WEBVTT - #FreeBritney 0:00:00.520 --> 0:00:03.360 The Department of Justice is suing the state of Georgia 0:00:03.480 --> 0:00:06.480 over its voting rights law. There is a new voting 0:00:06.559 --> 0:00:10.680 rights law up for discussion named after the late Congressman 0:00:10.800 --> 0:00:14.520 John Lewis. There's a major court case that the Supreme 0:00:14.560 --> 0:00:16.880 Court refused to hear on whether or not there's a 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:20.279 constitutional right for men to use the women's bathroom. But 0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:24.200 there is one legal issue on the mind of America 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:28.080 before any of the others. That, of course, would be 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:32.920 when will we hashtag free Britney Spears. This is a 0:00:33.000 --> 0:00:43.159 Verdict with Ted Cruz. Welcome back to Verdict. I'm Michael Knowles. Oops, 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:47.080 I did it again. I did not lead with the 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:49.199 most important story and one that I really want to 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:51.839 get into. Senator, so good to be with you to 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:54.840 touch on all the important legal issues of the day. Well, 0:00:55.280 --> 0:00:57.920 if there's anything this podcast is known for, it is 0:00:57.920 --> 0:01:01.480 focusing on the issue shoes that will determine the fate 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:03.760 of the Republic. And so I'm glad we can continue 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:07.120 in that tradition today. In that case, Senator, hit me 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:09.440 baby one more time. I want to know what the 0:01:09.520 --> 0:01:13.000 real details are of this case. I actually I'm only 0:01:13.040 --> 0:01:16.600 being half facetious here. Because we've seen this pop up 0:01:16.680 --> 0:01:18.760 in the culture. Every now and again, you'll see the 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:24.720 hashtag free Brittany movement. She's under a conservatorship. You know, 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:26.720 a lot of us grew up with her as a 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:29.360 very important figure, especially the young men out there. She 0:01:29.520 --> 0:01:32.119 occupied a lot of space in our minds, and she's 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:34.800 been under this conservatorship for some time, so she doesn't 0:01:34.800 --> 0:01:38.160 appear to have any real legal rights. I read somewhere 0:01:38.200 --> 0:01:42.360 that she has a birth control device that her doctors 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:45.200 will not remove, and that her family will not allow 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:47.680 her to remove. I mean, this seems like in some 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:50.600 cases the stuff you hear about in communist China, and 0:01:50.680 --> 0:01:53.840 yet that's permitted to go on here. So do you 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:57.240 know anything about this or you know conservatorships more generally 0:01:57.280 --> 0:01:59.600 and how people can be deprived of their civil rights. 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:02.680 So I will say this, this may be an illustration 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:05.880 of something of a generational divide. Where whereas you grew 0:02:05.960 --> 0:02:10.680 up with Britney spears on your wall, I was more 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:12.839 of a fair faucet guy. But but you know, they're 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:16.720 the decades have a way of passing on. So I 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:20.680 will readily confess I am no expert in in Britney 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:24.080 Spears music that was not particularly my cup of tea. 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:27.600 But I got to say on the question of the 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:32.720 conservative ship, I am squarely and unequivocally in the camp 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:37.840 of free Brittany. I think this is frigging ridiculous. What 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:41.000 is happening to Britney Spears and a needstand? Can you 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:44.000 tell me any? I don't even really understand the idea 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:46.840 of the conservatorship. More broadly, I understand, if it's someone 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:50.440 has personal troubles, then someone else can be designated to 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:53.040 make legal decisions for them. But how broad is it? 0:02:53.120 --> 0:02:55.800 Because just knowing what I read in the newspapers, it 0:02:55.919 --> 0:02:59.400 seems deeply Unamerican, it seems deeply wrong. What is what 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:02.519 is happening? So it is it is incredibly broad. And 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:06.360 look that there are various steps in the law that 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:10.000 that an individual can forfeit their their freedom, their liberty. 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:15.760 If you're seriously mentally ill, you can be involuntarily committed. 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:18.640 But for you to be involuntarily committed, you've got to 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:21.240 be typically a danger to yourself or a danger to others, 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:24.960 and that's got to be demonstrated. It varies state by state, 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:27.679 but usually with a pretty high evidentury standard. For your 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:29.840 freedom to be taken away from you and you to 0:03:29.880 --> 0:03:34.800 be incapacitated. A conservatorship is similar to that the demonstration 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:38.800 under California law. For a conservatorship to be entered into 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:41.800 for someone else to have the ability to make life 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:44.920 decisions for you, either about you, your person, your health 0:03:45.280 --> 0:03:50.120 like what you can do with your life, or your finances. 0:03:50.920 --> 0:03:53.440 The threshold is quite high, and they're typically used for 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:57.320 people who are very, very elderly, for people's whose faculty 0:03:57.400 --> 0:03:59.720 have lost them. If you have, say Alzheimer's, and you're 0:03:59.760 --> 0:04:02.760 no longer able to care for yourself, then there's a 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:05.840 role for a conservatorship if you have someone whose mental 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:09.480 capacity is not there. What is bizarre about what happened 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:13.120 to Britney Spears is she's a thirty nine year old woman. 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:17.479 She's a mother of two. She h you know. Has 0:04:17.520 --> 0:04:22.520 she had issues in life? Sure? Has she had issues 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:26.119 with mental illness? Perhaps? I don't know. I'm not her doctor. 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:29.520 I haven't seen that demonstrated. Has she had issues with 0:04:29.680 --> 0:04:32.600 substance abuse? So we know she's been to rehab. But 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:34.880 but I gotta say, if if you're gonna lock up 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:39.000 everyone in Hollywood who has had substance abuse issues. You're 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:43.000 gonna have a long, long line. And and and in fact, 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:47.000 Sunset Boulevard might be empty. H that's the real estate 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:49.480 prices would blumme, it would be great. So so the 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:54.839 threshold it is bizarre. And and this conservatorship. It happened 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:58.320 in two thousand and eight. It happened while she was 0:04:59.760 --> 0:05:02.400 in the midst of and coming out of a nasty 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:05.240 custody dispute with her ex husband over her kids. Look, 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:08.400 custody disputes get ugly, and she had had an incident. 0:05:08.440 --> 0:05:10.360 You know, she went and took a took an umbrella 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:14.640 to a paparazzi. Now listen, you know, I don't know 0:05:14.720 --> 0:05:19.680 any of us that would react well to people hounding 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:22.320 you every moment you go outside, when you go to 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:25.520 the seven to eleven, when you go to the grocery store, 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:28.120 when you do anything, people taking pictures, constantly being in 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:34.000 your face. You know, I'm reminded of the scene in 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:38.120 The Untouchables to use a movie example, where where al Capone, 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:42.520 played beautifully by de Niro, gets mad at a photographer 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:46.840 and grabs the cameron and and breaks it like that. 0:05:46.839 --> 0:05:52.200 That reaction, while perhaps not the best reaction is an 0:05:52.240 --> 0:05:58.040 incredibly human and understandable reaction, and the idea that and 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:01.960 so all right, she shaved her head. Okay, last I checked, 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:05.200 shaving your head is not a capital offense. She had 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:07.279 pretty hair, But who the hell's business is if she 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:11.719 wants to shave her head or not. The threshold for 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:17.080 taking away someone's liberty and capacity to make decisions properly 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:20.480 under the law is very high, and it should be high. 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:24.000 And at this point we're looking at what thirteen years 0:06:24.800 --> 0:06:30.719 of a grown woman having every decision made by her father. Now, 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:34.400 it might even be a different story if her father 0:06:34.520 --> 0:06:37.600 had been a carrying, nurturing figure throughout her life, had 0:06:37.640 --> 0:06:40.680 helped her through a career, was someone who had demonstrated 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:44.320 enormous love for As best I can tell from her history, 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:47.680 her father was out of her life for much of 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:51.640 the period of her life, had his own drinking problems, 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:54.640 his own issues as she was rising up as a 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:57.880 pop star, and then when she got super rich, just 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:00.479 kind of parachuted in there and said, hey, I like 0:07:00.640 --> 0:07:03.719 me some hundreds of millions of dollars. Well, I get 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:09.120 that he might, but that seems absurd. And then let 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:13.240 me put really the finishing touch on it. If for 0:07:13.280 --> 0:07:17.840 the last twelve thirteen years she had been severely mentally ill, 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:21.000 if she was sitting in the corner, you know, playing 0:07:21.000 --> 0:07:24.040 with blocks and counting on her toes, Okay, maybe you 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:27.680 could say, all right, this is someone not able to function. 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:31.120 There is an important place in the law for protecting 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:34.440 someone who's not able to function. But during the last 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:39.320 thirteen years, she's done hundreds of shows, She's made hundreds 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:42.080 of millions of dollars. She's able to stand up on 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:45.240 stage and sing and perform and dance over and over 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:49.360 and over again. Look, I gotta admit you and I 0:07:49.400 --> 0:07:51.280 couldn't do that to save our lives. Well, maybe you could, 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:54.320 but I couldn't do that the same by life, and 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:58.760 everything I have seen about this case, it seems like 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:04.320 an enormous abuse of the judicial process, going right down 0:08:04.400 --> 0:08:08.480 to when the conservatorship was first put in place. She 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:11.600 tried to hire a lawyer to fight it, and the 0:08:11.760 --> 0:08:15.640 California District judge threw her lawyer out, says, no, she's 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:19.080 not capable of hiring a lawyer. I've got a medical 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:21.360 report that proves it, and I'm not going to show 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:23.840 it to you. So I've got a secret report. By 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:25.680 the way, I have a secret report right here on 0:08:25.760 --> 0:08:29.280 Michael Knowles. It says that you're not capable of handling yourself, 0:08:29.480 --> 0:08:33.400 and so, by the way, you're vast one hundred dollars fortune. 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:37.080 I'm taking you over right now. Like Senator, no one 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:39.840 would dispute that every I think in that particular case 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:43.719 it's public knowledge. Different for Brittany, But what an assinine 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:47.160 situation for a judge to throw out a lawyer that 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:51.679 she tried to retain and a point instead another lawyer. 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:58.520 The entire process throughout it seems design to just trample 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:03.480 on her rights. And I don't have any any dog 0:09:03.520 --> 0:09:07.960 in the fight of saying that she's the wisest and 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:10.400 most capable person on earth. I don't know. I don't 0:09:10.440 --> 0:09:15.240 know her, but there are no outside in Disha of 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:21.040 the level of lack of competence that should be required 0:09:21.040 --> 0:09:25.560 to justify a conservatorship for one week, much less for 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:28.560 thirteen years. And I think part of the reason why 0:09:28.600 --> 0:09:31.920 people care about this story is not just because Britney 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:34.679 Spears actually wasn't a very important pop culture figure for 0:09:34.720 --> 0:09:37.360 a lot of people, But I think it's also because 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:41.600 all around our country. We're seeing people's civil rights being 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:44.760 taken away, We're seeing abuses of the judicial process. It 0:09:44.800 --> 0:09:48.720 seems that this is sort of one particular sensational story 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:53.480 that is a representative of corrosion around the justice system. 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:56.360 Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but there there 0:09:56.360 --> 0:09:59.679 are other examples of these major abuses. Now I think 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:03.840 that's right, and there are a couple of other points. One, 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:09.160 in ordinary circumstances, she's not someone who would be considered powerless. 0:10:09.200 --> 0:10:13.240 This is someone who has made hundreds of millions of dollars, 0:10:13.240 --> 0:10:17.040 has vast resources, which may explain why vultures are circling 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:21.840 around and want access to her money. Two that the 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:27.800 entire affair there seems enormous misogyny connected with this. It's 0:10:27.880 --> 0:10:33.720 difficult to imagine a similar situation with a man. I mean, 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:36.120 I mean, you want to talk about people who are 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:40.040 irresponsible with their money. You don't have to stretch to 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:44.160 find some pro athletes who hemorrhage cash like crazy and 0:10:44.200 --> 0:10:46.520 spend money on everybody on earth. You don't have to 0:10:46.559 --> 0:10:50.720 stretch to find rock stars and people who look all 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:54.440 of us have watched the sort of you know, late 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:58.360 night eon television series of they started off young and bright, 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:01.120 and then to the descent to drugs and alcohol, and 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:03.560 it always ends and then and then sometimes there's a 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:07.320 redemption and then they cleaned up and are living their life. 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:11.800 In this instance, it seems that Britney Spears encountered the 0:11:11.880 --> 0:11:15.680 kind of challenges with fame and success that many, if 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:20.680 not most people who have experienced that encounter. But for her, 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:24.600 that was used as an excuse to strip away or liberty. 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:28.600 And you mentioned one of the more stunning allegations. She 0:11:28.640 --> 0:11:31.080 gave a recent interview where she said that they put 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:38.120 an IUD, a birth control device in her involuntarily because 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:42.040 they didn't want her to have kids. I mean, good God, 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:48.960 that that sort of forced prevention of childbirth, forced sterilization. 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:52.960 It has an ugly, ugly legacy. It goes on in 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:55.120 China communists China all the time. But we have an 0:11:55.200 --> 0:11:59.600 ugly legacy in the United States of people with mental 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:03.280 reach ardation being forced to be sterilized. And that is grotesque. 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:06.360 And the idea that that that the court would step 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:08.960 in and say she doesn't have a right to make 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:14.800 a decision to have a child, that that is stunning. 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:18.040 I'm not I don't know that that fact is confirmed, 0:12:18.120 --> 0:12:22.920 but it's an allegation she's made, and the judicial system 0:12:22.960 --> 0:12:29.240 ought to be protecting her rights, not treating her like 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:32.720 a child because she's not a child. That was the 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:36.319 fact that really pushed me over the edge. It's just 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:39.520 intrinsically evil. It is just the kind of thing that 0:12:39.559 --> 0:12:43.600 you read about in communist China. This, for all intents 0:12:43.600 --> 0:12:48.679 and purposes, forced sterilization. It's it's just, you know, if 0:12:48.679 --> 0:12:52.319 the allegation is true, it is just such a stunning overreach. 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:54.680 And so I agree. I am entirely with you on 0:12:54.720 --> 0:12:58.080 the hashtag free Brittany train. I was wondering if we 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:00.200 could also if you can enlighten me on some of 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:04.640 these broader overreaches, because I just from the legal I 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:06.880 have my own political views, of my own philosophical views, 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:09.000 but from the legal perspective, it would be good to 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:13.120 get an expert here. What is going on between the 0:13:13.240 --> 0:13:17.040 DOJ and Georgia. Georgia passed a voting rights law. We've 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:19.440 now heard that Merrick Garland, the AG is going to 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:22.000 sue Georgia. The people of Georgia don't have the right 0:13:22.000 --> 0:13:25.680 to pass their own election laws. Apparently not look If 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:28.000 you look at the Department of Justice under Joe Biden, 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:32.440 Merrick Garland had been a judge for a couple of decades. 0:13:32.440 --> 0:13:37.520 It actually earned a reputation of being relatively fired and partial. 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:40.800 So when he was first nominated, I was cautiously optimistic 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:45.880 that this was not a wild eyed partisan. That optimism 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:51.920 was substantially shaken during his confirmation hearing, where where Merrick 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:54.320 Garland refused to answer just about any question. Look, no 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:58.080 matter what you asked, he wouldn't make even the barest commitments. 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:00.839 He just basically dodged everything, and that was disconcerting. I 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:05.200 voted against Garland's confirmation, But then it got much worse 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:09.640 because I saw Biden's subsequent nominations, and in particular two 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:12.880 in particular Benita Gupta, who's the number three lawyer at 0:14:12.880 --> 0:14:15.839 the Department of Justice now, and Kristin Clark, who is 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:19.360 the head lawyer at the Civil Rights Division. The two 0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:22.720 of them are both radicals, and and in fact I've 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:25.800 dubbed them the radical twins. They're both they're two of 0:14:25.840 --> 0:14:29.000 the leading proponents of abolishing the police in this country. 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:30.840 And by the way, we're not talking about a long 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:34.320 time ago. We're talking about last year, both of them 0:14:34.400 --> 0:14:38.280 either gave testimony or in writing advocated for defunding or 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:41.160 abolishing the police. These are now two I'm just asking 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:44.720 a very practical level senator, how is it that two 0:14:44.760 --> 0:14:47.720 of the top cops in the country would end up 0:14:47.760 --> 0:14:50.320 be advocating for abolishing the Doesn't that seem a little 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:54.680 self undermining? It should, because Biden has handed control of 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:57.440 the agenda over to the radicals. And by the way, 0:14:57.440 --> 0:15:01.080 at their testimony for both their confirmations, they said, well, 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:05.080 okay ay, they denied that they'd written it. Even when 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:07.120 you read them the words back at them, I mean, 0:15:07.160 --> 0:15:10.560 and it was almost like a you know, obi wan kenobi, 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:12.440 these aren't the droid you're looking for. There's like, nope, 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:14.200 I didn't say that, and you'd read the words Nope, 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:17.000 that's not what that says. And then more importantly, they 0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:20.560 just say, I do not advocate abolishing the police. Today, 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:27.240 by the way, the politicized fact checkers, so today the 0:15:27.320 --> 0:15:31.360 Washington Post fact check a sort of joking tweet I 0:15:31.440 --> 0:15:34.560 made about Joe Biden's anti crime agenda. I laid out 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:37.240 five points, one of which was abolished the police, and 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:40.680 they came out four pinocchios. Why because they say, well, 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:43.880 no, no no, no, Joe Biden himself has not advocated abolishing 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:47.600 the police. Well, you know what, when you nominate not one, 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:50.560 but two senior officials at your Department of Justice who 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:53.200 were among the leading advocates for abolishing the police in 0:15:53.240 --> 0:15:56.000 the country, you don't get to pretend you're on the 0:15:56.000 --> 0:15:59.640 other side. So one of them, Kristin Clark, is leading 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:03.320 the Civil Rights Division, and she has been a radical 0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:06.040 partisan her entire life. By the way, in law school 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:12.120 she put on a conference celebrating cop killers as heroes. 0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:15.200 This is the kind of radical that she is, that 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:18.640 that that that people who murder police officers are heroes 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:21.280 to be lionized. So what did the depointment. I seem 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:24.120 to recall that that Kristen Clark also wrote. I believe 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:25.720 it was in the Harvard Crimson. It may have been 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:28.320 in some other publication at Harvard. She wrote a peace 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:34.280 about the biological racial superiority of black people over whites, 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:37.160 and I didn't believe it when I saw the allegations, 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:38.360 so I actually had to go look it up in 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:41.160 the newspaper, and there it is with her her name 0:16:41.200 --> 0:16:45.400 in the byline. She did now she claims that was satirical. 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:49.440 Whether it was or not, I don't know, but that's 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:53.520 her explanation today. Regardless both she had been made a 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:57.160 goop to have had an entire career decades of being 0:16:57.240 --> 0:17:01.280 hard partisan radicals. So what happens George je passes a 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:05.840 voter integrity law. Democrats and the press demonize that voter 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:08.600 integrity law. And now we see the Department of Justice 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:13.000 is the enforcement arm for the radical left. Because the 0:17:13.040 --> 0:17:17.080 Department of Justice sued Georgia under what's called Section two 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:18.840 of the Voting Rights Act. And here's what the Department 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:22.240 of Justice is arguing that it violates the Voting Rights 0:17:22.240 --> 0:17:27.600 Act for Georgia to do things like, for example, not 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:32.199 send absentee ballots to people who didn't request them. I 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:33.760 gotta tell you, there are a whole bunch of states 0:17:33.760 --> 0:17:38.160 all across the country, including Texas, that don't send absentee 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:42.199 ballots to people who don't request them. Now in twenty 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:47.600 yet Biden jets way. In twenty twenty with COVID, a 0:17:47.600 --> 0:17:53.200 lot of states, including Georgia, relaxed or failed to enforce 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:58.359 their voting laws to make voting to lessen the protections 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:01.040 against voter fraud and it was just a fi because 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:03.840 of the pandemic. Set aside for a second, which of 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:08.600 those justifications were in worn't right? Look, providing absentee ballots 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:11.080 to people who requests them is the way an awful 0:18:11.080 --> 0:18:12.760 lot of states across the country do it, and have 0:18:12.840 --> 0:18:15.400 done it for a long long time. The idea that 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:19.439 that violates the federal voting rights law is absurd. Another 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:23.600 element of George's bill is a requirement of voter ID. 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:28.480 Eighty percent of Americans support voter ID, over sixty percent 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:31.719 of Democrats support voter ID, over sixty percent of African 0:18:31.760 --> 0:18:36.080 Americans support voter ID. The Department of Justice is suing, 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:40.040 saying the fact that Georgia passed a law with ID 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:43.480 requirements violates the federal civil rights laws. That this is, 0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:47.640 I believe, an abuse of the justice system, and it 0:18:47.720 --> 0:18:52.000 really is the fruits of what happens when you put 0:18:52.560 --> 0:18:56.280 partisan radicals in senior positions of the Department of Justice. 0:18:56.280 --> 0:18:59.240 They turn around and use the Department of Justice as 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:02.520 a partisan But I could I push back on their 0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:05.280 behalf because what they're going to say is they're going 0:19:05.359 --> 0:19:08.280 to say, look, when you have widespread mail ends more 0:19:08.280 --> 0:19:11.000 people vote right, We had something like seven zillion people 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:13.800 vote in the last election. When you don't have voter ID, 0:19:13.960 --> 0:19:15.600 you're going to get more people to vote. Some of 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:17.400 those people might be dead, and some of those people 0:19:17.480 --> 0:19:20.320 might be foreign nationals. But as we actually talked about 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:23.960 on this show, in the federal attempted takeover of many 0:19:24.000 --> 0:19:26.560 of these elections, there was actually a provision to give 0:19:26.680 --> 0:19:29.520 legal immunity to foreign nationals who would vote in the elections. 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:32.119 But I guess that's a point for another episode. My 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:37.399 point is, if these Democrat policies expand the number of 0:19:37.440 --> 0:19:41.440 people who vote, and if the Georgia law will, whether 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:45.199 for right or wrong, make it more difficult to vote, 0:19:45.200 --> 0:19:46.879 whether it's because you have to show an ID, and 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:49.280 it could be a perfectly legitimate policy, but still will 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:52.159 make it more difficult to vote, then do they have 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:55.600 an argument that, by the Voting Rights Act and by 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:58.760 these other provisions of the law, we need to expand 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:02.520 the vote. No, that they don't. Nothing in the Voting 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:07.160 Rights Act requires you to allow people to vote for 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:10.399 whom it is illegal for them to vote. The Voting 0:20:10.480 --> 0:20:13.640 Rights Act does not require you to turn the other 0:20:13.680 --> 0:20:15.879 way to voter fraud. For you to allow people to 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:22.280 vote illegally, and the argument that it does is pretty crazy. 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:25.480 You know, there's right now litigation at the Supreme Court 0:20:25.600 --> 0:20:32.040 concerning laws restricting ballot harvesting. Ballot harvesting is the practice 0:20:32.080 --> 0:20:36.800 where you send a paid political operative to collect collect 0:20:36.880 --> 0:20:41.560 the ballots of other people, of other voters, and it 0:20:41.640 --> 0:20:45.199 is it is an instance that is particularly ripe for 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:48.600 voter fraud. That case, as we sit here to today, 0:20:48.640 --> 0:20:50.720 has not been decided by the Supreme Court, is expected 0:20:50.720 --> 0:20:53.800 to come out any day now. I led an amicus 0:20:53.800 --> 0:20:56.360 brief of a number of Senators in that case, arguing 0:20:56.440 --> 0:21:01.920 that protecting the integrity of elections is entirely consistent with 0:21:01.960 --> 0:21:04.320 the Voting Rights Acted. In fact, it furthers the Voting 0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:06.520 Rights Act. You know, Spring Court has said for a 0:21:06.520 --> 0:21:13.439 long time that when you allow voter fraud, it steals 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:16.760 the right to vote from legal voters. Number of years ago, 0:21:16.880 --> 0:21:21.160 when I was Slicer General of Texas, Indiana passed one 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:25.040 of the first photo ID laws for voting, and Indiana 0:21:25.119 --> 0:21:28.359 was promptly sued. A bunch of Democratic plaintiffs came in 0:21:28.400 --> 0:21:32.239 and they sued, and they argued that this discriminated against minorities. Now, 0:21:32.280 --> 0:21:36.840 by the way, the argument that minorities can't figure out 0:21:36.880 --> 0:21:41.840 how to get an ID is asinine. The last time 0:21:41.840 --> 0:21:46.160 I checked, African Americans are perfectly capable of getting IDs. Hispanics. Look, 0:21:46.160 --> 0:21:48.160 I'm Hispanic. You know what. I got a driver's license 0:21:48.200 --> 0:21:52.840 in my pocket. You know I'm not under a conservatorship 0:21:52.920 --> 0:21:55.920 in California. I am actually capable of going to the 0:21:56.000 --> 0:21:59.160 DMV and sitting there for nineteen hours in an endless line. 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:05.960 And the sort of paternalistic, condescending argument that minorities can't 0:22:05.960 --> 0:22:10.120 get IDs is absurd. And by the way, you need 0:22:10.119 --> 0:22:13.880 a photo ID to get on an airplane, to drive 0:22:13.920 --> 0:22:19.160 a car, to get a beer, to go into an 0:22:19.240 --> 0:22:21.400 R rated movie if you look like you're under seventeen. 0:22:21.840 --> 0:22:24.480 There's a reason why over sixty percent of African Americans 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:29.399 support voter ID laws, because they recognize that getting an 0:22:29.440 --> 0:22:33.040 ID is not a difficult thing, and protecting the integrity 0:22:33.040 --> 0:22:36.320 of elections is well. I led a coalition of states 0:22:36.320 --> 0:22:39.399 in front of the US Supreme Court in that Indiana 0:22:39.600 --> 0:22:43.159 photo ID law, and we ended up winning sixty three. Actually, 0:22:43.400 --> 0:22:48.360 the decision was written by Justice John Paul Stevens, one 0:22:48.359 --> 0:22:51.960 of the most prominent liberals on the Court who explained 0:22:52.200 --> 0:22:58.040 that protecting the integrity of elections actually protects the right 0:22:58.080 --> 0:23:02.080 to vote, and looking the other way on voter fraud 0:23:02.359 --> 0:23:06.080 undermines the right to vote. That sadly, the Department of 0:23:06.119 --> 0:23:09.560 Justice under Joe Biden has turned that upside down. Well, 0:23:09.600 --> 0:23:12.600 I will not like a white liberal presumed to tell 0:23:12.680 --> 0:23:15.440 my Hispanic senator friend that he can't go get an ID. 0:23:15.640 --> 0:23:24.080 I think you've you've disavowed people of that crazy notion Muscarras, Yes, Benata, Okay, Well, 0:23:24.240 --> 0:23:31.760 I mean you get the blade and that's about I 0:23:31.920 --> 0:23:34.119 think we go, we get to the BiblioTech. That's about it. 0:23:34.840 --> 0:23:37.560 But we have established in English and perhaps in Spanish 0:23:37.560 --> 0:23:39.880 as well, that the Voting Rights Act does not currently 0:23:40.000 --> 0:23:43.160 prohibit these sorts of things. But right now on Capitol Hill, 0:23:43.760 --> 0:23:45.960 many people that you go to work with every day 0:23:46.160 --> 0:23:49.720 are discussing an expansion of the Voting Rights Act. So 0:23:49.960 --> 0:23:53.320 under this proposed expansion, what does that mean for voter 0:23:53.440 --> 0:23:56.320 fraud and election integrity measures? Yeah, Well, as you know, 0:23:57.119 --> 0:24:00.800 last week the Senate took up S one, which many 0:24:00.800 --> 0:24:03.080 of us are calling the Corrupt Politicians Act. And we've 0:24:03.080 --> 0:24:05.879 talked about all the different ways. The Corrupt Politicians Act 0:24:06.359 --> 0:24:09.960 was going to federalize elections, strike down protections against a 0:24:10.040 --> 0:24:15.120 voter fraud, strike down voter id laws, mandate ballot harvesting, 0:24:15.880 --> 0:24:20.440 register millions of illegal aliens, allow criminals and felons to vote, 0:24:21.200 --> 0:24:24.960 provide welfare for politicians, and billions of dollars in federal 0:24:25.000 --> 0:24:28.920 funding for politicians. Turned the Federal Election Commission into a 0:24:29.000 --> 0:24:32.840