WEBVTT - Lawrence Lessig 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:12.200 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast. 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:17.640 My guest today is warrants Less, Harvard law professor, noted 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:22.720 legal scholar in candidate for president in glad to have you. 0:00:23.200 --> 0:00:25.520 Glad to be here, Bob, thanks for having me. Okay, 0:00:25.560 --> 0:00:29.280 Can the legal system save democracy? Yeah? No, only the 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:33.000 people can save democracy. Legal system is a very poor 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:36.639 backup for that. So, knowing that, what would you advise 0:00:36.720 --> 0:00:39.040 the people to do or how do we move down 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:41.640 that path? Well, my own view is we have an 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:45.720 existential crisis facing us right now with this next election, 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:51.160 and it's critical not just um to get responsible leadership 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:54.040 in the White House, but also to get a Senate 0:00:54.320 --> 0:00:58.320 that is responsive to the needs of Americans. And if 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:01.440 we could get both of those things, then I think 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:04.080 the first thing that next Congress needs to do is 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:08.120 to take up the challenge of removing the corruption that 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:10.680 that's at the core of our of our government, and 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:13.560 that's by passing the kind of reform that makes it 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:17.840 so that representatives care about what the people want instead 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:21.640 of what the tiny fraction of funders of their campaigns want. 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:25.640 Let's start right today, Right as we speak, there's a 0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:30.360 crisis with the USPS United States Postal Service. Uh, they're 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:34.640 going to have hearings. Can hearings make any difference? Yeah, 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:38.520 what we've seen is that there's basically nothing that stops 0:01:38.520 --> 0:01:43.480 this president. And so as as extraordinary as the post 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:48.840 post office crisis is, I think it's even more astonishing 0:01:48.880 --> 0:01:51.640 to think what it signals about what's going to come, 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:54.360 because you know, what the president is doing with the 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:59.240 post office is literally, um, incomprehensible. I mean Jackson. It 0:01:59.280 --> 0:02:03.560 turns out Saint Jackson did something similar way back in 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:05.400 the day when he was trying to get Martin van 0:02:05.440 --> 0:02:09.160 Buren to be elected after him. Um. But since then 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:13.440 there's been a pretty clear understanding that the infrastructure of 0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:17.200 the post office is not a political pawn for the president. 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:20.840 But here you have a president who has appointed his 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:26.160 number one contributor to dismantle the infrastructure of the post 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:30.560 office for the purpose of making it harder for somebody 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:32.959 to beat him in the next election. Now, of course, 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:36.240 the post office is not just a system for delivering ballots. 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:38.639 You know, there are people who have medicine, um, who 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:41.519 need that medicine, who will have that medicine delayed because 0:02:41.520 --> 0:02:44.040 the post office isn't functioning well. I I sold two 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:47.480 things on eBay. It took six weeks for them to 0:02:47.520 --> 0:02:50.519 be delivered using you know, the standard parcel post. The 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:53.959 standard away should have taken four days. Um. So we 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:58.240 are dismantling infrastructure to make it easier for him to 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:00.280 be re elected. Now, the idea that he to do 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:04.440 that shows there's nothing he want to And what terrifies 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:07.680 me is that the system we have for electing the 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:12.359 president is so fragile. It depends on people of good 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:16.040 faith on both sides participating in election. If you have 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:20.000 somebody acting in bad faith, especially with courts as pathetic 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:22.880 as our courts have been. UM, I'm not sure what 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:26.359 happens when he does everything he possibly can to make 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:30.480 sure that he gets another four years in office. Let's 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:33.600 talk for a second. What is Larry Lessig selling on eBay? 0:03:33.680 --> 0:03:38.280 I was selling some used technology. I had an original 0:03:38.320 --> 0:03:41.760 Apple TV and then I had from a G three 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:44.640 power book. I had one of those c D drives 0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:46.600 for the G three power Book, which you know, got 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:49.280 ten dollars on any pay but whatever, okay, because the 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:53.360 remuneration is so low and the effort involved, I wouldn't 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:57.400 say as significant, but certainly takes time. Do you appreciate 0:03:57.480 --> 0:03:59.920 the experience? Why do you take time out as opposed 0:03:59.920 --> 0:04:03.240 to just leaving this stuff on the shelf for recycling it? Yeah? 0:04:03.280 --> 0:04:06.320 You know my wife, Um, I love my wife. My 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:13.200 wife is obsessed about recycling and waste. So um, you know, 0:04:13.320 --> 0:04:17.200 the the expense of the time, the hassle uh in 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:20.520 selling is tiny compared to that guilt that I would 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:22.120 feel if I if I tried to get rid of 0:04:22.120 --> 0:04:24.560 it in the in the more rational way. So yeah, 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:26.640 I I try to sell it now. You know some 0:04:26.720 --> 0:04:28.400 of these things like you know, the CD for a 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:31.520 G three power book. Um, there are not many out there. 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:33.200 And if you've got a G three Power book, I 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:34.760 don't know what you're using it for, but you know, 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:37.480 I'm sure you're happy to have that CD. So um, 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:39.920 part of me is okay with it. Okay. Staying on 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:42.599 that same topic, you know, there're been a lot of articles, 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:46.440 even the New York Times magazine that recycling doesn't work. 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:48.440 I know this is a little off topic going to 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:52.400 your wife, but you have any take on that. Yeah, 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:57.560 we certainly have not built up a profitable infrastructure for recycling. 0:04:58.279 --> 0:04:59.919 And you know, there's I think there's a real debate. 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:01.880 Are we just trying to train people so that when 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:06.080 we get to that profitable infrastructure, we can deploy it effectively. Um. 0:05:06.120 --> 0:05:09.560 Obviously other countries are much more creative about ways to 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:14.840 reduce or to channel waste. Um. You know, in Switzerland 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:20.120 you pay per I can't remember it's cubic meter or pound, 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:23.120 but whatever, you have this extraordinarily high price you pay 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:25.880 for every bag of trash that you might want to 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:28.520 get rid of. So it really changes that consumption pattern. 0:05:28.600 --> 0:05:31.839 And and um, you know, we experiment with what we 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:34.320 can here. I've got three kids. Um, so there's a 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:38.919 limit to how idealistic we can be about these issues. Okay, 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:43.000 let's go back to the postmaster. Assuming you were advising 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:46.520 the Democrats, are those in power, what strategy would you 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:52.679 employ to try to fix this situation? Well, I don't 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:55.240 know that there is a strategy now. I mean what 0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:59.960 frustrated me in March and April is that they did 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:04.200 use the leverage they had over the response to the 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:08.000 COVID crisis to guarantee that we would have the infrastructure 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:11.400 necessary to make this election work. Um. Everyone was so 0:06:11.440 --> 0:06:13.560 obsessed with, like what do we do in the immediate term, 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:15.920 and of course in the immediate term they bent over 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:20.560 backwards to make sure businesses and relatively successful people were 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:22.159 taken care of, and there was a little bit of 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:26.039 a you know, six benefit that everybody could take advantage 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:28.719 of if they needed it. But they didn't build in 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:32.920 the guarantee for vote by mail at the states, and 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:36.200 they certainly didn't guarantee build in a guarantee that the 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:38.279 Post Office would have the capacity to do what it 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:42.520 needs to do. Having not done that, um, you know, 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:44.560 I think the most that they can do now is 0:06:44.600 --> 0:06:48.440 just to drive people's focus to this fact. Now, that's 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:52.080 that's a hard thing to do in the media environment 0:06:52.120 --> 0:06:54.839 that we live in right now, because you know, a 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:58.200 certain chunk of America is focused on a channel or 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:00.880 a couple of channels that will never cover any of 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:03.320 these issues in a way that reveals will suggest that 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:06.840 there's anything problematic with what the president is doing. Um. 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:09.320 And so you know, it's there's a limit to the 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:11.680 extent to which the Democrats can even get people to 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:14.960 recognize what's happening. But I think that, you know, we 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:17.720 need to begin a drumbeat of getting people to realize 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:24.160 a just how um just how extraordinary, how unprecedented. This 0:07:24.240 --> 0:07:27.760 behavior is number one and number two. Get people to 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:31.400 begin to reflect on what will America look like if 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:34.120 this man is re elected in a way that everybody 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:38.120 believes is just theft. Um. You know, how does the 0:07:38.200 --> 0:07:42.360 nation hold itself together? Because I think, you know the 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:45.640 other side, my side has been pretty patient after two 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:48.880 thousand and two thousand sixteen. Those were two elections that 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:51.480 were ordinary. They happened to flip the result from the 0:07:51.520 --> 0:07:55.679 Democratic majority. But through ordinary process. We could argue about 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:59.360 Bush Vigor and Florida. But okay, we'll accept it. But 0:07:59.400 --> 0:08:02.880 the idea that this man would be reelected through means 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:07.560 that people perceive as basically fraudulent or criminal and then 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:12.040 expect to govern peacefully, I think is just crazy talk. 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:16.200 And I'm terrified about what happens to our nation. Um 0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:18.200 if we get to a place where that has happened 0:08:18.280 --> 0:08:23.160 and there's no effective remedy, because obviously Congress can't impeach 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:27.000 the man. The partisan premise of Congress means there's no 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:31.400 impeachment at least depending on who controls the Senate and UM, 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:33.280 and that means that we're not going to have any 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:36.920 opportunity to remedy what you know will be an astonishing 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:41.360 moment in American history, the basic theft of the basic 0:08:41.400 --> 0:08:44.559 theft of an election. Well, if we look at what 0:08:44.559 --> 0:08:48.400 we'll call the Black Lives Matters protests with George Floyd, 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:52.720 it's he was not the first African American whose life 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:55.480 was taken at the hands of the police force. Yet 0:08:55.520 --> 0:09:00.160 there was an international conflagration of protests after that. Uh, 0:09:00.520 --> 0:09:04.560 do we anticipate any protests either before or after the 0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:08.920 election spontaneously because as you said earlier, it depends on 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:11.240 the public serving the public. So does the public have 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:17.079 to rise first and then pull the politicians along with them. Well, 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:22.120 I don't expect unless there's some well, I mean, let's 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:24.280 be clear, there there are scenarios where, yes, there would 0:09:24.320 --> 0:09:29.400 certainly be extraordinary protests in advance. So our constitution, which 0:09:29.440 --> 0:09:34.800 is um, as I said, extremely fragile here, according to 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:39.000 the Supreme Court, plainly allows a state like Florida to 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:43.000 declare that, um, it's not gonna have an election and 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:45.680 it's just gonna pick its electors how it wants. So 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:48.839 Florida could declare before the election at least it's clear 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:51.800 after the election it's not as clear, but before the election, 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:54.360 the legislature could vote, well, we're not going to have 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:57.560 a vote, We're just gonna give the electors to the 0:09:57.600 --> 0:10:01.720 Republican Party. If states do something like that, I think 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:05.120 you'll see tons of protests before the election. But if 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:06.640 we go through and we try to have a real 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:10.080 election and um, and it seems like there have been 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:12.920 games that have been played or I don't know why 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:16.760 we call it games. If there's criminal um, corruption of 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:21.040 the process of voting, uh, and afterwards, the consequence of 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:24.960 that is that um, President Trump is re elected. I 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:27.960 certainly think there will be extraordinary protests. How I'll be 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:31.520 out there with them because it is just not acceptable, 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:34.240 and it's there's a certain moment at which you've got 0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:38.040 to stand up and fight for a democracy. And and 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:42.120 we've seen so much contrary to the norms of democratic 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:46.520 order over the past three years that at some point 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:49.520 we've got to say we can't accept it anymore and 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:53.640 do whatever it takes to make sure that it doesn't 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:57.200 have its effect. For those who are not constitutional scholars, 0:10:57.200 --> 0:11:01.360 could you please walk slowly through the process of Florida 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:07.160 or another state picking electors and essentially punting the election. Well, 0:11:07.200 --> 0:11:10.760 the Constitution, of course, doesn't directly elect I'd say that 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:13.720 the president will be directly elected. What it says is 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:18.200 that states get to a point in whatever manner, they 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:26.320 choose electors, and their electors then vote for the president. So, um, 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:29.520 the states appoint the electors. So they set up the 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:33.040 process to appoint the electors through state law. And if 0:11:33.040 --> 0:11:36.480 prior to an election, the state changes its law and says, 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:39.320 you know, we originally thought there'd be an election, but 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:41.000 now there won't be an election. We'll just pick a 0:11:41.120 --> 0:11:44.760 slate of Republican electors. The Supreme Court has said, most 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:47.640 recently in Bush versus Gore, but before that a hundred 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:51.440 years ago, in a case called McPherson versus Blacker, that 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:54.600 this that the states retain the right quote at any 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:59.960 time to recall the selection of electors and execute extors 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:02.480 eyes that power themselves. Now at the founding, there are 0:12:02.520 --> 0:12:05.840 many states that did exactly that. Many states didn't have elections, 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:10.480 They just picked electors. Um. Some states had elections, um um. 0:12:10.800 --> 0:12:13.640 Some of those elections were by district, others were at 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:16.520 the at the state level like we have today. Um. 0:12:16.559 --> 0:12:19.360 So there are lots of different systems. Originally, we've all 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:22.560 converged now in the idea of the public having a 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:26.360 say through a vote, But the constitution doesn't say that 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:28.800 it must have a say through a vote. And so 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:32.800 if the state of Florida, governed by a Republican legislature 0:12:32.800 --> 0:12:35.840 and a Republican governor, comes to believe that the only 0:12:35.880 --> 0:12:38.720 way Donald Trump gets re elected is if Florida goes 0:12:38.760 --> 0:12:41.400 with Donald Trump, and the polls seemed to suggest that 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:44.600 it won't, I am I would not be at all 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:48.520 surprised if they exercise this power to say that Florida 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:50.920 doesn't get a vote. Um. And I think what ought 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:53.840 to be happening right now is that people ought to 0:12:53.840 --> 0:12:57.920 be clear about this possibility and demand that people like 0:12:58.000 --> 0:13:01.120 the governor of Florida UH or the people running the 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:04.560 legislature in Florida, answer the question will you promise to 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:07.320 have an election? Will you promise not to cancel the election? 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:12.600 Because I think that there are so many scenarios where 0:13:12.640 --> 0:13:15.400 you know, the pandemic recurs and there's all sorts of 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:19.319 anxiety about safety, and they say, well, we can't safely 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:21.920 imagine people going out and voting, and so rather than 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:25.760 risking their lives, we're going to cancel the election, and 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:28.000 we know that there's a Republican state anyway, so we'll 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:30.560 just give it to the Republican electors. There's so many 0:13:30.559 --> 0:13:32.679 ways they could get away with it, and so I 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:34.840 think we right now need to start saying, Okay, just 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:37.960 be clear, are you going to commit to an election 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:40.040 and are you going to commit not to cancel the 0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:43.040 election no matter what? Because you know, you know, we've 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:45.720 we've run elections during wars, We've run elections during the 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:49.559 Civil War. Uh. You know, Lincoln was re elected in 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:52.680 eighteen sixty four, it was another year before the war 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:55.760 was over. Um. So we've done it before, and I 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:57.800 think we need to be committed to doing it now. 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:00.760 But the danger is that there could be a strong 0:14:00.800 --> 0:14:04.040 incentive for some states to flip if they're going to 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:07.280 try to make sure Donald Trump gets reelected. Okay, there 0:14:07.360 --> 0:14:11.439 was a recent Supreme Court case relative to the obligation 0:14:11.520 --> 0:14:14.360 of electors to vote according to the public will could 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:18.600 you explain that case in the effect thereof yeah, it's 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:24.120 actually my case. So um I UM UH was working 0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:28.240 with electors from the state of Washington and UM and 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:32.320 my organization Equal Citizens had sort of teed up this 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:36.520 case both in Washington and Colorado because in two thousand 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:41.680 sixteen there was a question raised whether electors are free 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:45.640 to cast their ballot however they wish um, And we 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:49.120 thought it was really important that the Supreme Court answer 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:53.040 the question whether they have that freedom before it creates 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:56.920 a constitutional crisis. So we teed up the case and 0:14:56.960 --> 0:15:01.760 we got electors in UM in Washington in state um uh. 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:05.160 These electors had been fined because they had voted contrary 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:08.320 to their pledge in and then there was an elector 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:11.600 in Colorado who had been kicked off UM. He cast 0:15:11.640 --> 0:15:13.760 his vote contrary to his pledge and he was kicked 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:16.800 off and replaced with another elector. And so the question 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:20.600 we wanted the court to answer was whether, by being 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:23.640 given the power of a quote elector and told to 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:27.160 cast quote their votes, they're allowed to vote however they want, 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:30.600 or whether, as Justice Kegan put it, like a Soviet system, 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:32.960 they had to vote as they were directed. Well, the 0:15:32.960 --> 0:15:35.760 answer to the Supreme Court was it's a Soviet system, um, 0:15:35.800 --> 0:15:38.480 they have to vote as they are directed. UM. And 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:40.480 that made a lot of people happy because they don't 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:43.640 like the idea. And I understand at first glance why 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:45.720 one would not like the idea that electors have this 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:48.720 kind of discretion. Um. I actually, by the end of 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:50.560 the case, I argued the case in the Supreme Court, 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:53.520 or I argued it by telephone from my office in 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:56.080 the Supreme Court. Um. But by the end of that, 0:15:56.720 --> 0:15:59.240 by the end of my preparation for that case, I 0:15:59.280 --> 0:16:01.800 became pretty con vince that it was going to be 0:16:01.840 --> 0:16:05.240 a huge mistake if the Supreme Court said that electors 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:08.440 didn't have discretion, because you can imagine that discretion being 0:16:08.440 --> 0:16:12.880 the final safety valve in this whole disaster of an 0:16:12.880 --> 0:16:15.200 election that we're seeing. But but the way the Court 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:18.800 decided it, electors are basically pawns. They can't do anything 0:16:18.800 --> 0:16:22.480 except what they're directed by their state to do. And so, um, 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:24.560 if they're directed to vote one way, they're gonna have 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:28.480 to vote that way regardless. And so what do you 0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:31.720 feel about the status today? Well, I think that there 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:36.040 are many ways in which this goes south. Um. Uh, 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:39.400 you know, he's just one. You know, imagine God forbid, 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:44.080 but imagine uh Joe Biden m wins the popular vote 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:49.760 but then passes away before the Electoral College votes the twenties. 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:54.720 Amendments passed in the nineteen thirties addresses the case where 0:16:54.840 --> 0:16:58.160 a candidate dies after the Electoral College votes, but before 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:02.920 he's sworn in as president, and they expressly thought to themselves, well, 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:05.000 there's no reason for us to deal with the problem 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:08.720 of a candidate dying before the Electoral College votes, because 0:17:08.760 --> 0:17:10.760 the electors have a discretion. They can decide to vote 0:17:10.800 --> 0:17:14.480 however they want. And so if you know Joe Biden died, 0:17:14.520 --> 0:17:17.400 you would imagine all the electors would vote for um 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:23.200 uh uh Kamala Harris. But the Supreme Court's decision means 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:26.280 they have to vote as their directed to vote. And 0:17:26.680 --> 0:17:30.120 though the Court said, we're not actually addressing that case here, 0:17:30.240 --> 0:17:34.120 we're not addressing that question. Um. If that scenario happens, 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:36.840 there's going to be a fight because if they vote, 0:17:37.480 --> 0:17:39.760 if they're required to vote for Joe Biden, and then 0:17:39.760 --> 0:17:42.439 they vote for Joe Biden, Joe Biden's vote can't be 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:45.760 counted because Joe Biden is not alive. So that means 0:17:45.760 --> 0:17:48.560 it would throw the election into the House of Representatives, 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:54.280 and the House of Representatives under the constitution, votes one 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:58.040 vote per state, so you could have a clear majority 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:01.840 of people voting for a Democrat. But depending on how 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:05.919 the elections happen in you could have a majority of 0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:09.439 states that are Republicans, state delegations that are Republican. So 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:13.719 you could have the Democrat win the popular vote and 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:17.040 would have won the electoral College vote, but for the 0:18:17.080 --> 0:18:20.159 weird way that the votes get real allocated. But the 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:24.520 way the system ultily results is that House of Representatives votes, 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:27.920 and the House of Representatives votes for the Republican and 0:18:27.920 --> 0:18:30.040 and again I think most people would be astonished at 0:18:30.040 --> 0:18:33.960 that result. But that's plainly on one track in the 0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:37.760 way that this election might unpack. What is the experience, 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:40.840 whether it be live or over the phone of arguing 0:18:40.880 --> 0:18:44.000 before the Supreme Court certainly views of the some other 0:18:44.080 --> 0:18:50.440 lower court, so it's pretty inferior compared to a lower court. UM. 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:53.960 I had two arguments in the last couple of one 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:56.920 in May and one in June or one in July. 0:18:57.680 --> 0:19:00.080 One in the Supreme Court it was in May, and 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:04.800 one in a district court was in July. And the 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:07.280 problem with the argument in the Supreme Court is that 0:19:08.440 --> 0:19:11.040 the Chief Justice set it up so every justice gets 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:15.679 basically two minutes to ask questions. UM. And uh, you know, 0:19:15.760 --> 0:19:19.040 that's less than a congress person has. And so they 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:22.000 come into their argument with a list of questions. They're 0:19:22.000 --> 0:19:23.920 not really listening to what other people have asked and 0:19:24.040 --> 0:19:28.600 not really interested in creating a understanding around the argument 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:31.800 about the case. They're just interested in getting their particular 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:34.040 questions asked. So it it's a very it was a 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:37.720 very unsatisfying experience because I felt like so much was 0:19:37.760 --> 0:19:40.600 being missed and every single answer you gave could be 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:42.640 no more than a hundred words, you know, no more 0:19:42.680 --> 0:19:44.760 than a minute, because the chief would cut you off 0:19:45.119 --> 0:19:47.520 so that somebody else can ask a question. When I 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:51.399 argued in the district court in California before Judge Judge 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:55.359 chen Um, uh you know, we had it was just 0:19:55.400 --> 0:19:58.560 me and another guy and this uh Ted Olsen, pretty 0:19:58.640 --> 0:20:02.920 significant lawyer Um and the judge. You know, we probably 0:20:02.960 --> 0:20:04.679 went on for an hour an hour and a half. 0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:07.479 The judge asked questions, He let us answer them as 0:20:07.520 --> 0:20:10.359 long as it took to answer them. He probed the questions. 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:13.719 He you know, he really understood by the end our argument, 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:15.760 whether he agreed with it or not as a separate question. 0:20:15.760 --> 0:20:20.280 But the point is it was an actually effective context 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:23.959 for for engaging in in in the question. And and 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:26.679 what's frustrating is, Um, you know, the case that I 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:30.320 was arguing in the District Court involving a regulation involving 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:33.280 cell phones. Um, you know, we think it's important enough, 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:36.200 but it's not the Constitution. And so the idea that 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:38.720 you would end the argument and feel like the judge 0:20:38.800 --> 0:20:42.400 understands the question and can now decide for this cell 0:20:42.440 --> 0:20:46.919 phone issue, but the Supreme Court barely pierces the issue 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:53.840 around the Constitution's uh electoral college was ultimately incredibly unsatisfying. 0:20:54.040 --> 0:20:57.399 I've argued, you know, live in the Supreme Court, and 0:20:57.440 --> 0:21:01.399 the differences when you argue live, there's no you know, 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:03.400 they don't go around one by one and say, what's 0:21:03.400 --> 0:21:06.960 your question, Justice Thomas, what's your question? Justice ginsburg Um. 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:09.960 They just basically the person starts arguing and then people 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:14.280 interrupt him or her and ask questions, and that dynamic 0:21:14.400 --> 0:21:18.720 actually builds, um, a kind of arc of the argument. 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:21.560 So you can the questions build of each other, and 0:21:21.600 --> 0:21:25.600 by the end the case has kind of been you know, resolved, 0:21:25.640 --> 0:21:28.080 you kind of understand the strong points and the weak 0:21:28.119 --> 0:21:30.159 points on the basis of how people have engaged in 0:21:30.160 --> 0:21:32.800 the argument. Now, even then, I think the Supreme Court 0:21:32.840 --> 0:21:36.200 has been wildly to conservative and the amount of time 0:21:36.240 --> 0:21:39.639 that it gives people to engage with them, um, you know, 0:21:39.760 --> 0:21:41.879 and uh and and maybe you know, there was a 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:44.399 time when the Court was deciding a hundred and fifty 0:21:44.400 --> 0:21:47.880 cases a year. It's down now to like less than eighty. Um. 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:51.120 So it's not I don't understand why they can't give 0:21:51.160 --> 0:21:54.600 it more time. But um. But in either context, it's 0:21:54.600 --> 0:21:56.240 not as great as it can be in the kind 0:21:56.400 --> 0:21:59.800 in you know, other contexts like lower courts, and you 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:03.280 get stage freight or you intimidated at all in arguing 0:22:03.320 --> 0:22:07.120 in front of the Supreme Court. I don't think that 0:22:07.280 --> 0:22:12.800 I felt frightened. Um. You know, so no, I don't. 0:22:12.880 --> 0:22:16.560 I don't feel that, I imagine, um, you know. Part 0:22:16.560 --> 0:22:19.159 of that is just I had the extraordinary experience of 0:22:19.160 --> 0:22:23.040 clerking at the court, and that was you know, an 0:22:23.119 --> 0:22:26.359 honor and um and incredible fund. But it also is 0:22:26.359 --> 0:22:29.800 an experience that taught you just how human the justices were. 0:22:30.119 --> 0:22:33.080 And uh. And you you know, you realize these you're 0:22:33.080 --> 0:22:37.440 not legal gods, um uh. And they're just trying to 0:22:37.520 --> 0:22:40.359 understand the case, and you're kind of helping them to 0:22:40.440 --> 0:22:44.280 understand the case. So it's not about being afraid of them. Um, 0:22:44.320 --> 0:22:46.960 they're not gonna you know, evict you from the country 0:22:47.080 --> 0:22:49.800 or get you fired. Um, it's just trying to figure 0:22:49.840 --> 0:22:51.760 out how you bring them to the right place and 0:22:51.760 --> 0:22:55.919 and and that's always hard. It's you know, it depends 0:22:55.920 --> 0:22:58.320 on the case. It can be extremely hard, especially when 0:22:59.240 --> 0:23:02.680 the result that you're arguing for would be a very 0:23:02.760 --> 0:23:06.440 difficult result for the court to give given the political 0:23:06.520 --> 0:23:08.760 reaction to that. So, you know, our side was arguing 0:23:09.400 --> 0:23:14.119 electors were constitutionally free. UM. And we thought that was 0:23:14.160 --> 0:23:17.320 an important position, and we thought, you know, I would 0:23:17.359 --> 0:23:20.360 defend what the electors that I was representing did. There 0:23:20.400 --> 0:23:24.359 was a CNN documentary about them on Saturday night. UM. 0:23:24.440 --> 0:23:27.280 And you know, the basic story with these electors was 0:23:27.320 --> 0:23:30.000 that after they saw that the candidate they were going 0:23:30.040 --> 0:23:32.160 to vote for, Hillary Clinton, was not going to win, 0:23:33.160 --> 0:23:36.320 they tried to work with Republican electors to get enough 0:23:36.320 --> 0:23:38.719 of them to vote for someone other than Donald Trump, 0:23:39.320 --> 0:23:41.920 so that the House of Representatives could then decide should 0:23:41.920 --> 0:23:46.159 Donald Trump be the president or should another Republican be 0:23:46.200 --> 0:23:48.960 the president. Nobody imagined Hillary Clinton would be the president, 0:23:49.320 --> 0:23:53.159 so they were trying to exercise their discretion um to 0:23:53.240 --> 0:23:55.840 bring about a result that was closer to what the 0:23:55.920 --> 0:23:59.600 people who had voted for them wanted than the election 0:23:59.600 --> 0:24:02.919 of Donald Trump would have been. But uh still, I 0:24:02.960 --> 0:24:06.440 think when people talk about the so called faithless electors, 0:24:06.480 --> 0:24:09.040 that's how they're referred to. It kind of scares people 0:24:09.080 --> 0:24:11.639 to imagine electors having that kind of discretion. So if 0:24:11.640 --> 0:24:14.879 the Court had ruled with us UM, you know, I 0:24:14.880 --> 0:24:18.200 would be suffering an extraordinary amounts of hate from people 0:24:18.240 --> 0:24:20.280 all across the country saying, how could you do such 0:24:20.320 --> 0:24:23.119 a thing. Now, Donald Trump can bribe these electors and 0:24:23.160 --> 0:24:25.239 they can vote however he wants them to vote, and 0:24:25.600 --> 0:24:27.520 all of that, I think it's just crazy talk. But 0:24:27.520 --> 0:24:30.320 but it still would have been anxiety producing and maybe 0:24:30.640 --> 0:24:32.760 anxiety is the last thing the world needs right now 0:24:32.840 --> 0:24:36.159 in the middle of this election. Staying with the Supreme Court, 0:24:36.480 --> 0:24:42.560 the Conservatives tend to go with an originalistic originalism interpretation 0:24:42.600 --> 0:24:46.200 of the Constitution. Give me your take on so they 0:24:46.320 --> 0:24:50.440 want you to believe, But I don't think it's actually 0:24:50.520 --> 0:24:56.159 true that that principle constrains them. It's more tool that 0:24:56.240 --> 0:25:00.239 they can deploy when it fits with what they they 0:25:00.240 --> 0:25:02.120 think they have to say, or what they what they 0:25:02.160 --> 0:25:05.600 want to say. You know, I I've argued two cases 0:25:05.600 --> 0:25:10.439 in the Supreme Court where the originalist answer was pretty clear. 0:25:10.800 --> 0:25:13.800 The first case I argued was a case about whether 0:25:13.960 --> 0:25:17.520 Congress has the power to extend the terms of an 0:25:17.520 --> 0:25:21.400 existing copyright. So this was the sunny bono Copyright Term 0:25:21.400 --> 0:25:26.760 Extension Act. Congress extended the term of copyrights in eight 0:25:26.800 --> 0:25:29.680 by twenty years. That was the I think the eighteenth 0:25:29.720 --> 0:25:32.040 time they had extended the term of copyright, and that 0:25:32.160 --> 0:25:36.119 prior to twenty five years. Um. And so our claim 0:25:36.160 --> 0:25:40.760 was the Constitution says Congress has the power to set terms, 0:25:41.359 --> 0:25:45.560 set quote limited times for copyright, and it makes no 0:25:45.600 --> 0:25:47.959 sense to say that every time that limit expires they 0:25:47.960 --> 0:25:49.960 can extend it again and again and again. And we 0:25:50.040 --> 0:25:53.600 had tons of originalist argument to say the frameworks were 0:25:53.720 --> 0:25:56.399 very skeptical about the monopoly of a copyright and they 0:25:56.440 --> 0:26:00.240 would want it restricted. Um. And I went, I made 0:26:00.240 --> 0:26:03.160 that argument, and I fully expected the Conservatives would pipe 0:26:03.240 --> 0:26:05.840 up and say, yes, that's what the originalist position is. 0:26:05.880 --> 0:26:08.960 But they sat silent, and they joined. The five of 0:26:09.000 --> 0:26:12.080 them joined an opinion by Justice Ginsburg, who's not an originalist, 0:26:12.080 --> 0:26:15.480 So there's no complaint against her um which allowed Congress 0:26:15.480 --> 0:26:17.879 to do whatever the hell they wanted. UM. And the 0:26:17.920 --> 0:26:21.600 same thing with this case. UM. You know the original understanding. 0:26:22.000 --> 0:26:25.840 You know, Justice Jackson, in an opinion two said, no 0:26:25.920 --> 0:26:31.879 one faithful um to our Constitution can deny that the 0:26:31.920 --> 0:26:35.879 framers contemplated what's implicit in the text, that electors would 0:26:36.280 --> 0:26:38.800 have would be free agents, free to cast their vote 0:26:38.800 --> 0:26:41.240 however they wanted. So an originalists would look at this 0:26:41.280 --> 0:26:43.640 and they look, there's no doubt that's what they expected. 0:26:44.200 --> 0:26:46.720 Whether that's what we expect or whether we should continue 0:26:46.720 --> 0:26:49.040 to respect that as a separate question, but there's no 0:26:49.119 --> 0:26:53.680 doubt that's what they expected. And an originalist I would 0:26:53.680 --> 0:26:56.880 have thought, would have taken that seriously. But once again 0:26:56.920 --> 0:27:01.040 the originalists were silent that the opinion UM written by 0:27:01.119 --> 0:27:04.159 Justice Kagan is not Justice Keagan is not an originalist. 0:27:04.880 --> 0:27:09.160 Justice uh Thomas wrote a concurrence. He agreed with one 0:27:09.200 --> 0:27:12.280 part of our argument. He added something else from left field, 0:27:12.320 --> 0:27:16.160 but but there too he was not constrained by original understanding. 0:27:16.200 --> 0:27:18.960 So I I still have faith that will get them 0:27:19.000 --> 0:27:21.159 to do the originalist thing when it's an important thing 0:27:21.200 --> 0:27:23.159 to do, even when it's not an important thing to 0:27:23.160 --> 0:27:25.560 do for conservatives, just an important thing to do for 0:27:26.119 --> 0:27:29.080 the constitution. But I don't think it's fair to say 0:27:29.160 --> 0:27:33.600 that they're consistent originalists out there. To what degree is 0:27:33.640 --> 0:27:38.119 the Federalist Society important and impacted the court system? Leave, 0:27:38.160 --> 0:27:41.320 Let's say the Republicans have played a long game over decades. 0:27:41.760 --> 0:27:46.600 They were a minority in the educational system, They invested money, 0:27:46.640 --> 0:27:50.119 they formed this organization. In the decades later, it seems 0:27:50.160 --> 0:27:52.439 to be paying off. So to what degree is that 0:27:52.520 --> 0:27:55.640 an effect? And to what degree is their concomitant effort 0:27:55.720 --> 0:27:58.920 on the other side, the Federal Society has been the 0:27:58.960 --> 0:28:03.359 most success full influence organization in setting the direction of 0:28:03.400 --> 0:28:07.399 the federal judiciary ever. You know, it's begun in the 0:28:07.480 --> 0:28:11.800 early nineteen eighties at Yale Law School, UM, Stephen Calibraze 0:28:11.960 --> 0:28:14.440 and someone else. I'm blanking on the person's name. It 0:28:14.520 --> 0:28:18.159 might be Lee Lieberman, UM start the start the organization, 0:28:18.200 --> 0:28:20.440 And originally, you know, it started the Yale Law School, 0:28:20.480 --> 0:28:24.200 which is a hotbed of liberalism. It started really UM 0:28:24.240 --> 0:28:27.560 as an intellectual balance, as an organization that tries to 0:28:27.560 --> 0:28:32.399 create an opportunity for conservatives to express their views in 0:28:32.440 --> 0:28:37.880 a context where mainly liberals were um, holding holding the court, um, 0:28:38.280 --> 0:28:41.720 the local law school court. Um. And you know, I 0:28:41.760 --> 0:28:44.280 think from that, from that perspective, what they were doing 0:28:44.400 --> 0:28:47.520 was perfectly fine. It was great because of course, adding 0:28:47.520 --> 0:28:50.760 diversity to the intellectual environment of law school is what 0:28:50.800 --> 0:28:54.360 we should all be aspiring to do. But over time 0:28:54.600 --> 0:28:59.680 they developed very tight connections with the infrastructure for appointing judges, 0:29:00.360 --> 0:29:03.160 and they almost became a kind of clearing house. Um. 0:29:03.240 --> 0:29:05.720 You know, the ADA is supposed to be a clearing house. 0:29:05.760 --> 0:29:08.920 The American Bar Association supposed to vet judges and give 0:29:08.960 --> 0:29:12.719 their views thumbs upper, thumps down about qualifications. Um. But 0:29:12.760 --> 0:29:16.560 the Federalist Society became an almost um you know uh 0:29:16.640 --> 0:29:20.960 um a farm league or a feeding uh, a system 0:29:21.040 --> 0:29:25.400 for feeding a supply of judges to presidents. Republican presidents 0:29:25.480 --> 0:29:28.680 keen to appoint more judges. So at the lower court, 0:29:28.720 --> 0:29:31.520 in the lower courts, district courts and courts of appeals, 0:29:32.240 --> 0:29:36.240 they've been enormously important. And um, you know, this president 0:29:36.320 --> 0:29:38.920 has appointed an extraordinary number of judges. I think the 0:29:38.960 --> 0:29:41.520 numbers something like three hundred. But the point is, Mitch 0:29:41.600 --> 0:29:44.720 McConnell views, this is the one thing he knows he 0:29:44.760 --> 0:29:47.640 can get done UM, and he has bent over backwards 0:29:47.640 --> 0:29:50.880 to a point as quickly as he can. Practically everybody 0:29:50.920 --> 0:29:55.440 who's come through UM. There's no UM filibuster check anymore 0:29:55.520 --> 0:29:59.360 that allows UM a minority to stop that type of appointment. 0:29:59.480 --> 0:30:02.720 And we've seen some extraordinary appointments. People which the A, B. 0:30:02.840 --> 0:30:06.680 A is that are plainly not qualified have been appointed 0:30:06.720 --> 0:30:11.040 nonetheless because they are perceived to be UM extremely loyal 0:30:11.120 --> 0:30:14.440 in a partisan sense at the lower Court. And we'll 0:30:14.440 --> 0:30:18.000 see what the long term effect of this is will be. UM. 0:30:18.040 --> 0:30:21.080 You know, I'm not somebody who believes that a person 0:30:21.120 --> 0:30:23.320 who's a conservative is not qualified to be on the 0:30:23.360 --> 0:30:26.680 court I or any court. I clark for Judge Posner, 0:30:27.200 --> 0:30:31.000 the Seventh Circuit judge Judge Easterbrook was on the court 0:30:31.000 --> 0:30:34.320 at the same time. They were both Reagan appointees, extremely conservative, 0:30:35.120 --> 0:30:37.320 but you know, two of the best legal minds in 0:30:37.480 --> 0:30:41.000 the history of America. So I think that there's you know, 0:30:41.120 --> 0:30:43.960 extremely talented people on the right, like there are talented 0:30:43.960 --> 0:30:47.040 people on the left. But I think that this effort 0:30:47.120 --> 0:30:52.800 to appoint reliable votes as opposed to talented conservative lawyers 0:30:53.360 --> 0:30:57.560 is a real mistake because it really UM dilutes the 0:30:58.120 --> 0:31:02.960 integrity of the judiciary, and UM we've already seen um, 0:31:03.040 --> 0:31:05.400 the beginnings of that. And I fear, you know, these 0:31:05.400 --> 0:31:08.920 appointments of people who are in their forties, UM, thirties 0:31:09.000 --> 0:31:12.760 in some cases, UM isn't a is a It is 0:31:12.760 --> 0:31:14.200 an act that's going to have an effect for the 0:31:14.240 --> 0:31:18.160 next thirty years, next forty years. Well other than railing 0:31:18.200 --> 0:31:23.520 against this and being aware of it, certainly under Trump's reign, UH, 0:31:23.800 --> 0:31:26.840 is the other side doing anything or they organized to 0:31:27.040 --> 0:31:30.360 combat this effort by the right. I don't think that 0:31:30.400 --> 0:31:34.040 they're organized in the same way. There's an you know, 0:31:34.080 --> 0:31:38.880 a parallel organization called a c S UM, the American 0:31:38.880 --> 0:31:45.920 Constitution Society, which UM, you know UH runs liberal direct 0:31:46.080 --> 0:31:50.280 directed conversations on law school campuses. But they have not 0:31:50.400 --> 0:31:53.840 tried to build the same kind of recruiting infrastructure. I mean, 0:31:53.880 --> 0:31:55.360 you know, you could call the head of the a 0:31:55.480 --> 0:31:57.160 c S and the of the a c S. I'm 0:31:57.160 --> 0:31:59.760 sure we'll have people to recommend, but it's not like 0:31:59.800 --> 0:32:03.240 the business model. UM. So you know, if there's a 0:32:03.280 --> 0:32:08.080 democratic president elected, UM, and there's democratic control of the Senate, UM, 0:32:08.160 --> 0:32:11.240 I expect there will be a lot of democratic judges 0:32:11.520 --> 0:32:17.040 um who are or judges appointed by the Democratic Party who? Um? 0:32:17.120 --> 0:32:21.880 Um you know who? Um. I will say, maybe this 0:32:21.960 --> 0:32:25.520 is just stupid blindness or ignorance or bias on my part. 0:32:25.560 --> 0:32:27.320 I will say they they are not going to be 0:32:27.400 --> 0:32:30.880 people who the A B A says they're not qualified. Um. 0:32:31.240 --> 0:32:33.520 You know, there might be young people. I hope they 0:32:33.560 --> 0:32:37.160 are young people. Um, but they're not going to be 0:32:37.560 --> 0:32:40.800 um that kind of people that Ms McConnell has affected. 0:32:41.120 --> 0:32:48.840 And that's a good time. Okay, let's switch to an 0:32:48.840 --> 0:32:51.800 earlier point, which is the silos that people receive their 0:32:51.840 --> 0:32:55.120 information and leedless. Just say, in a three network world, 0:32:55.440 --> 0:32:58.920 we have the fairness doctrine. Uh, if we ultimately go 0:32:59.000 --> 0:33:01.080 all the way to see clear broadcasting, there used to 0:33:01.080 --> 0:33:04.440 be a limit of the number of television stations you 0:33:04.520 --> 0:33:07.560 could own. However, on the other side, their social media. 0:33:07.960 --> 0:33:12.800 There's Facebook, there's Twitter, Snapchat and the other outlets that 0:33:12.840 --> 0:33:17.160 there was just yesterday in the newspaper that uh, Facebook 0:33:17.200 --> 0:33:22.719 increases the views of holocaust deniers. So what do we 0:33:22.840 --> 0:33:27.080 do with a the raw issue of people not being 0:33:27.080 --> 0:33:30.440 informed and be to what degree to these outlets contribute 0:33:30.480 --> 0:33:33.160 to it? And what can we do about that. This 0:33:33.280 --> 0:33:38.440 is the worst and hardest problem. Um So, first we 0:33:38.480 --> 0:33:41.480 have to identify the source of the problem. And the 0:33:41.480 --> 0:33:44.120 source of the problem is not technology and the abstract. 0:33:44.160 --> 0:33:46.840 The source of the problem is the business model of 0:33:47.480 --> 0:33:52.880 the technical technology platforms as well as television stations. You know, 0:33:53.040 --> 0:33:55.479 when there were three networks, the business model of news, 0:33:56.160 --> 0:33:59.600 which remember was coordinated. It's exactly the same time news 0:33:59.640 --> 0:34:02.760 came on all three networks, so you know, you're watching TV, 0:34:02.800 --> 0:34:05.920 you're gonna watch the news, and the business model of 0:34:05.920 --> 0:34:08.760 those news stations was to shoot right down the middle. 0:34:09.280 --> 0:34:12.600 It was a very kind of plain vanilla approach tell 0:34:12.680 --> 0:34:15.520 the story and the way that was the most inclusive possible. 0:34:16.040 --> 0:34:18.399 I'm not saying it was unbiased in some absolute sense. 0:34:18.400 --> 0:34:20.680 I'm not saying it was comprehensive. There's certain issues that 0:34:20.719 --> 0:34:22.879 never got covered. There's all sorts of ways you could 0:34:22.920 --> 0:34:25.799 criticize it. But what you couldn't say is that it 0:34:25.840 --> 0:34:30.200 was trying to create tribes in America. It you know, 0:34:30.239 --> 0:34:33.040 Walter Cronkite thought that what he was doing was speaking 0:34:33.080 --> 0:34:36.320 to America, and he wanted to tell the truth to America, 0:34:36.440 --> 0:34:39.440 and the consequence of that was a kind of understanding 0:34:39.480 --> 0:34:43.279 a common understanding that was shared by almost everybody, because 0:34:43.360 --> 0:34:46.640 that's all there was, those three networks, and at that 0:34:46.680 --> 0:34:51.120 time every day news was being covered. But once networks 0:34:51.400 --> 0:34:54.759 were no longer the center of television, once cable television 0:34:54.880 --> 0:34:57.359 came along and and you weren't forced to watch one 0:34:57.400 --> 0:34:59.720 of three channels, you could watch one of a hundred 0:34:59.760 --> 0:35:03.480 and money channels. Then the news needed to compete. You know, 0:35:03.640 --> 0:35:07.920 news had to compete with Home shopping or um with ESPN, 0:35:08.480 --> 0:35:10.560 and so it needed to find a way to bring 0:35:10.640 --> 0:35:15.640 people to it. And the critical business model innovation was 0:35:15.920 --> 0:35:20.520 Roger Ales at Fox News. You know, when Fox Rupert 0:35:20.600 --> 0:35:23.560 Murdoch brought Rogers Ales in and he pitches to Fox 0:35:23.600 --> 0:35:28.120 News how he imagines running Fox News. Um, he startles 0:35:28.160 --> 0:35:30.759 everybody by saying that he's not going to try to 0:35:30.800 --> 0:35:34.040 pitch the story to all of America. He's going to 0:35:34.120 --> 0:35:36.640 focus on what he called the base. He's going to 0:35:36.719 --> 0:35:41.799 build a network focused on the base of conservatives. And 0:35:41.880 --> 0:35:45.800 by doing that he would build a loyal and coherent public, 0:35:46.680 --> 0:35:51.239 which it would be easier to sell advertising too. And 0:35:51.280 --> 0:35:54.239 so the idea of the business model focused on a 0:35:54.320 --> 0:35:58.280 fraction of America is the critical change in cable television. 0:35:58.320 --> 0:36:01.719 And initially only he is doing that. But now you know, 0:36:01.760 --> 0:36:04.120 if you look at the ideological content of the three 0:36:04.160 --> 0:36:08.160 major cable networks, they're perfectly separated. You have Fox far 0:36:08.200 --> 0:36:10.680 to the well, not in an absolute sense, but relative 0:36:10.719 --> 0:36:14.040 to UM, I mean Fox far to the right, MSNBC 0:36:14.200 --> 0:36:16.760 to the left, and CNN kind of bouncing in between. 0:36:17.160 --> 0:36:19.840 And that's a business model decision. And the consequence of 0:36:19.840 --> 0:36:22.640 that business model decision is the people who get their 0:36:22.680 --> 0:36:28.200 information from television increasingly come to believe, um, the world 0:36:28.400 --> 0:36:31.360 is different from people who get their information from a 0:36:31.360 --> 0:36:34.200 different channel on television. Barack Obama says, if you if 0:36:34.239 --> 0:36:36.920 you watch Fox News, you live in a different planet. 0:36:37.360 --> 0:36:39.520 And if you read the New York Times, um. And 0:36:39.560 --> 0:36:45.600 so that consequence of this separated tribal world is a 0:36:45.680 --> 0:36:48.879 consequence of the business model of cable television. And it's 0:36:48.920 --> 0:36:52.839 the same thing with the digital platforms. You know, Facebook 0:36:54.000 --> 0:36:57.040 is a platform for selling ads. That's where they make 0:36:57.080 --> 0:36:59.279 their money. I mean they you know, gussie it up 0:36:59.360 --> 0:37:02.120 by pretending it's all about community and all about enabling 0:37:02.200 --> 0:37:05.040 people to share and connect and blah blah blah. But 0:37:05.200 --> 0:37:09.319 the thing it sells Wall Street, the reason why it's 0:37:09.360 --> 0:37:12.920 stock is valuable is that it's an extraordinary machine for 0:37:12.960 --> 0:37:16.680 selling ads. But the way that it sells ads is 0:37:16.719 --> 0:37:20.759 to figure out everything it can about you so that 0:37:20.800 --> 0:37:23.799 it knows exactly what will work with you and so 0:37:23.840 --> 0:37:27.799 that it can promise advertisers a higher return from their 0:37:27.840 --> 0:37:30.279 ads than anybody else. And the way it does that 0:37:30.400 --> 0:37:33.440 is it spies on you. It spies, watches everything you're 0:37:33.440 --> 0:37:35.600 interested in doing, shows where you're, where you're going, who 0:37:35.640 --> 0:37:38.160 you're talking to, what kind of things you're interested in. 0:37:38.239 --> 0:37:41.600 And then after spying, it pokes you. It tries to 0:37:41.680 --> 0:37:45.760 make you angry or happy, and it sees how you respond. 0:37:46.120 --> 0:37:50.800 It's a constant experiment to develop a really sophisticated model 0:37:50.880 --> 0:37:53.600 of you so that it can sell ads. And the 0:37:53.680 --> 0:37:58.520 unfortunate thing for democracy is that it turns out fueling 0:37:58.640 --> 0:38:02.360 this politics of hate is a really effective way to 0:38:02.560 --> 0:38:06.160 learn things about you. If we can like hold up 0:38:06.239 --> 0:38:10.120 the kind of red meat or um uh, you know, 0:38:10.200 --> 0:38:13.719 to kind of inspire you to get angry, you'll engage more, 0:38:13.960 --> 0:38:17.239 you'll share more, you'll be more responsive to what is 0:38:17.280 --> 0:38:19.799 coming across your news feed. And the more responsive you are, 0:38:20.280 --> 0:38:22.480 the more they know, and the more they know the 0:38:22.560 --> 0:38:25.840 better their ads are. And so once again it is 0:38:25.840 --> 0:38:29.160 the business model of the platform that is driving them 0:38:29.160 --> 0:38:32.319 to engage with our political environment in a way that 0:38:32.480 --> 0:38:36.480 weakens our capacity as a democracy to do what we 0:38:36.520 --> 0:38:38.120 need to do in the context of an election, which 0:38:38.160 --> 0:38:40.600 is to come to a judgment about which candidate or 0:38:40.640 --> 0:38:43.440 which party is actually in the best interests of America. 0:38:43.960 --> 0:38:47.799 And in both cases you can imagine a different business model. Um, 0:38:47.920 --> 0:38:51.200 you can imagine a different way of like deploying the technologies. 0:38:51.680 --> 0:38:55.840 But unfortunately we've backed ourselves into the worst possible pair 0:38:55.960 --> 0:38:59.120 of business models. And the consequence of that is these 0:38:59.120 --> 0:39:03.520 platforms are not contributing to a better democracy. They're contributing 0:39:03.520 --> 0:39:07.960 to a more polarized, more tribalistic, less capable democracy than 0:39:08.000 --> 0:39:11.359 one we've had than any we've had since the Civil War. 0:39:12.719 --> 0:39:16.440 Now the ship really is sailed on broadcast television, the ratings, 0:39:16.760 --> 0:39:19.480 the actual number of people watching these news channels is 0:39:19.520 --> 0:39:24.600 astoundingly low. Despite the press. The younger generation is finding 0:39:24.640 --> 0:39:28.520 their information online, so focusing on that, you know, a Twitter, 0:39:28.560 --> 0:39:30.440 they say they're not going to have any political ads 0:39:30.440 --> 0:39:33.560 at all in this cycle. Is there any way to 0:39:33.640 --> 0:39:38.319 address the problem. You just delineated. Well, you know, there's 0:39:38.360 --> 0:39:42.480 this some there's this great health movement called the slow 0:39:42.600 --> 0:39:45.480 food movement. And what the slow food movement says is 0:39:46.560 --> 0:39:50.120 the only way to respond to the terrible way people 0:39:50.160 --> 0:39:53.240 eat is to look at how the human body works 0:39:54.040 --> 0:39:57.200 and fit your consumption to the human body. And so 0:39:57.239 --> 0:39:59.120 it turns out that if you cook your own food 0:40:00.120 --> 0:40:02.439 and you eat it over a long period of time, 0:40:02.480 --> 0:40:04.719 like over dinner with friends, you know, two or three 0:40:04.719 --> 0:40:09.200 hour dinner, that that way of consuming food will be 0:40:09.239 --> 0:40:11.880 the healthiest for you. Like you can't poison yourself the 0:40:11.920 --> 0:40:15.239 way you do with processed food, and um, you'll eat 0:40:15.400 --> 0:40:17.320 the right amounts and you'll eat it in a in 0:40:17.400 --> 0:40:20.279 a at a pace that will actually um complement the 0:40:20.280 --> 0:40:23.000 process in the body. So the fat slow food movement 0:40:23.040 --> 0:40:28.279 is about finding the way to eat that fits our physiology. 0:40:28.600 --> 0:40:31.920 There's an equivalence. We could call it the slow democracy movement. 0:40:32.440 --> 0:40:34.640 And so the slow dog democracy movement, like the slow 0:40:34.640 --> 0:40:37.319 food movement, says, you know, we do democracy well in 0:40:37.360 --> 0:40:40.680 some context, and we do it poorly in other context. 0:40:41.200 --> 0:40:43.320 So we do it poorly in a kind of Facebook 0:40:43.400 --> 0:40:46.520 or Twitter environment, like we get riled up, we we 0:40:46.680 --> 0:40:48.600 you know, act on the basis of a tiny bit 0:40:48.640 --> 0:40:53.040 of information, were easily misled, were easily um guided into 0:40:53.080 --> 0:40:55.959 the wrong understanding of the facts. We're just not good. 0:40:56.200 --> 0:40:58.759 We're not We're not good in that environment. But there 0:40:58.800 --> 0:41:01.200 are environments where we are pretty good. So, you know, 0:41:01.280 --> 0:41:05.240 my favorite is an environment like this, a podcast, UM 0:41:05.239 --> 0:41:08.120 where people have a chance, over a long period of 0:41:08.120 --> 0:41:11.279 time to hear the arc or the development of a 0:41:11.320 --> 0:41:14.120 story or an argument they understand and they have a 0:41:14.160 --> 0:41:16.360 chance to reflect on it the way you know, humans 0:41:16.400 --> 0:41:19.760 have that understanding and their ordinary interaction with ordinary people, 0:41:20.360 --> 0:41:23.000 and that in the context of that type of engagement, 0:41:23.680 --> 0:41:27.399 they learn about issues in a better, more comprehensive way 0:41:27.440 --> 0:41:30.279 than they would ever over Twitter or over their news 0:41:30.360 --> 0:41:36.600 feed on Facebook UM or you know, narrative um uh 0:41:36.760 --> 0:41:41.319 UM content like um television shows that are um you know, 0:41:41.360 --> 0:41:44.520 there are not documentaries necessarily, but that try to tell 0:41:44.560 --> 0:41:47.920 a moral story or tell tell us story about some 0:41:48.040 --> 0:41:51.080 historical moments that gives you a chance to imagine and 0:41:51.239 --> 0:41:55.799 envision and see um played out the tensions of the 0:41:56.280 --> 0:41:59.400 you know, moral issues or the the struggles. You know, 0:41:59.440 --> 0:42:03.440 my favorite, even though there's a million reasons to um 0:42:03.560 --> 0:42:07.200 uh to criticize the series. But like Homeland, which over 0:42:07.239 --> 0:42:10.239 the arc of its six or seven series, you know, 0:42:10.480 --> 0:42:13.960 brought in an incredible number of Americans to a differ different, 0:42:14.560 --> 0:42:17.359 deeper understanding of the story of the Middle East than 0:42:17.400 --> 0:42:19.640 they had when that series began, which was you know, 0:42:20.040 --> 0:42:23.640 this kind of simple, black, white, good versus bad picture 0:42:23.760 --> 0:42:28.399 of the Middle East. I think what the solution is 0:42:28.120 --> 0:42:30.600 U is for us to find ways to channel more 0:42:31.160 --> 0:42:35.080 of politics into context that we have a good reason 0:42:35.120 --> 0:42:38.640 to believe humans can process. Well. Um, you know some 0:42:38.680 --> 0:42:41.640 people's responses to say, we'll get humans out of the mix, 0:42:41.719 --> 0:42:45.080 like let's just have experts, Like forget democracy, let's just 0:42:45.120 --> 0:42:48.640 have a technocracy where you know, the smartest people, you know, 0:42:48.680 --> 0:42:50.960 Harvard law professors, get to decide everything. And you know, 0:42:51.040 --> 0:42:53.239 having known a bunch of Harvard law professors, I can 0:42:53.280 --> 0:42:55.360 tell you that would be a disaster, would be the 0:42:55.440 --> 0:42:58.800 worst thing in the world to imagine turning these decisions 0:42:58.840 --> 0:43:01.680 over to the elite of a araka. But instead of 0:43:01.719 --> 0:43:04.200 like giving up on democracy, I think we have to 0:43:04.200 --> 0:43:06.799 wait to find a way to make democracy work by 0:43:06.840 --> 0:43:11.560 giving people a chance to understand and engage on issues 0:43:12.280 --> 0:43:16.000 in a way that we know they can actually process. 0:43:16.160 --> 0:43:20.160 And so that means channeling away from the five second 0:43:20.239 --> 0:43:22.840 ad or the thirty second ad on television or the 0:43:22.880 --> 0:43:26.880 Facebook feed or Twitter into places where they actually have 0:43:26.920 --> 0:43:29.080 a sense of what the issues are and they can 0:43:29.080 --> 0:43:31.920 get a real sense of the people involved. But how 0:43:31.920 --> 0:43:36.799 does that address the silo issue? Well, we don't have 0:43:36.880 --> 0:43:40.000 the ability, given the First Amendment, to address it through legislation. 0:43:41.600 --> 0:43:44.320 So we're not going to blow up the silos um. 0:43:44.400 --> 0:43:49.200 They're going to exist until they're no longer profitable. So 0:43:49.280 --> 0:43:50.960 the way to deal with the silos issue is to 0:43:51.080 --> 0:43:53.239 just to give people a different sense of what they 0:43:53.280 --> 0:43:56.080 want to do, what they want to consume, and then 0:43:56.120 --> 0:43:59.319 they consume differently maybe hopefully. You know, that's the same 0:43:59.320 --> 0:44:01.960 fight in the d of healthy food movement, like you know, 0:44:02.000 --> 0:44:03.480 if all this unhealthy food, how are you going to 0:44:03.560 --> 0:44:05.520 deal with it? You can't ban it, I mean, you know, 0:44:06.080 --> 0:44:08.800 Michael Bloomberg thought you could basically do that with sodas 0:44:08.800 --> 0:44:11.520 in New York, But you're not gonna across the country 0:44:11.520 --> 0:44:13.239 ban it. The most you can do is get people 0:44:13.239 --> 0:44:16.279 to reflect on like what's the actually healthy way to eat? 0:44:16.440 --> 0:44:18.040 Like what sort of things should you be eating? And 0:44:18.120 --> 0:44:22.320 let's develop the right Um, sensibilities of how we should 0:44:22.320 --> 0:44:25.320 be eating and what balance we should have, and practice 0:44:25.360 --> 0:44:29.279 that take responsibility, you know, both for your diet of 0:44:29.400 --> 0:44:32.960 food and your diet of information. Be a responsible consumer 0:44:32.960 --> 0:44:36.200 in both dimensions. Um. Now, I say that, and I'll 0:44:36.200 --> 0:44:40.440 be the first to say, I'm not optimistic. You know. 0:44:40.520 --> 0:44:43.560 I think that we're at a moment that we literally 0:44:43.560 --> 0:44:46.719 have never been in before, a moment like this. I mean, 0:44:46.719 --> 0:44:50.919 people historians will say the media a hundred years ago 0:44:51.360 --> 0:44:55.360 was just as fragmented, just as polarized as it is today, 0:44:55.360 --> 0:44:58.320 and they're right it was. But the difference is a 0:44:58.400 --> 0:45:00.759 hundred years ago, there was no way to know what 0:45:00.840 --> 0:45:04.160 the public thought. There was no polling, so you could 0:45:04.160 --> 0:45:06.759 have a public that was partisan and divided and lived 0:45:06.760 --> 0:45:09.560 in their own little echo chambers. But actually the people 0:45:09.560 --> 0:45:14.120 who made policy were politicians in Washington, and they understood 0:45:14.160 --> 0:45:16.560 both sides of the issue, and they were engaged in 0:45:16.600 --> 0:45:18.879 real debate and deliberation about what they should be doing, 0:45:18.920 --> 0:45:21.279 and and they did what they did, and kind of 0:45:21.320 --> 0:45:23.960 what the people thought was irrelevant. We live in a 0:45:24.040 --> 0:45:28.080 time where the public is polarized and divided, press is 0:45:28.120 --> 0:45:30.960 completely partisan and drives people in their own little silos, 0:45:31.800 --> 0:45:35.080 but we can see what the people believe, and so 0:45:35.160 --> 0:45:37.960 you can always point back to what the people believe 0:45:38.080 --> 0:45:41.040 as a justification for whatever crazy thing you want to do. 0:45:41.200 --> 0:45:44.040 So seventy four percent of Americans think we need to 0:45:44.080 --> 0:45:48.719 invade a rock, um, you know, based on misrepresentations and 0:45:48.840 --> 0:45:51.920 falsehoods and ignorance about the actual facts. But that's what 0:45:52.239 --> 0:45:55.200 America says. So that's what we have to do. And 0:45:55.239 --> 0:45:58.040 so I think the problem is that we both um 0:45:58.280 --> 0:46:01.560 have a system for un understanding what the people believe, 0:46:01.719 --> 0:46:03.960 but don't have a system for giving people the chance 0:46:04.440 --> 0:46:08.640 to believe what they actually would believe if they understood 0:46:08.680 --> 0:46:10.520 the facts and had a chance to reflect on them 0:46:10.520 --> 0:46:13.960 and deliberate about them. Okay, So you were essentially saying 0:46:14.000 --> 0:46:17.160 there's no place for the legal system to address these 0:46:17.200 --> 0:46:24.920 problems and social networks, not in America, not right now, um, 0:46:24.960 --> 0:46:31.879 because any effort to directly affect the content of these 0:46:31.920 --> 0:46:35.400 networks is going to be resisted by claims the First Amendment. 0:46:35.400 --> 0:46:38.880 I mean, there are things to do on the margin. Um, 0:46:38.920 --> 0:46:41.719 you know, I think that the legal system, you know this, 0:46:43.360 --> 0:46:45.560 Donald Trump has sent something close to this, And I 0:46:45.560 --> 0:46:48.279 don't want to sound like I'm mimicking what he said, 0:46:48.320 --> 0:46:51.319 because I think it's importantly different. But I do think 0:46:51.360 --> 0:46:55.480 that we can think more um Uh, we can think 0:46:55.520 --> 0:46:59.280 it a smarter way about how to make platforms responsible 0:47:00.600 --> 0:47:07.600 so that they don't allow misrepresentations UM to propagate in 0:47:07.600 --> 0:47:10.200 a way that can be destructive. Right now, the legal 0:47:10.200 --> 0:47:15.440 system basically gives them total immunity UM for defamation or 0:47:15.480 --> 0:47:19.279 false information that they are allowed to spread UM. And 0:47:19.360 --> 0:47:22.839 of course, when the business model is as it is, 0:47:22.880 --> 0:47:26.040 where you have a strong interest to spread false information 0:47:26.160 --> 0:47:30.080 for political reasons or even just for advertising reasons, UM, 0:47:30.120 --> 0:47:33.800 that creates a really dangerous incentive. So I think the 0:47:33.880 --> 0:47:36.279 legal system could, on the margin, tweak that and do 0:47:36.360 --> 0:47:39.600 that better. But I don't think that the core problem 0:47:39.600 --> 0:47:41.640 with the business model is going to go away because 0:47:41.680 --> 0:47:43.920 of fixing that. So then you want to say, well, 0:47:43.920 --> 0:47:45.839 can the legal system come in and you know, ban 0:47:45.960 --> 0:47:51.280 advertising UM. And my my view is I'd love to try. 0:47:51.719 --> 0:47:54.600 I'd love to say, let's see what happens if we 0:47:54.760 --> 0:47:59.399 ban political advertising for six weeks before an election. I mean, 0:47:59.560 --> 0:48:01.560 you know, it would be stupid to ban it all 0:48:01.560 --> 0:48:04.200 the time, because you know, advertising is good for selling products, 0:48:04.200 --> 0:48:07.399 and products drive an economy. And it might not make 0:48:07.400 --> 0:48:09.560 sense to say ban advertising for like, you know, the 0:48:09.560 --> 0:48:12.040 local state representatives, because that turns out to be a 0:48:12.080 --> 0:48:14.600 really efficient way for them to get their message out there. 0:48:15.760 --> 0:48:21.040 But where you've got these really polarized and potentially um 0:48:21.239 --> 0:48:25.720 foreign influence driven campaigns for president or for the control 0:48:25.760 --> 0:48:28.399 of Congress, I would love to see what happens if 0:48:28.400 --> 0:48:32.680 we just turn off the mechanism for um tweaking or 0:48:32.760 --> 0:48:38.600 driving the public according to whatever interest the advertiser might have, 0:48:39.320 --> 0:48:42.400 and see what see what happens. Um. I expect that 0:48:42.440 --> 0:48:44.359 you're going to see countries that try to do that, 0:48:44.600 --> 0:48:47.719 and we might learn something from those countries. And it 0:48:47.719 --> 0:48:49.440 would be great if what we learned is that's all 0:48:49.480 --> 0:48:53.400 it takes, just turn off the advertising and uh, you know, 0:48:53.440 --> 0:48:55.600 it's not that social media becomes great, but it doesn't 0:48:55.640 --> 0:48:59.360 become the poison and that that it was in and 0:48:59.440 --> 0:49:03.120 then I think it's to be in now broad concept. 0:49:03.640 --> 0:49:08.320 Do you do you not believe social media, search networks, etcetera. 0:49:08.560 --> 0:49:12.920 Should be liable for the content on their sites. I 0:49:12.960 --> 0:49:16.480 don't think you can answer that simply. Um. I think 0:49:16.520 --> 0:49:21.120 there are contacts in which they should be liable, yes, Um, 0:49:21.160 --> 0:49:24.520 But they certainly should not be liable for everything, regardless 0:49:24.560 --> 0:49:27.480 of the context or the steps that they've taken to 0:49:28.040 --> 0:49:30.840 to avoid that content being there. So I don't believe 0:49:30.840 --> 0:49:33.920 in the absolute immunity that exists right now, and I 0:49:33.920 --> 0:49:35.600 don't believe we should go to a world where they're 0:49:35.640 --> 0:49:39.200 liable for everything that I upload onto a network. You know, 0:49:39.239 --> 0:49:42.840 it's got to be a more sophisticated kind of notice 0:49:42.840 --> 0:49:46.600 and takedown infrastructure than the copyright notice and take on 0:49:46.760 --> 0:49:49.040 infrastructure is. I mean, you know, let's be realistic. So 0:49:49.080 --> 0:49:51.160 it M let's be real about this. It's not like 0:49:51.239 --> 0:49:55.080 networks are immune from every bit of content that's up 0:49:55.120 --> 0:49:57.719 there that might violate the law. I mean, they can 0:49:57.719 --> 0:50:01.080 defame someone and they're you know, there's st free um. 0:50:01.200 --> 0:50:03.120 Or they can allow defamation on their network and they're 0:50:03.120 --> 0:50:05.680 scott free. But you know, if they allow a Disney 0:50:05.719 --> 0:50:09.280 movie to be distributed on their network, UM in violation 0:50:09.320 --> 0:50:12.239 of copyright, they're not scot free. UM. They're gonna be 0:50:12.280 --> 0:50:14.359 responsible if they don't take steps to take that down. 0:50:14.400 --> 0:50:18.560 So we've already decided that some content is important UM 0:50:18.680 --> 0:50:21.720 for us to regulate, to make sure that the legal 0:50:21.760 --> 0:50:24.399 principles are upheld and I think we could do more 0:50:24.520 --> 0:50:29.200 to worry about at least defamation UM. And and you know, 0:50:29.239 --> 0:50:33.440 I have a broader concept of direct manipulation UM. You know, 0:50:33.480 --> 0:50:38.480 in the way that UM these fake videos events that 0:50:38.600 --> 0:50:42.319 is for the purpose of misrepresenting or for um, you know, 0:50:42.440 --> 0:50:45.960 creating descent where the actual facts don't support it. How 0:50:46.040 --> 0:50:48.120 you do it is going to be so hard. I 0:50:48.120 --> 0:50:51.160 don't imagine as a simple statement here or a simple rule, 0:50:51.760 --> 0:50:53.239 but I do think we shouldn't give up on it, 0:50:53.280 --> 0:50:56.040 because I think the consequence of giving up has already 0:50:56.080 --> 0:51:01.560 proven itself to be really devastating. Let's address anti trust. Okay, 0:51:01.600 --> 0:51:05.319 generally speaking, the Republicans have been looser than the Democrats 0:51:05.360 --> 0:51:08.840 on this. We've had a number of very interesting things. 0:51:09.360 --> 0:51:12.640 We have the Books case. The end result was that 0:51:12.719 --> 0:51:17.560 books became more expensive. We had the T mobile Sprint thing, 0:51:17.680 --> 0:51:20.520 where people on the left said, oh, we must have 0:51:20.760 --> 0:51:24.120 these more competitors. Were as anyone who's a student of 0:51:24.120 --> 0:51:27.239 the business said, Hey, Sprint is going to go out 0:51:27.239 --> 0:51:31.080 of business, We're gonna go bankrupt. Then uh, we have 0:51:31.239 --> 0:51:35.200 people like Elizabeth Warren saying let's break up the social networks. 0:51:35.200 --> 0:51:38.360 What are your viewpoints about anti trust? And what should 0:51:38.360 --> 0:51:43.799 the uh UH decisions be made upon. Well, I think 0:51:43.800 --> 0:51:47.719 we should recognize that we basically had no antitrust enforcement 0:51:47.880 --> 0:51:52.440 in the technology sector UM in any significant way since 0:51:52.480 --> 0:51:57.439 the Microsoft decision twenty years ago. And I think that's 0:51:57.440 --> 0:52:01.440 been a mistake. I think we've allowed out these companies 0:52:01.480 --> 0:52:05.040 to get much bigger than they would have gotten had 0:52:05.280 --> 0:52:09.880 ordinary principles of anti trust been deployed consistently throughout the period. 0:52:09.920 --> 0:52:12.960 And I wouldn't blame Republicans for that. I mean, certainly 0:52:12.960 --> 0:52:15.759 I blame Republicans for what happened under George Bush, but 0:52:15.840 --> 0:52:19.600 I blame Democrats for what happened under Barack Obama. And 0:52:19.680 --> 0:52:24.320 the the clearest moments when anti trust should have stepped 0:52:24.320 --> 0:52:27.719 in was under Barack Obama. UM. And now we know 0:52:27.920 --> 0:52:32.720 from you know, Mark Zuckerberg's email, UM that they're intent 0:52:32.880 --> 0:52:37.520 that their game was exactly this kind of anti competitive 0:52:38.880 --> 0:52:42.200 acquisition strategy. And and I think there's a real reason 0:52:42.239 --> 0:52:44.239 to be worried about that. And I think that the 0:52:44.320 --> 0:52:46.919 reason to be worried about it is much more than 0:52:46.960 --> 0:52:51.400 just a pure economic reason. Right, the standard Chicago School 0:52:51.440 --> 0:52:54.200 theory of anti trust is only worry about it if 0:52:54.200 --> 0:52:56.520 there's going to be a harm to consumers. But I 0:52:56.520 --> 0:52:59.360 think you also need to be worried about it because 0:52:59.400 --> 0:53:02.680 it creates these entities that are so powerful that they 0:53:02.760 --> 0:53:06.360 cannot be regulated. And so it's a there's this is 0:53:06.400 --> 0:53:10.520 a um Luigi's and Galis calls the political antitrust, which 0:53:10.560 --> 0:53:13.920 is a concern for the size and power of organizations, 0:53:14.360 --> 0:53:17.160 not just because of the economy, but also because of 0:53:17.160 --> 0:53:20.359 the political democracy. And I think from that perspective, we've 0:53:20.360 --> 0:53:24.560 plainly lost control of Amazon and Google and Facebook. Um 0:53:24.640 --> 0:53:26.840 these are entities which I, you know, as much as 0:53:26.880 --> 0:53:30.840 Elizabeth Warren was, you know, inspirational in her aspiration, I 0:53:30.920 --> 0:53:33.440 think it was kind of crazy talk to imagine the 0:53:33.520 --> 0:53:35.520 government was going to be able to do any of 0:53:35.520 --> 0:53:38.040 the things she was talking about, given the enormous power 0:53:38.560 --> 0:53:42.320 that they have because they're plugged into everybody's lives directly. Okay, 0:53:42.400 --> 0:53:43.920 let's talk about you for a second. Where did you 0:53:43.920 --> 0:53:45.960 grow up? So I grew up in the kind of 0:53:46.040 --> 0:53:50.720 Kentucky part of Pennsylvania, um town called Williamsport, Pennsylvania, which 0:53:50.760 --> 0:53:54.680 is about a Little League World Series exactly right, Um so, 0:53:54.760 --> 0:53:57.600 about eighty miles north of Harrisburg. And I, you know, 0:53:57.640 --> 0:53:59.319 I was there from about the age of six until 0:53:59.360 --> 0:54:02.240 I went to college. Okay, And what were the political 0:54:02.320 --> 0:54:05.319 leanings of your family? So we grew up. I grew 0:54:05.400 --> 0:54:08.920 up a Republican. I was quite an active Republican when 0:54:08.960 --> 0:54:11.880 I was a kid. I was chairman of the Pennsylvania 0:54:11.920 --> 0:54:14.600 Teenage Republicans. I was the youngest member of a delegation 0:54:15.320 --> 0:54:20.279 to the nine eighty Republican Convention. UM, so you know 0:54:20.360 --> 0:54:24.120 we were strong conservatives back then. Okay, what did your 0:54:24.120 --> 0:54:28.560 parents do for a living. My father was a ran 0:54:28.640 --> 0:54:32.359 a steel fabricating coming his own companies steel fabricators called 0:54:32.400 --> 0:54:35.920 Williams Sport Fabricators. It was acquired by a company called 0:54:36.000 --> 0:54:40.400 High Steel um Structures. And my mom um, for at 0:54:40.440 --> 0:54:42.839 least the time I was in high school, was sold 0:54:42.880 --> 0:54:45.280 real estate, but she basically did that as a hobby. 0:54:46.280 --> 0:54:48.600 And how many kids in the family. So I had 0:54:48.640 --> 0:54:51.880 two older siblings and one who are about nine and 0:54:51.920 --> 0:54:55.359 ten years older, and then one younger sister who's two 0:54:55.400 --> 0:54:58.440 years younger than I am. And the older siblings. What 0:54:58.560 --> 0:55:02.040 sex were there? Boy in a girl point a girl? 0:55:02.400 --> 0:55:05.200 So on some level you were in the middle, but 0:55:05.280 --> 0:55:08.880 because of so many years in between. Uh, to what 0:55:09.080 --> 0:55:12.600 degree what were your parents very supportive? Were you lost 0:55:12.640 --> 0:55:14.840 in the shuffle? Where were you in the hierarchy of 0:55:14.840 --> 0:55:18.719 the family. Yeah, you're right, So my older siblings are 0:55:18.719 --> 0:55:22.400 basically gone when I, um, you know, I can actually 0:55:22.440 --> 0:55:26.840 remember anything about my life, and so I think that 0:55:26.880 --> 0:55:30.280 they were extremely supportive. I actually went away to school 0:55:30.320 --> 0:55:34.040 for a couple of years, um, four years, and that 0:55:34.120 --> 0:55:37.440 was a significant Where where did you go to school? UM? 0:55:37.480 --> 0:55:40.640 I went to UM. It was called the Columbus Boy Choir. 0:55:40.880 --> 0:55:44.040 So it was a professional boy choir UM in Princeton 0:55:45.239 --> 0:55:49.880 from sixth to ninth grade. And that was says choir. 0:55:50.080 --> 0:55:53.160 Was it musically oriented? It was a professional boy choir. 0:55:53.440 --> 0:55:57.080 We traveled around the world and we sang. How do 0:55:57.160 --> 0:55:59.520 you even get into that? You know? I was singing 0:55:59.520 --> 0:56:03.120 in my urch choir and my choir director said, you know, 0:56:03.200 --> 0:56:04.840 you do this pretty well. You should try out for 0:56:04.880 --> 0:56:07.799 this boy choir. So I tried out and they told 0:56:07.800 --> 0:56:10.960 me I should come and that that started UM in 0:56:11.040 --> 0:56:13.560 sixth grade. And that was a big chunk of my 0:56:13.560 --> 0:56:19.239 my youth and good experience or bad experience. So you 0:56:19.280 --> 0:56:23.120 tripped into this question, bob uh. Yeah, So I've been 0:56:23.120 --> 0:56:25.560 an article written about this that's not announcing anything to do. 0:56:26.440 --> 0:56:28.279 In some ways, it was the best of times, in 0:56:28.280 --> 0:56:29.839 some ways the worst of times. It was the best 0:56:29.880 --> 0:56:31.600 of times because you know, I was a kid from 0:56:31.640 --> 0:56:35.279 a small town traveling around the world understanding things that 0:56:35.320 --> 0:56:37.400 no one at my age would have understood. It was 0:56:37.400 --> 0:56:41.080 the worst of times because um, for um, two and 0:56:41.120 --> 0:56:44.719 a half of those four years, I was sexually abused 0:56:44.719 --> 0:56:48.200 by the director of the choir. UM and um had 0:56:48.239 --> 0:56:52.840 had a profound impact on everything that happened afterwards. Um 0:56:52.880 --> 0:56:56.359 and uh um, you know, kind of in my mind 0:56:56.400 --> 0:56:59.680 defines what the experience was for me. So UM, I 0:56:59.680 --> 0:57:03.880 don't know. It depends which day I'm thinking about it. Okay. 0:57:03.920 --> 0:57:07.800 Does one ever get over sexual abuse of that nature? 0:57:07.840 --> 0:57:12.160 Can you metabolize it? Does it affect future choices and experiences? 0:57:15.760 --> 0:57:20.560 You never get over it. It's never gone. And some 0:57:20.640 --> 0:57:24.840 people it's profoundly significant in everything they do. You know, 0:57:24.960 --> 0:57:28.720 some people, it probably drives them into their own kind 0:57:28.760 --> 0:57:32.880 of perversions. Some people that creates an extraordinary insecurity or 0:57:33.840 --> 0:57:40.000 um pathology around the ability to connect to people. Um. 0:57:40.040 --> 0:57:42.360 You know, I I think very few people have a 0:57:42.440 --> 0:57:47.320 really clear sense of just how destructive mucking about with 0:57:47.360 --> 0:57:51.760 those emotions of a young child can be um and 0:57:52.080 --> 0:57:55.520 uh and so no, I you know, I would say, 0:57:56.360 --> 0:58:00.600 you know, at the at the shrink level, um, um, 0:58:00.640 --> 0:58:02.760 there's never been a moment that I haven't been affected 0:58:02.760 --> 0:58:05.919 by it. At the professional level, I kind of think 0:58:05.920 --> 0:58:09.320 of most of my professional career as in some sense 0:58:09.920 --> 0:58:14.240 responsive to the the problem that I was obsessed with 0:58:14.280 --> 0:58:17.000 when I was there. So that problem was, you know 0:58:17.040 --> 0:58:20.240 what what struck me about that experience was that, of 0:58:20.280 --> 0:58:23.880 course there was this criminal at the center, um, you know, 0:58:23.920 --> 0:58:26.320 who was pathological and just you know, in some sense 0:58:26.320 --> 0:58:29.640 couldn't stop himself. Um. And I wasn't the only person 0:58:29.680 --> 0:58:31.920 he abused. He was probably depending on the year it 0:58:31.920 --> 0:58:34.520 could have been abusing up to the school. I mean, 0:58:34.640 --> 0:58:38.600 he was just you know, he was insatiable and unstoppable. 0:58:40.120 --> 0:58:42.920 But the more striking thing to me was to reflect 0:58:42.960 --> 0:58:46.320 on the people who were around him and in some 0:58:46.400 --> 0:58:50.440 sense knew but didn't want to step up and stop 0:58:50.560 --> 0:58:54.360 what was happening, either because they turned a blind eye 0:58:54.560 --> 0:58:57.760 or because they thought it would be destructive of the institution, 0:58:57.840 --> 0:59:02.000 or whatever the reason is. They were the enablers. And 0:59:02.040 --> 0:59:04.320 I kind of feel like, if you you know, if 0:59:04.400 --> 0:59:07.320 you really understood the threat of the work that I've 0:59:07.360 --> 0:59:09.320 done from the very beginning of my career. It has 0:59:09.360 --> 0:59:14.520 always been to try to draw attention to the institution 0:59:14.800 --> 0:59:20.000 or the context of the enablers and to ask, you know, 0:59:20.760 --> 0:59:22.440 you know, like the last work I did when I 0:59:22.440 --> 0:59:24.720 was running the Edmund Saffer Center was focused on what 0:59:24.760 --> 0:59:29.520 we called institutional corruption. And that's that's the corruption not 0:59:29.680 --> 0:59:32.400 of criminals. It's not the quid pro quo corruption. It's 0:59:32.440 --> 0:59:36.400 the corruption of the institution where people, good people in 0:59:36.440 --> 0:59:41.080 the institution allow the institution become sensitive to our responsive 0:59:41.080 --> 0:59:46.000 to the wrong kind of desires or interests. So when 0:59:46.040 --> 0:59:50.800 Congress raises money to fund its campaigns, is there's very 0:59:50.840 --> 0:59:54.000 little bribery involved in that, So it's not criminal in 0:59:54.000 --> 0:59:57.720 the traditional sense, but it's producing an institution that is 0:59:58.280 --> 1:00:01.440 um not responsive to the ordinary people. And it's allowed 1:00:01.480 --> 1:00:03.920 to be that way because people enable it and and 1:00:03.960 --> 1:00:06.000 support it, and they're not willing to step up and 1:00:06.040 --> 1:00:08.400 just say this is wrong and we have to change it. 1:00:09.240 --> 1:00:11.400 And so I feel like everything I've done in some 1:00:11.520 --> 1:00:16.040 senses recurred to that same reflection in you know, very 1:00:16.080 --> 1:00:19.880 many different legal context but all of that, you know, 1:00:20.000 --> 1:00:23.680 comes from moments reflecting on what happened to me when 1:00:23.720 --> 1:00:26.960 I was you know, twelve and thirteen and fourteen. Now 1:00:27.000 --> 1:00:29.760 did you age out of that situation or did you 1:00:30.200 --> 1:00:33.080 decide to leave? I aged out. You know, your voice 1:00:33.160 --> 1:00:35.520 changes and you're gone. So my voice changed and I 1:00:35.600 --> 1:00:39.760 was gone. Okay, did this affect your relationships with women 1:00:39.840 --> 1:00:45.680 and girls thereafter? Of course, of course, you know not. 1:00:46.640 --> 1:00:52.040 I mean, I'm happily married to an extraordinary woman. And um, 1:00:52.080 --> 1:00:54.840 I know other people who had the same experience who 1:00:54.920 --> 1:00:59.040 are not. So, you know, I feel but for the 1:00:59.040 --> 1:01:03.480 grace of God, there goes I. Um. But you know, 1:01:04.200 --> 1:01:06.600 in ways I've you know, we've gone far in this 1:01:06.680 --> 1:01:09.520 conversation part further than I think either of us thought 1:01:09.560 --> 1:01:11.600 we would. I don't want to go into the depth 1:01:11.720 --> 1:01:14.280 or the detail of it, but yes, absolutely day to 1:01:14.400 --> 1:01:21.320 day um uh, that hung right in the middle of everything. Okay, 1:01:21.320 --> 1:01:24.080 so you age out, your voice changes? Should go back 1:01:24.080 --> 1:01:28.360 to public high school? What is that experience like? After 1:01:28.400 --> 1:01:32.919 being away for three years? It was difficult. People didn't 1:01:33.000 --> 1:01:36.000 quite understand who, you know, what the experience had been. 1:01:36.120 --> 1:01:38.680 Obviously I didn't tell people what the experience had been, 1:01:39.320 --> 1:01:42.160 but it did. But it really affected how I understood 1:01:42.160 --> 1:01:45.360 the world. I kind of thought, I kind of have 1:01:45.560 --> 1:01:48.600 sex was at the center of everything, because sex was 1:01:48.640 --> 1:01:51.680 at the center of everything when I was twelve, So 1:01:51.720 --> 1:01:55.240 I interpreted everything around me as if somehow sex was 1:01:55.280 --> 1:01:58.400 involved in it. So I remember it's extraordinary moment of 1:02:00.000 --> 1:02:02.640 our neighbor came across the street and to tell me 1:02:02.680 --> 1:02:07.320 that her daughter had just gotten a car and a 1:02:07.360 --> 1:02:10.560 bunch of guys had you know, cleaned the car for 1:02:10.600 --> 1:02:14.439 her and tuned it up. And the way my mind work, 1:02:14.520 --> 1:02:16.720 given the experience I had had, I imagine, you know, 1:02:16.800 --> 1:02:20.280 that sex had to be in that transaction somewhere, like 1:02:20.360 --> 1:02:22.760 that's just the normal thing it would have been there. Um, 1:02:23.400 --> 1:02:25.560 And I said something that reflected that, and she kind 1:02:25.560 --> 1:02:28.760 of was astonished. And I think back on it, and 1:02:28.800 --> 1:02:32.400 even I'm in stolished. It's like completely abnormal way to 1:02:32.440 --> 1:02:34.760 think about the world. But you know, that's where I 1:02:34.800 --> 1:02:37.480 had been delivered. I was delivered thinking that's the normal 1:02:37.520 --> 1:02:41.080 way people interacted because that had been the normal way 1:02:41.120 --> 1:02:44.320 I had seen for you know, many years of my 1:02:44.440 --> 1:02:47.600 life at that point. So you're in high school, you 1:02:47.720 --> 1:02:49.880 fit in, You're a nerd. Where do you fit in 1:02:49.920 --> 1:02:53.080 the social total? Nerds total nerd. You know, I'm in 1:02:53.080 --> 1:02:56.000 the bands, I I run. You know, I'm like a 1:02:56.080 --> 1:02:59.600 leader in student government. I'm a smart kid. Um, I'm 1:02:59.720 --> 1:03:03.520 not the number one, but the number two and um 1:03:03.560 --> 1:03:05.200 you know, and I have a lot of good friends. 1:03:05.360 --> 1:03:09.480 But but you know, the hierarchy of high school, I'm 1:03:09.520 --> 1:03:12.760 not the football player or I'm not the the coolest 1:03:12.840 --> 1:03:15.760 kids in the room. And and I'm obsessed with obeying 1:03:15.760 --> 1:03:18.720 the law. So I don't I don't drink, and I 1:03:18.760 --> 1:03:21.440 don't you know, go out and drive at times I 1:03:21.440 --> 1:03:23.960 shouldn't be in Um. So you know in that sense, yes, 1:03:24.040 --> 1:03:26.720 absolutely a nerve. Well where does that come from? The 1:03:27.000 --> 1:03:30.640 sense you up to us toil the lawn? Legally? That's 1:03:30.680 --> 1:03:35.960 totally my dad. My dad was an obsessive um, you know, 1:03:36.000 --> 1:03:37.840 in the good in a good sense. He just you know, 1:03:38.080 --> 1:03:43.120 completely absolute integrity sort of person. You know. The thing 1:03:43.160 --> 1:03:46.480 I think about all the time with my dad is like, um, 1:03:46.520 --> 1:03:52.080 in college, I worked worked in his firm. In high school, 1:03:52.080 --> 1:03:56.560 I basically worked as a laborer, you know, doing work 1:03:56.840 --> 1:04:00.360 drilling holes and steel. But after college, I I did 1:04:00.400 --> 1:04:03.240 a summer where I was helping their finance departments, you know, 1:04:03.360 --> 1:04:08.960 negotiate a merger and transition, and they the way they 1:04:08.960 --> 1:04:12.160 did businesses they would bid jobs, um, you know, basically 1:04:12.280 --> 1:04:14.560 usually to the state. They would give a price, they 1:04:14.560 --> 1:04:19.040 would get the job. And um, there was one job 1:04:19.120 --> 1:04:23.320 where the bidder forgot to include the bolts. So that 1:04:23.400 --> 1:04:29.600 was a million dollars. And anybody would have at that stage, 1:04:29.720 --> 1:04:31.920 you know, done everything they could to get out of 1:04:31.920 --> 1:04:34.440 the contract, because a million dollars is a million dollars. 1:04:34.440 --> 1:04:36.520 That was basically the net worth of the company right there. 1:04:37.640 --> 1:04:40.040 And I suggested to my dad, well, what are we 1:04:40.080 --> 1:04:41.680 gonna do. We gotta get out of this. We can't 1:04:41.720 --> 1:04:44.200 go through it. You can't can't spend a million dollars 1:04:44.920 --> 1:04:47.760 because of this mistake. And he said, my words, my word, 1:04:47.840 --> 1:04:49.400 that's a we're not going to get out of it, 1:04:49.440 --> 1:04:50.919 and we're going to find a way to make it work. 1:04:52.000 --> 1:04:54.720 And you know, it's easy for a parent to talk 1:04:54.720 --> 1:04:59.240 about the right thing to do, but the greatest opportunities 1:04:59.280 --> 1:05:02.240 to be able to teach by showing somebody that you're 1:05:02.280 --> 1:05:06.280 doing the right thing when it really hurts. Um. And 1:05:06.360 --> 1:05:09.560 he did that all the time. And and so that 1:05:09.720 --> 1:05:13.160 was that was what you made me think about how 1:05:13.200 --> 1:05:16.600 I should behave too and you know, I just couldn't. 1:05:17.000 --> 1:05:19.640 I couldn't break the law. Um, and did he get 1:05:19.680 --> 1:05:22.840 that contract? He got the contract. He sucked it up. 1:05:23.440 --> 1:05:26.640 I think they were able to cut back about half 1:05:26.680 --> 1:05:29.480 of that loss, but it was a huge hit on 1:05:29.120 --> 1:05:31.600 the on the company. Okay, so how do you decide 1:05:31.640 --> 1:05:35.600 to go to pen and what's your experience there? Um? 1:05:35.640 --> 1:05:39.400 I was a legacy. Uh, my father, my grandfather, my aunt, 1:05:39.480 --> 1:05:42.000 everybody went to PEN. I did early admit, I got 1:05:42.040 --> 1:05:45.640 in and so I decided to go. And uh I 1:05:45.680 --> 1:05:48.560 went originally thinking I was going to be a businessman 1:05:48.720 --> 1:05:51.680 like my dad. So I went to the Warden Business 1:05:51.680 --> 1:05:54.320 School and as quickly as I could, I finished my 1:05:54.360 --> 1:05:57.000 degree there and got into the I was interested in 1:05:57.040 --> 1:05:59.440 the history of economics. And then I left. After I 1:05:59.480 --> 1:06:03.080 finished PEN and with a degree from the college as 1:06:03.120 --> 1:06:05.120 well as the business school, I went to Cambridge to 1:06:05.120 --> 1:06:09.240 study philosophy. Well well, well, what was the inspiration? I mean, 1:06:09.840 --> 1:06:14.160 because you've had a long peripatetic career in education. You 1:06:14.280 --> 1:06:16.400 just said, okay, I want to I want to explore more. 1:06:16.440 --> 1:06:18.760 There was no issue of going into the business world 1:06:18.880 --> 1:06:21.880 or anything. Yeah, I mean when I finished, when I 1:06:21.920 --> 1:06:25.560 decided I didn't want to be in the business. Um. 1:06:25.600 --> 1:06:27.760 I then thought I'd go to law school. And then 1:06:27.960 --> 1:06:29.800 so I applied to law school and I got into 1:06:29.880 --> 1:06:31.760 law school, and then at the last minute, I thought, 1:06:31.840 --> 1:06:33.680 I just don't want to go to law school yet. 1:06:33.680 --> 1:06:37.320 So I was really obsessed with this philosophy course that 1:06:37.400 --> 1:06:41.240 I had taken in my last term at Penn, and I, 1:06:41.360 --> 1:06:44.080 you know, it was searching around for how I could 1:06:44.120 --> 1:06:46.600 then do something else related to philosophy. And I thought 1:06:46.640 --> 1:06:49.600 I'd go to England. And I looked at Oxford and 1:06:49.640 --> 1:06:52.640 it required a thirty page essay to apply. And I 1:06:52.640 --> 1:06:55.400 looked at Cambridge and it required a six word essay 1:06:55.440 --> 1:06:58.400 to apply. So obviously I applied to Cambridge and I 1:06:58.440 --> 1:07:01.400 got in. I went, and I spent three years studying 1:07:01.400 --> 1:07:05.400 philosophy at Cambridge. And did you end up with a degree. Yeah, 1:07:05.440 --> 1:07:07.440 I got what would become a master, as they have 1:07:07.520 --> 1:07:12.080 this weird way that what wasn't originally undergraduate degree matures 1:07:12.080 --> 1:07:14.960 into a master. So I have a Masters in philosophy, 1:07:15.080 --> 1:07:16.880 and I thought it would become a philosopher. I thought 1:07:16.920 --> 1:07:19.120 I would get a PhD. But then at the end 1:07:19.160 --> 1:07:21.360 I just felt it was too remote, too removed from 1:07:21.400 --> 1:07:24.640 the real world. So I came back to law school. Okay, 1:07:24.640 --> 1:07:26.680 But what did you learn from that experience in the 1:07:26.760 --> 1:07:30.880 UK other than socially? You know, I think that really 1:07:30.920 --> 1:07:34.480 important part of education, part of growing up, is to 1:07:34.560 --> 1:07:37.360 place yourself in radically different contexts. Now, England is not 1:07:37.480 --> 1:07:40.400 radically difficult, different from America, but in many ways it 1:07:40.560 --> 1:07:44.200 was m and so that makes you much more sensitive 1:07:44.240 --> 1:07:48.960 to what in the background is making the world the 1:07:49.000 --> 1:07:55.800 way it seems, and what is the part you're responsible for. So, um, 1:07:55.840 --> 1:07:58.919 I loved my time in England. Um, it was extraordinary 1:07:59.000 --> 1:08:02.200 luxury because I just got to read and write and 1:08:02.480 --> 1:08:05.280 uh um and I had already had a degree, so 1:08:05.320 --> 1:08:09.280 I felt like I knew something. Um uh. But um, 1:08:09.360 --> 1:08:11.439 but it's uh, it was you know, that was a time. 1:08:11.520 --> 1:08:13.160 It was a long time ago. It was eighty three 1:08:13.200 --> 1:08:16.559 to eighty six. That was a period when you know, 1:08:16.600 --> 1:08:20.479 Margaret Thatcher was the Prime minister. They were having these 1:08:20.560 --> 1:08:25.679 massive coal strikes. Um, there was strikes of the students 1:08:25.720 --> 1:08:28.160 because she was trying to cut back the welfare subsidy 1:08:28.200 --> 1:08:31.400 to students. Um. So there's a lot of social unrest 1:08:31.400 --> 1:08:36.080 in the country at the time. But I I felt 1:08:36.120 --> 1:08:38.760 it was you know, the period where I could go 1:08:38.840 --> 1:08:44.719 deepest and think deepest about stuff that was important. Okay, 1:08:44.720 --> 1:08:47.240 so you go to Yale. What's your experience at Yale 1:08:47.320 --> 1:08:52.040 Law School? Um? Well, first, I actually went to Chicago 1:08:52.240 --> 1:08:55.439 and I transferred to Yale to follow a girlfriend who 1:08:55.439 --> 1:08:57.120 had met in England who wanted to go to Yale. 1:08:57.160 --> 1:09:00.800 So I spent my first year of Chicago. That begs 1:09:00.800 --> 1:09:03.559 the question, what's the been Going to the uh University 1:09:03.560 --> 1:09:05.880 of Chicago and going to Yale for law school? There 1:09:06.000 --> 1:09:10.519 radically different places. Um, so Chicago is wasn't you know? 1:09:10.520 --> 1:09:12.040 I'm sure it still less. I don't have a clear 1:09:12.040 --> 1:09:14.599 sense of it today. But it's a great law school. 1:09:15.400 --> 1:09:19.600 Really super kids, really really super professors. I mean, um, 1:09:19.640 --> 1:09:25.759 you know Richard Posner, Michael McConnell, Cass Sunstein, Jeffrey Stone. 1:09:26.280 --> 1:09:29.880 I mean, there was incredible mix of people there. Diane 1:09:29.880 --> 1:09:35.000 would who eventually also became a judge with Richard Posner. Um, 1:09:35.160 --> 1:09:38.840 and so it was an intense, really intense legal education. 1:09:39.600 --> 1:09:43.880 Yale was more like a graduate school education. So, um, 1:09:43.920 --> 1:09:48.640 you know, they're super smart, smart kids. Um, but they 1:09:48.680 --> 1:09:51.200 didn't they almost didn't take the law seriously. They didn't 1:09:51.240 --> 1:09:54.200 want to get deep into that, you know, the messiness 1:09:54.280 --> 1:09:56.559 of the law. So I felt like, in some ways 1:09:56.560 --> 1:09:59.439 it was the perfect education because I got a really 1:10:00.080 --> 1:10:02.719 deep legal education in my first year from the Chicago 1:10:02.760 --> 1:10:04.680 and then I went to Yale and I could be 1:10:04.720 --> 1:10:08.080 more reflective and philosophical about it. And you know, given 1:10:08.120 --> 1:10:09.920 I decided I wanted to be a professor, that was 1:10:09.960 --> 1:10:12.559 a pretty good chance to um to be in that 1:10:12.640 --> 1:10:16.519 environment for that. Okay, what happened to the girl? We 1:10:16.520 --> 1:10:18.559 were very serious for many years, but in the end 1:10:18.600 --> 1:10:26.599 it didn't work. Okay, how did you decide you wanted 1:10:26.640 --> 1:10:30.040 to be a professor? You know, I realized I didn't 1:10:30.080 --> 1:10:33.400 have the discipline to work on problems I didn't find interesting. 1:10:33.880 --> 1:10:37.240 So I clerked at a law firm, crevass Wind and 1:10:37.280 --> 1:10:42.240 More my first summer and on my second summer, and 1:10:42.240 --> 1:10:44.160 and I saw all these people working on things that, 1:10:44.400 --> 1:10:48.040 you know, just seemed incredibly boring. And and what struck 1:10:48.080 --> 1:10:49.960 me was not that they were credibly boring, It was just, 1:10:50.240 --> 1:10:52.840 my god, how can you actually do that? Because I 1:10:52.920 --> 1:10:55.120 realized that if you told me I had to work 1:10:55.120 --> 1:10:57.440 on something and I didn't find interesting, I just physically 1:10:57.920 --> 1:11:00.719 I couldn't do it. So I at least. I needed 1:11:00.760 --> 1:11:04.599 a career where I was free to pick, uh, whatever 1:11:04.640 --> 1:11:06.599 I wanted to work on, based on what I wanted 1:11:06.640 --> 1:11:09.160 to work on. And you know, being I wasn't rich, 1:11:09.320 --> 1:11:11.800 So being an academic was the best way to do that. 1:11:11.880 --> 1:11:15.240 And that's the freedom that the job gives me. And 1:11:15.400 --> 1:11:20.559 I've depended on that deeply in the years since. And 1:11:20.680 --> 1:11:22.320 how did you end up at Stanford and how did 1:11:22.320 --> 1:11:23.680 you end it up at Harvard? And what are the 1:11:23.720 --> 1:11:28.439 differences between those two gigs and environments? So after I clerked, 1:11:28.439 --> 1:11:31.040 I clerked for Posner first at the Seventh Circuit and 1:11:31.040 --> 1:11:33.680 then Justice Scalia at the Supreme Court. I went back 1:11:33.680 --> 1:11:36.679 to Chicago and I taught at Chicago for six years, 1:11:37.400 --> 1:11:41.000 and then I came to Harvard to start the Center 1:11:41.160 --> 1:11:44.760 for Internet and Society that was here. And then in 1:11:44.840 --> 1:11:48.560 two thousand after I got married, Um, my wife is 1:11:48.600 --> 1:11:51.919 really keen that we see California, so we went to Stanford. 1:11:51.920 --> 1:11:56.080 I was there for nine, yeah, nine years, and then 1:11:56.080 --> 1:11:58.280 I came back to Harvard in two thousand nine. So 1:11:58.320 --> 1:12:00.920 they're very different environments. I mean, and Ford is like 1:12:01.120 --> 1:12:04.360 Yale in the sense of being small and very intimate, 1:12:04.479 --> 1:12:07.720 although of course at the time two thousand and two 1:12:07.760 --> 1:12:11.240 thousand nine, it was filled with people obsessed with Silicon Valley. 1:12:11.280 --> 1:12:15.280 At the heart of Silicon Valley, Harvard is huge, um, 1:12:15.320 --> 1:12:18.000 which I find wonderful because what that means is that 1:12:18.040 --> 1:12:22.200 there's always someone who is doing what you want to, 1:12:22.680 --> 1:12:25.439 you know, be interested in. So there's always students who 1:12:25.439 --> 1:12:27.120 are interested in the stuff you want to work on. 1:12:27.160 --> 1:12:29.240 There's always professors who are working in the area you 1:12:29.240 --> 1:12:32.360 want to work on. So it's, um, it's like a city. 1:12:32.360 --> 1:12:35.599 It's like New York City compared to a village. But 1:12:35.680 --> 1:12:37.400 you know, as long as you're comfortable in a city, 1:12:37.400 --> 1:12:42.760 it's it's ideal. Going back to Scalia, you know, Republicans 1:12:43.000 --> 1:12:46.840 idolized him, like the idolized Reagan, where those on the 1:12:46.920 --> 1:12:51.200 left certainly are not in favorite decisions since he's deceased. 1:12:51.800 --> 1:12:56.679 Was it hype? Was he really that intelligent? What's your take? Well, 1:12:56.720 --> 1:12:59.360 I think we have to recognize Justice Scalia as a 1:12:59.439 --> 1:13:03.320 justice from many years. So I guess he goes to 1:13:03.360 --> 1:13:08.080 the coordin eight six or eighty seven. Um. And obviously 1:13:08.120 --> 1:13:11.360 he dies in two thousand and sixteen, UM, so that's 1:13:11.400 --> 1:13:15.720 a long career. UM. And UM, I think he was 1:13:15.760 --> 1:13:19.000 a different justice at different stages of his career. So 1:13:19.040 --> 1:13:21.840 what inspired me the most about him? You know, when 1:13:21.840 --> 1:13:24.120 you apply, at least when I applied to be a clerk, 1:13:24.200 --> 1:13:26.120 you you apply to everybody, and if you don't, you 1:13:26.120 --> 1:13:28.000 don't get a job from anybody. So you're not allowed 1:13:28.040 --> 1:13:30.680 to pick and choose based on you know, the philosophy 1:13:30.760 --> 1:13:36.200 or the part of part partisan character of a particular judge. Um. 1:13:36.280 --> 1:13:38.800 But I applied and he interviewed me quickly, and he 1:13:38.880 --> 1:13:42.280 hired me quickly, um um. But what I admired about 1:13:42.360 --> 1:13:44.479 him is that, you know, he was someone who was 1:13:44.720 --> 1:13:48.240 who was deeply committed to um uh, to live out 1:13:48.320 --> 1:13:52.479 his philosophy of originalism and textualism. And there were a 1:13:52.560 --> 1:13:57.120 number of cases, number of times when there was a 1:13:57.120 --> 1:14:01.000 case where the conservative thing to do is not necessarily 1:14:01.040 --> 1:14:03.960 the originalist thing to do. And in every one of 1:14:03.960 --> 1:14:07.360 those cases I would say that he was immediately convinced 1:14:07.400 --> 1:14:10.120 of the originalist thing. But in every one of those cases, 1:14:10.120 --> 1:14:12.720 he was eventually brought around to doing the originalist thing, 1:14:12.800 --> 1:14:17.639 even though it was against his otherwise conservative politics. Um. 1:14:17.760 --> 1:14:20.120 And so I was impressed that at that stage of 1:14:20.160 --> 1:14:23.880 his career, at least the principle of the um that 1:14:23.920 --> 1:14:28.280 he was advancing, he allowed to constrain himself. UM. And 1:14:28.400 --> 1:14:30.720 part of you know that was he's just trying to 1:14:30.720 --> 1:14:32.600 work it out. Part of it was his belief that 1:14:32.640 --> 1:14:36.639 the principles were not UM didn't have a political valance 1:14:36.680 --> 1:14:39.639 to them. Part of it was he hired liberal clerks. 1:14:39.640 --> 1:14:42.759 I mean, I was a token liberal hired by Justice Scalia. 1:14:43.240 --> 1:14:46.439 The other clerks were very conservative, you know, they were UM. 1:14:46.479 --> 1:14:49.160 There was a deep skepticism about me early on, maybe 1:14:49.240 --> 1:14:52.400 all the way through UM. Later in his career he 1:14:52.400 --> 1:14:55.400 stopped hiring liberals. I asked him once why. He said, well, 1:14:55.439 --> 1:14:57.320 you know, I figured everything out. I don't need anybody 1:14:57.320 --> 1:15:01.680 to argue with anymore, so you know I don't. I 1:15:01.680 --> 1:15:04.559 didn't spend my career studying the work of Justice Scalia, 1:15:04.640 --> 1:15:07.200 so I don't feel like I'm an expert in the 1:15:07.280 --> 1:15:11.360 late Scalia or the Scalia circus two thousand ten. But 1:15:11.680 --> 1:15:14.120 the Scalia I knew was someone that UM I didn't 1:15:14.120 --> 1:15:17.120 agree with, and you know, vast majority of cases. But 1:15:17.160 --> 1:15:19.760 he's certainly someone I respected for for what he was doing. 1:15:21.040 --> 1:15:23.440 And how did you go from being a young Republican 1:15:23.520 --> 1:15:27.000 to the other end of the spectrum you know, in 1:15:27.000 --> 1:15:29.920 one sense, I don't think I've changed, because I'm still 1:15:30.080 --> 1:15:33.240 libertarian in the sense that I think society's objectives should 1:15:33.240 --> 1:15:36.040 be to give people the widest scope for liberty that 1:15:36.120 --> 1:15:40.080 they can. But what I what changed was recognizing how 1:15:40.160 --> 1:15:45.320 much society needed to contribute to that project. So creating 1:15:45.360 --> 1:15:50.640 the conditions within which liberty can exist becomes an extraordinarily 1:15:50.680 --> 1:15:52.839 part of what society has to do and what government 1:15:52.840 --> 1:15:56.080 has to do for that. So that means creating conditions, 1:15:56.080 --> 1:15:59.439 including conditions of equality, um and. So the more you 1:15:59.520 --> 1:16:02.600 focus on how do you create those conditions, what education, 1:16:03.240 --> 1:16:08.600 what protection for rights, what enablement of opportunities? Um. You know, 1:16:08.640 --> 1:16:10.799 it was obviously the Democratic Party that was more concerned 1:16:10.840 --> 1:16:15.760 about those issues than the Republicans, certainly the Republicans today 1:16:16.000 --> 1:16:19.599 um and and going forward. You know, I think one 1:16:19.640 --> 1:16:21.920 of the most interesting debates that came out of this 1:16:22.240 --> 1:16:27.400 recent Democratic primary was Andrew Yang's push for universal basic 1:16:27.479 --> 1:16:31.720 income um and. One way to understand the push for 1:16:31.800 --> 1:16:35.680 universal basic income is again related to this idea of 1:16:35.840 --> 1:16:40.200 enabling people to have the most meaningful liberty that they 1:16:40.200 --> 1:16:44.320 can have. There's a really great book called um Bullshit Jobs, 1:16:45.560 --> 1:16:49.360 which is a which is a wonderful account of um. 1:16:49.400 --> 1:16:52.040 How you know, up tot of us have jobs that 1:16:52.120 --> 1:16:55.599 we think of as bullshit jobs, by which he means 1:16:55.680 --> 1:16:58.120 is defined to mean a job which is doing no 1:16:58.200 --> 1:17:00.479 good for you or for anybody else in the world. 1:17:00.800 --> 1:17:03.200 You just start doing it, but you can't imagine how 1:17:03.240 --> 1:17:05.880 it's helping anybody. And it's not that other people think 1:17:05.880 --> 1:17:08.040 it's not helping anybody, you know, like I might think 1:17:08.080 --> 1:17:11.479 that UM parking ticket person is not helping anybody. It's 1:17:11.520 --> 1:17:14.040 that you yourself don't think that you're helping anybody, that 1:17:14.040 --> 1:17:15.639 you don't think the world is any better off because 1:17:15.640 --> 1:17:18.680 of that. I think about, you know, the luxury of 1:17:18.720 --> 1:17:20.519 having a life for every morning I get up and 1:17:20.520 --> 1:17:22.400 I think I'm going to work on exactly what I 1:17:22.439 --> 1:17:25.320 want to work on, compared to somebody next to me 1:17:25.360 --> 1:17:27.320 who was doing a job where they're thinking this is 1:17:27.400 --> 1:17:31.479 just contributing nothing to the world. That contrast, I think, 1:17:31.520 --> 1:17:33.960 I think is going to be increasingly important as we think, 1:17:33.960 --> 1:17:36.479 how do we build a world where more people have 1:17:36.640 --> 1:17:39.679 the freedom to have jobs where they feel like they're 1:17:39.680 --> 1:17:42.400 actually contributing something. They're doing something, they're doing something is 1:17:42.439 --> 1:17:45.439 meaningful at least to them. And what Andrew Yang was 1:17:45.479 --> 1:17:48.920 talking about was something that would create the conditions for 1:17:49.080 --> 1:17:51.200 making that possible. Like ub I would make it so, 1:17:51.720 --> 1:17:54.280 you know, you would have enough to live and then 1:17:54.320 --> 1:17:55.960 you could pick a job. Maybe you wouldn't be able 1:17:56.000 --> 1:17:57.960 to work forty hours a week on that job, you know, 1:17:57.960 --> 1:18:00.400 only couple hours a week, whether it's you know, being 1:18:00.479 --> 1:18:05.240 a h an artist or um, you know, building things 1:18:05.280 --> 1:18:07.120 in the forest, whatever. But the point is you could 1:18:07.160 --> 1:18:10.120 be living in a way that was meaningful to you. 1:18:10.439 --> 1:18:13.120 And I think that would be extraordinary if we set 1:18:13.160 --> 1:18:15.160 that as an objective for society. How will we make 1:18:15.200 --> 1:18:18.320 it so everybody wakes up every morning with the same 1:18:18.360 --> 1:18:21.360 feeling that I do, that this is what they're doing, 1:18:21.360 --> 1:18:22.880 what they want to be doing, and they have a 1:18:22.960 --> 1:18:25.719 chance to do it. And you know, in a certain sense, 1:18:25.760 --> 1:18:30.160 I think that's libertarian. That's about making sure society provides 1:18:30.160 --> 1:18:33.280 two people that opportunity for liberty, even though there's a 1:18:33.400 --> 1:18:36.480 hugely important role for the states, and creating the conditions 1:18:36.520 --> 1:18:40.719 for that liberty. And you say you have the ability 1:18:40.760 --> 1:18:43.000 to choose your projects at Harvard. What are you working 1:18:43.080 --> 1:18:46.960 on right now? Well, about a dozen years ago, I 1:18:47.000 --> 1:18:49.360 announced I was going to give up my work on 1:18:49.600 --> 1:18:54.000 Internet and copyrights to take up the project of um 1:18:54.360 --> 1:18:57.400 addressing what I was calling that institutional corruption. But basically 1:18:57.920 --> 1:19:02.360 this corruption of institutions like government meant um and UM. 1:19:02.400 --> 1:19:04.000 You know, my obsession was trying to find a way 1:19:04.000 --> 1:19:07.439 to get a democracy that would be responsive um to 1:19:07.680 --> 1:19:11.759 the public, as opposed to responsive to the special interests 1:19:11.800 --> 1:19:14.040 the funders of campaign. So that's the project I've been 1:19:14.040 --> 1:19:18.280 working on for the last twelve years and um uh 1:19:18.320 --> 1:19:20.080 and it's the project I'll be working on two we 1:19:20.200 --> 1:19:22.439 get it done at least for the next ten years. 1:19:22.439 --> 1:19:24.680 That's kind of I've set you know, seventy is a 1:19:24.720 --> 1:19:28.920 point where I want to step aside um. But uh so, 1:19:29.000 --> 1:19:31.080 what I'm working on right now are projects that are 1:19:31.080 --> 1:19:37.520 trying to elevate and make salient these reforms, democratic reforms. 1:19:37.880 --> 1:19:39.640 And so we've got a bunch of things related to 1:19:39.720 --> 1:19:42.519 this election to try to tee this issue up. Got 1:19:42.520 --> 1:19:45.479 a bunch of projects related to the electoral college, which 1:19:45.520 --> 1:19:48.240 we hope, you know, we'll follow this election and give 1:19:49.479 --> 1:19:53.599 a real opportunity for reform of the electoral college. And 1:19:53.960 --> 1:19:57.479 my real hope is that if Drew Biden is elected 1:19:58.560 --> 1:20:02.960 and Mitch McConnell, the dark Lord of the Senate, is 1:20:03.080 --> 1:20:08.559 returned to Kentucky. That there's a chance that Congress will 1:20:08.600 --> 1:20:12.200 pass fundamental democratic reform in the first hundred days. Joe 1:20:12.240 --> 1:20:14.960 Biden has promised they will do it. Nancy Pelosi has 1:20:15.000 --> 1:20:17.680 already passed that reform in the House last year, and 1:20:17.720 --> 1:20:21.120 she's committed to passing it if she has a majority 1:20:21.120 --> 1:20:23.719 in the House again. Chuck Schumer has promised to pass 1:20:23.720 --> 1:20:25.720 it in the Senate if he has a majority in 1:20:25.760 --> 1:20:28.920 the Senate. So we have a real chance for this 1:20:29.000 --> 1:20:32.479 reform to be enacted. And if it's enacted, I think 1:20:32.520 --> 1:20:35.360 it will be the most important thing that this administration 1:20:35.400 --> 1:20:38.519 could do. So I'm eager to continue to push to 1:20:38.560 --> 1:20:41.200 try to make sure that that happens. So, for those 1:20:41.240 --> 1:20:43.559 who are not following as closely as you are, what 1:20:43.680 --> 1:20:49.280 would be the elements of that push. Well, in um, 1:20:50.439 --> 1:20:54.640 Nancy Pelosi passed something called the called HR one, And 1:20:54.680 --> 1:20:57.960 what was significant about that title is that it signaled 1:20:57.960 --> 1:21:00.599 that this needed to be the first thing that would 1:21:00.600 --> 1:21:04.040 be done, and that recognized that nothing else was possible 1:21:04.120 --> 1:21:07.960 until you passed this reform. And this reform includes, most 1:21:08.000 --> 1:21:13.599 importantly changing away congressional campaigns are funded. You know, right now, 1:21:14.040 --> 1:21:17.120 members of Congress spend anywhere between thirty and seventy percent 1:21:17.200 --> 1:21:21.280 of their time raising money, spending their time on the 1:21:21.320 --> 1:21:24.799 phone calling donors, and their donors are not the average American. 1:21:24.840 --> 1:21:28.080 Their dontors sort of the tiniest fraction of the one spent. 1:21:28.520 --> 1:21:31.200 So they spend, you know, some people most of their 1:21:31.240 --> 1:21:34.360 time sucking up to this tiny, tiny fraction of the 1:21:34.360 --> 1:21:36.080 one percent to get the money they need to run 1:21:36.120 --> 1:21:38.240 their campaigns or to get their party back into power. 1:21:38.520 --> 1:21:42.760 That is a deeply corrupting experience. And so the most 1:21:42.760 --> 1:21:44.680 important thing I think HR one would do was to 1:21:44.680 --> 1:21:48.080 create a different way of funding campaigns UM that would 1:21:48.120 --> 1:21:51.840 liberate them from that project, and by liberating them, give 1:21:51.880 --> 1:21:54.599 them a chance to think about what their constituents want 1:21:54.680 --> 1:21:56.519 or what's in the interest of the country as opposed 1:21:56.520 --> 1:21:59.120 to what the funders of campaigns wants. That's number one. 1:21:59.200 --> 1:22:03.200 Number two, it would end partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts 1:22:03.200 --> 1:22:05.840 in the states. Number three, it would restore the Voting 1:22:05.920 --> 1:22:09.200 Rights Act so that states cannot exercise their power to 1:22:09.280 --> 1:22:13.120 suppress the votes. UM. It's of you know, it's targeted 1:22:13.360 --> 1:22:15.800 African Americans. But the main reason I think for this 1:22:15.880 --> 1:22:18.479 suppression is just partisan, Like Republicans want to make it 1:22:18.520 --> 1:22:21.480 harder for Democrats to vote, and where Democrats have that opportunity, 1:22:21.520 --> 1:22:23.200 they want to do the same thing too. But the 1:22:23.200 --> 1:22:26.840 point is it's a corrupting inequality on the basis of 1:22:26.920 --> 1:22:31.120 partisan um power that we've got to end. And h 1:22:31.240 --> 1:22:32.640 R one would go a long way to that. And 1:22:32.640 --> 1:22:34.200 then it did a bunch of other things related to 1:22:34.240 --> 1:22:37.599 ethics and government automatic voter registration things just to make 1:22:37.600 --> 1:22:41.080 the democratic process work better. And um, And I think 1:22:41.120 --> 1:22:44.000 that if we passed that bill, um maybe a little 1:22:44.040 --> 1:22:47.040 bit better than that bill, more aggressive in the changing 1:22:47.080 --> 1:22:49.960 the way campaigns are funded. UM, then there would be 1:22:50.040 --> 1:22:53.479 an extraordinary opportunity to get a democracy that cared more 1:22:53.680 --> 1:22:56.559 about what people want than it cared about what the 1:22:56.600 --> 1:23:01.160 lobbyists or the funders of campaigns want. And sketching in 1:23:01.320 --> 1:23:04.879 the painting a little bit more, how would campaigns be funded? 1:23:05.760 --> 1:23:11.360 So HR one has two ideas. UM. It's real emphasis 1:23:11.560 --> 1:23:13.760 is on a matching fund system. So this is the 1:23:13.760 --> 1:23:17.439 way New York City funds most of its campaigns. So 1:23:17.560 --> 1:23:20.400 matching fund system says if you give a small amount 1:23:20.920 --> 1:23:24.400 that gets matched up to UM six to one UM 1:23:24.600 --> 1:23:28.160 by the government, so that small contributions are much more valuable. 1:23:28.280 --> 1:23:31.040 And the theory is candidates would then be looking for 1:23:31.120 --> 1:23:34.120 more small contributions, which means they would be more responsive 1:23:34.160 --> 1:23:37.080 to people who are giving small contributions than to the 1:23:37.120 --> 1:23:39.800 small number of people who give large contributions. Now, the 1:23:39.840 --> 1:23:42.120 other idea, which is the part that I think is 1:23:42.160 --> 1:23:45.519 really exciting and has enormous potential. Something that city of 1:23:45.520 --> 1:23:49.880 Seattle has adopted is something called vouchers. So give every 1:23:50.760 --> 1:23:53.439 give every voter a voucher. Think of it as a 1:23:53.479 --> 1:23:56.479 packet of coupons that they can use to give to 1:23:56.600 --> 1:23:59.639 candidates to help them fund their campaigns. So, if you're 1:23:59.640 --> 1:24:01.559 a candida running for office, which you know is every 1:24:01.560 --> 1:24:04.600 single voter in your district has a hundred dollars in 1:24:04.640 --> 1:24:06.840 their pocket that they can give you to help fund 1:24:06.880 --> 1:24:10.439 your campaigns, and so you'll be raising money from ordinary people, 1:24:10.560 --> 1:24:12.439 not from the tiny fraction of the one percent to 1:24:12.520 --> 1:24:15.760 fund campaigns now. And if you do that, raise money 1:24:15.800 --> 1:24:18.960 from those people, um, then you're responsive to those people. 1:24:19.520 --> 1:24:24.280 And I think that has the enormous potential to change 1:24:24.320 --> 1:24:27.439 the sensibilities of Congress to make them more focused on 1:24:27.520 --> 1:24:30.880 what ordinary people care about as opposed to these big funders. 1:24:30.920 --> 1:24:34.000 And and I think that would be the absolutely most 1:24:34.040 --> 1:24:36.360 important change that could that could be done. And so 1:24:36.560 --> 1:24:41.000 um um, Now, in this last presidential election, um, you know, 1:24:41.120 --> 1:24:45.160 we had there was an enormous focus on democracy reform. 1:24:45.240 --> 1:24:48.960 Every single major candidate, including by the end um Joe 1:24:48.960 --> 1:24:52.960 Biden on the Democratic side and uh Bill Weld on 1:24:52.960 --> 1:24:56.160 the Republican side, promised within the first hundred days to 1:24:56.200 --> 1:25:01.439 pass fundamental democratic reform. And and in the Democratic side, 1:25:01.520 --> 1:25:06.000 people like Andrew Yang and Kirston gilla Brand and uh 1:25:06.160 --> 1:25:09.439 Um Bernie Sanders endorsed the idea of vouchers. Kirston jilla 1:25:09.520 --> 1:25:11.920 Brand wanted to give people up to six hundred dollars 1:25:11.920 --> 1:25:14.120 and vouchers two hundred dollars for every federal race, so 1:25:14.200 --> 1:25:16.640 two underrellars for Congress, two underrellars for the Senate, to 1:25:16.760 --> 1:25:19.799 andolls for the president. Andrew Young said a hundred dollars. 1:25:19.800 --> 1:25:21.640 Bernie was never clear about how much money he was 1:25:21.680 --> 1:25:24.920 talking about. But they all recognized that if you could 1:25:25.000 --> 1:25:28.320 make it so that ordinary people were funding campaigns, you 1:25:28.320 --> 1:25:31.120 would have a Congress more focused on what ordinary people 1:25:31.200 --> 1:25:33.800 cared about, not on the you know, the billionaires than 1:25:33.800 --> 1:25:37.680 millionaires who are funding through their packs or their large contributions. 1:25:39.040 --> 1:25:41.320 Now this all sounds great on the surface, but as 1:25:41.360 --> 1:25:45.360 someone who has seen multiple election cycles, I'm reminded of 1:25:45.360 --> 1:25:48.920 the famous George Carlin routine, who says, you can vote 1:25:49.320 --> 1:25:52.040 if it makes you feel good, But the owners of 1:25:52.080 --> 1:25:54.400 the country are not going to give up power. They 1:25:54.400 --> 1:25:56.919 are really going to control. And I look at UH. 1:25:56.960 --> 1:25:59.599 You know, Bernie Sanders, who certainly spoke to the public 1:25:59.640 --> 1:26:03.679 and eased all his money from individual contributions, as opposed 1:26:03.720 --> 1:26:06.400 to Biden, as opposed to Commona who ultimately couldn't raise 1:26:06.439 --> 1:26:10.320 that much money. It's hard to have confidence. The theory 1:26:10.439 --> 1:26:15.040 sounds good, but especially UH, taxes have been denigrated to 1:26:15.080 --> 1:26:18.040 the point where everyone thinks taxes are bad, even people 1:26:18.080 --> 1:26:22.200 on the left. It's hard to believe as a result 1:26:22.240 --> 1:26:26.040 of income inequality opportunities in education. You're also talking earlier 1:26:26.320 --> 1:26:31.920 about long form discussion of problems and issues. I certainly 1:26:31.920 --> 1:26:34.800 grew up in the sixties when public schools had enough 1:26:34.840 --> 1:26:37.559 money to educate people how to think, they were not 1:26:37.640 --> 1:26:42.400 teaching to the test. And is the system inherently broken 1:26:42.840 --> 1:26:45.559 or will these brand aids fix it, or is there 1:26:45.600 --> 1:26:47.320 an elite The funny thing, of course, the elite to 1:26:47.320 --> 1:26:49.759 a great degrees on the left, people who are worked 1:26:49.840 --> 1:26:53.120 very hard and educated themselves to gain power, who have 1:26:53.240 --> 1:26:56.200 contempt for those who work with their hands or in 1:26:56.240 --> 1:27:02.680 service positions. Are these really solvable choose under the present system, 1:27:02.720 --> 1:27:06.280 they are solvable. And I think the kind of changes 1:27:06.320 --> 1:27:09.320 that I was just describing, for example, if you gave 1:27:09.560 --> 1:27:13.280 if you followed Kirston jeweler Brand's proposal and you gave 1:27:13.320 --> 1:27:17.240 everybody six two hundred dollars for federal race, that's not 1:27:17.320 --> 1:27:20.880 a band aid. That would be a fundamental change and 1:27:20.920 --> 1:27:24.639 how Washington works now. I think it's a really important 1:27:24.720 --> 1:27:29.760 question whether the Democrats will carry through. You know, many skeptical, 1:27:29.800 --> 1:27:33.320 cynical people said that Nancy Pelosi was able to pass 1:27:33.439 --> 1:27:36.920 h R one with every single Democrat voting for it 1:27:37.280 --> 1:27:39.439 because they all knew Mitch mcconnough would kill it in 1:27:39.479 --> 1:27:42.000 the Senate, so it never was going to get passed. 1:27:42.760 --> 1:27:46.160 And the same people say that if the Democrats take 1:27:46.160 --> 1:27:48.800 control of the Senate and they have control of the 1:27:48.840 --> 1:27:53.920 House and they have the presidency, don't expect reform to 1:27:54.000 --> 1:27:56.880 pass because then all the money in the world will 1:27:56.920 --> 1:27:59.960 be against reform passing and they will stop the Democrats 1:28:00.000 --> 1:28:02.040 from passing it. And I think that's a fair challenge, 1:28:02.640 --> 1:28:06.000 and it's up to us to make them do it. 1:28:06.000 --> 1:28:08.559 It's up to us to say, you know, we have 1:28:09.240 --> 1:28:12.559 finally come to the point where the vast majority of 1:28:12.560 --> 1:28:18.160 Americans realize if we don't fix this corrupted, broken political system, 1:28:18.240 --> 1:28:22.120 nothing happens. Nothing happens. You know, you mentioned at the 1:28:22.200 --> 1:28:26.240 opening that I tried to run for president and UH 1:28:26.680 --> 1:28:32.280 my campaign in UH was expressly focused, exclusively focused on 1:28:32.439 --> 1:28:36.360 passing fundamental reform UM, and it was almost impossible to 1:28:36.360 --> 1:28:38.880 be able to run that campaign. Um, you know, this 1:28:39.040 --> 1:28:41.760 complicated game that they played to change the rules to 1:28:41.880 --> 1:28:44.479 keep me off the debate stage, partly because the issue 1:28:44.520 --> 1:28:48.880 was not salient four years ago. But now every single 1:28:48.920 --> 1:28:52.599 candidate endorsed this idea of fundamental reform in the first 1:28:52.680 --> 1:28:56.360 hundred days of the administration. So I think the Democrats 1:28:56.760 --> 1:28:59.439 UM have said they will do it. I think there's 1:28:59.479 --> 1:29:02.240 a chance we get enough Democrats in Congress to actually 1:29:02.280 --> 1:29:04.960 do it, and then we've got to hold their feet 1:29:04.960 --> 1:29:07.120 to the fire. And if they don't do it, then 1:29:07.520 --> 1:29:10.519 God help them, there will be a revolution, and I 1:29:10.560 --> 1:29:14.320 will be in the barracks in the streets doing everything 1:29:14.360 --> 1:29:17.479 I can to drive it because we can't get anything 1:29:17.520 --> 1:29:20.240 done in this country until we fix this problem. There's 1:29:20.240 --> 1:29:23.679 no climate change legislation that will pass until we fix 1:29:23.800 --> 1:29:28.320 this corrupted, broken system. There's no healthcare reform that doesn't 1:29:28.360 --> 1:29:32.320 benefit pharmaceutical companies or the insurance companies until we fix 1:29:32.520 --> 1:29:37.120 this corrupted, broken political system. Finally, people get that. And 1:29:37.160 --> 1:29:39.400 now the question is whether the Democrats will carry through 1:29:39.560 --> 1:29:43.639 if in fact they're able to stop this president from 1:29:43.720 --> 1:29:48.880 stealing the next election. Let's just assume election day happens 1:29:49.640 --> 1:29:54.439 and the ultimate result is up for grabs, the obvious 1:29:54.520 --> 1:29:58.960 example being the year two thousand. Many people believe in 1:29:59.000 --> 1:30:01.800 the year two thousands, despite having David Boy's on the 1:30:01.840 --> 1:30:06.840 Gore team, that they were outmaneuvered by the Republican attorneys. 1:30:07.840 --> 1:30:13.400 If it's a jump ball, what should the Democrats do 1:30:13.560 --> 1:30:18.120 legally to ensure that they have the best chance of 1:30:18.160 --> 1:30:20.479 things coming out their way. There's so many issues. Who 1:30:20.560 --> 1:30:24.000 knows what the issues might ultimately be, but certainly there's 1:30:24.040 --> 1:30:27.680 issues of postmarks on absentee ballots, whether the ballots are 1:30:27.680 --> 1:30:31.840 filled out correctly. Uh then we certainly have people in 1:30:31.920 --> 1:30:35.960 charge of elections and states making unilateral decisions. And one 1:30:36.000 --> 1:30:39.599 can argue in previous situations the Democrats are the opposing team. 1:30:39.640 --> 1:30:43.960 The Democrats have been on their heels in this situation. Well, 1:30:44.000 --> 1:30:48.519 it's absolutely true that this is going to be an 1:30:48.520 --> 1:30:51.960 incredibly complex election. I'm teaching a seminar in the fall 1:30:52.040 --> 1:30:56.280 called war gaming, which tries to map out all the 1:30:56.360 --> 1:31:00.080 things that can go wrong, all the places where the 1:31:00.120 --> 1:31:03.080 system can get can be played. So, you know, so 1:31:03.600 --> 1:31:06.080 if I were to advise the Democrats on what's the 1:31:06.160 --> 1:31:08.759 one thing they need to be doing in twenty twenty 1:31:08.920 --> 1:31:12.200 that they didn't do in two thousand, they need to 1:31:12.240 --> 1:31:15.439 assume the other side is not going to play fair. 1:31:15.560 --> 1:31:18.479 And I'm not saying that's going to happen, but I 1:31:18.520 --> 1:31:22.040 think one striking thing about two thousand was that so 1:31:22.160 --> 1:31:26.320 many times the Democrats were just astonished with what the Democrats, 1:31:26.320 --> 1:31:29.080 what the Republicans did. I mean, even the core argument 1:31:29.160 --> 1:31:31.479 that actually in the end one the argument about the 1:31:31.479 --> 1:31:35.599 equal Protection clause um controlling or regulating how votes would 1:31:35.640 --> 1:31:38.000 be recounted. When that argument was made, people on the 1:31:38.040 --> 1:31:40.799 less of this is just crazy talk. There's no way 1:31:41.200 --> 1:31:44.600 such an argument could work. Um. But of course it 1:31:44.640 --> 1:31:48.639 did work, and the Republicans were willing to do almost anything, um, 1:31:48.720 --> 1:31:52.240 including remember the kind of Brooks brother riots um in 1:31:52.320 --> 1:31:55.360 Florida where you had these people who had been literally 1:31:55.400 --> 1:31:58.759 bust in, who were pretending to be Florida voters pounding 1:31:58.760 --> 1:32:01.240 on the doors demanding that they're hanging Chad Ballance be 1:32:01.520 --> 1:32:05.240 not countered or whatever depending on the district, um. You know. 1:32:05.280 --> 1:32:07.880 And I think the Democrats were caught off guard because 1:32:07.920 --> 1:32:10.559 they just couldn't imagine that that kind of behavior would 1:32:10.560 --> 1:32:13.800 be engaged in. Well, I think now people are being 1:32:14.439 --> 1:32:18.439 woken up to recognize that this president will not stop 1:32:18.439 --> 1:32:22.120 at anything. Literally, he's got everything to lose, you know, 1:32:22.320 --> 1:32:25.479 not just the election, but given what we know about 1:32:25.520 --> 1:32:28.400 the you know, criminal charges that are against his organization 1:32:28.479 --> 1:32:32.120 and his company, given what we know about the fiscal library, 1:32:32.600 --> 1:32:37.559 financial liability he faces to like Deutsche Bang, incredible amount 1:32:37.600 --> 1:32:41.200 of money outstanding. Um. You can just see that he 1:32:41.280 --> 1:32:44.200 imagines that if he doesn't win, it's not just the election, 1:32:44.240 --> 1:32:47.920 it's also his whole empire collapses. And when you've got 1:32:47.960 --> 1:32:51.640 somebody against the wall and they know that everything disappears, 1:32:51.640 --> 1:32:54.000 that they don't win, They're going to do whatever they can. 1:32:55.000 --> 1:32:59.600 And I'm genuinely terrified about whether our legal system is 1:32:59.760 --> 1:33:05.080 kabowle of adjudicating when one side is so is operating 1:33:05.080 --> 1:33:08.200 in such bad faith. Um, I just don't know, you know, 1:33:08.200 --> 1:33:10.559 we haven't seen good evidence that the court system will 1:33:10.600 --> 1:33:13.800 stand up to this so far, and and what's to 1:33:13.840 --> 1:33:16.200 say that they will stand up, you know, against it 1:33:16.280 --> 1:33:19.000 in the context of that election, And and as I 1:33:19.000 --> 1:33:22.519 said at the very beginning, if that happens, I don't 1:33:22.520 --> 1:33:26.719 know what happens. You know, George Floyd brought out, Um, 1:33:26.760 --> 1:33:29.360 I think it was something like seven percent of America, 1:33:29.720 --> 1:33:32.639 it might have been seventeen at some number around there 1:33:33.080 --> 1:33:36.800 who turned out to a protest because of because of 1:33:36.800 --> 1:33:41.320 that event. You know, take that multiplied by three or four, 1:33:42.080 --> 1:33:45.479 and you have a country destabilizing event. I don't know 1:33:45.520 --> 1:33:49.000 what the country is like if people, Um, if there 1:33:49.040 --> 1:33:52.439 is an election which is stolen and people react in 1:33:52.479 --> 1:33:54.600 the way that I expect they will react given the 1:33:54.800 --> 1:33:59.760 fury that this man has triggered across the country. Now, 1:33:59.800 --> 1:34:03.120 you obviously have a singular high profile yourself, but to 1:34:03.200 --> 1:34:06.400 what degree are you integrated with the d n C 1:34:06.880 --> 1:34:11.160 or Kamala or Joe. Is that something where you have 1:34:11.320 --> 1:34:14.760 interaction with them? Is the lines open or you on 1:34:14.800 --> 1:34:19.839 your own separate island. Well, I give advice on UM 1:34:20.040 --> 1:34:23.200 reform issues to anybody who wants it, and I've given 1:34:23.240 --> 1:34:26.360 advice to a wide range of people, including people involved 1:34:26.400 --> 1:34:29.360 in these campaigns, so I will continue to do that. 1:34:29.439 --> 1:34:32.839 I'm not inside the campaign in the sense of running anything, 1:34:32.880 --> 1:34:35.800 and I don't expect to be UM although you know 1:34:36.240 --> 1:34:38.759 my view is Joe Biden needs to become the president 1:34:38.840 --> 1:34:41.040 and I will do whatever it takes to make every 1:34:41.160 --> 1:34:44.040 whatever it takes that my father would approve of, to 1:34:44.160 --> 1:34:47.440 make sure that that happens. Larry, this has been unbelievable. 1:34:47.479 --> 1:34:49.400 We could go on for hours, but we're gonna wear 1:34:49.720 --> 1:34:52.680 our ears out and those of the audience. But this 1:34:52.760 --> 1:34:55.719 has been incredibly edifying, especially to those people who don't 1:34:55.760 --> 1:34:58.680 follow the law on a week by week basis or 1:34:58.720 --> 1:35:00.920 even a year by your business. Thanks so much for 1:35:01.000 --> 1:35:04.040 doing this. Thank you for having me. Until next time. 1:35:04.200 --> 1:35:28.400 This is Bob Left, says m