and

32:57

not gotten a temporary

32:59

restraining order in a matter

33:01

of hours. The Justice

33:03

Department has not appealed to

33:05

these, meaning that they

33:07

actually know they can't win.

33:10

And yet law firms

33:12

keep capitulating

33:14

and making

33:16

these extravagant promises to the

33:18

executive branch. And why are

33:21

they capitulating? For exactly the

33:23

reason that you just described,

33:25

which is that the president

33:27

can screw them and there's

33:29

nothing they can do about it,

33:31

just like he's doing to

33:33

the AP now. You can freeze

33:36

them out with a link. And

33:38

if you're one of the firms

33:40

that challenges this. Right. You

33:43

know, good luck getting a meeting

33:45

on behalf of your client with

33:47

the senior levels of the

33:49

Justice Department say before an

33:51

indictment. This is my

33:53

frustration that, one, the law firms haven't banded

33:55

together. Two, that the press, the

33:58

traditional press, I mean, you know, I

34:00

just, I'm absolutely

34:03

appalled by the folks that are running

34:05

traditional media companies not standing by

34:07

AP because they're about the only, the

34:10

only. option you

34:12

have is collective action to at

34:14

least make a point. I'm

34:17

not saying it might not work,

34:19

but if you can't stand up for

34:21

your basic constitutional rights, the

34:23

First Amendment, if you're a member of the press, frankly,

34:26

the fourth amendment, if you're a law firm, you know, or,

34:28

you know, just just, the, then

34:31

what are you in this, what are you even doing here? I

34:33

mean, that's my, I just, I'm

34:35

so angry about the press aspect of

34:37

this because, I was

34:39

one of the people who stood up, who

34:42

we stood up to Obama and said, you can't do that to Fox.

34:45

And we refused to participate in

34:47

their pool unless they included Fox. And

34:50

the inability of collective action,

34:52

because we know what's happening.

34:54

The media executives who are

34:57

not journalists have chosen to

34:59

abide by their bosses

35:01

who have said, please don't pick a

35:03

fight right now. And

35:05

I understand. that from

35:08

a fiduciary standpoint, right,

35:10

from a business standpoint. But

35:13

this is the slippery slope, and we're now

35:15

watching it in real time. Yeah,

35:18

I mean, and you can

35:20

say with respect to the press, the

35:23

press is in a

35:25

relatively weak position. Very weak.

35:28

100%. administration. That's

35:30

right. Law firms are not. you

35:32

know, law But why are they

35:34

behaving as if they are?

35:36

Because they are wooses. And,

35:39

you know, because hundreds of millions

35:41

of dollars in law firm revenue

35:44

is on the line. And

35:46

it is one

35:48

thing when you are

35:50

playing with other people's money

35:52

to take risks. But,

35:54

you know, law firms are organized

35:56

as partnerships. And that means

35:58

that every dollar that the law

36:00

firm of... x, y, and

36:02

z doesn't bring in

36:04

is 33 cents from x,

36:06

33 cents from y,

36:08

and 33 cents from z.

36:11

And so they are really looking at

36:13

their own pockets here. And

36:16

the only

36:18

thing to do about

36:20

it is to shame them. But

36:25

they're a

36:27

much stronger position than

36:29

the... journalists who

36:31

represent actually an

36:33

industry in a

36:35

somewhat precarious position.

36:38

A lot of them are not healthy

36:40

organizations. These

36:43

are, you know, the

36:45

powerful acting like the

36:47

weakest of the weak. Arguably,

36:51

I guess Harvard decided they were going

36:53

to fight. Do you think that, and

36:57

it was interesting to me the day after Harvard essentially

36:59

said no. Columbia said,

37:01

oh yeah, no. They were like,

37:03

oh yeah, we're right behind you,

37:06

Harvard, you know. On

37:08

that front, do you

37:11

expect Harvard's decision to

37:13

have any effects on these law

37:15

firms? No, I

37:17

think the law firms

37:19

are making different calculations than

37:22

the universities. Look, I

37:24

think it's great that Harvard did what it did. I

37:27

think they're going to pay a price for it.

37:29

They will. And I think they're just

37:31

banking that it's a two or three year

37:33

price. Yeah, two or three year price and one

37:35

that they're going to have to litigate over because they're

37:37

to know because they're going to have to litigate over. going

37:39

to win the suit, but it's going to cost them

37:41

a lot of money. I mean, it doesn't seem like I

37:43

don't know how they lose here. But well,

37:45

but they lose again. There is

37:48

that similarity. They lose even if

37:50

they win. No, I hear Because

37:52

if you're, you know, the government

37:54

is going to. really tighten the

37:56

screws on all kinds of federal

37:58

grants, research grants to universities. They're

38:01

going to dry up entirely in

38:03

certain areas. And you're going

38:05

to find that, you know, Liberty

38:07

University is a very attractive location

38:09

to do all kinds of research

38:11

that you would have once done

38:13

at Harvard, right? That brings

38:15

me back, though, to my other question.

38:17

It's funny you brought up Liberty like that

38:20

because I thought the same thing, you

38:22

know, He's going out

38:24

of his way he and Stephen Miller and

38:26

Stephen Miller is obviously the guy seems to

38:28

be executing all of this because I think

38:30

we all know Donald Trump's too lazy to actually

38:32

do some of the work that it would

38:34

take to And Miller didn't get into Harvard, right?

38:37

There you go. I don't know that to be

38:39

true. I I either He's a smart guy.

38:41

I mean, I wouldn't you know, I wouldn't want

38:43

I wouldn't want to know he was working

38:45

on a case against me, right? Like he's he

38:47

is willing to push the

38:49

envelope. He's willing to, you know,

38:51

he's willing to do things that

38:53

most ethical people wouldn't do. He's

38:55

willing to cross certain ethical

38:57

lines. But

39:00

why

39:03

not just simply reward friendly

39:05

universities? And, you

39:07

know, they keep, they're going out of

39:09

their way to force these fights,

39:11

which I guess they just see it

39:13

as political distractions that

39:16

feed the base something

39:18

to eat while they

39:20

destroy the global economy and hope that they're

39:22

not paying attention. I don't think it's

39:24

just that. All right. So

39:26

remember when he's coming

39:28

in and we are all

39:30

worried about them

39:32

going after their political

39:34

enemies using the

39:36

FBI, using the Justice

39:38

Department to attack

39:40

his political enemies. And

39:43

There actually hasn't been very much

39:45

of that in

39:47

the criminal arena. I was just going to

39:49

say, Chris Krebs might have. I

39:52

didn't. I didn't say had there's been none.

39:54

I said there hasn't been a lot. Right.

39:56

Most of what's happened on

39:59

the criminal side has been

40:01

all about creating impunity

40:03

for friends. So

40:05

this started with the

40:07

January 6th. And

40:10

then it proceeds to things

40:12

like Eric Adams and shutting

40:15

down the entire sort of

40:17

public integrity apparatus of the

40:19

Justice Department, firing a whole

40:21

lot of prosecutors who worked

40:23

on January cases.

40:26

It's all about creating

40:28

the impression that if

40:30

you're on Trump's side, he

40:33

will protect you. But then

40:35

you have this problem on the

40:37

criminal side. on using it for

40:39

offensive purposes, which is okay, you

40:41

can say we're going to have

40:43

an investigation of Chris Krebs, but

40:45

you can't actually indict Chris Krebs

40:47

because you don't have shit, right?

40:50

And so what do you do

40:52

to go after your political

40:54

enemies to make them hurt

40:56

if you can't really sick

40:58

the FBI on them? And

41:00

the answer is that's where

41:02

all these civil remedies, civil

41:04

attacks come from. You can

41:06

go after Democratic law

41:09

firms. You can go and ruin

41:11

their businesses. You can

41:13

actually put Chris Krebs out of

41:15

business. He's a cybersecurity consultant. He

41:17

just had to resign from his job. You

41:19

can really make universities

41:21

hurt. Universities employ some

41:23

conservatives, but really they're a power

41:25

base of the left. and you

41:27

can go after the press, but

41:30

not after the press who were

41:32

sympathetic. And so I

41:34

think the way to understand

41:36

these attacks is these are the

41:38

things that he would, the people

41:40

he does want to put in

41:42

jail, but that's hard. And

41:44

so this is the repressive

41:46

apparatus that's actually available to

41:48

him. So you just view

41:50

this as because he can't. put

41:53

the Bidens in jail or get

41:55

them harassed or all of that

41:57

business. This stuff is so much

41:59

easier. can so mess around with government

42:02

contract. And yet, here's

42:05

been an assumption that I've

42:07

made about Doge in general,

42:09

but AID specifically. And

42:11

frankly, even many of these many

42:15

of these weaponizations that the Trump administration

42:17

has done on various things, is

42:19

that the government is eventually going

42:21

to lose all these cases. And

42:24

in some cases, they're going to

42:26

lose and have to pay damages. I

42:29

mean, I assume there's small

42:31

businesses are going to essentially have

42:33

breach of contracts with the federal government, and

42:35

they're going to be able to prove that

42:38

what was done was illegal. They're

42:40

owed restitution and et

42:42

cetera. But

42:44

all of this is gonna take

42:47

years, but I assume that the

42:49

government ends up paying more money

42:51

in damages over the next decade

42:53

for the day for the last

42:55

90 days Then they have and

42:57

money saved by Doge. Oh,

43:00

it'll be by a

43:02

lot. Um, so, you know

43:04

what they're arguing in court

43:06

in these cases in

43:08

which they've fired people, for

43:10

example, is that all

43:12

of these cases belong, have

43:14

to go through the Merit

43:16

Systems Protection Board, right? And

43:19

that doesn't mean

43:21

that they win. That

43:24

means that they can't be stopped now. Now,

43:26

if you go through the Merit Systems Protection Board

43:29

and then you file suit later, well,

43:32

you know, you're gonna get,

43:34

you're gonna win because they

43:36

actually just aren't allowed to fire civil

43:38

servants like that. And so you're

43:40

gonna get back pay, you're

43:42

gonna get reinstated, but you'll all have

43:44

already had another job. So you're gonna

43:46

be reinstated and then they'll owe you

43:48

all the pay that you should have done.

43:51

And by the way, you won't have

43:53

to have done the work. So

43:55

they're not merely gonna lose

43:58

and have to pay a lot of

44:00

restitution. By the way, this is true for

44:02

a bunch of contractors too. I assume the

44:04

contractors and it's going to be, again, I

44:06

think there's going to be small businesses. Some

44:09

of these contractors are small businesses that

44:11

facilitate some of these AID contracts. Correct. And

44:13

the business really is 90 % of the

44:15

business is the federal contract. So

44:18

the cancellation banks up the

44:20

company. And then are damages.

44:23

100%. You get all

44:25

of the back stuff. You

44:27

get damages. And by the

44:29

way, the government doesn't get

44:31

the work done. And so if

44:33

you do the accounting for

44:35

it later, it's going to be

44:37

hugely expensive and I figured. But

44:40

what you won't have had

44:42

is any moment where a court says,

44:44

no, you can't do that. And

44:46

so they get to say all along

44:48

the way, we're saving the. Taxpayer

44:50

X amount of money we're cutting and

44:52

by the way when they lose it'll be the

44:55

fault of some

44:57

judge Right those

44:59

pesky judges

45:01

those pesky

45:03

judges Speaking of

45:05

those pesky judges

45:07

It's pretty clear to me that John

45:09

Roberts is petrified that Donald Trump's gonna ignore

45:11

an order he should be so

45:14

he's desperate to

45:16

find ways

45:18

to create

45:21

rulings that give

45:23

him something, but not everything. Am

45:27

I being a little cynical about this? Yeah,

45:29

you're being cynical, but the

45:31

cynicism isn't, first of all, courts

45:34

behave that way a lot,

45:36

right? They look for ways

45:38

to avoid confrontations, to make it

45:40

possible for litigants to comply. And

45:44

when you're dealing when your

45:46

litigant is the most powerful entity

45:48

in the world and you

45:50

have no independent ability to enforce

45:52

your judgments Being careful with

45:54

what you order is not the

45:56

worst thing in the world

45:58

now. I don't want to countenance

46:00

being Cowardly but being but

46:02

he's not wrong to want

46:04

to be careful here

46:06

Trump unfortunately for him and

46:08

for the other justices

46:10

who feel this way which

46:12

certainly include Brett Kavanaugh

46:14

and Amy Coney Barrett. Unfortunately

46:17

for them, Trump isn't giving

46:19

them the space. Like he's

46:21

not saying, you

46:24

know, so he in

46:26

the Oval Office just lied

46:28

about the Supreme Court's

46:30

decision in Abrego Garcia. And,

46:33

you know, the justices

46:35

aren't morons. They hear this,

46:37

right? And so they

46:40

they see. We gave

46:42

you a face saving out. We

46:44

didn't say a word in

46:46

criticism of you. We didn't use

46:48

words like illegal or, you

46:50

know, authoritarian or terrifying. We

46:52

didn't do any of that.

46:54

And you turned around and described

46:56

a nine to zero Supreme

46:59

Court opinion that said, we're not

47:01

even ordering you to get

47:03

this guy back, but just facilitate

47:05

it and you spat in

47:07

our faces. This is

47:09

going back up to them.

47:11

And so he is

47:13

sort of systematically taking away

47:15

from Roberts and others

47:17

the ability to not have

47:19

a confrontation. Now,

47:21

that does two things. One

47:24

is it takes away

47:26

the face -saving solution from

47:28

the justices. It also takes

47:30

away the face -saving solution

47:32

from Trump. And

47:35

once you force that

47:37

confrontation, Eventually, the

47:39

Supreme Court has to

47:41

say, okay, the district

47:43

court ordered you to

47:45

facilitate. That's what we said

47:47

she could do. We

47:51

affirm. And

47:53

that's gonna be a bad

47:55

moment. And not just a bad

47:57

moment for the court, but

47:59

a bad moment for Trump, because

48:01

it's one thing to defy

48:03

a district court order, which he's

48:05

now really done twice. It's

48:08

another thing to defy

48:10

a unanimous Supreme Court

48:12

opinion, say written by

48:14

Clarence Thomas or Sam

48:16

Alito. And

48:19

I don't know how

48:21

he responds to that

48:23

moment. And I honestly

48:25

don't know either how

48:27

members of Congress respond

48:30

to a moment in

48:32

which the Supreme Court

48:34

has unambiguously said. You

48:36

know, a district court has ordered you

48:38

to do X and we affirm. And

48:41

he turns around and says the

48:43

Supreme Court can, you know, put

48:45

it where the moon don't shine.

48:48

Well, you know, it's interesting here. You're

48:51

right. And he's putting so much

48:53

stress on his own party right now.

48:55

The tariffs are putting stress on

48:57

the farm state senators who are just

48:59

uncomfortable with it in a lot

49:01

of the free market to your guys

49:03

who are just like, I knew

49:06

he was for this, but I always

49:08

believed he wasn't that serious. And

49:10

now they're freaking out. Now there's this

49:12

idea of raising taxes on millionaires,

49:14

which is like freaking out the Grover

49:16

Norquist crowd and they're desperately trying.

49:18

I saw Steve, and it's sort of

49:21

amusing to me to watch these

49:23

MAGA converts be shocked when... You know,

49:25

they start behaving unpredictably and a

49:27

little more responsive to what they believe

49:29

their populist base won't just accept,

49:31

but actually wants here. But

49:34

going back on the court, do

49:37

you think this

49:39

is oddly bringing

49:41

the justices together

49:43

a little bit? Just

49:45

even because it's pretty clear that there's a

49:47

lot of discomfort, right? You know, you're Sonny

49:49

Sotomayor and you're Sam Alito, I'm guessing. maybe

49:52

they say hi in the halls, you

49:54

know, if there's other people watching, but

49:56

I don't know if they do if

49:58

nobody's watching, right? I'm saying that,

50:00

you know, it's so hard to

50:02

read the tealies with these nine folks.

50:06

But I, you know, in a normal

50:08

environment, right, when you've had, these

50:11

are the type of

50:13

things that could actually bring

50:15

an institution together. Do

50:17

you have any sense of that?

50:19

I know you have some insight

50:21

sometimes with clerks and all that.

50:23

do you think? Look, I mean,

50:26

I think from the opinions themselves,

50:28

you can tell that they have

50:30

been brought together on certain matters

50:32

and that they're very divided on

50:34

closely related matters. So if you

50:36

look at the two Venezuela cases

50:38

or the two, sorry, El Salvador

50:40

cases in the first one, they

50:43

all agree that

50:46

You can't just declare someone an

50:48

alien enemy put them on a

50:50

plane and fly them out of

50:52

that you have to make your

50:54

case you have to do process

50:56

again All those all the most

50:58

of the Bill of Rights is

51:00

about moments like this exactly and

51:02

they all that's unanimous and they

51:04

dispense with that in the first

51:06

couple of sentences and then they

51:08

go on to have a very

51:10

bitter division about whether you can whether

51:13

this very technical question of

51:15

whether that due process has

51:18

to occur through the habeas

51:20

process or whether it can

51:22

occur through a different process

51:24

and therefore whether this judge

51:26

had jurisdiction over this case

51:29

properly or not. You

51:31

know, on the one hand, they're

51:33

all together on the biggest question

51:36

there, right? Which is, is this

51:38

lawful to do? There's no daylight

51:40

on that between Sonia Sotomayor and

51:42

Clarence Thomas. But so they're

51:44

all brought together and they deal with that in

51:46

a sentence and a half. And then they

51:48

have a real fight about the other thing. Just

51:51

over jurisdiction. But it almost feels like

51:53

it's like they're all looking around here. All

51:55

right. We got to have some escape

51:57

hatch here so we don't rule fully against

51:59

Trump. Well, that's what it feels like.

52:02

And then they do it again two days

52:04

later or three days later, right, where

52:06

with Abrego Garcia, all nine of them look

52:08

at it and say, yeah,

52:10

I'm sorry, you can't do

52:12

that. And then six of

52:14

them are like, but be

52:16

careful, district judge, with that

52:18

word effectuate. We're comfortable with

52:20

facilitate, but be careful with

52:22

effectuate. And three of them

52:24

are screaming. Yes. You

52:27

know, come on. You're going to fight

52:29

about, you know, somebody's been. What did you

52:31

make of them putting out essentially a

52:33

press release? Look,

52:35

I thought that.

52:38

Honestly, that was this is the division

52:41

that I want to see the

52:43

Supreme Court have. If

52:45

if you had told me if

52:47

you had described to me in

52:49

the abstract the facts of this

52:51

case and said based on, you

52:53

know, don't. Just don't don't don't

52:55

be cynical about it. Don't read

52:57

tea leaves. Don't do anything just

52:59

based on people's stated judicial philosophies.

53:02

How would you expect them to

53:04

handle it? I would say, wow,

53:06

you know, the liberals on the

53:08

court would be full throated behind

53:10

the district court and the conservatives

53:12

would get a little bit uncomfortable

53:14

when you start using words like

53:16

effectuate. But that's what and

53:18

that's exactly what happened. So this

53:20

felt to me like like. if

53:23

there were no politics, if

53:25

there were no, how a court

53:27

that actually had these ideological

53:29

divisions and these philosophical divisions in

53:31

a platonic ideal, what a

53:34

disposition of this case would look

53:36

like. And so I found

53:38

it very cheering actually, and that

53:40

they divided exactly that way

53:42

on that issue. Because it's like,

53:45

you look at people who, have

53:48

certain stated judicial philosophies and

53:50

they believe in certain things and

53:53

then you get disappointed when

53:55

they don't behave the way they

53:57

say they believe. And

53:59

this one was one where like

54:01

you really could have predicted it based

54:03

on who they purport to be

54:05

and I thought they were all

54:07

being their real selves. And so I

54:10

liked it actually. But

54:12

the point is the

54:15

dispute was pretty bitter. And

54:17

even though they all agree. But

54:19

over a technicality. Over.

54:21

Right. It's like having a knockdown drag

54:23

out fight over a semicolon. And

54:25

so I do think in some big

54:27

sense, they're being brought together in

54:29

these two cases on the biggest issues.

54:32

They're nine to nothing. And

54:34

yet they are really angry

54:36

at each other. And

54:38

they really, they treat

54:40

every one of these

54:42

cases as though, you

54:45

know, Like

54:47

the fate of a lot of

54:49

things depends on it and that's not

54:51

bad a fate of a lot

54:53

of things does depend on it So

54:55

yeah, I can't help but assume

54:58

that the three liberals are Reacting to

55:00

probably private conversations they've had with

55:02

the other with many members of the

55:04

other six who all probably privately

55:06

express alarm and And all that stuff

55:08

and then like come on can't

55:10

you say it publicly like that's how

55:13

I kind of read it So

55:15

I don't disagree with that and I

55:17

also think that, you know, being being

55:20

a member of a

55:22

permanent Supreme Court minority is

55:24

a very hard thing. It's

55:27

not like being a member of

55:29

the minority in the House of Representatives

55:31

where there's always two years from

55:33

now, right? You have your

55:35

eye on the next midterms. And

55:37

by the way, you can feel

55:39

it when things are going your

55:42

way because fundraising picks up. There's

55:44

always, you know, For

55:46

those three to become

55:48

the majority requires people to

55:50

die. It requires the

55:52

right person to be the president

55:54

when those people die. These

55:57

are very long way of things.

55:59

And until then, on the issues that

56:01

they care most about, they're

56:03

going to lose almost

56:05

every time. And that is

56:07

a hard life. Two

56:10

other cases I want to ask

56:12

you about. One is California's the

56:14

state of California's lawsuit against the

56:16

administration on tariffs. I

56:20

assume the administration is going to

56:23

say that a state can't get

56:25

involved in national security issues, right? In

56:27

the same way that when Texas

56:29

was trying to get involved with immigration

56:31

issue, you can't make immigration policy. I

56:35

assume the federal government is going to

56:37

say, hey, a state can't decide trade

56:39

policy. though

56:42

they can make their own sometimes

56:44

agreements, sometimes has to do with state

56:46

taxes and things like that. But

56:48

what's your sense of that lawsuit and

56:50

what and whether it's going to

56:52

go anywhere? So I, first

56:54

of all, I'm not an expert on tariffs. I

56:57

do have the impression

56:59

that the administrations to

57:01

the extent that the

57:03

administration is making tariff

57:05

policy under the

57:07

statute known as IEPA,

57:10

which is the International

57:12

Economic Emergencies. Right. It's

57:14

an international emergency, which I assume

57:16

becomes national security. Exactly. So

57:18

to the extent that they're making

57:20

tariff policy based on IEPA,

57:22

I think that there may be

57:24

serious legal defects with the

57:26

tariff policy. Whether California is in

57:28

a position to successfully challenge

57:30

it, I'm not sure. Honestly,

57:32

I suspect the better plaintiffs will

57:34

be private plaintiffs that are affected

57:36

by the tariffs and don't want

57:38

to follow. And what are those?

57:41

What are those lawsuits against the

57:43

tariffs themselves? Or do they become

57:45

essentially the same type of lawsuits

57:47

we were describing with I with

57:49

AID contractors? No, no, no, I

57:51

think your tariff policy bankrupted me.

57:54

Yeah, no, no, I think not.

57:56

I think the I think these

57:58

would be prospective. You

58:00

have. no authority to issue

58:02

these tariffs. And

58:04

I believe that a -

58:06

You're over -reading your power

58:08

in the emergency acts. Exactly.

58:10

And you can't declare

58:12

a worldwide emergency that covers

58:14

all trade under IEPA.

58:16

And by the way, even

58:18

if you could, tariffs

58:20

are not one of the

58:22

authorities that IEPA conveys.

58:24

However, the discovery of

58:27

life on another planet Now he could

58:29

worry, that's an emergency for the

58:31

entire globe, right? Sorry, I'm just. I

58:33

would think so. Right, this could

58:35

be. You know, and so I

58:37

think that there's a, there's, I

58:39

think that there are some

58:41

substantial arguments that the tariffs are

58:44

an overreach of his power.

58:46

I'm not sure whether California is

58:48

in the best position to

58:50

litigate that, but I wouldn't. You

58:52

know, they have some, they

58:54

have a serious attorney general's office

58:56

that has a lot of

58:58

capacity there. So I wouldn't rule

59:00

it out either. The

59:02

other one I have for you is about Chris

59:04

Krebs and I, and it's about a lawsuit. I don't

59:06

think he's filed, but I wonder if he could. And

59:09

that is, and I know

59:11

that there are some protections that when

59:13

a sitting president, when you're a sitting

59:15

president, you basically can't be

59:17

sued in civil court, right?

59:20

Or when you're a past

59:23

president, you can't be sued. Does

59:25

that mean he can defame

59:27

anybody he wants? Yes. That he

59:29

has blanket authority to defame

59:31

people? As long as this is

59:33

blatant defamation of character. Yes,

59:35

blatant defamation. As long as he

59:38

does it as an official

59:40

act of the presidency rather than

59:42

outside in his personal capacity.

59:44

I mean, this is an executive

59:46

order. This is clearly. Fox

59:48

had to pay. nearly a

59:50

billion dollars. Essentially,

59:52

it was a settlement, so I

59:54

guess their technically wasn't an adjudication

59:56

of defamation. But

59:59

essentially, that's what they're paying.

1:00:04

If Fox could have somehow declared

1:00:06

themselves a public official to

1:00:08

get out of this. No,

1:00:10

it's not public official. It's it's

1:00:12

the president. So the the

1:00:14

relevant case is a case

1:00:16

called Nixon v Fitzgerald. Yeah. And

1:00:19

it held that the president

1:00:21

is absolutely immune for civil

1:00:23

liability for all matters within the

1:00:25

four for all official acts

1:00:27

within the four corners of

1:00:29

the outer reaches of his presidential

1:00:31

authority. It's a sweeping opinion

1:00:33

from from 1980 or 79. I

1:00:36

mean, because I mean, he is

1:00:39

the blatant defamation on an individual's. I

1:00:41

mean, it is, it is shocking.

1:00:43

I mean, well, then

1:00:45

why did Nijing Carols? Why did

1:00:47

she succeed? She succeeded because

1:00:50

it happened before he was president.

1:00:52

Correct. So it

1:00:54

happened. He

1:00:57

repeated the defamation during the

1:00:59

period in which he was

1:01:01

not president. But he also

1:01:03

did it while he was president. Correct.

1:01:05

But in the interregnum, he did

1:01:08

it again. Well, he

1:01:10

also defamed Chris Krebs in

1:01:12

between his presidents. So he's not

1:01:14

immune from that. Chris

1:01:17

could sue him for that.

1:01:20

Look, this is

1:01:23

one of the most egregious

1:01:25

abuses of his... term so

1:01:27

far, both with respect to

1:01:29

Chris Krebs and with respect

1:01:31

to Miles Taylor. And

1:01:34

the idea, it's

1:01:36

so outrageous that there's actually

1:01:38

a specific provision in the

1:01:40

Constitution designed to prevent things

1:01:42

like this. And it's called

1:01:44

the Bill of Attainer Clause.

1:01:47

And a Bill of Attainer was what

1:01:49

the British Parliament used to do, which

1:01:51

was to name to have like

1:01:53

the Chuck Todd as an asshole

1:01:55

statute where they would declare you a

1:01:57

criminal and then prescribe a punishment

1:01:59

for you, like getting your head cut

1:02:01

off. And the idea

1:02:04

was they could just

1:02:06

name you and accuse and

1:02:08

pass a bill convicting

1:02:10

you of a crime. And

1:02:12

the U .S. Constitution specifically

1:02:15

forbids bills of attainder. only

1:02:18

this isn't a bill of

1:02:20

attainder, right? It's an executive

1:02:22

order of attainder, which is

1:02:24

even worse, right? Because there's no

1:02:26

legislative process behind it. There's

1:02:28

no doubt it's unconstitutional. There's

1:02:31

no doubt that, you

1:02:33

know, that

1:02:35

it's a

1:02:38

horrific abuse. The

1:02:40

only question is

1:02:42

whether it's worth Chris's

1:02:44

time. to Sue

1:02:47

because it doesn't actually

1:02:49

do very much,

1:02:51

right? It's an executive

1:02:53

order that primarily

1:02:55

defames him. And

1:02:58

of course, yeah, I mean, I just,

1:03:00

you know, I get really frustrated because

1:03:02

this guy's been essentially defaming our profession.

1:03:05

He's been all sorts of,

1:03:07

and, you know, he

1:03:09

deserves to be under

1:03:11

a wave of constant lawsuits

1:03:13

that he has to

1:03:15

drown over based on

1:03:18

his inability to keep his

1:03:20

mouth shut. But with

1:03:22

Chris, he and I

1:03:24

aren't close, and I know

1:03:26

him a little bit,

1:03:29

but not. I think

1:03:31

I have about the same relationship. Right. He's

1:03:33

somebody who. Professional. Just

1:03:35

a professional. Professional acquaintance. Yeah. admired

1:03:38

his work in government very much.

1:03:41

We do a lot of cybersecurity

1:03:43

work at lawfare. And so

1:03:45

our worlds have overlapped a fair bit. But

1:03:47

this is somebody when you sign

1:03:50

up as a journalist, you're signing

1:03:52

up to play in a public

1:03:54

space. Yeah. And to, you know.

1:03:56

No, I accept it. I do.

1:03:58

Right. I accept the attacks. We

1:04:00

take upon ourselves the obligation not

1:04:02

to engage in frivolous attacks, but

1:04:04

not an immunity from them. But.

1:04:06

When you sign up to be

1:04:09

a government official, one

1:04:11

thing you are not

1:04:13

supposed to is not supposed

1:04:15

to happen is that

1:04:18

you get savagely attacked by

1:04:20

the government for telling

1:04:22

the truth. And what

1:04:24

people hate in the Trump

1:04:26

world hate Chris Krebs for

1:04:28

is two things. One is

1:04:31

that he protected our elections

1:04:33

from foreign attacks that they

1:04:35

wanted. And the

1:04:37

second is that having done

1:04:39

that, he told the

1:04:41

truth that the election in

1:04:43

2020 was secure. And

1:04:45

the idea that the

1:04:48

head of government, head of

1:04:50

state of this country

1:04:52

would issue a formal order

1:04:54

attacking you for those

1:04:56

things and accusing you of

1:04:58

treason is mind boggling. I

1:05:05

had a friend of mine say,

1:05:07

you know, the mistake we made in

1:05:09

Trump 1 .0 was failure of imagination. And

1:05:12

that, you know, sometimes we, well,

1:05:14

he wouldn't do that, right? You

1:05:16

know, markets completely didn't believe he

1:05:18

would go as far as he

1:05:21

did on tariffs, right? They didn't

1:05:23

price it in, they messed up,

1:05:25

they didn't do that. And I

1:05:27

think the biggest mistake probably some

1:05:29

swing voters made was assuming that

1:05:32

he'd be more like Trump 1

1:05:34

.0. right then and and I

1:05:36

think the biggest the the most

1:05:38

important thing people have to understand

1:05:40

is that this is a an

1:05:42

entirely different presidency an entirely different

1:05:45

administration and the first one had

1:05:47

real guardrails because there were real

1:05:49

serious people who were not maga

1:05:51

and this time this is a government

1:05:54

of true believers who, well, some are true

1:05:56

believers and some are on the livers. You know,

1:05:58

I always say there's true believers and then

1:06:00

there's the ones who just want to be reactionaries.

1:06:02

If the left's upset, then we must be

1:06:05

winning even if I'm losing money in the stock

1:06:07

market too, right? But this

1:06:09

is an entirely different

1:06:11

proposition we're facing with Trump

1:06:13

2 .0. That

1:06:15

is clearly right. And

1:06:17

it is also the case

1:06:19

that his personality is not in

1:06:21

the same place as it

1:06:23

was. No, he's been

1:06:25

he's a changed man. He's he

1:06:27

was always manic as he

1:06:29

was. He's more manic now, more

1:06:31

manic now and more obsessed

1:06:33

with vindictive retribution, more of the

1:06:36

time. And not that he

1:06:38

was free of those things four

1:06:40

years ago or eight years

1:06:42

ago, but he was. He

1:06:46

was less obsessed with it all

1:06:48

the time than he appears to

1:06:50

be now. When people

1:06:52

ask you your level of

1:06:54

concern about the future of

1:06:56

the democracy, and I get

1:06:59

this question, and I'm of

1:07:01

the... We're not at Turkey.

1:07:04

Maybe you can make some

1:07:06

early stage, hungry comparisons. I

1:07:08

think that's where I go. Where do you

1:07:10

go when you get asked that question, which

1:07:12

I know you get asked a lot? Yeah,

1:07:14

I get asked it a lot. I mean,

1:07:16

almost as much as I get asked the

1:07:19

what if he defies a court order question.

1:07:22

Look, anybody who's not concerned

1:07:24

is not paying attention. And

1:07:28

anybody who But

1:07:31

it is also wrong to

1:07:33

catastrophize it. That's where

1:07:35

I try to go. I

1:07:38

trust the public to

1:07:40

eventually figure this out. The

1:07:42

day after the Trump -Zolensky

1:07:44

White House meeting, I

1:07:47

took my laser

1:07:49

projector. and I went

1:07:51

to the base of the Washington

1:07:53

Monument and I projected on, in

1:07:55

giant letters on the base of

1:07:57

the Washington Monument, Trump and Vance

1:07:59

betrayed America in the Oval Office. And

1:08:02

this was visible from the White

1:08:04

House. And I

1:08:06

was there doing this, by the way,

1:08:08

the video of this, which is available

1:08:10

on Instagram has been seen by 2

1:08:12

million people now. And

1:08:15

I was there for more

1:08:17

than an hour. And

1:08:20

no police showed up.

1:08:23

I've had no harassment of

1:08:25

any kind as a result

1:08:27

of having projected on the

1:08:29

base of the Washington Monument

1:08:31

that Trump had betrayed the

1:08:34

country. And

1:08:36

by the way, I'm going to do

1:08:38

it again. You know, the next time

1:08:40

he drives, he will really, really pisses

1:08:42

me off. I'm going to do it

1:08:44

again. And I'm not afraid of being

1:08:46

arrested because in fact, by the way,

1:08:48

projecting images, though, I mean, I this

1:08:50

is, I learned this with GW when

1:08:52

we were dealing at GW was dealing

1:08:55

with the with the the gossip protesters. And

1:08:57

there was nothing they could do. They couldn't claim

1:08:59

the building was being. defamed because

1:09:01

it was a projection. This is

1:09:03

why I use projectors and I

1:09:05

do it on the Russian embassy,

1:09:07

you know, project Ukrainian flags on

1:09:09

the Russian embassy. And so it's

1:09:11

a it's a technique of protest

1:09:13

that I've used a lot. But

1:09:15

here's the thing. It's in police

1:09:17

states, you don't get to project

1:09:19

that the president betrayed the country

1:09:21

within sight of the president. And

1:09:23

you don't get to put your

1:09:25

name on it and expect to

1:09:27

be left alone. Right. You haven't

1:09:30

you haven't been audited yet from the IRS.

1:09:32

We'll see what. Well, I'll ask you again in

1:09:34

September. So am I concerned?

1:09:36

Yes. Do

1:09:38

I think people are

1:09:40

being a bit too

1:09:42

hasty to catastrophize the

1:09:44

concern. Yeah, and look,

1:09:46

when I get arrested for

1:09:48

this sort of activity or get,

1:09:50

you know, I'll announce it

1:09:52

when I have an IRS audit,

1:09:54

you know, and

1:09:57

So I do think there's still a

1:09:59

lot of room to do political

1:10:01

organizing in the United States. And I

1:10:03

do think, by the way, that

1:10:05

Donald Trump is likely to get shellacked

1:10:07

in the next midterms. I do,

1:10:09

too. Which, again, dictators

1:10:11

don't really let themselves

1:10:13

do. So I don't

1:10:16

want to confuse the

1:10:18

concern for a sense

1:10:20

that we don't have

1:10:22

anything left to fight

1:10:24

over. That's essentially

1:10:26

an answer, a form

1:10:28

of an answer I heard from

1:10:30

Condi Rice, who basically said, you

1:10:32

know, our democracy is pretty ingrained

1:10:34

in the people itself and how

1:10:37

these things, that it's going to

1:10:39

be, one person can

1:10:41

do a lot of harm there,

1:10:43

but it's really hard for one

1:10:45

person to rip out the entire

1:10:47

fabric of the nation in one

1:10:49

turn. I agree with that,

1:10:52

but I also don't think

1:10:54

we should be complacent about it.

1:10:56

There's erosion. There's erosion. And

1:10:59

I think the erosion itself

1:11:01

is awful. And look, if

1:11:04

your question had been

1:11:06

focused on, are we

1:11:08

still a place where... you

1:11:11

know, people who are not citizens of the

1:11:14

United States. Oh, we're not a beacon. Our beacon

1:11:16

is off anymore. I would have given you

1:11:18

a very different answer. No, no, no, no, the

1:11:20

beat, you know, the idea that we're a

1:11:22

beacon of freedom and a beacon of new, the

1:11:24

beacon got turned off. We are

1:11:26

not, you know, nobody is saying, come here, we're

1:11:28

a safe haven. I mean,

1:11:30

you know, and by the way,

1:11:33

I always constantly have to

1:11:35

remind people the constitution constitutional rights

1:11:37

are for anybody in the

1:11:39

on the in the United

1:11:41

States, whoever's in the United States,

1:11:43

you get some constitutional protection. Not

1:11:45

all of it, but a lot

1:11:48

of it, right? Yeah,

1:11:50

although, you know, less than

1:11:52

you did four months ago. And,

1:11:55

you know, just counting on the

1:11:57

courts, not till we rode that

1:11:59

away. Right. And well, but, you

1:12:01

know, those are if you're a.

1:12:03

Palestinian sympathetic student on a student

1:12:05

visa or you're on a green

1:12:08

card, you have less rights

1:12:10

than you may have thought you

1:12:12

did four months ago. And so

1:12:14

I want to be, I want

1:12:16

to be careful to acknowledge the

1:12:18

degree of erosion and not say,

1:12:20

eh, it's all fine, but also

1:12:22

not to say things like we're

1:12:24

not a democracy anymore or, you

1:12:26

know, we're we've slid into authoritarianism.

1:12:28

Yeah, we may be sliding, but

1:12:31

we're still pretty high up on

1:12:33

the hill. So I got

1:12:35

a lot of, you know, I'm new to this. I've

1:12:37

had my podcast has been audio only up until the last

1:12:39

couple of weeks. So I'm new to this world of YouTube.

1:12:42

So I'm going to make you answer a question that

1:12:44

I know some viewers are going to say is,

1:12:46

what are you sitting in? Tell us

1:12:48

about your, tell us about your

1:12:50

backdrop. What do you say? So I

1:12:52

do all my my Zoom meetings from

1:12:54

what I call the Hammock Studio. I

1:12:57

love it. You should name

1:13:00

your production company that. Hammock

1:13:02

Studios. Hang on, let

1:13:04

me pull up can

1:13:07

zoom out so you can

1:13:09

see the whole thing. Oh,

1:13:12

nice. It's a

1:13:14

special treat for Chuck Toddcast viewers. Yeah,

1:13:16

exactly. I don't do this for

1:13:18

just anybody. I

1:13:20

built this studio in the

1:13:22

in the pandemic and I just

1:13:24

said, you know, if I'm

1:13:26

gonna uh uh uh oh it

1:13:28

wants to upload um it's

1:13:30

not zoom in huh yeah I

1:13:32

guess it's not it's not

1:13:34

working so basically you're sitting in

1:13:36

a hammock not necessarily playing

1:13:38

in a hammock you can see

1:13:40

it yeah it's it's a

1:13:42

It's a handmade hammock with a

1:13:44

Ukrainian flag hanging on it. Made

1:13:48

in Latvia. And

1:13:50

I bought it on Etsy at the beginning

1:13:52

of the pandemic, because I said, if I'm

1:13:54

going to be stuck in this little room

1:13:56

for the next, I thought it was three

1:13:58

months. It turned out to be two years.

1:14:01

I'm going to be in a hammock. Well,

1:14:05

look, a hammock. Hopefully that's

1:14:07

all you're going to be

1:14:10

in. Hopefully the government is

1:14:12

not going to try to

1:14:14

create a different type of

1:14:16

incarceration for us. Mr.

1:14:18

Wittes, I appreciate you going

1:14:20

through this. I

1:14:23

do think my biggest concern

1:14:25

about all these lawsuits is that

1:14:27

the public isn't paying a

1:14:30

lot of attention, right? And that

1:14:32

in some ways the Trump

1:14:34

administration is counting on the idea

1:14:36

that unpopular people,

1:14:40

unpopular people are going to

1:14:42

get defended by the

1:14:44

left because like they're comfortable

1:14:46

violating the constitutional rights

1:14:48

of unpopular people and think

1:14:50

they can get away

1:14:52

with it. And it's a

1:14:54

really, it's a disturbing

1:14:56

pattern. Yes. And especially so

1:14:58

because they are doing

1:15:00

it by it would be

1:15:02

one thing if they

1:15:04

were taking people who were

1:15:06

had genuinely done

1:15:09

things that were

1:15:11

objectionable and demonizing

1:15:13

them. But some

1:15:15

of the people that they're

1:15:17

going after, they've gone after so

1:15:19

randomly that they then have

1:15:21

to concoct these kinds of legends

1:15:23

about them, that they were

1:15:25

gang members or that they're terrorists

1:15:28

or whatever. And they

1:15:30

often have very little basis for

1:15:32

saying these things. And so

1:15:34

the gay makeup artist with a

1:15:36

tattoo becomes a scary gang

1:15:38

member. And there's a fair bit,

1:15:40

you know, speaking of defamation,

1:15:43

there's a fair bit of simple

1:15:45

defamation going on there. And,

1:15:48

you know, you compound locking

1:15:51

people up in a Salvadoran

1:15:53

gulag with lying about them. Yeah,

1:15:55

no, it's put it this

1:15:57

way. I understand why some people

1:15:59

feel that this is a

1:16:02

catastrophic moment, because in individual cases,

1:16:04

it's absolutely appalling and alarming.

1:16:06

And I think what what you're

1:16:08

trying to preach and what

1:16:10

I'm trying to preach is sort

1:16:13

of, look, this is bad. It

1:16:16

could be worse. and

1:16:19

the goal should be to

1:16:21

stop this so that it doesn't

1:16:23

get worse. Yes, and also

1:16:25

to not confuse this. Look,

1:16:29

Kilmar Abrego Garcia was

1:16:31

not deported to El

1:16:33

Salvador in prison because

1:16:35

he was doing political

1:16:37

organizing or expressing his

1:16:39

opinions or denouncing the

1:16:41

treatment of others. He

1:16:44

was deported as best as I can

1:16:46

tell because he was looking for work

1:16:48

in a home depot parking lot with

1:16:50

some people who turned out to be

1:16:52

members of a gang. And

1:16:54

got scooped up. And he got

1:16:56

scooped up. So if it's randomly coming

1:16:58

for you, there's not

1:17:00

that much you can do

1:17:02

about that. And

1:17:04

it's not coming for you because

1:17:07

you're giving to political candidates

1:17:09

or because you're raising your voice

1:17:11

and objection. And so what

1:17:13

I'm saying is, Don't confuse the

1:17:15

two. We can all still do our

1:17:17

parts, and the purpose of all

1:17:19

of this is to scare you, so

1:17:21

don't let it. Well,

1:17:23

people are going to be looking for you

1:17:25

and your projector around Washington, DC, so it'll be

1:17:28

fun to look for you. It's almost like,

1:17:30

where's Waldo? We'll be looking for the projector. You

1:17:32

can always find me in front of the

1:17:34

Russian Embassy, and these days, just

1:17:36

below the south lawn of

1:17:38

the White House, that mound

1:17:40

that they put the Washington

1:17:42

Monument on makes a great,

1:17:44

great spot to project. Weather's

1:17:46

great today, too. Weather's

1:17:48

been great this week. know, look for me Sunday

1:17:50

evening. Well, there you go. All right. That's

1:17:53

an interesting, this is

1:17:55

actually going to drop right after

1:17:57

Sunday evening. So if that does

1:17:59

happen, I will let my listeners

1:18:01

know. Mr. Wittes, a pleasure.

1:18:03

Thank you, sir. Thank you. So

1:18:11

look, we're gonna wait to see

1:18:13

what does the supreme? When does the

1:18:15

supreme court go a little bit

1:18:17

hard, right? They didn't order the return

1:18:19

of Garcia. They ordered the government

1:18:21

to make an effort to bring him

1:18:23

back. So we are

1:18:25

still the Roberts court still seems

1:18:27

to be tiptoeing to the moment

1:18:29

that there is going to be

1:18:32

a cut. There's certainly going to

1:18:34

be some constitutional confrontation. Perhaps it's

1:18:36

over the Fed chair. I mean,

1:18:38

to hear Donald Trump go after

1:18:40

the Fed chair for essentially trying

1:18:42

to do his job and trying

1:18:44

to, if he tries to upend

1:18:46

the independence of the Fed chair, not

1:18:49

only could he crater the

1:18:51

economy quicker and faster and

1:18:53

certainly cause all sorts of

1:18:55

disruption there, but that probably,

1:18:58

and if I were to, if the Roberts

1:19:00

court, knowing Roberts, I think he would be willing

1:19:02

to draw a line in the sand over the

1:19:04

Fed, Before he might be

1:19:06

willing to draw a line in

1:19:08

the sand over immigration policy. I know

1:19:10

that sounds very cynical of me

1:19:12

But I think when it comes to

1:19:14

the to to the economy I

1:19:17

think he would see potentially more cover

1:19:19

and that maybe there'd be more

1:19:21

Republicans willing to stand by a Supreme

1:19:23

Court decision that pushed back on

1:19:25

any effort to Other president to try

1:19:27

to fire fire pals simply because

1:19:29

pals not not

1:19:31

bowing down to him and following

1:19:33

the policy that he wants at the

1:19:35

Fed rather than what the Fed

1:19:37

governors believe is in the best interest

1:19:39

of the country. With

1:19:42

that, I do want to just

1:19:44

do one quick sports wine, if

1:19:46

I could. And my sports wine

1:19:48

is the Nats bullpen. Why?

1:19:52

Why? Why? Can't.

1:19:54

this, there seems to be a

1:19:56

systemic problem in the Nats organization

1:19:58

when it comes to pitching coaching.

1:20:01

For whatever reason, we can't develop

1:20:03

good relievers. We have a

1:20:05

half decent time at develop, and perhaps

1:20:07

we're just scouting. I don't know if it's

1:20:09

one of two things. Either we only

1:20:11

care about finding starting pitchers. The

1:20:14

experience of the 2019 World

1:20:17

Series led Our

1:20:19

front office to believe relief pictures don't matter

1:20:21

because you just use your best pictures

1:20:23

once you get to the playoffs But guess

1:20:25

what you need to get to the

1:20:27

playoffs and you need a functional bullpen to

1:20:29

do that Or maybe we have owners

1:20:31

that are just too cheap and are not

1:20:33

giving whatever it is. It's an embarrassment

1:20:35

This is a young team. They deserve a

1:20:37

chance to win When you have a

1:20:39

bullpen where you're not even trying and you

1:20:41

may not even have professional baseball players

1:20:43

in that bullpen Then you do what it

1:20:45

you're not you're not forget the fans

1:20:47

You're not supporting those young teammates. You're only

1:20:49

messing with their confidence. So

1:20:51

get it together front office, Mike Rizzo

1:20:53

and the learners and figure out either

1:20:56

is it coaching and you just need

1:20:58

an improved coaching. I certainly wish we

1:21:00

had Mike Maddox back as our pitching

1:21:02

coach. Or are we

1:21:04

just being cheap? Either way, you're being

1:21:06

unfair to this organization that is

1:21:08

still only six years removed from a

1:21:10

world championship. All right. See,

1:21:12

this is the joy. Having

1:21:15

your own of having your own

1:21:17

podcast you can rant about pretty

1:21:19

much anything you want As long

1:21:21

as it doesn't you know, totally

1:21:23

set the entire enterprise off the

1:21:25

rails So there's my little gnats

1:21:27

rant for for for the weekend

1:21:29

because I I love James Wood

1:21:31

I'd like to see this guy

1:21:33

get a chance to win and

1:21:35

I'd like to see the franchise

1:21:37

put a winner around it. All

1:21:40

right. So with that, I wish

1:21:42

I could have enjoyed the Nats

1:21:44

winning this weekend, but I couldn't

1:21:46

because of this awful bullpen. We

1:21:48

had a nice holiday weekend, beautiful

1:21:50

weather, and I had to watch

1:21:52

that. Come on, people. All

1:21:54

right. Enjoy the NBA playoffs. Those

1:21:56

are going to be a lot of fun until we

1:21:58

upload again. You