1
00:00:00,320 --> 00:00:04,640
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. For earlier access to these episodes, access

2
00:00:04,640 --> 00:00:08,119
Speaker 1: to Ask Me Anything sessions, and extended breakdowns of historical

3
00:00:08,160 --> 00:00:12,760
Speaker 1: and current events. Please consider joining our Warning Premium community

4
00:00:13,280 --> 00:00:20,520
Speaker 1: by clicking the link in the description to this episode.

5
00:00:21,840 --> 00:00:25,240
Speaker 1: Good evening, and thank you for joining this Warning event.

6
00:00:25,360 --> 00:00:29,680
Speaker 1: I'm thrilled to be joined by Joyce Vance. Before we

7
00:00:29,760 --> 00:00:32,559
Speaker 1: get going this evening, I just kindly ask all of

8
00:00:32,600 --> 00:00:36,720
Speaker 1: you to mute yourselves and your computers. We will be

9
00:00:36,800 --> 00:00:40,159
Speaker 1: able to hear it, and it makes it impossible for

10
00:00:40,320 --> 00:00:43,839
Speaker 1: us to have a conversation and for other people to

11
00:00:43,880 --> 00:00:47,600
Speaker 1: be able to listen. Joyce and I are going to

12
00:00:47,680 --> 00:00:50,680
Speaker 1: talk for a while. In about forty minutes, Lisa and

13
00:00:50,800 --> 00:00:55,440
Speaker 1: Kimmel will join us and moderate questions for both Joyce

14
00:00:55,560 --> 00:00:59,200
Speaker 1: and myself if you would be good enough to put

15
00:00:59,240 --> 00:01:02,400
Speaker 1: them into the chat. We'll try to get to as

16
00:01:02,440 --> 00:01:05,560
Speaker 1: many of them as we can, and we'll bang them

17
00:01:05,560 --> 00:01:10,320
Speaker 1: out on email responses after the fact. But let me

18
00:01:10,480 --> 00:01:11,760
Speaker 1: just begin by.

19
00:01:11,560 --> 00:01:19,480
Speaker 2: Welcoming Joyce and somebody who is a frequent presence on

20
00:01:19,640 --> 00:01:24,000
Speaker 2: American television, somebody who has a real talent for explanation

21
00:01:24,760 --> 00:01:29,000
Speaker 2: and clarifying a lot of the complexity that we are

22
00:01:29,120 --> 00:01:30,520
Speaker 2: dealing with as a country.

23
00:01:30,880 --> 00:01:33,800
Speaker 1: So I couldn't be more thrilled to have her with

24
00:01:33,920 --> 00:01:34,760
Speaker 1: us today.

25
00:01:35,640 --> 00:01:39,840
Speaker 3: Joyce, welcome, you know, thank you so much for having me, Steve.

26
00:01:39,920 --> 00:01:41,840
Speaker 3: This was a great idea. I loved the notion of

27
00:01:41,920 --> 00:01:44,920
Speaker 3: doing this together. What I did not realize when we

28
00:01:44,959 --> 00:01:47,720
Speaker 3: settled on this date was that it was both the

29
00:01:47,800 --> 00:01:52,320
Speaker 3: one year anniversary of my substack civil discourse today, and

30
00:01:52,400 --> 00:01:54,600
Speaker 3: of course I don't think any of us realized we

31
00:01:54,640 --> 00:01:57,880
Speaker 3: would be on possibly the eve of the first federal

32
00:01:57,880 --> 00:02:01,280
Speaker 3: indictments of the former president. What a night to be together.

33
00:02:01,840 --> 00:02:05,240
Speaker 1: Well, first off, congratulations on that you have built a

34
00:02:05,920 --> 00:02:09,799
Speaker 1: enormous substack. Following I have had a lot of success

35
00:02:09,880 --> 00:02:12,200
Speaker 1: like that over the course of the year. I'm coming

36
00:02:12,280 --> 00:02:15,079
Speaker 1: up on my one year anniversary with it as well.

37
00:02:15,160 --> 00:02:18,680
Speaker 1: It's been a really interesting experience, a very different type

38
00:02:18,720 --> 00:02:22,080
Speaker 1: of platform, one that I've enjoyed, you know very very much,

39
00:02:22,120 --> 00:02:23,960
Speaker 1: And you know, one of the things you say to

40
00:02:23,960 --> 00:02:28,120
Speaker 1: everyone on I really recommend if you want a better

41
00:02:28,240 --> 00:02:33,040
Speaker 1: understanding of the legal issues what's happening. I can't recommend

42
00:02:33,160 --> 00:02:36,400
Speaker 1: Joyce's substack more more highly. It's one of the first

43
00:02:36,440 --> 00:02:39,920
Speaker 1: five things I read in the mornings enjoyed very much,

44
00:02:40,560 --> 00:02:44,560
Speaker 1: and you'll get a good set of pictures of Joyce's

45
00:02:44,560 --> 00:02:45,360
Speaker 1: life at the farm.

46
00:02:45,480 --> 00:02:49,280
Speaker 3: Also, I appreciate that you know. I love your substack too.

47
00:02:49,400 --> 00:02:52,640
Speaker 3: I didn't understand what substeck was when I first started

48
00:02:52,639 --> 00:02:55,880
Speaker 3: hearing about people using it. I'm so glad that I

49
00:02:55,919 --> 00:02:59,040
Speaker 3: took the plunge. I started actually reading my friend Ajene

50
00:02:59,040 --> 00:03:02,880
Speaker 3: Carroll's substack. It was the first one I read. It's hilarious,

51
00:03:02,960 --> 00:03:05,880
Speaker 3: but now it is my go to for political commentary

52
00:03:06,040 --> 00:03:09,840
Speaker 3: like yours, which I think is really my favorite thing

53
00:03:09,880 --> 00:03:12,160
Speaker 3: about sub stack. But you know, I do read some

54
00:03:12,240 --> 00:03:14,440
Speaker 3: of the life on the farm stuff. For those of

55
00:03:14,440 --> 00:03:17,440
Speaker 3: you who don't know, we have chickens in our backyard,

56
00:03:17,440 --> 00:03:18,840
Speaker 3: which has been an experience.

57
00:03:21,360 --> 00:03:26,000
Speaker 1: As you pointed out, we are heading into unprecedented days.

58
00:03:26,919 --> 00:03:31,799
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put them Manhattan prosecution aside. I don't mean

59
00:03:31,880 --> 00:03:35,120
Speaker 1: to diminish it, dismiss it, but I think there are

60
00:03:35,320 --> 00:03:39,440
Speaker 1: elements of politics in that that stand apart from the

61
00:03:39,480 --> 00:03:44,600
Speaker 1: federal prosecutions that I think are upon us. How How

62
00:03:44,600 --> 00:03:48,360
Speaker 1: should how should people watching think about this as a

63
00:03:48,400 --> 00:03:52,920
Speaker 1: matter of history? How unprecedented is it? As you, as

64
00:03:52,960 --> 00:03:56,080
Speaker 1: you contemplate with what seems to be honest. This, this

65
00:03:56,280 --> 00:03:59,800
Speaker 1: prosecution of a former president of the United States for

66
00:03:59,880 --> 00:04:01,520
Speaker 1: the first time in American history.

67
00:04:03,320 --> 00:04:06,760
Speaker 3: I think it's hard to process things fully in the

68
00:04:06,840 --> 00:04:09,200
Speaker 3: moment where you're living through them, right. That's why we

69
00:04:09,240 --> 00:04:13,680
Speaker 3: have historians and we are going to have this challenge

70
00:04:13,720 --> 00:04:17,320
Speaker 3: of watching this happen. I increasingly believe it's not a

71
00:04:17,400 --> 00:04:20,479
Speaker 3: question of if Donald Trump will be investigated by the FEDS,

72
00:04:20,520 --> 00:04:23,520
Speaker 3: it's a question of when. And so I would suggest

73
00:04:23,839 --> 00:04:27,400
Speaker 3: that this is a good paradigm. It's not the only one,

74
00:04:27,400 --> 00:04:30,760
Speaker 3: but it's a good one. As citizens, we are entitled

75
00:04:30,800 --> 00:04:34,920
Speaker 3: to demand this from our Justice Department, that they uphold

76
00:04:35,440 --> 00:04:39,680
Speaker 3: all of their principles, all of their rules, treat Donald

77
00:04:39,680 --> 00:04:42,680
Speaker 3: Trump as a defendant just the way they would any

78
00:04:42,760 --> 00:04:46,240
Speaker 3: other defendant. It is a test of our American rule

79
00:04:46,279 --> 00:04:49,800
Speaker 3: of law to see whether he can be prosecuted in

80
00:04:49,920 --> 00:04:54,479
Speaker 3: conformity with the same practices, given the same rights, treated

81
00:04:54,560 --> 00:04:57,520
Speaker 3: with the same level of fairness as any other defendant.

82
00:04:57,800 --> 00:05:01,160
Speaker 3: And here's the real challenge. Trump would not do that

83
00:05:01,240 --> 00:05:03,120
Speaker 3: for you or for me if we were on trial.

84
00:05:03,200 --> 00:05:06,200
Speaker 3: Donald Trump has nothing but scorn for the rule of law.

85
00:05:06,600 --> 00:05:10,560
Speaker 3: Donald Trump doesn't believe in American norms or practices. So

86
00:05:10,680 --> 00:05:12,920
Speaker 3: it is a test for our system to see if

87
00:05:12,920 --> 00:05:16,279
Speaker 3: we can treat him, give him the best tradition of

88
00:05:16,360 --> 00:05:20,560
Speaker 3: American justice, even though he doesn't deserve it, because in

89
00:05:20,600 --> 00:05:23,320
Speaker 3: a way, that's the test of the system as much

90
00:05:23,360 --> 00:05:25,760
Speaker 3: as the verdict that a jury will ultimately render.

91
00:05:25,839 --> 00:05:29,120
Speaker 1: Here, I think we just said it's a really important point,

92
00:05:29,240 --> 00:05:35,640
Speaker 1: and it imposes a special obligation on Trump's most vociferous critics,

93
00:05:36,040 --> 00:05:39,599
Speaker 1: of which I count myself as one, that we have

94
00:05:39,680 --> 00:05:43,880
Speaker 1: to work over time to talk about the fact now

95
00:05:44,040 --> 00:05:49,360
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump, like any American, is entitled to the

96
00:05:49,400 --> 00:05:53,599
Speaker 1: full constitutional rights, all of the due process of any

97
00:05:53,640 --> 00:06:00,760
Speaker 1: other American, and Donald Trump is in fact innocent, proven

98
00:06:00,760 --> 00:06:04,039
Speaker 1: guilty like any other American as we as we enter

99
00:06:04,080 --> 00:06:05,080
Speaker 1: into this process.

100
00:06:06,360 --> 00:06:08,680
Speaker 3: That's really important because you know, I was one of

101
00:06:08,720 --> 00:06:12,360
Speaker 3: a group of people that looked at the evidence exhaustively,

102
00:06:12,400 --> 00:06:15,880
Speaker 3: the publicly known evidence, and reached the conclusion that there

103
00:06:15,880 --> 00:06:18,680
Speaker 3: were six statutes that Donald Trump could be charged with

104
00:06:18,800 --> 00:06:23,520
Speaker 3: violating sort of two buckets. One bucket involved mishandling classified

105
00:06:23,800 --> 00:06:27,120
Speaker 3: or government secrets, and then the other bucket was obstruction

106
00:06:27,279 --> 00:06:30,440
Speaker 3: of justice. I think he can be indicted. I think

107
00:06:30,480 --> 00:06:33,400
Speaker 3: he can be convicted, but what you say is the

108
00:06:33,440 --> 00:06:36,720
Speaker 3: bottom line for me. Like any other person who's indicted

109
00:06:36,720 --> 00:06:40,599
Speaker 3: in the American justice system, he is innocent until proven

110
00:06:40,680 --> 00:06:43,800
Speaker 3: guilty by a jury of his peers, no matter what

111
00:06:43,920 --> 00:06:46,000
Speaker 3: I might think about the quality of the evidence.

112
00:06:46,600 --> 00:06:50,560
Speaker 1: Now putting aside the indictment for a second in the

113
00:06:50,600 --> 00:06:52,719
Speaker 1: specifics of what we think may or may not be

114
00:06:52,839 --> 00:06:56,560
Speaker 1: in it. Chris Christy at New Hampshire town Hall last

115
00:06:56,680 --> 00:07:00,880
Speaker 1: night talked about something that I've written up bout over

116
00:07:00,920 --> 00:07:04,320
Speaker 1: the course of the last year that I find to

117
00:07:04,400 --> 00:07:09,480
Speaker 1: be as stunning an act of public corruption in broad

118
00:07:09,600 --> 00:07:13,920
Speaker 1: daylight as anything that I have seen in my lifetime,

119
00:07:13,960 --> 00:07:18,559
Speaker 1: and that is the investment by the Sovereign Investment Fund

120
00:07:18,640 --> 00:07:23,600
Speaker 1: of the Government of Saudi Arabia, controlled by Mohammed Ben Solomon,

121
00:07:23,720 --> 00:07:28,800
Speaker 1: the Crown prints over the objections of the professional money

122
00:07:29,640 --> 00:07:33,560
Speaker 1: managers in the Kingdom to invest two billion dollars with

123
00:07:33,680 --> 00:07:38,640
Speaker 1: Jared Kushner, who never has invested any money, has no

124
00:07:38,800 --> 00:07:43,520
Speaker 1: experience running an investment firm, but despite having been denied

125
00:07:43,560 --> 00:07:48,640
Speaker 1: a security clearance earlier in the administration, had an unwavering

126
00:07:48,800 --> 00:07:53,280
Speaker 1: appetite for classified information. According to The Wall Street Journal,

127
00:07:53,600 --> 00:07:56,360
Speaker 1: According to the New York Times, meaning he was one

128
00:07:56,440 --> 00:07:59,920
Speaker 1: of the highest end consumers of it, wanted the class

129
00:08:00,040 --> 00:08:03,760
Speaker 1: of five briefings we have who knows what in more

130
00:08:03,800 --> 00:08:07,880
Speaker 1: a lago you look now with the Saudi purchase of

131
00:08:07,920 --> 00:08:12,520
Speaker 1: the PGA tour in the news, Chris Christie directly engaging

132
00:08:12,560 --> 00:08:15,640
Speaker 1: on this issue which I have always felt was not

133
00:08:15,760 --> 00:08:20,240
Speaker 1: a lobbying story but really an espionage story. And and

134
00:08:20,360 --> 00:08:22,560
Speaker 1: let me just let me just add one one aspect

135
00:08:22,600 --> 00:08:25,840
Speaker 1: to that. Robert Hanson died this week at the Supermax

136
00:08:26,360 --> 00:08:31,400
Speaker 1: prison in Colorado at age at age seventy nine, Robert

137
00:08:31,480 --> 00:08:35,200
Speaker 1: Hansen took about a million dollars from the from the

138
00:08:35,200 --> 00:08:38,240
Speaker 1: Soviet Union, and again I'll say that number with Kushner

139
00:08:38,520 --> 00:08:43,800
Speaker 1: two billion with a b in in American money and

140
00:08:44,080 --> 00:08:48,240
Speaker 1: all of these issues, I think that outside of the

141
00:08:48,640 --> 00:08:53,120
Speaker 1: outside of the prosecutorial context, there is a confluence between

142
00:08:53,200 --> 00:08:56,600
Speaker 1: the legal side of this now and the political side

143
00:08:56,640 --> 00:09:01,520
Speaker 1: of this with a with a Saudi connection, the nine

144
00:09:01,559 --> 00:09:04,080
Speaker 1: to eleven families involved in it as well, that I

145
00:09:04,120 --> 00:09:06,520
Speaker 1: think makes for an explosive mix. Do you have any

146
00:09:06,559 --> 00:09:10,600
Speaker 1: thoughts on the totality of all of these things coming

147
00:09:10,640 --> 00:09:13,320
Speaker 1: together politics and legally in this moment.

148
00:09:14,600 --> 00:09:17,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, the Kushner deal certainly does not look

149
00:09:17,960 --> 00:09:23,000
Speaker 3: kosher to me. And before you even think about espionage,

150
00:09:23,040 --> 00:09:25,880
Speaker 3: there's just the notion that a senior advisor in the

151
00:09:25,880 --> 00:09:29,680
Speaker 3: White House who worked extensively with the Saudis, right, who

152
00:09:29,760 --> 00:09:34,760
Speaker 3: notoriously had friendships in Saudi Arabia, that he was given

153
00:09:34,800 --> 00:09:38,000
Speaker 3: this gift on his way out the door. It does

154
00:09:38,040 --> 00:09:41,120
Speaker 3: not look like a smart business decision by the Saudis.

155
00:09:41,679 --> 00:09:45,560
Speaker 3: It looks like you'll forgive me raft, you know, But

156
00:09:45,760 --> 00:09:48,880
Speaker 3: what do I know? The point here is that when

157
00:09:49,000 --> 00:09:53,280
Speaker 3: something like that takes place, and when there's predication to investigate,

158
00:09:53,720 --> 00:09:57,880
Speaker 3: then the FBI should be taking a look. And perhaps

159
00:09:57,960 --> 00:10:02,400
Speaker 3: they have and they've cleared the situation. Perhaps they're still investigating.

160
00:10:02,840 --> 00:10:05,880
Speaker 3: We don't really see any suggestion that they are. And

161
00:10:05,960 --> 00:10:08,960
Speaker 3: I think this is the sort of thing it should

162
00:10:08,960 --> 00:10:11,719
Speaker 3: have never happened. I mean, neither one of us, I

163
00:10:11,720 --> 00:10:14,720
Speaker 3: don't think, has been a White House ethicist. But I

164
00:10:14,720 --> 00:10:17,000
Speaker 3: think if we had been one of the ethics folks,

165
00:10:17,040 --> 00:10:20,600
Speaker 3: we would look at the way that the Kushners leveraged

166
00:10:20,640 --> 00:10:24,320
Speaker 3: their time in the White House and have real discomfort

167
00:10:24,440 --> 00:10:27,440
Speaker 3: and know that in any other administration they would have

168
00:10:27,520 --> 00:10:31,920
Speaker 3: been shut down. Frankly, Jared Kushner's failure, as you point out,

169
00:10:32,000 --> 00:10:35,200
Speaker 3: to be able to obtain a security clearance something that

170
00:10:35,240 --> 00:10:38,520
Speaker 3: should have disqualified him from further work. But we know

171
00:10:38,640 --> 00:10:42,719
Speaker 3: he was reading the briefing that the president receives every day.

172
00:10:42,720 --> 00:10:46,080
Speaker 3: I mean, there's just so much dysfunction. So I think

173
00:10:46,160 --> 00:10:50,120
Speaker 3: Chris Christi is right to raise this in the political

174
00:10:50,120 --> 00:10:53,560
Speaker 3: arena because it does not look like the situation will

175
00:10:53,600 --> 00:10:56,000
Speaker 3: be redressed in the legal one. I mean, there could

176
00:10:56,040 --> 00:10:59,760
Speaker 3: be a Grandeury investigation ongoing. We just don't know. This

177
00:10:59,840 --> 00:11:02,440
Speaker 3: is not something that can continue. We can't change what

178
00:11:02,559 --> 00:11:05,360
Speaker 3: happened in the Trump administration. We've got to make sure

179
00:11:05,360 --> 00:11:08,520
Speaker 3: that there is never a repetition. That's two billion dollars.

180
00:11:08,800 --> 00:11:11,079
Speaker 3: You don't get that amount of money just for nothing.

181
00:11:12,200 --> 00:11:16,720
Speaker 1: Does that trigger an investigation when it becomes public? Does

182
00:11:16,840 --> 00:11:20,480
Speaker 1: somebody in the Justice Department, whether they picked that up

183
00:11:20,520 --> 00:11:24,840
Speaker 1: in the news newspaper? Cable News reads about that and says, Wow,

184
00:11:26,120 --> 00:11:29,920
Speaker 1: the President's son in law, we had access to the

185
00:11:29,960 --> 00:11:35,200
Speaker 1: President's daily brief months after leaving his West Wing office,

186
00:11:35,760 --> 00:11:38,400
Speaker 1: is taking two billion dollars from the soutingast. We have

187
00:11:38,480 --> 00:11:39,199
Speaker 1: to look into this.

188
00:11:40,080 --> 00:11:44,959
Speaker 3: Or I was going to say, in my experience, the

189
00:11:44,960 --> 00:11:49,200
Speaker 3: best public corruption prosecutions always came out of newspaper stories.

190
00:11:49,280 --> 00:11:49,439
Speaker 4: Right.

191
00:11:49,440 --> 00:11:52,880
Speaker 3: You'd be sitting at your desk reading the newspaper and

192
00:11:52,920 --> 00:11:56,000
Speaker 3: you go, holy moly, did anybody know this was going on?

193
00:11:56,080 --> 00:11:58,280
Speaker 3: And prosecutors in my office would talk about it, and

194
00:11:58,280 --> 00:12:00,880
Speaker 3: you picked up the phone and called the FBI. And

195
00:12:00,920 --> 00:12:05,040
Speaker 3: that's often how those investigations are triggered. So, yes, it's

196
00:12:05,200 --> 00:12:08,520
Speaker 3: legitimate for the Bureau. And I think the Bureau frequently

197
00:12:08,600 --> 00:12:13,640
Speaker 3: does use the newspapers as one of many sources of intelligence.

198
00:12:13,679 --> 00:12:16,880
Speaker 3: They all obviously have human sourcing and other ways of

199
00:12:16,880 --> 00:12:20,760
Speaker 3: getting information. Here's the standard for opening a criminal investigation.

200
00:12:20,840 --> 00:12:23,000
Speaker 3: There there has to be predication. There has to be

201
00:12:23,040 --> 00:12:26,880
Speaker 3: a reasonable belief more than a mere speculation, that a

202
00:12:26,920 --> 00:12:29,840
Speaker 3: crime has been committed. So somebody here would have to

203
00:12:29,880 --> 00:12:33,599
Speaker 3: look at the different pieces, think if there's a statute

204
00:12:33,720 --> 00:12:36,600
Speaker 3: that this might have violated, and then it would be legitimate,

205
00:12:36,640 --> 00:12:39,040
Speaker 3: if not incumbent upon you to look into it.

206
00:12:40,200 --> 00:12:45,640
Speaker 1: When you talk to your former colleagues and a community

207
00:12:45,920 --> 00:12:53,319
Speaker 1: of law enforcement former prosecutors. Through a prism of water temperature,

208
00:12:53,920 --> 00:12:57,120
Speaker 1: meaning think about a hot tub, it's one hundred and

209
00:12:57,120 --> 00:13:00,320
Speaker 1: two degrees, it's ninety nine. You can tell the defference

210
00:13:00,360 --> 00:13:04,160
Speaker 1: between the temperature. Is there a sense that this era

211
00:13:05,120 --> 00:13:11,760
Speaker 1: has become more corrupt than ten years ago, fifteen years ago,

212
00:13:11,920 --> 00:13:15,360
Speaker 1: twenty years ago. Is there a sense that we're living

213
00:13:15,760 --> 00:13:20,920
Speaker 1: in a golden age of corruption by the prosecutors, by

214
00:13:20,960 --> 00:13:25,040
Speaker 1: the federal prosecutors that are supposed to be to be

215
00:13:25,160 --> 00:13:28,760
Speaker 1: looking at these things. Is there a cognition of that

216
00:13:28,960 --> 00:13:32,959
Speaker 1: as a matter of the fundamental realities of the politics

217
00:13:33,000 --> 00:13:36,480
Speaker 1: of the moment, or do you think that that's not sensed?

218
00:13:37,880 --> 00:13:40,360
Speaker 3: You know, if you can sort of slice the top

219
00:13:40,440 --> 00:13:44,240
Speaker 3: layer of the cake and take Trump and his folks

220
00:13:44,280 --> 00:13:47,280
Speaker 3: and lift that layer off and set it aside, I

221
00:13:47,320 --> 00:13:50,680
Speaker 3: think the rest of the cake is like it always is.

222
00:13:50,720 --> 00:13:53,439
Speaker 3: I mean, there is always a smattering of public corruption

223
00:13:53,520 --> 00:13:57,120
Speaker 3: that runs through American society that prosecutors have to address.

224
00:13:57,200 --> 00:14:00,400
Speaker 3: That's why there's an entire public Integrity section in the

225
00:14:00,520 --> 00:14:04,400
Speaker 3: Justice Department that focuses on those cases. I don't think,

226
00:14:04,800 --> 00:14:06,840
Speaker 3: at least I don't get a sense from talking with

227
00:14:06,920 --> 00:14:10,080
Speaker 3: folks who do the work that it significantly increased with

228
00:14:10,240 --> 00:14:16,160
Speaker 3: this one exception. I think Trump's behavior has emboldened other

229
00:14:16,360 --> 00:14:20,280
Speaker 3: people to ignore laws and ignore norms, and if that

230
00:14:20,480 --> 00:14:23,760
Speaker 3: is not shut down definitively, you know, we will end

231
00:14:23,840 --> 00:14:25,520
Speaker 3: up living in sort of a I don't know if

232
00:14:25,520 --> 00:14:30,520
Speaker 3: it's a kleptocracy or a Khaki cacistocracy, but where government

233
00:14:30,520 --> 00:14:35,520
Speaker 3: officials increasingly believe that they can get away with bad behavior.

234
00:14:35,880 --> 00:14:39,000
Speaker 3: That's one of the reasons that you're seeing prosecutors focus

235
00:14:39,160 --> 00:14:42,240
Speaker 3: on these cases and jump on these investigations. A great

236
00:14:42,280 --> 00:14:46,000
Speaker 3: example is what happened in the Western District of Virginia

237
00:14:46,120 --> 00:14:49,960
Speaker 3: last week where a series of family owned companies, thirteen

238
00:14:49,960 --> 00:14:54,520
Speaker 3: coal mining related companies owned by West Virginia's Republican governor

239
00:14:54,600 --> 00:14:58,640
Speaker 3: Jim Justice, were sued in a civil action by the

240
00:14:58,760 --> 00:15:01,640
Speaker 3: Justice Department. They're trying to get back about seven million

241
00:15:01,680 --> 00:15:04,520
Speaker 3: dollars in fines that haven't been paid. The reason the

242
00:15:04,600 --> 00:15:06,800
Speaker 3: law suits happening in Virginia has to do with where

243
00:15:06,800 --> 00:15:10,080
Speaker 3: the governor's son lives, but he's really a primary focus,

244
00:15:10,080 --> 00:15:12,600
Speaker 3: and his spokespeople kicked back and they said, this is

245
00:15:12,640 --> 00:15:15,200
Speaker 3: a political witch hunt. It's sort of like they're going

246
00:15:15,240 --> 00:15:17,840
Speaker 3: to pick up the Trump defense. It's a pretty clear

247
00:15:17,920 --> 00:15:21,320
Speaker 3: case of failure to pay money, primarily that they have

248
00:15:21,400 --> 00:15:24,720
Speaker 3: to pay for fines due to failure to reclaim old

249
00:15:24,800 --> 00:15:29,280
Speaker 3: mining lands. And that's the sort of stuff that you see,

250
00:15:29,320 --> 00:15:32,200
Speaker 3: and that's the sort of stuff that prosecutors address right

251
00:15:32,240 --> 00:15:34,480
Speaker 3: now they have to address it with alacrity because of

252
00:15:34,520 --> 00:15:37,920
Speaker 3: the situation Trump has created. But that slice of the

253
00:15:37,960 --> 00:15:41,000
Speaker 3: cake that we pulled off and set aside, the Trump slice,

254
00:15:41,560 --> 00:15:44,960
Speaker 3: that stuff is just sheer, crazy and the sort of

255
00:15:45,280 --> 00:15:48,200
Speaker 3: brazen way that they were willing to grift at the

256
00:15:48,280 --> 00:15:52,200
Speaker 3: expense of the American taxpayers unlike anything I have ever seen.

257
00:15:54,400 --> 00:15:58,920
Speaker 1: And no one has has been charged with anything.

258
00:16:00,120 --> 00:16:03,000
Speaker 3: Much of it. It was so pervasive, just stuff like

259
00:16:03,080 --> 00:16:06,360
Speaker 3: you know, and not always criminals, some of an administrative

260
00:16:06,400 --> 00:16:09,640
Speaker 3: but Steve, you like me, had to stay within government

261
00:16:09,720 --> 00:16:12,280
Speaker 3: per diem when you got a hotel room, right, I mean,

262
00:16:12,320 --> 00:16:15,440
Speaker 3: you just stayed where the per diem worked. And now

263
00:16:15,480 --> 00:16:18,400
Speaker 3: we know that Trump was requiring people in the Secret

264
00:16:18,440 --> 00:16:21,360
Speaker 3: Service to stay at Trump owned properties where he had

265
00:16:21,480 --> 00:16:23,640
Speaker 3: jacked up the daily race and he was billing the

266
00:16:23,680 --> 00:16:26,280
Speaker 3: Secret Service. I mean, this stuff is just crazy top

267
00:16:27,800 --> 00:16:30,880
Speaker 3: and that's minor, right, That's just one minor little cog

268
00:16:30,920 --> 00:16:32,640
Speaker 3: in the whole of it. All of the ways that

269
00:16:32,680 --> 00:16:36,200
Speaker 3: they made money off of the presidency.

270
00:16:36,320 --> 00:16:39,480
Speaker 1: And and this has been repetitive through Trump's career. Right,

271
00:16:39,560 --> 00:16:42,200
Speaker 1: you can you can look at this through some prism,

272
00:16:42,280 --> 00:16:44,720
Speaker 1: I guess, right, and say he is a he's a

273
00:16:45,080 --> 00:16:50,760
Speaker 1: he is a legal philosopher of our era in some level, right,

274
00:16:50,800 --> 00:16:53,760
Speaker 1: because he's advanced a proposition, how going to do whatever

275
00:16:53,840 --> 00:16:59,440
Speaker 1: I want f you? And he's tested that proposition to

276
00:16:59,600 --> 00:17:05,119
Speaker 1: the Math Acts, and he is you know, the outcome

277
00:17:05,200 --> 00:17:10,240
Speaker 1: of it is is is very much uncertain. But he

278
00:17:10,720 --> 00:17:15,720
Speaker 1: has absolutely tested that that proposition, and at age seventy eight,

279
00:17:16,280 --> 00:17:19,280
Speaker 1: you know, he's taken it quite quite a few miles

280
00:17:19,320 --> 00:17:19,920
Speaker 1: down the road.

281
00:17:21,160 --> 00:17:23,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's true. And I guess it's a

282
00:17:23,960 --> 00:17:27,800
Speaker 3: conundrum if you're the Merit Garland Justice Department, do you

283
00:17:27,960 --> 00:17:30,800
Speaker 3: try to go after everything? Do you let Trump and

284
00:17:30,840 --> 00:17:34,800
Speaker 3: Trump related cases consume all of your resources? Does that

285
00:17:34,920 --> 00:17:39,000
Speaker 3: further politicize the country. But some of these offenses were serious,

286
00:17:39,480 --> 00:17:42,640
Speaker 3: especially some of the stuff with cabinet level officials who

287
00:17:42,680 --> 00:17:48,160
Speaker 3: were involved in misconduct involving finances. It would be nice

288
00:17:48,160 --> 00:17:50,280
Speaker 3: to see some of that addressed. It would be nice

289
00:17:50,320 --> 00:17:53,720
Speaker 3: to see the Hatch Act restored so that private citizens

290
00:17:53,760 --> 00:17:57,480
Speaker 3: would have confidence that the government is not using their

291
00:17:57,560 --> 00:18:00,640
Speaker 3: money to achieve its own political aims. But a lot

292
00:18:00,680 --> 00:18:03,800
Speaker 3: of those norms are still out of kink. They're not

293
00:18:04,080 --> 00:18:06,760
Speaker 3: back set to where they need to be for us

294
00:18:06,800 --> 00:18:07,600
Speaker 3: to move forward.

295
00:18:08,480 --> 00:18:10,280
Speaker 1: And do you think that requires legislation?

296
00:18:11,520 --> 00:18:14,080
Speaker 3: You know, I think it requires a lot of things.

297
00:18:14,119 --> 00:18:17,080
Speaker 3: I mean, these are soft norms, they're not necessarily laws.

298
00:18:17,119 --> 00:18:19,040
Speaker 3: So I guess the question you're asking is do we

299
00:18:19,119 --> 00:18:22,000
Speaker 3: need laws instead of soft norms? And I think in

300
00:18:22,040 --> 00:18:25,320
Speaker 3: some cases yes, and in some cases no. We need

301
00:18:25,359 --> 00:18:29,080
Speaker 3: to have a well educated American citizenry that pays attention

302
00:18:29,160 --> 00:18:31,400
Speaker 3: to who they're putting into office. Sort of good luck

303
00:18:31,400 --> 00:18:33,879
Speaker 3: with that, right, I mean, I think much more of

304
00:18:33,920 --> 00:18:37,560
Speaker 3: the electorate is educated and engaged. And maybe that's the

305
00:18:37,600 --> 00:18:41,119
Speaker 3: silver lining of the Trump era, because I promise you

306
00:18:41,240 --> 00:18:43,560
Speaker 3: that in the twenty five years I was a prosecutor,

307
00:18:44,040 --> 00:18:46,879
Speaker 3: nobody ever asked me how a grand jury worked or

308
00:18:46,920 --> 00:18:49,919
Speaker 3: what the difference between an indictment and an information was.

309
00:18:50,400 --> 00:18:52,840
Speaker 3: And now I go to the grocery store and somebody

310
00:18:52,880 --> 00:18:54,919
Speaker 3: will pull me aside and say, can you explain what

311
00:18:55,160 --> 00:18:58,640
Speaker 3: information is to me? I think that's good for democracy,

312
00:18:58,680 --> 00:19:01,280
Speaker 3: when all of us are sharing little pieces that we

313
00:19:01,400 --> 00:19:03,880
Speaker 3: know about. I think that's fabulous.

314
00:19:04,640 --> 00:19:07,640
Speaker 1: Are you worried about our democracy?

315
00:19:10,280 --> 00:19:13,520
Speaker 3: I teach in the area of democratic institutions. I spend

316
00:19:13,560 --> 00:19:16,520
Speaker 3: a lot of time thinking about what the temperature in

317
00:19:16,600 --> 00:19:22,600
Speaker 3: the institutions is. I do worry, but I also have

318
00:19:22,800 --> 00:19:27,920
Speaker 3: this reflection. A year ago, we didn't know that anything

319
00:19:28,240 --> 00:19:31,719
Speaker 3: in our system would ever be able to hold Trump accountable.

320
00:19:31,760 --> 00:19:33,760
Speaker 3: There was a real chance that he was going to

321
00:19:33,800 --> 00:19:38,280
Speaker 3: walk away unscathed. Since then, the January sixth Committee has

322
00:19:38,320 --> 00:19:42,399
Speaker 3: done just a remarkable job of educating the public, surfacing

323
00:19:42,480 --> 00:19:46,600
Speaker 3: new information, and now the Justice Department is beginning to

324
00:19:46,680 --> 00:19:51,480
Speaker 3: hold more and more people accountable. That gives me confidence.

325
00:19:51,640 --> 00:19:54,359
Speaker 3: We may be a fragile system, but that does not

326
00:19:54,560 --> 00:19:57,000
Speaker 3: mean that we can't survive and grow stronger.

327
00:19:58,320 --> 00:20:01,239
Speaker 1: How do you feel or think about it?

328
00:20:01,320 --> 00:20:04,360
Speaker 3: Can I push back and ask you that same last question, though,

329
00:20:04,359 --> 00:20:06,199
Speaker 3: what do you think? How do you feel about the

330
00:20:06,240 --> 00:20:08,120
Speaker 3: future of democracy these days?

331
00:20:08,359 --> 00:20:16,639
Speaker 1: I'm extremely concerned? Why bravely, gravely, bravely worried? Well, I

332
00:20:16,720 --> 00:20:20,720
Speaker 1: think that if you were too. For example, go and

333
00:20:20,840 --> 00:20:26,520
Speaker 1: listen to John Kennedy speak at Amherst College, which was

334
00:20:26,600 --> 00:20:31,359
Speaker 1: his last major address as president. It's a speech about

335
00:20:31,400 --> 00:20:36,280
Speaker 1: the role of art in society. He's honoring Robert Frost.

336
00:20:37,119 --> 00:20:41,479
Speaker 1: And so this is October of nineteen sixty three. You

337
00:20:41,560 --> 00:20:45,960
Speaker 1: listen to that speech, and it would be fair to

338
00:20:46,119 --> 00:20:50,720
Speaker 1: judge it against the idiocracy that we seem to live

339
00:20:50,760 --> 00:20:55,800
Speaker 1: in today. It's as if a comet hit and wiped

340
00:20:55,840 --> 00:21:01,640
Speaker 1: out about eighty five percent of mankind's knowledge. And there

341
00:21:01,920 --> 00:21:07,120
Speaker 1: is a degeneracy in the society like it's unraveling, right,

342
00:21:07,400 --> 00:21:12,159
Speaker 1: the lack of ability to follow concepts. I was having

343
00:21:12,200 --> 00:21:16,000
Speaker 1: a conversation with someone earlier today who was a Catholic

344
00:21:16,040 --> 00:21:19,840
Speaker 1: priest and talk about the concept of the public good

345
00:21:21,080 --> 00:21:28,760
Speaker 1: as a philosophical construct and the difficulty of even expressing

346
00:21:28,840 --> 00:21:34,720
Speaker 1: this as a concept right to Americans in this moment

347
00:21:34,840 --> 00:21:38,560
Speaker 1: in time. So what the founding father said in the

348
00:21:39,080 --> 00:21:43,040
Speaker 1: Federalist Papers, which has really a dude to understand. If

349
00:21:43,119 --> 00:21:47,879
Speaker 1: no one cares, if no one is engaged, if the

350
00:21:47,960 --> 00:21:54,520
Speaker 1: society is consumed by lassitude, this all goes down. And

351
00:21:54,600 --> 00:22:01,480
Speaker 1: so when you look at a John Kennedy fifty years ago, materially, substantively,

352
00:22:02,440 --> 00:22:06,720
Speaker 1: in every conceivable way, there was a death. There was

353
00:22:06,760 --> 00:22:12,880
Speaker 1: an elegance, there was a seriousness of purpose that has

354
00:22:13,080 --> 00:22:19,520
Speaker 1: been strict from much of our politics, and the epicenter

355
00:22:19,600 --> 00:22:24,040
Speaker 1: of it, right is inside the Republican Party, which has

356
00:22:24,119 --> 00:22:27,199
Speaker 1: become so deeply and profoundly corrupted. And I say this

357
00:22:27,280 --> 00:22:30,600
Speaker 1: all the time. If you have a country with eighteen

358
00:22:30,720 --> 00:22:35,960
Speaker 1: political parties, and one of the major parties in the

359
00:22:36,040 --> 00:22:41,880
Speaker 1: eighteen all of a sudden takes a flyer on pluralism, democracy,

360
00:22:42,320 --> 00:22:46,920
Speaker 1: human rights, all of these things. It becomes an autocratic party.

361
00:22:47,840 --> 00:22:51,640
Speaker 1: That's not a societal crisis. If you have a two

362
00:22:51,720 --> 00:22:55,280
Speaker 1: party system and one of the two political parties, which

363
00:22:55,280 --> 00:22:58,320
Speaker 1: also happens to be the third oldest political party in

364
00:22:58,359 --> 00:23:02,960
Speaker 1: the world, does that, and we have an inability really

365
00:23:03,000 --> 00:23:06,840
Speaker 1: to honestly talk about it, look at it, speak about it,

366
00:23:08,040 --> 00:23:12,760
Speaker 1: and there's an absence of coverage around. To me, what

367
00:23:12,960 --> 00:23:17,880
Speaker 1: is the fundamental issue right of this moment in history,

368
00:23:18,359 --> 00:23:22,000
Speaker 1: which is the rise of an American fascism. That's exactly

369
00:23:22,040 --> 00:23:26,520
Speaker 1: what it is. It's an extremist political movement. One thing

370
00:23:26,600 --> 00:23:30,280
Speaker 1: that I will agree with Benito Muscollini on completely is

371
00:23:30,320 --> 00:23:35,920
Speaker 1: this Muzsolini invented fascism, and Mussolini gave a speech about

372
00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:40,040
Speaker 1: fascism where he basically said, I Mussolini invented this. It's

373
00:23:40,119 --> 00:23:43,320
Speaker 1: mine I'm going to tell you what a fascist is

374
00:23:43,359 --> 00:23:46,040
Speaker 1: and who gets to be a fascist and who isn't.

375
00:23:46,640 --> 00:23:49,600
Speaker 1: And if you apply the Muzzolini standard from the thing

376
00:23:49,680 --> 00:23:52,040
Speaker 1: that he invented and talked about in the speech he

377
00:23:52,200 --> 00:23:57,240
Speaker 1: gave Marjorie Taylor Green and a lot of these people

378
00:23:57,600 --> 00:24:01,440
Speaker 1: and certainly Donald Trump and certainly Ron Santus all past

379
00:24:01,640 --> 00:24:06,359
Speaker 1: the test. And so the issue is one of intent

380
00:24:07,280 --> 00:24:11,080
Speaker 1: that shockingly to me over the last seven years, that

381
00:24:11,320 --> 00:24:14,040
Speaker 1: very few journalists have gotten to But I think I

382
00:24:14,119 --> 00:24:17,680
Speaker 1: know the answer, and you hinted at it at the beginning.

383
00:24:19,160 --> 00:24:23,040
Speaker 1: Would Donald Trump lock up his political opponents? Would he

384
00:24:23,119 --> 00:24:27,640
Speaker 1: imprison me? Could he send people to re education camps?

385
00:24:28,240 --> 00:24:32,959
Speaker 1: I think that there's a lack of appreciation for how

386
00:24:33,080 --> 00:24:37,320
Speaker 1: quick a democracy can fall and people can be put

387
00:24:37,400 --> 00:24:43,199
Speaker 1: up against the wall. As a historical matter, in the

388
00:24:43,280 --> 00:24:46,480
Speaker 1: nineteen thirties, in the nineteen forties, and if you look

389
00:24:46,520 --> 00:24:49,800
Speaker 1: at the fact seventy nine years yesterday on from D Day,

390
00:24:49,840 --> 00:24:55,080
Speaker 1: the most momentous events in human history, still within the

391
00:24:55,119 --> 00:24:59,920
Speaker 1: span of a single human lifetime, are fundamentally for God

392
00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:04,240
Speaker 1: and in much of the society which would have astonished

393
00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:11,359
Speaker 1: my grandparents' generation, would have astonished most Americans even twenty

394
00:25:11,440 --> 00:25:15,480
Speaker 1: twenty five, twenty five years ago. So I think a

395
00:25:15,520 --> 00:25:21,000
Speaker 1: society that can't remember that, that can't practice gratitude, and

396
00:25:21,040 --> 00:25:24,679
Speaker 1: that has lost sight of the compact generationally that we're

397
00:25:24,680 --> 00:25:28,200
Speaker 1: going to leave the country better off. I think we're

398
00:25:28,200 --> 00:25:30,840
Speaker 1: in a lot of trouble. And I think the and

399
00:25:30,880 --> 00:25:35,960
Speaker 1: I think the trouble is constantly undersold, underestimated. CNN is

400
00:25:36,040 --> 00:25:39,680
Speaker 1: a great example of this, right, with this notion of

401
00:25:39,800 --> 00:25:45,880
Speaker 1: centrism as being some middle point that you have to

402
00:25:45,920 --> 00:25:50,920
Speaker 1: frame as the contours of a discussion between two sides.

403
00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:54,840
Speaker 1: But if you have one side that's completely delusional and

404
00:25:54,960 --> 00:26:01,800
Speaker 1: fantastical and making up he won the election that he lost,

405
00:26:02,400 --> 00:26:04,960
Speaker 1: or any of a number of other things, and it's

406
00:26:05,000 --> 00:26:08,280
Speaker 1: constantly propaganda all the time, there is no middle point

407
00:26:08,320 --> 00:26:11,679
Speaker 1: to meet. There is no place to compromise with the

408
00:26:11,760 --> 00:26:15,879
Speaker 1: neo Nazi, with the Patriot Front, with the Proud Voys,

409
00:26:15,920 --> 00:26:20,000
Speaker 1: who are now all certainly clearly in the open part

410
00:26:20,119 --> 00:26:24,080
Speaker 1: of the political coalition of one of the two major

411
00:26:24,119 --> 00:26:27,680
Speaker 1: political parties in the country. And I think that regresses

412
00:26:27,760 --> 00:26:31,639
Speaker 1: the country on issues of civil rights, on human rights,

413
00:26:31,680 --> 00:26:33,879
Speaker 1: on gay rights in a profound way. And what I

414
00:26:33,920 --> 00:26:37,360
Speaker 1: really believe is we're in the middle of a backlash

415
00:26:37,800 --> 00:26:44,560
Speaker 1: of profound dimensions. But maybe the backlash is broader than

416
00:26:44,600 --> 00:26:49,639
Speaker 1: the backlash to the Obama presidency and to gay marriage.

417
00:26:50,119 --> 00:26:56,240
Speaker 1: Maybe it's a backlash against really a constant moving of

418
00:26:56,280 --> 00:26:59,720
Speaker 1: the arc of moral justice, as Martin Luther King called it,

419
00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:04,560
Speaker 1: really from nineteen forty seven through about two thy and sixteen,

420
00:27:05,520 --> 00:27:08,119
Speaker 1: and now there is the backlash to this. We are

421
00:27:08,160 --> 00:27:11,560
Speaker 1: living through the backlash to the civil rights movement, gay

422
00:27:11,640 --> 00:27:16,399
Speaker 1: rights movement, the Obama presidency, and we have seen the

423
00:27:16,520 --> 00:27:20,639
Speaker 1: rise of this extremist movement that has actually taken power once.

424
00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:23,480
Speaker 1: And if it can take power once, it can take

425
00:27:23,560 --> 00:27:27,400
Speaker 1: power again. And if this maga movement gets in there

426
00:27:27,440 --> 00:27:31,080
Speaker 1: and takes power again, we will lose democracy as we

427
00:27:31,280 --> 00:27:36,560
Speaker 1: understand it in the country. The good news is is

428
00:27:36,600 --> 00:27:39,159
Speaker 1: there is a genius to our system and that is

429
00:27:39,200 --> 00:27:45,960
Speaker 1: how decentralized it and how disaggregated power is to communities

430
00:27:46,040 --> 00:27:51,960
Speaker 1: to boroughs, to townships to counties. So very hard right

431
00:27:52,240 --> 00:27:57,560
Speaker 1: for there to be the imposition of a detalitarianism and democracy.

432
00:27:57,600 --> 00:28:00,840
Speaker 1: But could we lose our democracy and the way that

433
00:28:00,920 --> 00:28:03,800
Speaker 1: Hungry has and the way that Turkey has One hundred percent.

434
00:28:04,760 --> 00:28:08,200
Speaker 3: I mean you can lose it in pieces, right when,

435
00:28:08,359 --> 00:28:10,879
Speaker 3: for instance, you know wherever you are on the issue

436
00:28:10,920 --> 00:28:14,640
Speaker 3: of abortion, when Roe versus Wade is rolled back, then

437
00:28:14,720 --> 00:28:17,040
Speaker 3: women have lost a little bit of their stake is

438
00:28:17,119 --> 00:28:20,679
Speaker 3: people who get to make decisions about important issues for themselves.

439
00:28:21,040 --> 00:28:24,119
Speaker 3: And so I think in some ways your vision is dark,

440
00:28:24,640 --> 00:28:27,560
Speaker 3: but the fact that it's dark doesn't mean that it's wrong.

441
00:28:27,640 --> 00:28:30,520
Speaker 3: I tend to strongly agree with you on the issue

442
00:28:30,560 --> 00:28:34,040
Speaker 3: of growing fascism in this country. And one of the

443
00:28:34,160 --> 00:28:36,520
Speaker 3: questions that I struggle with, and we may be in

444
00:28:36,560 --> 00:28:40,120
Speaker 3: different places on this, is have we hit rock bottom

445
00:28:40,160 --> 00:28:40,360
Speaker 3: or not?

446
00:28:40,520 --> 00:28:40,680
Speaker 1: Right?

447
00:28:40,760 --> 00:28:43,680
Speaker 3: That's what I hear you saying. We may not have

448
00:28:43,800 --> 00:28:47,520
Speaker 3: hit rock bottom. There may be far worth coming and

449
00:28:47,600 --> 00:28:50,240
Speaker 3: again worse coming. And against that I have this sort

450
00:28:50,280 --> 00:28:54,640
Speaker 3: of slender threads. It's slender, and my threat is, but

451
00:28:54,800 --> 00:28:57,960
Speaker 3: the rule of law may hold Trump accountable and that

452
00:28:58,040 --> 00:29:01,800
Speaker 3: may be the start of our climb back up. That's

453
00:29:01,840 --> 00:29:06,719
Speaker 3: the aspirational hope that American democracy stands on, that if

454
00:29:06,800 --> 00:29:09,160
Speaker 3: we start with Trump, we can work on some of

455
00:29:09,200 --> 00:29:12,320
Speaker 3: the other things. Because we do have Ron DeSantis in

456
00:29:12,360 --> 00:29:16,200
Speaker 3: the wing who has a fundamentally fascist ideology that he

457
00:29:16,360 --> 00:29:19,280
Speaker 3: brings to the American people. And if you you know,

458
00:29:19,320 --> 00:29:22,400
Speaker 3: look at the polls in the Republican Party, DeSantis and

459
00:29:22,440 --> 00:29:25,880
Speaker 3: Trump combined have about seventy five percent of the support

460
00:29:26,000 --> 00:29:28,320
Speaker 3: of a party that you know, I grew up in

461
00:29:28,360 --> 00:29:32,479
Speaker 3: this tradition. My substack is called civil discourse. And it

462
00:29:32,560 --> 00:29:36,040
Speaker 3: wasn't a random pick. I mean, I grew up loving

463
00:29:36,240 --> 00:29:39,960
Speaker 3: the notion of debating politics with my friends. And a

464
00:29:40,000 --> 00:29:43,080
Speaker 3: lot of my friends were very conservative Republicans, and we

465
00:29:43,160 --> 00:29:46,400
Speaker 3: went back and forth on the issues in this great

466
00:29:46,520 --> 00:29:49,520
Speaker 3: spirit of friendliness because we all had one common goal.

467
00:29:49,880 --> 00:29:53,960
Speaker 3: Our common goal was having a strong, self sufficient America

468
00:29:54,000 --> 00:29:57,320
Speaker 3: where we could all live our lives happily. And this

469
00:29:57,360 --> 00:30:00,200
Speaker 3: is the concern that I have. There's no longer that

470
00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:05,160
Speaker 3: sort of overarching, consistent agreement among people in this country.

471
00:30:05,200 --> 00:30:07,920
Speaker 3: The Marjorie Taylor Greens of the world do not want

472
00:30:07,960 --> 00:30:10,480
Speaker 3: to have a country where people like me can thrive.

473
00:30:10,920 --> 00:30:12,720
Speaker 3: But you know, I have always wanted to see in

474
00:30:12,760 --> 00:30:17,080
Speaker 3: America where everybody got to fulfill their own promise. And

475
00:30:17,160 --> 00:30:20,880
Speaker 3: I wonder if it's not that fundamental premise that's broken

476
00:30:21,040 --> 00:30:23,440
Speaker 3: and that brings us where we are today. You are

477
00:30:23,760 --> 00:30:26,640
Speaker 3: very apt I think at pointing out that it's more

478
00:30:26,680 --> 00:30:28,840
Speaker 3: than just a backlash to the fact that we had

479
00:30:28,880 --> 00:30:31,760
Speaker 3: a black man in the White House. It is in

480
00:30:31,840 --> 00:30:35,640
Speaker 3: many ways a backlash to the entire civil rights movement,

481
00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:39,800
Speaker 3: starting with Martin Luther King, starting with rights for black people,

482
00:30:40,080 --> 00:30:44,840
Speaker 3: and that movement has expanded dramatically right to include brown

483
00:30:44,960 --> 00:30:49,080
Speaker 3: people and Asian people and other immigrants and LGBTQ people

484
00:30:49,120 --> 00:30:52,440
Speaker 3: and women. And it's now this notion that we should

485
00:30:52,440 --> 00:30:56,200
Speaker 3: be a fully participatory society, and that is very threatening

486
00:30:56,240 --> 00:30:56,840
Speaker 3: to some people.

487
00:30:57,520 --> 00:31:00,440
Speaker 1: When you when you talk about and will bring Lisa

488
00:31:00,760 --> 00:31:06,840
Speaker 1: in here and asking questions in just a second, when

489
00:31:06,840 --> 00:31:10,240
Speaker 1: you talk about the rule of law, about it being

490
00:31:10,280 --> 00:31:14,000
Speaker 1: the final backstop, the image that comes to my head.

491
00:31:14,040 --> 00:31:16,240
Speaker 1: I think I'm an aircraft carrier, and I think of

492
00:31:16,320 --> 00:31:20,080
Speaker 1: that last cap right, the emergency cable, right if the

493
00:31:20,120 --> 00:31:23,800
Speaker 1: plane misses it, right, you know, the first few. But

494
00:31:23,920 --> 00:31:28,200
Speaker 1: this is the job of an informed citizenry to deal

495
00:31:28,280 --> 00:31:32,960
Speaker 1: with all of these issues politically, which the country has

496
00:31:33,080 --> 00:31:38,920
Speaker 1: not done. And I undeniably you cannot look at the

497
00:31:38,960 --> 00:31:45,560
Speaker 1: Biden presidency and score them highly in my view on

498
00:31:45,800 --> 00:31:51,280
Speaker 1: this issue of dealing with the extremist element in the country.

499
00:31:51,920 --> 00:31:57,400
Speaker 1: On no other evidence needed other than its persistence. It

500
00:31:57,440 --> 00:32:00,520
Speaker 1: has not been put away. The argument has not been made.

501
00:32:00,640 --> 00:32:05,560
Speaker 1: The American people have not been convinced. The opposition party,

502
00:32:06,920 --> 00:32:10,840
Speaker 1: which is the Pro Democracy Party right, has not been

503
00:32:10,880 --> 00:32:16,040
Speaker 1: able to crush right, the autocratic argument right on the

504
00:32:16,160 --> 00:32:20,120
Speaker 1: seven years right that it has metastasized and grown in

505
00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:22,840
Speaker 1: the country. I just think that's undeniably. So it is

506
00:32:22,880 --> 00:32:23,640
Speaker 1: one of the what.

507
00:32:23,680 --> 00:32:27,840
Speaker 3: Would you have this administration do that it has not done,

508
00:32:27,880 --> 00:32:31,360
Speaker 3: because I think this is such an important question. You know,

509
00:32:31,440 --> 00:32:35,840
Speaker 3: we saw the military after the insurrection, after January sixth,

510
00:32:36,120 --> 00:32:39,640
Speaker 3: they did a standdown where in every command right the

511
00:32:39,760 --> 00:32:43,200
Speaker 3: leaders talked to the troops and they were very concerned

512
00:32:43,240 --> 00:32:46,960
Speaker 3: about this notion that there might be folks who held

513
00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:52,600
Speaker 3: white supremacist views in the military. That was a substantial step.

514
00:32:53,120 --> 00:32:55,719
Speaker 3: We have not done that throughout the country, right. I mean,

515
00:32:55,760 --> 00:32:58,680
Speaker 3: there's some suggestion. We've just seen the first FBI agent

516
00:32:59,080 --> 00:33:04,479
Speaker 3: connected a former supervisory agent convicted in connection with January sixth,

517
00:33:04,840 --> 00:33:08,040
Speaker 3: And I think that this is a very important question

518
00:33:08,080 --> 00:33:11,840
Speaker 3: and we should have had a holistic plan for national restoration.

519
00:33:11,920 --> 00:33:13,600
Speaker 3: It wouldn't be easy. There would be a lot of

520
00:33:13,600 --> 00:33:15,560
Speaker 3: people who wouldn't like it. What would you have this

521
00:33:15,640 --> 00:33:17,760
Speaker 3: administration do if you were running it.

522
00:33:20,120 --> 00:33:25,760
Speaker 1: There needs to be a constant argument about what the

523
00:33:25,880 --> 00:33:30,800
Speaker 1: country is, what it believes, what it stands for, what

524
00:33:30,920 --> 00:33:35,120
Speaker 1: its ideas and ideals are. They're all fundamentally wrapped around

525
00:33:35,640 --> 00:33:38,680
Speaker 1: whether you just alluded to a moment or so ago,

526
00:33:39,240 --> 00:33:43,720
Speaker 1: which freedom means freedom for everybody now? And at the

527
00:33:43,840 --> 00:33:48,400
Speaker 1: end of the day, when you have a political party

528
00:33:49,160 --> 00:33:55,160
Speaker 1: that has lied thirty five thousand times through problem as

529
00:33:55,200 --> 00:33:58,400
Speaker 1: a specific place, it raises the question that John Kennedy,

530
00:33:58,880 --> 00:34:01,800
Speaker 1: you know, posed in that lege speech, which is right?

531
00:34:02,040 --> 00:34:06,800
Speaker 1: What is if there is no great national purpose attached

532
00:34:07,480 --> 00:34:11,719
Speaker 1: right to an institution, what is the purpose of the

533
00:34:11,760 --> 00:34:17,280
Speaker 1: institution in a in a free society? And so talking

534
00:34:17,320 --> 00:34:20,920
Speaker 1: to the American people about what we have in common,

535
00:34:21,680 --> 00:34:29,720
Speaker 1: our bonds uniting the country is is something that we

536
00:34:30,239 --> 00:34:36,280
Speaker 1: need a leader to come forward who has capabilities beyond

537
00:34:36,360 --> 00:34:40,200
Speaker 1: the leadership that we that we presently that we presently

538
00:34:40,280 --> 00:34:44,400
Speaker 1: see we are in a stalemate. We're one election away

539
00:34:44,560 --> 00:34:49,680
Speaker 1: from complete societal disaster if the autocratic faction gets in

540
00:34:49,800 --> 00:34:54,200
Speaker 1: And anybody who believes that Donald Trump cannot win the

541
00:34:54,200 --> 00:35:00,440
Speaker 1: rematch against Joe Biden does not understand American power pics,

542
00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:06,600
Speaker 1: does not understand this country, does not understand the electoral map,

543
00:35:07,160 --> 00:35:11,000
Speaker 1: does not understand the electoral college, and has a real

544
00:35:11,120 --> 00:35:15,680
Speaker 1: lack of imagination of the contempt right that the American

545
00:35:15,719 --> 00:35:18,399
Speaker 1: people feel for their government. Because what Trump is at

546
00:35:18,400 --> 00:35:22,040
Speaker 1: the end of the day, he's a philosopher of excuse

547
00:35:22,080 --> 00:35:23,920
Speaker 1: me for saying this, but I'm gonna I'm gonna say it.

548
00:35:23,960 --> 00:35:27,200
Speaker 1: In New Jersey, he's a he's a he's a philosopher.

549
00:35:27,280 --> 00:35:31,040
Speaker 1: A fuck you is right, and that's a very low bar.

550
00:35:31,960 --> 00:35:36,160
Speaker 1: His voters are just looking for someone to say fuck.

551
00:35:35,960 --> 00:35:39,839
Speaker 5: You to all the people at the top who they

552
00:35:39,920 --> 00:35:44,880
Speaker 5: blame for the falling apart of their middle class lives,

553
00:35:44,960 --> 00:35:48,200
Speaker 5: the opioid tragedies, the notion there's one set of rules

554
00:35:48,239 --> 00:35:51,760
Speaker 5: for everyone up there in one set for everyone down here,

555
00:35:52,520 --> 00:35:55,839
Speaker 5: And so that working class vote has a very low bar.

556
00:35:56,320 --> 00:35:59,680
Speaker 1: They don't expect Trump to fix anything. They don't expect

557
00:35:59,680 --> 00:36:03,080
Speaker 1: Trump to make anything better, because they have so thoroughly

558
00:36:03,280 --> 00:36:06,239
Speaker 1: lost their faith and their beliefs. They just want them

559
00:36:06,280 --> 00:36:09,440
Speaker 1: to deliver the fuck it. So the only thing you

560
00:36:09,600 --> 00:36:15,680
Speaker 1: can get to deal with that is to articulate better, better,

561
00:36:16,080 --> 00:36:20,080
Speaker 1: a vision for better. So with this country badly, badly

562
00:36:20,160 --> 00:36:25,040
Speaker 1: needs is a Bobby Kennedy. It needs a not not

563
00:36:25,239 --> 00:36:30,440
Speaker 1: the Bobby Kennedy cheerier there. So it's real thing, right.

564
00:36:30,560 --> 00:36:35,840
Speaker 6: It badly, badly, badly needs a John Kennedy. It needs

565
00:36:35,880 --> 00:36:39,920
Speaker 6: a Jimmy Carter in the in the context of nineteen

566
00:36:40,040 --> 00:36:44,759
Speaker 6: seventy six. And so the proposition of the Biden presidency,

567
00:36:45,800 --> 00:36:51,560
Speaker 6: and I think he's been an effective president, was a

568
00:36:51,600 --> 00:36:53,279
Speaker 6: restoration of normalcy.

569
00:36:53,840 --> 00:36:57,400
Speaker 1: And we're not there. You know, we look at the

570
00:36:57,440 --> 00:37:01,320
Speaker 1: debt ceiling. These guys want raise for this. This was

571
00:37:01,360 --> 00:37:04,920
Speaker 1: a completely manufactured crisis. If you if you bring the

572
00:37:04,960 --> 00:37:08,240
Speaker 1: bomb down to the right, to the to the town

573
00:37:08,320 --> 00:37:11,080
Speaker 1: square and diffuse it, you know, you're not getting dictated

574
00:37:11,080 --> 00:37:14,319
Speaker 1: to the city, get in a jail cell. And so

575
00:37:15,760 --> 00:37:19,880
Speaker 1: I don't know. I am very, very, very worried about

576
00:37:19,960 --> 00:37:23,480
Speaker 1: how laxed days ago the Democratic Party as an institution

577
00:37:23,680 --> 00:37:27,720
Speaker 1: seems to me to be about this election. The fact

578
00:37:27,760 --> 00:37:32,760
Speaker 1: of about Biden's political weakness is evidence that very soon

579
00:37:33,800 --> 00:37:37,080
Speaker 1: Marion Williams and Robert Kennedy together are going to be

580
00:37:37,120 --> 00:37:40,120
Speaker 1: north of about thirty five percent of the primary vote.

581
00:37:41,040 --> 00:37:42,799
Speaker 1: That means the White House is going to have to

582
00:37:42,840 --> 00:37:46,239
Speaker 1: turn and face and deal with that. And I think

583
00:37:46,280 --> 00:37:48,759
Speaker 1: there are miles and miles and miles to go in

584
00:37:48,840 --> 00:37:53,040
Speaker 1: this primary season and everything that everyone in Washington is

585
00:37:53,080 --> 00:37:56,439
Speaker 1: telling us the certitude will happen for sure, I don't

586
00:37:56,440 --> 00:37:59,759
Speaker 1: think is actually gonna happen. So I think we'll see

587
00:37:59,760 --> 00:38:02,479
Speaker 1: it all play out in the next couple of months.

588
00:38:02,560 --> 00:38:07,719
Speaker 1: But we have a overwhelmingly the country does not want this.

589
00:38:08,160 --> 00:38:11,080
Speaker 1: They do not want the Trump buy and rematch. Like

590
00:38:11,200 --> 00:38:13,600
Speaker 1: eighty percent of the country, we say we don't agree

591
00:38:13,640 --> 00:38:16,120
Speaker 1: on anything, we do agree on things. We don't want that.

592
00:38:17,160 --> 00:38:21,600
Speaker 4: So the country is saying we want a roundhole, right,

593
00:38:21,640 --> 00:38:25,799
Speaker 4: and the politicians are banging a banging a square peg

594
00:38:25,880 --> 00:38:30,040
Speaker 4: over and we'll see what the American people do with that.

595
00:38:30,080 --> 00:38:33,040
Speaker 4: But traditionally we're very defiant.

596
00:38:32,600 --> 00:38:35,600
Speaker 1: People, right. We don't like being told to do things

597
00:38:35,600 --> 00:38:36,319
Speaker 1: we don't want to do.

598
00:38:37,600 --> 00:38:40,080
Speaker 3: So there is so much truth and so much of

599
00:38:40,080 --> 00:38:42,640
Speaker 3: what you've said here. There's just something I know we

600
00:38:42,680 --> 00:38:44,400
Speaker 3: don't have a lot of time. There's something that I

601
00:38:44,400 --> 00:38:47,120
Speaker 3: think is so important that I just want to pull

602
00:38:47,160 --> 00:38:50,879
Speaker 3: this thread a little bit. I agree with you, by

603
00:38:50,880 --> 00:38:53,040
Speaker 3: the way, that we need someone who can give a

604
00:38:53,200 --> 00:38:58,040
Speaker 3: profound counter message to the one that Trump presents, and

605
00:38:58,080 --> 00:39:01,560
Speaker 3: we do not have that person in our discourse right now,

606
00:39:01,880 --> 00:39:05,520
Speaker 3: and it's something that we desperately need. We need, in

607
00:39:05,920 --> 00:39:09,000
Speaker 3: many ways, a hero, someone that we can look up to,

608
00:39:09,640 --> 00:39:12,719
Speaker 3: not just an order, because Barack Obama was just such

609
00:39:12,719 --> 00:39:15,520
Speaker 3: a profoundly good order. I loved listening to him give

610
00:39:15,560 --> 00:39:18,520
Speaker 3: a speech, But what struck me the most was the

611
00:39:18,640 --> 00:39:21,400
Speaker 3: content and those moments where there would be a unique

612
00:39:21,440 --> 00:39:23,759
Speaker 3: insight that you can take away with you right and

613
00:39:23,880 --> 00:39:27,080
Speaker 3: carry around with you, something that's better than looking at

614
00:39:27,120 --> 00:39:31,080
Speaker 3: an opioid crisis that's overwhelming and just giving up and

615
00:39:31,239 --> 00:39:33,480
Speaker 3: only want to, you know, flip flip the bird at

616
00:39:33,520 --> 00:39:36,680
Speaker 3: the man. Something that I struggle with a lot because

617
00:39:36,719 --> 00:39:39,960
Speaker 3: I live in Alabama is convincing people who live in

618
00:39:40,000 --> 00:39:43,239
Speaker 3: the Beltway or who live on the East Coast that

619
00:39:43,400 --> 00:39:46,360
Speaker 3: the whole rest of the world does not look like

620
00:39:46,520 --> 00:39:49,160
Speaker 3: their world. I grew up in Los Angeles, spent a

621
00:39:49,200 --> 00:39:51,799
Speaker 3: lot of time in New York growing up, and came

622
00:39:51,840 --> 00:39:55,040
Speaker 3: to Alabama as an adult, sort of as an outsider,

623
00:39:55,480 --> 00:39:57,560
Speaker 3: and for a couple of years I just sat around

624
00:39:57,600 --> 00:40:01,080
Speaker 3: and went, Hmmm, this is this. This is really different,

625
00:40:01,719 --> 00:40:05,680
Speaker 3: And I think it's important for people to understand how

626
00:40:05,840 --> 00:40:09,000
Speaker 3: very different the experience is in parts of the country.

627
00:40:09,400 --> 00:40:12,160
Speaker 3: That is what makes it all too possible to re

628
00:40:12,280 --> 00:40:15,239
Speaker 3: elect a Donald Trump to the White House or to

629
00:40:15,280 --> 00:40:20,279
Speaker 3: put another completely unsuitable leader there. That combined, as you say,

630
00:40:20,320 --> 00:40:23,680
Speaker 3: with electoral maps and the way the Electoral College works,

631
00:40:24,120 --> 00:40:28,600
Speaker 3: those work to really tightly focus us on that risk.

632
00:40:29,160 --> 00:40:31,960
Speaker 3: This is something that Americans need to know more about

633
00:40:32,040 --> 00:40:35,200
Speaker 3: and that they should hear about every day. Democrats, I

634
00:40:35,239 --> 00:40:38,400
Speaker 3: will lodge this criticism of my party. We are not

635
00:40:38,600 --> 00:40:42,759
Speaker 3: always great with delivering a tight message. We deal in

636
00:40:42,960 --> 00:40:47,320
Speaker 3: big concepts that require communication and thought and back and forth.

637
00:40:47,360 --> 00:40:49,520
Speaker 3: We are a big tent. We tolerate a lot of

638
00:40:49,560 --> 00:40:53,640
Speaker 3: different views. We don't deliver good bumper stickers, and I

639
00:40:53,719 --> 00:40:57,000
Speaker 3: think that that is a regrettable failure in the political

640
00:40:57,080 --> 00:40:59,560
Speaker 3: era we live in. I would much prefer, you know,

641
00:40:59,600 --> 00:41:02,080
Speaker 3: the disc course of a John F. Kennedy about Robert

642
00:41:02,120 --> 00:41:05,360
Speaker 3: Frost at Amherst. But frankly, what we need in this

643
00:41:05,520 --> 00:41:08,759
Speaker 3: time and place are some good bumper stickers that help

644
00:41:08,840 --> 00:41:12,440
Speaker 3: people remember why it's so critical that we fight against

645
00:41:12,560 --> 00:41:15,640
Speaker 3: any sort of fascism in the White House, in state

646
00:41:15,719 --> 00:41:17,920
Speaker 3: houses and in other elected offices.

647
00:41:18,560 --> 00:41:20,359
Speaker 1: Oh MS Kemmel.

648
00:41:22,320 --> 00:41:27,120
Speaker 7: Hi Lisa, Hello, Thank you Steve and Joyce. I'm great discussion.

649
00:41:27,239 --> 00:41:30,000
Speaker 7: There are so many questions that I am sifting through.

650
00:41:30,400 --> 00:41:34,160
Speaker 7: Joyce's first question for you, how do you judge the

651
00:41:34,239 --> 00:41:38,440
Speaker 7: current conservative majority on the Supreme Court and do you

652
00:41:38,560 --> 00:41:41,359
Speaker 7: believe that they are part of the threat of fascism

653
00:41:41,440 --> 00:41:42,200
Speaker 7: in the country.

654
00:41:43,360 --> 00:41:46,640
Speaker 3: Well, let me answer that by saying, you know, there

655
00:41:46,640 --> 00:41:50,360
Speaker 3: are two things to be concerned about. One is whether

656
00:41:50,480 --> 00:41:53,360
Speaker 3: or not there is actual issues. Could there be actual

657
00:41:53,400 --> 00:41:55,600
Speaker 3: corruption on the court. Let's just set that aside for

658
00:41:55,680 --> 00:42:00,560
Speaker 3: the moment. The second question is what's the appearance. Right

659
00:42:00,840 --> 00:42:04,080
Speaker 3: as lawyers, the ethical issues that we deal with when

660
00:42:04,120 --> 00:42:06,759
Speaker 3: we think about conflict of interest is is there an

661
00:42:06,800 --> 00:42:09,759
Speaker 3: actual conflict or is there an appearance of a conflict?

662
00:42:10,200 --> 00:42:13,160
Speaker 3: And the problem that this Supreme Court has, even if

663
00:42:13,200 --> 00:42:15,920
Speaker 3: its heart is pure and if people are doing what

664
00:42:15,960 --> 00:42:19,799
Speaker 3: they believe to be the legally appropriate thing, is the

665
00:42:19,840 --> 00:42:23,439
Speaker 3: appearance of impropriety. This is a court that has been

666
00:42:23,480 --> 00:42:28,400
Speaker 3: willing to chew up and spit out precedent after promising

667
00:42:28,480 --> 00:42:32,200
Speaker 3: that they would honor it during confirmation hearings. This notion

668
00:42:32,320 --> 00:42:34,960
Speaker 3: that you can walk away from fifty years of precedent

669
00:42:35,160 --> 00:42:38,680
Speaker 3: just because it doesn't suit you. Is wrongheaded. It is

670
00:42:38,719 --> 00:42:41,920
Speaker 3: not how our legal system works. And when you have

671
00:42:42,239 --> 00:42:45,120
Speaker 3: rights and privileges that people have come to rely on

672
00:42:45,239 --> 00:42:48,040
Speaker 3: and then you strip them away, or when you're willing,

673
00:42:48,160 --> 00:42:53,279
Speaker 3: for instance, to just completely damage existing institutions that have

674
00:42:53,560 --> 00:42:58,719
Speaker 3: lived through precedent, like the administrative state, that's troubling. Are

675
00:42:58,760 --> 00:43:01,480
Speaker 3: the decisions right or decisions wrong? You know, that's a

676
00:43:01,520 --> 00:43:04,840
Speaker 3: separate question. But what concerns me is that in a

677
00:43:04,960 --> 00:43:07,560
Speaker 3: moment where the Court has done a lot to damage

678
00:43:07,560 --> 00:43:12,000
Speaker 3: people's confidence in it, it has not done anything to

679
00:43:12,120 --> 00:43:15,680
Speaker 3: reignite that confidence. There have been a lot of missteps.

680
00:43:15,800 --> 00:43:20,080
Speaker 3: Justice Roberts was recently asked what's the most difficult decision

681
00:43:20,160 --> 00:43:22,560
Speaker 3: you ever made, and he said it was the decision

682
00:43:22,560 --> 00:43:25,400
Speaker 3: to put a fence around the Supreme Court. And look,

683
00:43:25,560 --> 00:43:28,240
Speaker 3: I understand that I am an impellate lawyer by trade.

684
00:43:28,680 --> 00:43:31,279
Speaker 3: I love the Court. I love the institution. It's a

685
00:43:31,400 --> 00:43:34,320
Speaker 3: terrible thing to see it walled off from the American people.

686
00:43:34,800 --> 00:43:37,719
Speaker 3: I'm sure that was tough on him. I think that

687
00:43:37,800 --> 00:43:42,000
Speaker 3: there are substantive decisions that the Roberts' courts have made

688
00:43:42,480 --> 00:43:45,759
Speaker 3: that are deeply troubling, and this court has failed to

689
00:43:45,800 --> 00:43:49,360
Speaker 3: reassure the American people that it believes in precedent, that

690
00:43:49,440 --> 00:43:51,880
Speaker 3: it's acting based on the rule of law and not

691
00:43:52,000 --> 00:43:54,840
Speaker 3: on a change of personalities on the court, and that

692
00:43:54,880 --> 00:43:57,560
Speaker 3: we should have continuing confidence in them. You know, in

693
00:43:57,600 --> 00:44:01,680
Speaker 3: the sixties and the seventies, America went to court to

694
00:44:01,800 --> 00:44:07,000
Speaker 3: have rights expanded, to have civil rights enforced. No longer

695
00:44:07,000 --> 00:44:09,400
Speaker 3: do you go to the courts with confidence that the

696
00:44:09,480 --> 00:44:12,560
Speaker 3: courts are where rights will be enforced. And that is

697
00:44:12,600 --> 00:44:15,239
Speaker 3: a difficult moment in American society.

698
00:44:16,320 --> 00:44:20,240
Speaker 7: Thank Youven Steve, you led the nomination process for Chief

699
00:44:20,400 --> 00:44:25,560
Speaker 7: Justice Roberts. Do you have any thoughts to share based

700
00:44:25,560 --> 00:44:29,480
Speaker 7: on your experience working with him and where he is

701
00:44:29,520 --> 00:44:32,719
Speaker 7: at today and what he has said in terms of what.

702
00:44:34,680 --> 00:44:38,000
Speaker 1: I've only talked to the Chief Justice once on the

703
00:44:38,080 --> 00:44:45,719
Speaker 1: tent anniversary of his ascension to his office. But he's

704
00:44:45,760 --> 00:44:51,680
Speaker 1: an institutionalist, and I think that Joyce's point, I would

705
00:44:51,680 --> 00:44:55,879
Speaker 1: imagine that was very difficult for him, just knowing how

706
00:44:55,920 --> 00:45:00,680
Speaker 1: he sees the court. But again, I think little bit

707
00:45:00,800 --> 00:45:06,160
Speaker 1: darker than Joyce is in my analysis of this, it's

708
00:45:07,120 --> 00:45:14,880
Speaker 1: the Court's a broken institution at a at a minimum level,

709
00:45:15,520 --> 00:45:19,799
Speaker 1: it's edging towards an illegitimacy in the eyes of the

710
00:45:19,840 --> 00:45:25,480
Speaker 1: American people. That's dangerous in the context of the maintenance

711
00:45:25,560 --> 00:45:31,160
Speaker 1: of democracy. That democracy is sustained not by the iron fist,

712
00:45:31,680 --> 00:45:36,239
Speaker 1: but by by faith and belief in in the institutions.

713
00:45:36,360 --> 00:45:43,560
Speaker 1: And I think that the Clarence Thomas UH situation is

714
00:45:43,600 --> 00:45:48,799
Speaker 1: a disaster. Uh. Those are acts of corruption. I don't

715
00:45:48,840 --> 00:45:51,359
Speaker 1: need to know any more in my view to say

716
00:45:51,400 --> 00:45:54,640
Speaker 1: their acts of corruption. UH fairly.

717
00:45:55,239 --> 00:45:55,399
Speaker 6: Uh.

718
00:45:55,480 --> 00:46:01,840
Speaker 1: The outrageous conduct the comportment of of these justices is

719
00:46:01,960 --> 00:46:06,399
Speaker 1: similarly outrageous. And we're gonna need to deal with some

720
00:46:06,440 --> 00:46:11,600
Speaker 1: issues in the country. When we passed the constitution in

721
00:46:11,640 --> 00:46:15,799
Speaker 1: the seventeen eighties and average life expectancy was lucky to

722
00:46:15,840 --> 00:46:18,520
Speaker 1: make it to fifty, we're going to have people living

723
00:46:18,560 --> 00:46:20,640
Speaker 1: to one hundred and twenty five, one hundred and thirty

724
00:46:20,640 --> 00:46:22,839
Speaker 1: five years old. So we're getting on the court when

725
00:46:22,840 --> 00:46:25,680
Speaker 1: they're in their fifties. You know, do we want the

726
00:46:25,719 --> 00:46:29,200
Speaker 1: next Clarence Thomas to spend ninety years on the Subcreme Court?

727
00:46:29,520 --> 00:46:31,319
Speaker 1: And I think the answer is an no. There needs

728
00:46:31,360 --> 00:46:34,319
Speaker 1: to be term limits on the court. There may need

729
00:46:34,360 --> 00:46:37,400
Speaker 1: to be consideration given to an expansion of the court.

730
00:46:37,480 --> 00:46:42,319
Speaker 1: But both parties have played a role through the confirmation

731
00:46:42,600 --> 00:46:49,200
Speaker 1: processes of completely politicizing and breaking baking the trust. And

732
00:46:49,320 --> 00:46:53,000
Speaker 1: we have to understand is that, you know, if McDonald's

733
00:46:53,160 --> 00:46:57,920
Speaker 1: and Burger King attacked each other like Republicans and Democrats do,

734
00:46:58,080 --> 00:47:00,200
Speaker 1: what would the result be, Right? There'd be a lot

735
00:47:00,280 --> 00:47:03,719
Speaker 1: less Hamburgers eating in America, right, And that's and that's

736
00:47:03,760 --> 00:47:07,400
Speaker 1: the result you're getting, you know, from from politics is

737
00:47:07,440 --> 00:47:08,839
Speaker 1: a total turn off from it.

738
00:47:10,840 --> 00:47:13,840
Speaker 7: So there are a lot of questions about Trump. I'm

739
00:47:13,880 --> 00:47:17,680
Speaker 7: just going to ask you one, Joyce, do you actually

740
00:47:17,760 --> 00:47:21,000
Speaker 7: believe that Trump is going to serve time in prison

741
00:47:21,120 --> 00:47:22,040
Speaker 7: for his crimes?

742
00:47:22,960 --> 00:47:25,680
Speaker 3: This is such a good question. None of you will

743
00:47:25,760 --> 00:47:30,359
Speaker 3: like the answer that I'm about to give you. Let

744
00:47:30,400 --> 00:47:35,080
Speaker 3: me start by talking about two other cases involving the

745
00:47:35,320 --> 00:47:40,000
Speaker 3: Espionage Act and classified documents. Both involved former CIA directors

746
00:47:40,400 --> 00:47:44,480
Speaker 3: General Petraeus and John Deutsch. Both of them were permitted

747
00:47:44,560 --> 00:47:49,520
Speaker 3: to plead guilty to a misdemeanor for conduct that roughly

748
00:47:50,120 --> 00:47:53,040
Speaker 3: is the same as Trump's. I say roughly because in

749
00:47:53,120 --> 00:47:57,320
Speaker 3: the Patraeus case there was very clear dissemination to his biographer.

750
00:47:58,120 --> 00:48:03,080
Speaker 3: But we're still in the same misdemeanor guilty, please no

751
00:48:03,280 --> 00:48:07,480
Speaker 3: time served. And the reason in both of those cases

752
00:48:07,560 --> 00:48:12,239
Speaker 3: that DOJ offered that deal was twofold. One was how

753
00:48:12,280 --> 00:48:15,440
Speaker 3: do you protect the secrets that are inside of these guys'

754
00:48:15,520 --> 00:48:18,959
Speaker 3: heads in the general prison population, that can be tough

755
00:48:19,000 --> 00:48:21,480
Speaker 3: to do right. And then the second question was what

756
00:48:21,640 --> 00:48:24,560
Speaker 3: secrets might spill if you go to a trial situation.

757
00:48:24,760 --> 00:48:27,240
Speaker 3: These two very powerful men are fighting for their lives

758
00:48:27,239 --> 00:48:30,840
Speaker 3: at trial. What won't they do at trial to protect themselves?

759
00:48:31,840 --> 00:48:35,040
Speaker 3: And so it's it's this first question here in this

760
00:48:35,160 --> 00:48:37,799
Speaker 3: notion of how do you keep the nation safe when

761
00:48:37,840 --> 00:48:40,480
Speaker 3: you have someone like the former director of the CIA

762
00:48:40,600 --> 00:48:45,440
Speaker 3: in prison? That really is very difficult. With Donald Trump,

763
00:48:45,880 --> 00:48:49,719
Speaker 3: what do you do is his detail in prison with him?

764
00:48:50,480 --> 00:48:53,640
Speaker 3: I have had conversations with folks who served on his

765
00:48:53,840 --> 00:48:57,040
Speaker 3: detail at least for an arrest process, and we've now

766
00:48:57,320 --> 00:49:00,640
Speaker 3: seen that happen in New York. The feeling was that, yes,

767
00:49:00,760 --> 00:49:03,239
Speaker 3: at least the lead agent on his detail goes in

768
00:49:03,320 --> 00:49:05,879
Speaker 3: and stays with him. Well, what do you do if

769
00:49:05,880 --> 00:49:09,759
Speaker 3: you're the ward in it? You know, let's just say

770
00:49:09,800 --> 00:49:12,920
Speaker 3: that he goes to Talladega, the federal prison in my district.

771
00:49:13,000 --> 00:49:15,759
Speaker 3: It's a minimum security prison. Are you going to have

772
00:49:15,960 --> 00:49:19,600
Speaker 3: Secret Service agents carrying weapons which they must do in

773
00:49:19,640 --> 00:49:23,560
Speaker 3: your general prison population, and what kind of risk does

774
00:49:23,600 --> 00:49:26,280
Speaker 3: that create? I mean, there are all of these questions

775
00:49:26,280 --> 00:49:28,799
Speaker 3: that we have never had to deal with before that

776
00:49:28,880 --> 00:49:33,160
Speaker 3: are very perplexing. And so you will forgive prosecutors if

777
00:49:33,200 --> 00:49:35,759
Speaker 3: they would wish that these sorts of questions would just

778
00:49:35,880 --> 00:49:39,319
Speaker 3: go away. But the reality is, I don't think that

779
00:49:39,400 --> 00:49:43,560
Speaker 3: the American public will be satisfied with a misdemeanor plea

780
00:49:43,719 --> 00:49:47,640
Speaker 3: and no jail time here. And I personally think that

781
00:49:47,760 --> 00:49:52,360
Speaker 3: this former president's conduct exceeds what we've seen in cases

782
00:49:52,400 --> 00:49:54,640
Speaker 3: where that's the president. Trump's lawyers are going to go

783
00:49:54,719 --> 00:49:57,560
Speaker 3: in and if at some point he's willing to accept

784
00:49:57,600 --> 00:50:00,279
Speaker 3: a plea deal, which is really tough to imagine right now.

785
00:50:00,320 --> 00:50:02,640
Speaker 3: You know, Donald Trump stands up in a courtman and says,

786
00:50:02,880 --> 00:50:05,560
Speaker 3: your honor, I'm pleading guilty because I am guilty and

787
00:50:05,600 --> 00:50:08,279
Speaker 3: for no other reason. I just can't envision that. But

788
00:50:08,360 --> 00:50:10,719
Speaker 3: if we get to that moment, they will go in

789
00:50:10,880 --> 00:50:13,840
Speaker 3: and they will say to doj Your precedent and the

790
00:50:13,880 --> 00:50:17,160
Speaker 3: Petraeus case and others, is that we get a misdemeanor

791
00:50:17,239 --> 00:50:20,680
Speaker 3: CA deal and no jail time. And if you treat

792
00:50:20,880 --> 00:50:25,319
Speaker 3: like defendants like that's one outcome, I think it can

793
00:50:25,360 --> 00:50:28,000
Speaker 3: be distinguished. Though I think Donald Trump has done far

794
00:50:28,080 --> 00:50:30,600
Speaker 3: worse damage to the nation. I think this long term

795
00:50:30,640 --> 00:50:34,359
Speaker 3: pattern of obstruction is outrageous. I'd be willing to bet

796
00:50:34,440 --> 00:50:37,719
Speaker 3: prosecutors have evidence we don't yet know anything about. They've

797
00:50:37,760 --> 00:50:40,800
Speaker 3: now talked to all twenty Secret Service agents on the

798
00:50:40,840 --> 00:50:44,040
Speaker 3: Trump detail. One assumes that they are looking for some

799
00:50:44,200 --> 00:50:49,320
Speaker 3: evidence that these documents were disseminated, which would really ratchet

800
00:50:49,360 --> 00:50:52,440
Speaker 3: this entire thing up. Sort of to tag off of

801
00:50:52,480 --> 00:50:55,080
Speaker 3: Steve's earlier point about why do you invest two billion

802
00:50:55,120 --> 00:51:00,239
Speaker 3: dollars in an untried businessman? And so there may be

803
00:51:00,280 --> 00:51:04,320
Speaker 3: the realistic question of how do you incarcerate a former president?

804
00:51:04,840 --> 00:51:08,120
Speaker 3: Is that you know, something that often happens is home confinement,

805
00:51:08,239 --> 00:51:11,799
Speaker 3: and especially for someone with a shorter sentence, they can

806
00:51:11,840 --> 00:51:14,200
Speaker 3: be confined to their home, they can be forced to

807
00:51:14,200 --> 00:51:17,040
Speaker 3: wear monitoring equipment so they can't leave. They get to

808
00:51:17,080 --> 00:51:19,080
Speaker 3: go to work, they get to go to church. That's

809
00:51:19,160 --> 00:51:24,160
Speaker 3: about it. It's tough. I think this notion that Donald

810
00:51:24,239 --> 00:51:29,319
Speaker 3: Trump locked up at mar Lago would be due punishment,

811
00:51:29,880 --> 00:51:34,120
Speaker 3: but at the same time. A guilty verdict against Donald

812
00:51:34,120 --> 00:51:38,000
Speaker 3: Trump will send a very strong message. I think one

813
00:51:38,040 --> 00:51:40,680
Speaker 3: of the big issues here. And I'm gonna duck the

814
00:51:40,760 --> 00:51:43,160
Speaker 3: question just a tiny bit, because you know, my thoughts

815
00:51:43,160 --> 00:51:45,959
Speaker 3: tough to put Trump in jail. I hope he will

816
00:51:46,040 --> 00:51:50,160
Speaker 3: serve at least a minimal custodial sentence. But this mere

817
00:51:50,280 --> 00:51:54,240
Speaker 3: fact of conviction and the opportunity that this special counsel

818
00:51:54,320 --> 00:51:57,279
Speaker 3: will have to educate the American public about the case,

819
00:51:57,680 --> 00:52:00,840
Speaker 3: I think we can't underestimate how value that is. You know,

820
00:52:00,920 --> 00:52:04,400
Speaker 3: during Watergate, the special prosecutor went to the country and

821
00:52:04,440 --> 00:52:06,719
Speaker 3: he talked about the case and he explained why it

822
00:52:06,800 --> 00:52:10,520
Speaker 3: was a righteous case. We need to see something like

823
00:52:10,640 --> 00:52:13,840
Speaker 3: that happening here. This just can't be the typical DJ.

824
00:52:14,480 --> 00:52:17,160
Speaker 3: We've filed this indictment, and you know, everything that we

825
00:52:17,239 --> 00:52:19,440
Speaker 3: have to say is in the four corners of the indictment,

826
00:52:19,520 --> 00:52:22,520
Speaker 3: and you know, furthermore, say it the prosecution not. This

827
00:52:22,680 --> 00:52:26,480
Speaker 3: is not the moment for that. Prosecutors cannot take the

828
00:52:26,560 --> 00:52:30,120
Speaker 3: stage and argue that the defendant is guilty outside of court.

829
00:52:30,239 --> 00:52:34,080
Speaker 3: That just is too prejudicial. It would violated defendants' rights.

830
00:52:34,520 --> 00:52:37,000
Speaker 3: What they can do is they can explain their case

831
00:52:37,080 --> 00:52:40,640
Speaker 3: so that Americans can understand it and talk about it,

832
00:52:40,680 --> 00:52:43,359
Speaker 3: and hopefully, at the end of the day, the overwhelming

833
00:52:43,440 --> 00:52:46,719
Speaker 3: majority of us will embrace it and we'll understand that

834
00:52:46,800 --> 00:52:47,960
Speaker 3: it's the right thing to do.

835
00:52:48,800 --> 00:52:52,080
Speaker 7: Thank you. There are a lot of questions around what

836
00:52:52,320 --> 00:52:56,040
Speaker 7: is it that people can do to address so many

837
00:52:56,080 --> 00:52:58,520
Speaker 7: of the issues that the countries are facing. I'm going

838
00:52:58,600 --> 00:53:01,200
Speaker 7: to ask you about why, and then I'll ask both

839
00:53:01,239 --> 00:53:04,560
Speaker 7: of you to comment on it. The issue of book banning.

840
00:53:05,560 --> 00:53:11,120
Speaker 7: What can the people listening here tonight do to address

841
00:53:11,160 --> 00:53:15,040
Speaker 7: this problem within their local communities or at a state level.

842
00:53:16,840 --> 00:53:20,040
Speaker 1: Well, look, I think you know I've talked about this,

843
00:53:20,320 --> 00:53:23,399
Speaker 1: which is if whatever community you're in, Let's say you're

844
00:53:23,400 --> 00:53:27,720
Speaker 1: living in Johnson, Kansas, and you have a crazed school

845
00:53:27,760 --> 00:53:31,960
Speaker 1: board that wants to ban all the books in the Johnson,

846
00:53:32,200 --> 00:53:38,000
Speaker 1: Kansas school district. This isn't a national emergency. It's certainly

847
00:53:38,000 --> 00:53:42,440
Speaker 1: an emergency in that township in Kansas, and and what

848
00:53:42,560 --> 00:53:45,600
Speaker 1: people should do is vote those school board members out

849
00:53:45,640 --> 00:53:51,239
Speaker 1: of office as quickly as quickly as possible. You know,

850
00:53:51,400 --> 00:53:54,239
Speaker 1: I need to be a better citizen on this. You know,

851
00:53:54,280 --> 00:53:58,880
Speaker 1: I'm someone who's engagement is in national politics you know,

852
00:53:58,960 --> 00:54:02,800
Speaker 1: there's you know, I have frequently not voted in local

853
00:54:02,840 --> 00:54:06,200
Speaker 1: elections in you know places that I was living in

854
00:54:06,640 --> 00:54:10,160
Speaker 1: and traveling three hundred thousand miles a year out of right,

855
00:54:10,280 --> 00:54:14,000
Speaker 1: you know, disconnected from the local community. The truth of

856
00:54:14,080 --> 00:54:16,800
Speaker 1: the matter is on Pork City, Utah. You could have

857
00:54:16,800 --> 00:54:18,480
Speaker 1: hold a gun to my head. I couldn't tell you

858
00:54:18,520 --> 00:54:21,799
Speaker 1: who my state centator is, right, who my state rep is?

859
00:54:22,640 --> 00:54:25,000
Speaker 1: I you know who's on the county council. I have

860
00:54:25,040 --> 00:54:27,360
Speaker 1: no I have no idea. There's no there's no excuse

861
00:54:27,440 --> 00:54:30,520
Speaker 1: for that. You know, there's a there's truth of the

862
00:54:30,560 --> 00:54:32,920
Speaker 1: matter is is that you know, when you have a

863
00:54:32,960 --> 00:54:36,440
Speaker 1: political party filled with crazy people. Right, You're a normal person,

864
00:54:36,560 --> 00:54:39,760
Speaker 1: working hard, you got the kids, you're raising the chickens,

865
00:54:39,800 --> 00:54:43,040
Speaker 1: you're working hard, you're doing whatever. You don't want to

866
00:54:43,120 --> 00:54:46,399
Speaker 1: go right in fight at the end of the day

867
00:54:46,520 --> 00:54:49,160
Speaker 1: for three hours a day, seven days a week with

868
00:54:49,280 --> 00:54:52,640
Speaker 1: a bunch of crazy people in the local politics club. Right,

869
00:54:52,719 --> 00:54:56,200
Speaker 1: So you know it's but at the end of the day, right,

870
00:54:56,280 --> 00:54:58,680
Speaker 1: you know, government of the people, by the people, for

871
00:54:58,760 --> 00:55:03,160
Speaker 1: the people fundamentally means right government of the people, by

872
00:55:03,200 --> 00:55:05,520
Speaker 1: the people, for the people. There will there will always

873
00:55:05,560 --> 00:55:09,640
Speaker 1: be someone who is willing to be in charge right

874
00:55:09,680 --> 00:55:12,879
Speaker 1: to put the time in right, looks left, looks right, like, Hey,

875
00:55:13,200 --> 00:55:15,160
Speaker 1: you know, I guess I'll be the local furor of

876
00:55:15,200 --> 00:55:18,000
Speaker 1: the of the school board and run and run amuck.

877
00:55:19,640 --> 00:55:22,719
Speaker 1: You know, at the end of the day, you have

878
00:55:22,800 --> 00:55:24,520
Speaker 1: to you have to be able to put your foot down,

879
00:55:24,560 --> 00:55:27,200
Speaker 1: You got to be involved, and you got to care.

880
00:55:27,560 --> 00:55:29,879
Speaker 1: And that's what my that's what my advice is. But

881
00:55:29,880 --> 00:55:38,120
Speaker 1: but understand book banning restrictions on what you can think,

882
00:55:38,680 --> 00:55:41,400
Speaker 1: your conscience, what you can say, the chill in the

883
00:55:41,440 --> 00:55:44,960
Speaker 1: air on all of these issues. It's terrible, right, and

884
00:55:45,000 --> 00:55:48,840
Speaker 1: it's and it's delusional, and and we are not weaker

885
00:55:48,920 --> 00:55:54,319
Speaker 1: because we understand our history and we understand the catastrophe

886
00:55:54,880 --> 00:56:00,000
Speaker 1: that has existed over America's history in the disconnect between

887
00:56:00,200 --> 00:56:06,040
Speaker 1: our ideals and our reality. There's there even catastrophic disconnection

888
00:56:06,719 --> 00:56:10,640
Speaker 1: between those things in terms of how black people were treated,

889
00:56:11,000 --> 00:56:15,160
Speaker 1: how American Indians were treated, how women were treated, how

890
00:56:15,239 --> 00:56:20,200
Speaker 1: Asian Americans were treated. And facing that and understanding that

891
00:56:21,480 --> 00:56:25,800
Speaker 1: is what helps guarantee freedom for everybody for the next

892
00:56:25,840 --> 00:56:27,520
Speaker 1: two hundred years.

893
00:56:29,440 --> 00:56:34,120
Speaker 3: Doyce, So I just want to adopt everything that Steve

894
00:56:34,280 --> 00:56:36,640
Speaker 3: said just now and say, I feel like I just

895
00:56:36,920 --> 00:56:41,160
Speaker 3: was able to take a masterclass right in participatory democracy.

896
00:56:41,680 --> 00:56:46,040
Speaker 3: We all get this notion that the most important politics

897
00:56:46,120 --> 00:56:49,560
Speaker 3: are our local politics, that you personally are far more

898
00:56:49,600 --> 00:56:52,920
Speaker 3: affected by who your mayor is, who's on your school board,

899
00:56:53,560 --> 00:56:56,640
Speaker 3: who the dogcatcher is, then who's in the White House.

900
00:56:56,920 --> 00:56:59,239
Speaker 3: I think that that's very true. I bumped into my

901
00:56:59,360 --> 00:57:03,160
Speaker 3: former centate Doug Jones today, and the conversation that we

902
00:57:03,280 --> 00:57:05,839
Speaker 3: had was not about national politics. It was not even

903
00:57:05,880 --> 00:57:09,800
Speaker 3: about Donald Trump. It was about local political issues, because

904
00:57:09,840 --> 00:57:13,040
Speaker 3: those are the issues that are the most transformative in

905
00:57:13,120 --> 00:57:18,280
Speaker 3: our own daily lives. And the president whose administration I

906
00:57:18,360 --> 00:57:21,480
Speaker 3: served in as a political appointee, Barack Obama, I always

907
00:57:21,560 --> 00:57:25,800
Speaker 3: remember him saying, don't boo vote. If you've got a

908
00:57:25,840 --> 00:57:28,840
Speaker 3: complaint about what's going on, then it's incumbent upon you

909
00:57:28,920 --> 00:57:31,960
Speaker 3: to educate yourself to get out and vote, maybe to

910
00:57:32,040 --> 00:57:35,160
Speaker 3: run yourself, you know, to decide that there's an office

911
00:57:35,160 --> 00:57:38,360
Speaker 3: that you're willing to take on. There's a little caveat though,

912
00:57:38,400 --> 00:57:41,000
Speaker 3: that I think that we have to administer in this

913
00:57:41,120 --> 00:57:44,200
Speaker 3: day and age, and particularly in light of the fact

914
00:57:44,280 --> 00:57:46,680
Speaker 3: that the Supreme Court is about to rule in yet

915
00:57:46,720 --> 00:57:49,720
Speaker 3: another voting rights case, this one coming out of Alabama,

916
00:57:50,200 --> 00:57:52,600
Speaker 3: and that is the fact that it's no longer just

917
00:57:52,880 --> 00:57:55,640
Speaker 3: enough to vote. You actually have to be willing to

918
00:57:55,760 --> 00:57:58,720
Speaker 3: work for the right to vote, because the right to

919
00:57:58,800 --> 00:58:01,840
Speaker 3: vote is endangered everywhere. It doesn't matter if you're a

920
00:58:01,920 --> 00:58:05,400
Speaker 3: Democrat or if you're a Republican. We now live in

921
00:58:05,440 --> 00:58:09,520
Speaker 3: a country where districts can be gerrymandered to suit the

922
00:58:09,600 --> 00:58:13,520
Speaker 3: party that's in power, where voting rights can increasingly be

923
00:58:13,640 --> 00:58:16,600
Speaker 3: suppressed by making it difficult for you to register to

924
00:58:16,720 --> 00:58:19,400
Speaker 3: vote and to have your vote counted. And this, it

925
00:58:19,520 --> 00:58:22,960
Speaker 3: seems to me, is an issue that should transcend politics,

926
00:58:23,040 --> 00:58:25,240
Speaker 3: and it's something that we should all be able to

927
00:58:25,320 --> 00:58:28,200
Speaker 3: agree on right Setting aside for the minute, how you're

928
00:58:28,240 --> 00:58:31,280
Speaker 3: going to vote, I think every one of us is

929
00:58:31,520 --> 00:58:34,400
Speaker 3: entitled to vote and to have that count. That's a

930
00:58:34,480 --> 00:58:38,240
Speaker 3: foundational American notion. It's something that we should come around

931
00:58:38,400 --> 00:58:41,080
Speaker 3: to the extent that you believe what Steve says and

932
00:58:41,240 --> 00:58:44,200
Speaker 3: I do that we need a visionary leader who can

933
00:58:44,280 --> 00:58:47,840
Speaker 3: engage us with a strong message about why America matters.

934
00:58:48,240 --> 00:58:50,720
Speaker 3: It seems that this is the crux of it. We

935
00:58:50,840 --> 00:58:54,120
Speaker 3: need people who can work across party lines and say,

936
00:58:54,160 --> 00:58:57,200
Speaker 3: here's something we can all agree on. Let's create an

937
00:58:57,240 --> 00:59:00,520
Speaker 3: America where everybody has to say so in what our

938
00:59:00,560 --> 00:59:01,440
Speaker 3: future looks like.

939
00:59:02,240 --> 00:59:05,320
Speaker 7: Thank you, We are out of time. There are a

940
00:59:05,400 --> 00:59:09,920
Speaker 7: number of people who ask specifically how they could find

941
00:59:09,960 --> 00:59:14,080
Speaker 7: each of you on substack. So for Joyce it's Joyce

942
00:59:14,280 --> 00:59:19,280
Speaker 7: Vance dot substack dot com, and for Steve it's Steve

943
00:59:19,360 --> 00:59:24,600
Speaker 7: Schmidt dot substack dot com or just google Google Joyce

944
00:59:24,680 --> 00:59:28,640
Speaker 7: Van sildriscurse you'll find it, same thing for Steve Steve Schmidt.

945
00:59:28,640 --> 00:59:32,400
Speaker 7: The warning and now Steve, I will turn things over

946
00:59:32,440 --> 00:59:32,680
Speaker 7: to you.

947
00:59:32,640 --> 00:59:37,600
Speaker 1: To wrap well. Joyce, thank you so much for great conversation,

948
00:59:37,840 --> 00:59:40,560
Speaker 1: and thank you everybody for taking time out of your

949
00:59:40,600 --> 00:59:46,440
Speaker 1: schedule to engage. I think these conversations are really important

950
00:59:47,080 --> 00:59:51,120
Speaker 1: to understand what's happening, what's going on. We'll continue to

951
00:59:51,160 --> 00:59:55,080
Speaker 1: try to deliver that on this platform, at this forum,

952
00:59:55,640 --> 00:59:57,720
Speaker 1: and I just want to say again, Joyce, thank you

953
00:59:57,800 --> 01:00:01,840
Speaker 1: so much. Everybody can find you again a civil discourse

954
01:00:02,360 --> 01:00:06,160
Speaker 1: and on MSNBC, where you will be doing, as always

955
01:00:06,200 --> 01:00:09,120
Speaker 1: the excellent job that you do explaining all of this

956
01:00:10,200 --> 01:00:17,680
Speaker 1: to everyday people who are confused, sometimes frightened, shocked looking

957
01:00:17,840 --> 01:00:23,320
Speaker 1: at what they see as decay. But as you pointed out,

958
01:00:23,800 --> 01:00:29,720
Speaker 1: the system is being tested. Testing requires strain, so we're

959
01:00:29,760 --> 01:00:32,440
Speaker 1: seeing our systems be strained. But at the end of

960
01:00:32,480 --> 01:00:37,600
Speaker 1: the day, even the most pessimistic amongst us cannot disagree

961
01:00:37,600 --> 01:00:39,800
Speaker 1: with the fact that they are holding in this hour

962
01:00:40,960 --> 01:00:45,400
Speaker 1: and accountability is coming. And so thank you very much

963
01:00:45,440 --> 01:00:45,919
Speaker 1: for your time.

964
01:00:46,360 --> 01:00:48,800
Speaker 7: And I just say one last thing, just because people

965
01:00:48,880 --> 01:00:53,960
Speaker 7: are asking, there is an audio recording of this session.

966
01:00:54,960 --> 01:00:59,640
Speaker 7: Both Steve and Joyce will send it out to Civil

967
01:00:59,640 --> 01:01:04,520
Speaker 7: Discord audience as well as the warning and we look

968
01:01:04,560 --> 01:01:07,120
Speaker 7: forward to you and encourage you to also share it

969
01:01:07,160 --> 01:01:10,400
Speaker 7: with people within your networks given the fact that so

970
01:01:10,480 --> 01:01:12,320
Speaker 7: many important talkics were covered tonight.

971
01:01:13,560 --> 01:01:15,720
Speaker 1: Good night, Thank you, good night anant y'all.

972
01:01:15,760 --> 01:01:16,440
Speaker 3: Thanks Steve,