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Speaker 4: News broke yesterday that Homeland Security Secretary Christy Nome had
Speaker 4: three thousand dollars worth of cash stolen out of her
Speaker 4: purse at a restaurant here in downtown DC. We could
Speaker 4: put that first element up on the screen. This is
Speaker 4: a report from CNN.
Speaker 5: That lays out exactly what happened.
Speaker 4: I'm just going to read from the story Department of
Speaker 4: Homeland Security Secretary Christinomes fell victim to a thief while
Speaker 4: eating dinner at a downtown DC restaurant Sunday night. The
Speaker 4: secretary confirmed Monday, Gnome, who has asked about the theft
Speaker 4: at the Easter egg roll, acknowledged the incident and said
Speaker 4: the matter has not been resolved. The thief got away
Speaker 4: with Nom's driver's license, medication, apartment keys, passport, DHS access badge,
Speaker 4: makeup bag, blank checks, and about three thousand dollars in cash.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 4: A DHS spokesperson explained this to CNN by saying her
Speaker 4: entire family was in town, including her children and grandchildren.
Speaker 4: She was using the withdrawal, referring obviously to the three
Speaker 4: thousand dollars of cash to treat her family to dinner
Speaker 4: activities and Easter gifts. Now, I do want to also
Speaker 4: put the next element up on the screen. This is
Speaker 4: a post from Susan Crabtree, who is one of the
Speaker 4: best reporters on the White House Beat period. She says
Speaker 4: this appears to be yet another significant Secret Service failure.
Speaker 4: The agent's protecting Noome allowed a man in a medical
Speaker 4: mask to walk by her table and snatch her purse
Speaker 4: with three thousand dollars in it. Susan goes on to
Speaker 4: say the detailed leader of nome secret service team should
Speaker 4: have been sitting within ten feet of her one or
Speaker 4: two tables away according to USSS protocol. Why aren't we
Speaker 4: hearing that a Secret Service agent tried to intervene or
Speaker 4: at least chased the man down, Sager, This is such
Speaker 4: a bizarre story. I don't know if you've ever been
Speaker 4: to the restaurant. This is Capital Burger, So it's by
Speaker 4: the Convention Center, across from the Apple Store that's walked by.
Speaker 5: The Carnegie Library.
Speaker 1: Turned, I know exactly what we're talking about.
Speaker 5: You know, it's actually a pretty good restaurant.
Speaker 1: But all right, shoutout Capitolah.
Speaker 5: Shoutout Capitol Burg.
Speaker 4: But so bizarre that you have a cabinet secretary sitting
Speaker 4: to dinner with Secret Service having her purse snatch. Now
Speaker 4: there's another layer of weirdness by the fact that you
Speaker 4: had three grand in CAP's a lot of money, and
Speaker 4: her passport on her weird to perhaps to get into
Speaker 4: the White House even though you're a cabinet secretary, may
Speaker 4: still need something like that. I have no idea, but
Speaker 4: it's extremely weird that Secret Service should be sitting within
Speaker 4: ten feet of her. Yes, again, this is a presidential
Speaker 4: candidate was shot in the head not even a year ago.
Speaker 3: I mean, she's a top law enforcement officer in the county.
Speaker 3: I don't think people understand this insane. You literally is
Speaker 3: the boss of the largest law enforcement agency in the
Speaker 3: United States.
Speaker 5: Homeland Security.
Speaker 4: They can't secure the Secretary of Homeland Security in the
Speaker 4: nation's capital about five blocks from the White House.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean, look, maybe she was targeted because maybe she
Speaker 3: was targeted because of her notorious like flashy taste. So
Speaker 3: we were, by the way, for watch nerds, she was rockin'
Speaker 3: ofx a solid gold Rolex Daytona, which is for anybody
Speaker 3: familiar with watches, you're like, whoa, I mean, that's a
Speaker 3: minimum of twenty five fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: That's got to be one of them.
Speaker 3: That is one of that is the ultimate rich guy
Speaker 3: flex is a Rolex Daytona. And then yeah, even the
Speaker 3: women's ones, they can really climb up there in price.
Speaker 3: So she's previously worn a Rolex Daytona.
Speaker 1: I think no, I mean just traditionally women's watches.
Speaker 3: Are not worth this much because people they don't they're
Speaker 3: no idiots like me, We're willing to pay. But anyways,
Speaker 3: kars No is Karsy nome top law enforcement officer in
Speaker 3: the country. The whole thing is just bizarre because it's,
Speaker 3: like you said, she has a protection detail which is
Speaker 3: supposed to be immediately within her vicinity, three thousand dollars
Speaker 3: in cash, driver's license, and apartment keys stolen while she's
Speaker 3: eating dinner at the downtown. You also have the department
Speaker 3: there where there's you know, theoretically, if you think about it,
Speaker 3: like there's tons of classified information on her phone or
Speaker 3: possibly in her purse, like notes, other access keys. All
Speaker 3: cabinet secretaries have like this specific type of phone. I
Speaker 3: forget the name. I used to know what the name
Speaker 3: of it is, but it's like a name. It's a
Speaker 3: phone SPECI typically, which can have like your it's like
Speaker 3: your outlook for classified information.
Speaker 1: But it's heavily restricted.
Speaker 3: Like there's only like fifty or sixty of these phones
Speaker 3: in the whole US government. It's literally only for top
Speaker 3: cabinet secretaries and I think like one or two other officials.
Speaker 3: So that I think it's called high side.
Speaker 1: That's what it is.
Speaker 5: Well, maybe that was taken and we don't know.
Speaker 4: Maybe they're not calling in the press, so we're relying
Speaker 4: on them to tell us what was storn.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the high side is that's like the communication apparatus.
Speaker 3: And by the way, that's what these people were supposed
Speaker 3: to be using instead of signal.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I was just going to see actually, and that they're like,
Speaker 3: so this is in your high side email. That's what
Speaker 3: I'm talking about here, That's what the high side is.
Speaker 3: So you can see that clearly there's like a major
Speaker 3: security like breach that happened here. But I mean, just broadly,
Speaker 3: it's one of those where the veneer every time of
Speaker 3: like the veneer of the protection around these individuals gets pierced.
Speaker 1: I think is really bad.
Speaker 3: That was what we really saw with the Trump attempted assassination,
Speaker 3: where you're like, dude, like this guy got this close
Speaker 3: to the president and only by Trump turning his head
Speaker 3: does his head not explode on line live television. And
Speaker 3: then you know, we had previous incidents in the Obama
Speaker 3: administration where people jump the fence and there's just this
Speaker 3: mystery and like hollywoodization about the professionalism of a lot
Speaker 3: of the people who protect these people. But then in reality,
Speaker 3: you know, of average thief is able to just tell
Speaker 3: your purse when you're going and you're like, uh, in
Speaker 3: front of Secret Service well, don't forget this. Jake Sullivan,
Speaker 3: the National Security Advisor under Joe Biden, was in his
Speaker 3: house working at three am in the morning and a
Speaker 3: guy broke into his house and was in his kitchen
Speaker 3: completely passed the Secret Service detail, and Sullivan, only because
Speaker 3: he was awake, came downstairs and he's like, who are you?
Speaker 3: He's like, what's going on here? I had to call
Speaker 3: his own detail to come and get this guy out
Speaker 3: of there. I mean, that's extraordinary breach. This is just
Speaker 3: a number of these types of incidents where people get
Speaker 3: incredibly close to these individuals and you're just like, well,
Speaker 3: I mean, what's going to happen right as a result.
Speaker 3: And it's not a joke obviously, because as the top
Speaker 3: law enforcement officer in the country, you also have I mean,
Speaker 3: there's so many different figures like this, who are all
Speaker 3: about Washington. I just saw a picture of a I
Speaker 3: saw a video of Kennedy yesterday walking out of Martin's
Speaker 3: stee with Martin's with the Saratoga water bottle. So a
Speaker 3: little bit too on the nose for me personally, but yeah,
Speaker 3: so like he's obviously a very hye profile figure. His
Speaker 3: father was literally assassinated. I mean, what is the like,
Speaker 3: what you know, what is the protocol around protecting these individuals.
Speaker 1: It's really dangerous.
Speaker 4: It's so dangerous. And this is in the middle of
Speaker 4: a reckoning period for Secret Service. I mean, remember after
Speaker 4: the Trump assassination attempt, they were hauled in front of
Speaker 4: Congress and gave all of these testimonies and pledged.
Speaker 5: First of all, they blamed local.
Speaker 4: Police, but then also pledged to put in reforms and
Speaker 4: be better. And how this is not this is less
Speaker 4: than a year from a presidential candidate being shot in
Speaker 4: the head on live television. Christineolman was not at a rally.
Speaker 4: She was at a restaurant with Secret Service at least
Speaker 4: supposed to be within ten feet of her. And it
Speaker 4: sounds like from the news report that they didn't know
Speaker 4: her purse was stolen until they reviewed the security camera footage,
Speaker 4: that they literally had to go back look at the
Speaker 4: footage to notice that someone swiped the Homeland Security Secretary's
Speaker 4: purse in the middle of a busy restaurant when the
Speaker 4: entire purpose of Secret Service is to have eyes on
Speaker 4: her and her belongings. Another thing to mention is that
Speaker 4: during Signalgate, one of the points. I think it was
Speaker 4: Jeffrey Goldberg who made this and loathesion to say it,
Speaker 4: he's completely correct. One of the problems with signal is
Speaker 4: that someone gets your phone. If someone took Jeffrey Goldberg's phone,
Speaker 4: he would have had these signal messages on it. If
Speaker 4: someone took Pete Hecceas's phone, he would have had these,
Speaker 4: or Susie Wilds's phone, they would have. Then if they
Speaker 4: stole their purse and they had a phone in it,
Speaker 4: for example, they would have had access to the signal
Speaker 4: messages about the strikes. Like if you are a bad
Speaker 4: actor who wants to penetrate the circle of the president,
Speaker 4: of the decision makers of the US government, of our military,
Speaker 4: and you see the Homeland Security Secretary having her passport
Speaker 4: lifted at a freaking Burger restaurant five blocks from the
Speaker 4: White House, I mean, this is an embarrassment there should
Speaker 4: be to your point. Is the last thing I'll say
Speaker 4: about this. This social fabric can be disrupted very very severely,
Speaker 4: very quickly by security breaches that they could be assassinations,
Speaker 4: they could be close brushes with assassinations, they could be
Speaker 4: access to the classmen.
Speaker 5: Whatever it is.
Speaker 4: The country already feels like it is teetering on the
Speaker 4: edge of something.
Speaker 5: Very very dark.
Speaker 3: I totally agree, it's insane. You're right, top cabinet officials
Speaker 3: and all that. I mean, who just think about the
Speaker 3: consequences of a security breach and all. We came close
Speaker 3: with the Trump attempted assassination, and yeah, ever since then,
Speaker 3: it's just been a spotlight in this organization.
Speaker 1: You would think that they would tighten.
Speaker 3: Things up, but it really looks more as if it's
Speaker 3: because not because of their competence, but because of you know,
Speaker 3: like nothing has just happened all of that yet.
Speaker 1: So anyway, all right, tell us about motherhood. What's happening?
Speaker 4: Yes, as the only childless host of breaking points, I
Speaker 4: thought it would be a not for me to handle.
Speaker 3: Still technically childless, I guess, well, it's cooking. It's still
Speaker 3: got you know, one or two more days. By the way,
Speaker 3: I would like for it to go ahead and hurry out,
Speaker 3: but it is what it is.
Speaker 5: You get that, right, Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right.
Speaker 4: So let's turn to this big story in the New
Speaker 4: York Times yesterday that laid out exactly what the Trump
Speaker 4: administration is planning to do in order to make good
Speaker 4: on Donald Trump's pledge to create a quote baby boom
Speaker 4: in the United States of America. We can put this
Speaker 4: first element up on the screen. The New York Times
Speaker 4: published a big feature yesterday digging into exactly how the
Speaker 4: administration is approaching this. You can see the headline is
Speaker 4: White House assesses ways to persuade children to have just
Speaker 4: persuade women to have more children. Emma Waters from the
Speaker 4: Heritage Foundation is featured in the pho there.
Speaker 5: I think we both know we her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, old friend of mine.
Speaker 4: Yeah, as a real actually really interesting thinker. First graph
Speaker 4: of the story. The White House has been hearing out
Speaker 4: a course of ideas in recent weeks for persuading Americans
Speaker 4: to get married and have more children. And early sign
Speaker 4: that the Trump administration will embrace a new cultural agenda, which,
Speaker 4: by the way, I took issue with that line in
Speaker 4: the story.
Speaker 5: By the way, a quote.
Speaker 4: Early sign that the Trump administration will embrace a new
Speaker 4: cultural agenda.
Speaker 5: Are you kidding me? There's been so many signs that.
Speaker 4: The Trump administration will embrace this new cultural agenda. One
Speaker 4: proposed one proposal shared with AIDS, would preserve thirty percent
Speaker 4: of scholarships for the Fulbright program for applicants who are
Speaker 4: married or have children. Another would give a five thousand
Speaker 4: dollar cash quote baby bonus to every American mother after delivery.
Speaker 4: A third calls on the government and this is saga
Speaker 4: where I know you have all kinds of thoughts and
Speaker 4: are excited to weigh in to fund programs that educate
Speaker 4: women on their menstrual cycles.
Speaker 5: Sager specifically pitched the story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, that was what I NO.
Speaker 3: I wanted to discuss it with you because we've both
Speaker 3: been involved in some of these discussions now for quite
Speaker 3: some time pro natalism, and you know, I think it's
Speaker 3: difficult for me to It's difficult because I think four
Speaker 3: or five years ago when I started to hear this
Speaker 3: stuff and policy like in Hungary right where they're like, oh,
Speaker 3: we'll pay off your mortgage if you have four kids,
Speaker 3: you don't have to pay any tax and no income tax.
Speaker 3: And I was like, wow, this is fantastic. Here's the truth,
Speaker 3: though it hasn't worked Hungary. It just it didn't work.
Speaker 3: And by the way, this is not a knock on Hungry.
Speaker 3: It's a noble effort. But the truth is is it
Speaker 3: doesn't work in any form that it takes. It's in
Speaker 3: every developed country in the world, even with socialized medicine,
Speaker 3: better health care and childcare than we could ever imagine,
Speaker 3: it doesn't work. It's like a product of industrial capitalism.
Speaker 3: It's like industrial capitalism itself is the is the main
Speaker 3: engine of this. Yeah, I mean, if you really want
Speaker 3: me to put my red hat on right now, but.
Speaker 5: I mean, even then, let's talk about the Soviet.
Speaker 3: Union, like we saw the destruction there of birth rates
Speaker 3: and of you know, were talking about for example, can.
Speaker 5: We put the next element up on the screenplase?
Speaker 4: So the producers made this great graphic just sort of
Speaker 4: talking about the specifics of what has been proposed by
Speaker 4: people in these circles. So we talked about the five
Speaker 4: thousand dollars cash baby bonus to every American mother after delivery,
Speaker 4: fund programs that educate women on their mentrual cycles and
Speaker 4: parts so they can better understand when they're ovulating and
Speaker 4: able to conceive. And let me just briefly pause on
Speaker 4: that point. The idea behind that is to basically undercut
Speaker 4: the power of birth control, which people in the circles believe.
Speaker 4: I think it's a pretty good argument, actually has affected
Speaker 4: women's fertility. Women get married later, meaning they're on birth
Speaker 4: control for longer and longer periods of their life, which
Speaker 4: makes it harder to ultimately conceive when they want to
Speaker 4: because they've married later in their thirties and that's already
Speaker 4: harder off the bat. So that's the idea behind it.
Speaker 4: You know, is it going to be a tough sell. Absolutely?
Speaker 4: Is it the role of the federal government. That is
Speaker 4: a different conversation that we can have, but just to
Speaker 4: sort of explain some of the.
Speaker 5: Thinking, that's where it comes from.
Speaker 4: And then three, this gets to what Soccer was just
Speaker 4: talking about, bestowing a special mother a medal, a special
Speaker 4: medal on mothers of six or more children.
Speaker 1: So basically all the Mormons.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well all the Mormons, and this you were about
Speaker 4: to elude because you were talking about how the Soviet
Speaker 4: Union looked at policies like these, and particularly that policy.
Speaker 3: Yes, the metal like the hero of the Soviet Union,
Speaker 3: if you had more than four more children, and guess
Speaker 3: what didn't worry if anything, Actually, the fertility rate fell
Speaker 3: off a cliff even more after the decline of the
Speaker 3: Soviet Union and the ushering in of their nineteen nineties
Speaker 3: like disaster capitalism, so have a run in front of
Speaker 3: me of all of the programs which have even been
Speaker 3: moderately successful.
Speaker 1: So France's highest.
Speaker 3: Birth rate in all of Western Europe one point eight,
Speaker 3: so still not above replacement. They have up to three
Speaker 3: years of paternity leave, a parental leaf up to three years.
Speaker 3: They have monthly child allowances which are not means tested.
Speaker 3: They have huge tax bet fits. They have massively subsidized childcare,
Speaker 3: which is actually good like people who are very well
Speaker 3: trained and they give them very nutritious food. They have
Speaker 3: a quote cultural normalization of working mothers. They're still only
Speaker 3: at one point eight and a lot of that, let's
Speaker 3: be honest, is because of the immigration pop population number
Speaker 3: two the Swedish, Swedish and Nordic countries. These places have
Speaker 3: universal childcare, job security protection. They have parental lead that
Speaker 3: you're like required to basically take culturally for a year.
Speaker 3: Guess what doesn't work parentally hungary? Probably the thing like
Speaker 3: the one country which threw everything massive cash incentives thirty
Speaker 3: thousand eurolone for young couples who are for partially forgiven
Speaker 3: per child, lifetime income tax tax exemption from mothers of
Speaker 3: four kids, home buying subsidies, free IVF slight increase, only
Speaker 3: a one point six in the overall birth right need
Speaker 3: two point two just to be above like I can
Speaker 3: go on forever. Russia, same thing they tried in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 3: It's actually declined so far. War doesn't help. Actually, again,
Speaker 3: the only country developed in the world that hasn't above
Speaker 3: replacement fertility rate is Israel, even amongst even amongst their
Speaker 3: secular Jewish population. Nobody really knows why. I mean, look,
Speaker 3: they do have a lot of policies, like they've got
Speaker 3: norms exclude the orthodoxyg.
Speaker 5: It's there's an existential fear.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's like existential yes, yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 3: It's literally like a civilization. That's like if we do
Speaker 3: not reproduce, where our land will be taken away from us.
Speaker 1: Right, But they have the same thing.
Speaker 3: They have state funded IVF, they have generous family allowances,
Speaker 3: they have universal health care, they've got big you know,
Speaker 3: cultural norms favoring shows the favor good to Israel's kids everywhere.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 3: But my point just on all of us is it's
Speaker 3: not policy, it's just culture. And I hate to say that.
Speaker 3: I wish if it were a policy problem, we could
Speaker 3: fix it, but at best you can squeeze. He's like
Speaker 3: a point three or a point four. I mean that's
Speaker 3: a lot, exactly, But I mean even then, you have
Speaker 3: to rewrite the social contract of the entire United States. Now,
Speaker 3: I'll also be clear, I would be in favor of
Speaker 3: many of these policies even if it only did point
Speaker 3: three point four. It is because it makes life easier
Speaker 3: for even when you have one or two children. I mean,
Speaker 3: going through this process right now, Oh, five thousand dollars. Thanks,
Speaker 3: I'll consider covering a portion of my deductible, which.
Speaker 1: Is just gonna be just for childbirth. Right.
Speaker 3: I really appreciate you cover it even though I pay
Speaker 3: like five hundred dollars a month.
Speaker 1: Awesome, dad, soccer.
Speaker 4: Is gonna be so much fun. I'm to be so
Speaker 4: much money. It's just like already an old mess.
Speaker 3: This is part of my blue magat turn. It's like,
Speaker 3: oh great, now my strollers more expensive. The car seat
Speaker 3: is going to be more expensive. I'm lucky I bought
Speaker 3: all this stuff before the tariffs.
Speaker 5: But there's a lot of people out there.
Speaker 1: They don't have any money.
Speaker 5: Those are investments, right, Yeah, you can flip those.
Speaker 3: And oh this shit only lasts for six months. Great,
Speaker 3: now I have to go Actually a good point. I
Speaker 3: should probably buy my infant strollers steep right now before
Speaker 3: the tariffs and all of that go up, because I
Speaker 3: was gonna wait, guess I can't.
Speaker 1: Now I'm just saying, like.
Speaker 4: Already getting grumpy text messages from Socger. But the cost
Speaker 4: of shit, that's true, that's true. You should you know berries.
Speaker 3: I mean, these kids, they're like Barry machines the amount
Speaker 3: that they're buying there, and drum For wants to put
Speaker 3: a ten percent tariff on them.
Speaker 1: I could go on forever joking.
Speaker 3: My point is just looking at these policies, I think
Speaker 3: they're very noble. I think it's a good idea. However,
Speaker 3: it is not a magic bullet.
Speaker 1: It's just not.
Speaker 3: And the truth is is that every developed society in
Speaker 3: the world just has a low birth rate. And there's
Speaker 3: just something about the comfort of industrial capitalism, of the
Speaker 3: lack of like need for you know, of the lack
Speaker 3: of like rural you know, area community and all these
Speaker 3: other things. The truth is is like even here in America,
Speaker 3: the poorest people have the most kids. It's one of
Speaker 3: the most like it's the craziest thing is that the
Speaker 3: people who are the most impacted by it, but who
Speaker 3: largely have not yet absorbed like all of the cultural
Speaker 3: milieu of like the middle class lifestyle and vacations and
Speaker 3: all these other things, are the people who are having
Speaker 3: the most children. The moment that you assimilate to the
Speaker 3: higher shuns of American society, you have less children.
Speaker 1: The only exception is.
Speaker 3: When you reach the extreme end of the wealth spectrum
Speaker 3: of like zero point one percent.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, they don't.
Speaker 1: They love to get married and.
Speaker 3: To have children, But that's because they've genuinely exited like
Speaker 3: US society. It's everybody else in between that You're like, well,
Speaker 3: people are like, yeah, but I want to go to
Speaker 3: Disneyland or whatever. I'm like, oh, do you have five
Speaker 3: thousand bucks if you have four kids?
Speaker 1: Hope you do? And you're going to be driving? You
Speaker 1: know you're not. You can't even fly.
Speaker 4: And to be honest, I don't even think a lot
Speaker 4: of the economic constraints affect the question of whether people
Speaker 4: end up going above replacement rate. I think it's genuinely
Speaker 4: just that when you have a career centric society, you
Speaker 4: just like that's it's very hard to have three children
Speaker 4: and that's where we see I think one of the saddest,
Speaker 4: one of the saddest things that Limonstone has researched, He's
Speaker 4: quoted in this article with Institute for Family Studies, is
Speaker 4: that American women actually say that they have.
Speaker 5: Fewer children than they want.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's true, and it's it's because they start later
Speaker 4: they want in order to have well, not that they want,
Speaker 4: but they start later so late that they don't end
Speaker 4: up being able to have as many children as they want.
Speaker 4: And that's genuinely one of the sadder things. And it's
Speaker 4: not really a policy at least not in the structure
Speaker 4: of the policy structure of the American economy right now
Speaker 4: or in the American government right now. That's not really
Speaker 4: a policy question. It's much more of a cultural aquation.
Speaker 1: It's a huge cultural question. It's also about what do
Speaker 1: you even want? Right like?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, this gets to the whole two income
Speaker 3: trap and a lot of the problems with the consumption
Speaker 3: economy and the driving up of the overall consumptive rate
Speaker 3: of the average family, which necessitates a two person household
Speaker 3: that has to work. But there are realities here, I mean,
Speaker 3: but the counter to what I'm saying, is the Swedish
Speaker 3: model in all these where.
Speaker 1: They have everything every benefit.
Speaker 3: That an American could possibly want to make their life easier,
Speaker 3: leave money, you know, cultural norms and all that, and
Speaker 3: they still don't have a lot of kids.
Speaker 4: Well, so this is really interesting because this is where
Speaker 4: both the left and the right are predicating their solutions
Speaker 4: on materialism. That's right, right, So the right solution is
Speaker 4: a little bit more money. Left solution is a little
Speaker 4: bit more money, a little bit more childcare. And those
Speaker 4: things can be good policies totally, whether or not they
Speaker 4: help the birth rate. They can be good policies, Like
Speaker 4: a five thousand dollars baby bonus is probably a good policy.
Speaker 5: But is it actually going to help the birth rate?
Speaker 4: No, because these are not primarily material concerns, they're cultural ones.
Speaker 4: And just to wrap this all up, Ross Daufa reacted
Speaker 4: to the New York Times article by posting it on
Speaker 4: ACX and saying, of course, you know, I think it's
Speaker 4: good for the administration to consider pronatalist ideas, but right now,
Speaker 4: nothing would be more pronatalist than avoiding an unnecessary recession.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, exactly what we're looking at.
Speaker 4: Six months down the road is a Trump administration coming
Speaker 4: up with a five thousand dollars baby bonus into a
Speaker 4: horrible economy for families where to your point, they can't
Speaker 4: buy bananas for their babies. Yes, and or they can
Speaker 4: buy bananas, they're just exceedingly expensive in their aren as,
Speaker 4: many of them in stock. So yeah, this is it's
Speaker 4: on a collision course for the Trump administration.
Speaker 6: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just looked it up.
Speaker 3: Birth rate lapsed from class five point five just in
Speaker 3: two thousand and nine from two thousand and eight. Yeah,
Speaker 3: just to show you what a recession can do. At
Speaker 3: the same time, there is an extraordinary showdown with Harvard
Speaker 3: going on right now between the Trump administration, which is
Speaker 3: not only putting immense financial pressure on them, basically trying
Speaker 3: to tell them how to run the university. But it
Speaker 3: all apparently stems back to a massive mistake inside of
Speaker 3: the bureaucracy which kicked this entire thing off. This was
Speaker 3: broken down in a recent CNN segment and yes, I
Speaker 3: know it's CNN, but they actually did a decent job
Speaker 3: this time around.
Speaker 1: Mu's take a listen.
Speaker 6: Okay, So the White House's position is it was malpracticed
Speaker 6: by Harvard to not realize that this letter was so
Speaker 6: outrageous it probably wasn't true. I mean that letter came
Speaker 6: from I mean, I think that statement actually just sort
Speaker 6: of gives away the whole game. Essentially. The argument that
Speaker 6: we're hearing there from may mailman at the White House
Speaker 6: is they should have known. They should have known there
Speaker 6: was something wrong. They should have picked up the phone
Speaker 6: and said to us at the White House, hey, guys,
Speaker 6: this looks like a mistake. I think it's pretty obvious
Speaker 6: where the fault was, though.
Speaker 7: I mean, Elli, could you imagine if Harvard had responded
Speaker 7: to this letter by saying, Okay, we'll meet these demands
Speaker 7: and actually that they had been sent in error to them.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean exactly. Look, this is serious stuff. I mean,
Speaker 6: this is a major showdown that is escalating by the day.
Speaker 6: You know, if Harvard had acquiesced these demands, that it
Speaker 6: would have changed the institution and compromised the institution forever.
Speaker 6: But I'm interested to see now what happens books now,
Speaker 6: does the White House withdraw this or do they sort
Speaker 6: of decide, whoops, where we're po permitted now and we're
Speaker 6: going to have to have this fight through to the ends.
Speaker 3: So to recap this entire showdown with Harvard is because
Speaker 3: let's put this up there on the screen. An official
Speaker 3: on the quote Anti Semitism Task Force told the university
Speaker 3: that a letter of demands has was actually now one
Speaker 3: that was sent without authorization from the government. So the
Speaker 3: university basically published the letter and said, no, we're not
Speaker 3: going to agree to these demands. Days later, that Trump
Speaker 3: administration is like, well, screw you or actually gonna cut
Speaker 3: off your funding. But by the way, that letter was
Speaker 3: actually unauthorized and sent by the Acting General Counsel of
Speaker 3: the Department of Health and Human Services on the Anti
Speaker 3: Semitism Task Force, and it was sent in era error.
Speaker 3: So the letter arrived when Harvard said they still believe
Speaker 3: they could have prevented a confrontation. Then they get this
Speaker 3: fake letter and they're like, no, we're not going to
Speaker 3: do it. And so then now quote, it was malpracticed
Speaker 3: on the side of Harvard's lawyers not to pick up
Speaker 3: the phone and call the members of the Anti Semitism
Speaker 3: and Task Force who they had been talking to for weeks. Instead, quote,
Speaker 3: Harvard went on a victimhood campaign that is a direct
Speaker 3: quote from the White House. Instead So Harvard's position, as
Speaker 3: that guy just laid out, or the government's position is
Speaker 3: that Harvard is stupid because it took a letter that
Speaker 3: it got from the United States government and then responded
Speaker 3: to I cannot blame a.
Speaker 1: Position in defending Harvard.
Speaker 3: This is pain painful to sit here and to defend
Speaker 3: this ridiculous institution.
Speaker 1: But their position is.
Speaker 3: That they should have realized that this was a fake letter.
Speaker 3: And now nonetheless, despite the fact that it was faked
Speaker 3: by the government.
Speaker 5: Signed, but it was always signed.
Speaker 4: This is Harvard's stand, like it was.
Speaker 3: I mean, listen to if I get a letter from
Speaker 3: the government and what I'm going If I got a
Speaker 3: learn from.
Speaker 6: The I R S.
Speaker 1: I call the I R S and be like, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: this is a real letter. Or should just do whatever
Speaker 1: they tell me to do?
Speaker 5: Why are they signing draft?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Good point?
Speaker 3: All right, So now you tell me, Emily, based on
Speaker 3: all this, though, the government's position is still nonetheless, we
Speaker 3: will still take all of your funding from you. So
Speaker 3: let's put that up there on the screen. Quote what
Speaker 3: would it even mean.
Speaker 1: For Trump to revoke Harvard's taxes and status?
Speaker 5: Well, which by the way, is different. I just want
Speaker 5: to say this, Yeah, I know.
Speaker 3: You're right, You're right, but I'm saying this is all
Speaker 3: a cascading part of this. So Harvard says no. So
Speaker 3: the Trump administration goes, even though we sent you this
Speaker 3: thing in error, we're cutting off two point two six
Speaker 3: billion dollars in funding. And then a week later there
Speaker 3: was all coming out that actually, we're going to revoke
Speaker 3: your entire tax exempt status based.
Speaker 4: On all that.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is crazy shit, and it gets to
Speaker 3: the tariff thing. Nobody hates Harvard more than me. Okay,
Speaker 3: these people should lose their tax sub status. These people
Speaker 3: should be paying massive amounts of taxes. They're a hedge fund,
Speaker 3: they're not actually a real university. They admit less students
Speaker 3: today than they did when the US population was one
Speaker 3: hundred million less people. Okay, absurd, It's just complete credential washing, inflation,
Speaker 3: student debt.
Speaker 1: I could go on forever, yep, for all of the
Speaker 1: issues with that.
Speaker 3: But as we are going to talk about soon with Greg,
Speaker 3: there needs to be a little bit of a process.
Speaker 3: There needs to be a little bit of a principle here,
Speaker 3: a little bit of an effort by the United States
Speaker 3: government to say we're doing this because of what I
Speaker 3: just laid out, Because you are bilking the federal government
Speaker 3: for the under false pretenses for student loans. You're putting
Speaker 3: your students in debt, not because of some fake anti
Speaker 3: viscal case, quite literally, a fake anti Semitism demand.
Speaker 1: Of the government.
Speaker 3: So the whole thing is insane, and Harvard is now
Speaker 3: countersuing the Trump administration. Every legal expert I see says
Speaker 3: Harvard or the government has no chance in this case
Speaker 3: right now. I mean, they may prevail in the long
Speaker 3: run if they go through a proper process, but as
Speaker 3: of where things start right now, Harvard is getting a
Speaker 3: temporary restraining order like tomorrow based on the way that
Speaker 3: this entire thing has happened.
Speaker 4: When I care obviously much more about the corruption and
Speaker 4: degradation of higher education than I care about some idiot
Speaker 4: bureaucrats and the Trump administration botching it. But do you
Speaker 4: end up actually addressing the problem if you are too
Speaker 4: incompetent to address it correctly and hurt your ability exactly
Speaker 4: because you and I are actually probably sympathetic to the
Speaker 4: argument that if you're making an omelet, you're gonna make
Speaker 4: going to break a few eggs.
Speaker 5: The omelet is reforming higher ed.
Speaker 4: Yes, obviously the media is going to pick out a
Speaker 4: few examples of really bad process work from the Trump
Speaker 4: administration and blow them up into something that they're not.
Speaker 5: This actually is bad. It's no question. This is so stupid.
Speaker 3: This is not like common you know, it's like, this
Speaker 3: is classic stupidity with a capital S, where it's embarrassing
Speaker 3: to even have to be in a position to be
Speaker 3: be like, yeah, well they kind of have a point,
Speaker 3: and this is what they've done with everything, Terri. And
Speaker 3: that's why I'm like, I'm done with Ri. I am
Speaker 3: done with this bullshit. It's like this amount of stupidity
Speaker 3: that you require people to debase themselves to defend your
Speaker 3: it iscy is enough. Look, I know that you know
Speaker 3: there's some mega memas or whatever they're going to stand
Speaker 3: right or die forever. Fine, okay, you can have them.
Speaker 3: But you know, for people out here who are actually
Speaker 3: have to follow this stuff for a living and have
Speaker 3: you know, actual acquaintance with competence and with people who
Speaker 3: actually know what the hell they're doing, it's it's it's absurd.
Speaker 3: It's an attack on intellect itself.
Speaker 1: You know, go ahead, Well.
Speaker 4: So I mean I think what's interesting here is that
Speaker 4: we compare Trump one point zero and Trump two point
Speaker 4: zero and say Trump one point zero was more haphazard.
Speaker 4: They didn't have their ducks in a row. They hadn't
Speaker 4: spent four years preparing this detailed policy agenda that they
Speaker 4: could install immediately when a Republican president, whether it was
Speaker 4: Trump or DeSantis, was in office. I think what we're
Speaker 4: starting to see, whether it's the student deportations, this letter
Speaker 4: to Harvard, or the tariffs, is that actually they did
Speaker 4: plan directionally what they wanted to do. They planned who
Speaker 4: they wanted to put in place, but they just lack
Speaker 4: the know how to execute well.
Speaker 1: Actually, it's a huge dive. I've been thinking about this
Speaker 1: a lot.
Speaker 3: It's a massive indictment of Project twenty twenty five and
Speaker 3: all of the projects that were ostensibly to professionalize the
Speaker 3: Trump administration.
Speaker 1: It's just not happened at all.
Speaker 3: Congratulations, you had some executive orders that were ready to
Speaker 3: go on day one. Let's look at the actual result
Speaker 3: of your flagship product dose two trillion to one trillion
Speaker 3: to one hundred and fifty billion, which is the exact
Speaker 3: amount that we're going to increase the Pentagon budget Okay,
Speaker 3: so you didn't cought a single dollar of federal spend.
Speaker 3: I'm judging you by your own by what you say
Speaker 3: that you wanted to do. Yeah, dose, you failed. It's
Speaker 3: a complete failure. Elon is leaving soon, right literally he
Speaker 3: has to because of this.
Speaker 4: May actually yeah, no, probably if you let Russ Boat start,
Speaker 4: who is a highly competent.
Speaker 3: But if you're a car so we'll look, we're only
Speaker 3: hundre days in so do deportation. It's like, okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean you know, I said this previously yesterday. The
Speaker 3: Bureau of Prison validates gang members every day, every single day.
Speaker 3: The Bureau of Prisons has thousands of gang members in
Speaker 3: the United States penitentiary system and knows exactly what they
Speaker 3: look like and how they do tattoos and everything. Do
Speaker 3: they make mistakes, I'm sure they do, but I guarantee
Speaker 3: you it's a much more professional. So when they come
Speaker 3: out they go, oh, we're sending these gang members to Salvador,
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, okay, you know it makes sense. Did
Speaker 3: US Department's Justice No, It's like, oh, complete bullshit. The
Speaker 3: way that you guys did this autism awareness tattooed Mak
Speaker 3: Mukhali said, Oh, we're going after the student criminals.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, okay, so the Hamilton Hall guy, right, No,
Speaker 3: the guy who handed out a flyer, or this lady
Speaker 3: who co authored an op ed, or the guy who's
Speaker 3: married to a lady who's related to someone in Humma
Speaker 3: what like, and that the tariffs. This fucking formula. It's
Speaker 3: the same as the first time around. I mean, I
Speaker 3: remember the census thing. I mean, this is the first thing.
Speaker 3: This is the first thing I pissed me off of
Speaker 3: the Trump administration. As people know, the census currently counts
Speaker 3: illegal immigrants, which is insane, right, insane, because it basically
Speaker 3: means that if you have enough illegals in your state
Speaker 3: that you get more representation in Congress, what more electoral votes?
Speaker 1: Nonsense.
Speaker 3: Well, the administration had a plan in twenty eighteen to
Speaker 3: get rid to basically change the senses. It only costs
Speaker 3: US citizens, great, awesome, would have completely changed the electoral map. Well,
Speaker 3: they did it in such an incompetent way. The Supreme
Speaker 3: Court was like, we don't even disagree, but we are
Speaker 3: striking this down because you did it so stupidly. And
Speaker 3: then they're like, oh, the twenty twenty election was stolen.
Speaker 3: I'm like, well, you know, also you can't do the
Speaker 3: basic paperwork travel band. How many trivel bands do we
Speaker 3: have in twenty seventeen do you remember maybe four?
Speaker 5: Five? Yeah, it was ridiculous. Actually, that's a really good parallel.
Speaker 5: I hadn't even thought about that because it's so hard
Speaker 5: to like pull all of these.
Speaker 4: Different references out because there's literally like hundreds of them.
Speaker 4: That's actually a really good reference point. And I think
Speaker 4: the difference really now that I'm thinking of it between
Speaker 4: one point zero and two point zero here is that
Speaker 4: two point zero to use someone violent metaphor. In one
Speaker 4: point oh, nobody knew where to aim. In two point zero,
Speaker 4: everyone spent years figuring out exactly where to aim, but
Speaker 4: didn't train at shooting right.
Speaker 5: They weren't.
Speaker 4: They weren't going to the range, and they're not right
Speaker 4: on the target. They know exactly what target to shoot at,
Speaker 4: but they don't know how to hit the bull's eye.
Speaker 4: And that's what's happening in this administration and in ways
Speaker 4: that are probably undermining their ability to ultimately hit the target,
Speaker 4: because people are going to pull them out of the
Speaker 4: range right before they can figure out how to hit
Speaker 4: the target.
Speaker 5: They really get the hell out of here. You don't
Speaker 5: not use that gun, eddie.
Speaker 3: They're already I mean, how many days has it been
Speaker 3: since January twentieth. Let's see, all right, January twenty first,
Speaker 3: let's see it has been all right, chat cheept's not
Speaker 3: working right now? All right, it's been eighty something eighty
Speaker 3: or ninety days. You run out of political capital only.
Speaker 3: They only have one piece of legislation they're going to
Speaker 3: pass for the next two years, the tax cuts and
Speaker 3: jobs ack.
Speaker 1: Good luck with that one.
Speaker 3: I hope it works out considering all the things that
Speaker 3: you guys have said that you want to do.
Speaker 1: Well, by the way, you have to lift the debt ceiling.
Speaker 4: That's not rense and repeat from that. They're trying to
Speaker 4: stuff a bunch of stuff in reconcization.
Speaker 5: It's not just re.
Speaker 4: Upping the tax cuts. It's actually stuffing a bunch of
Speaker 4: other possible priorities.
Speaker 3: But I'm saying, you have one piece of legislation. That's
Speaker 3: all you guys have left. You burned all your political capital.
Speaker 3: You haven't deported that many people. If anything, you're actually
Speaker 3: trailing the Obama and Clinton administration and you're roughly on
Speaker 3: par with the Biden administration tariff policy disaster. Sorry, it's true,
Speaker 3: there's been. I mean, maybe you'll get some benefit, you know.
Speaker 1: A few months from now.
Speaker 3: I'm genuinely doubtful as the I mean, it's this. This
Speaker 3: is where I'm just going full Richard Hennen like, they
Speaker 3: do not have elite human.
Speaker 1: Capital who are behind Its true.
Speaker 5: I don't agree with that.
Speaker 1: No, it's true. I don't see it. I don't see
Speaker 1: a single I don't.
Speaker 4: Think anybody has the human capital to accomplish the goals
Speaker 4: that they've set their sight. Maybe right, they're trying to
Speaker 4: like radically transform a system that's built up over one
Speaker 4: hundred years. And I don't think it's a matter of
Speaker 4: the Trump people being I think there are absolutely some
Speaker 4: idiots in the Trump administration.
Speaker 5: I think we could both say.
Speaker 1: More per capita personally.
Speaker 4: Okay, But yeah, it's because the Trump It is because
Speaker 4: Republicans haven't trained up an army of bureaucrats over the
Speaker 4: course of the last one hundred times Democrats have, and
Speaker 4: now Republicans are trying to use this sort of like
Speaker 4: haphazard like Lexington and conquered band of policy amateurs to
Speaker 4: do something much more difficult than anyone's ever tried to
Speaker 4: do in the policy space.
Speaker 3: Very fair counter and I actually think it's probably a
Speaker 3: good place to leave it.
Speaker 1: So anyway, Harvard, that's what happened. Let's get to the
Speaker 1: CEO of Fire, Greg Lukanoff.
Speaker 3: He's going to break down some of free speech attacks
Speaker 3: for us, including some on Harvard.
Speaker 1: Let's get to it. Joining us now is Greg Lukianoff.
Speaker 3: He is the CEO of Fire, one of the most
Speaker 3: principled free speech organizations in the United States, and we're
Speaker 3: very excited to be joined by I'm Greg.
Speaker 1: It's great to see you. Thanks for joining the show.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me so.
Speaker 3: Greg, we wanted you to get sound off on some
Speaker 3: of the extraordinary moves by the Trump administration. First of all,
Speaker 3: you are the author of several books, and more recently
Speaker 3: this one, let's put it up there on the screen,
Speaker 3: the Canceling of the American Mind. But more recently you
Speaker 3: might look at that and be like, oh, this is
Speaker 3: a right wing guest or something. But Greg, you're unique
Speaker 3: in that you really have stood up against a lot
Speaker 3: of unprecedented attacks on free speech currently by the Trump administration.
Speaker 3: We have a list that we can just put here
Speaker 3: right now, assembled by your team. Let's put it up
Speaker 3: there on the screen. Relevant in fact, some of the
Speaker 3: Harvard discussion that we just had here on the show.
Speaker 3: Why don't you break down for us why you see
Speaker 3: this as an attack on free speech with the Harvard
Speaker 3: situation and for a lot more.
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, I mean there is no small irony in
Speaker 8: my taking so much eight mail of the moment for
Speaker 8: defending Harvard, because Harvard finished dead last two years in
Speaker 8: a row on our campus free speech ranking, and I
Speaker 8: want to be very clear they earned that position. But
Speaker 8: the answer cannot be the government wildly exceeding its power
Speaker 8: to effectively nationalize Harvard using powers it doesn't have. And
Speaker 8: I'm a civil libertarian, so like I'm concerned about left
Speaker 8: wing authoritarianism, and I'm concerned about right wing authoritarianism, Like
Speaker 8: I'm mostly afraid of the accumulation of power. And what
Speaker 8: they're currently claiming is that because of the history of
Speaker 8: anti Semitism at Harvard, which I'd say, like, that's a
Speaker 8: real concern, they now can restrict what two point six
Speaker 8: billion dollars in potential funding to Harvard unless Harvard meets
Speaker 8: demands that control everything from certain departments to what is taught,
Speaker 8: to who is admitted. And that's what I mean by
Speaker 8: effectively nationalizing. It's micromanaging this massive company. And I think that, yeah,
Speaker 8: could it Is it possible that if you had, if
Speaker 8: you followed the procedures and did Title six hearings and
Speaker 8: even Title nine hearings on the way Harvard has behaved
Speaker 8: over the last five years, that Harvard might lose and
Speaker 8: be in risk of losing its federal funding. I absolutely
Speaker 8: that is absolutely a possibility. But the government does not
Speaker 8: have the power to completely skip over that entire process
Speaker 8: and just declare by you cause you know that essentially
Speaker 8: you now have to do what the government says you
Speaker 8: do because you receive any federal federal funding at all.
Speaker 8: And I did write I'm taking some flack for this
Speaker 8: right now, but I take this, you know, very seriously.
Speaker 8: The idea that, yes, Harvard has made a ton of mistakes,
Speaker 8: and you know, I'm first in line and criticizing him,
Speaker 8: canceling of the American mind. You know, Harvard does not
Speaker 8: come out, that does not come out particularly well. But
Speaker 8: the idea that we'd freeze a massive amount of science
Speaker 8: funding for things that could actually be you know, groundbreaking.
Speaker 8: I mean, this is the one thing that consistently cares
Speaker 8: me is essentially that, in an effort to deal with
Speaker 8: very real problems in higher ed we're going to destroy
Speaker 8: our unique ability to push the frontiers of science, which
Speaker 8: harms everyone, not just even in the United States and
Speaker 8: the globe.
Speaker 4: Well. And we might disagree on this because I'm more
Speaker 4: sympathetic to the idea of the federal government exercising some
Speaker 4: power over federal funding.
Speaker 5: And to your point, Greg, I think also there's.
Speaker 4: There's Title nine, Title seven, like, all of this could
Speaker 4: get pretty interesting in the courts, but I have seen
Speaker 4: I'm curious what you make of this some really interesting
Speaker 4: commentary on the question of viewpoint diversity. The federal government
Speaker 4: asking Harvard to implement different measures to ensure there's viewpoint
Speaker 4: diversity at Harvard or in its research, and all of
Speaker 4: that that, I mean, it's the same thing with the
Speaker 4: anti semitism definition that Fire has been really brave and
Speaker 4: for years standing up against the overly broad definition of
Speaker 4: anti semitism.
Speaker 5: Those are those seem like.
Speaker 4: Problematic answers to a problem in and of itself, And
Speaker 4: could you just speak to the viewpoint diversity question. Because
Speaker 4: you've been advocating for viewpoint diversity at the university level
Speaker 4: for a long time, then when the federal government asks
Speaker 4: about it, it becomes a different issue.
Speaker 8: Exactly, I want viewpoint diversity in higher ed And for example,
Speaker 8: if Congress, you know, decided to make some of these
Speaker 8: contingent on federal funding that they have, you have a
Speaker 8: lot of power to decide what you tie federal funding
Speaker 8: to in the first place. But you can't work backwards
Speaker 8: and then say, oh, by the way, we've now decided
Speaker 8: that federal funding is contingent on viewpoint diversity. That also
Speaker 8: poses really serious First Amendment issues, because what you're saying
Speaker 8: is a private institution has to basically have a political
Speaker 8: at mis test to make sure that they have greater
Speaker 8: viewpoint diversity. Now, I want schools to achieve viewpoint diversity,
Speaker 8: and I think one of the ways they can do
Speaker 8: that is to have more classes co taught by people
Speaker 8: who disagree. I think this would be powerful on multiple levels,
Speaker 8: and it could be a great way to introduce more
Speaker 8: viewpoint diversity. But as a civil libertarians, when it's achieved
Speaker 8: through government coercion, we're rightfully concerned about that.
Speaker 1: So definitely.
Speaker 8: And to be clear that the government does have power
Speaker 8: to put strings on its federal funding, and they do
Speaker 8: and we and that's why I made the point that essentially,
Speaker 8: could they be found guilty of violating Title six, Title seven,
Speaker 8: and Title nine. Yeah, I think that's a real possibility.
Speaker 8: But you can't just do it without proving it, without
Speaker 8: going through the procedural steps, because those really matter. That's
Speaker 8: the difference between you know, a government a republic and
Speaker 8: something that looks a lot more authoritari.
Speaker 3: Well, what you're really talking about here is process through
Speaker 3: the legal courts, where you have to present evidence, where
Speaker 3: you have to have a judge who is ruled here.
Speaker 3: Let's put the next parts up there, guys on the screen.
Speaker 3: Which Fire has also spoken out against some of the
Speaker 3: deportation efforts here of students who have criticized Israel and
Speaker 3: or participated in protests on college campuses. Can you just
Speaker 3: tell us why again? You know, in this particular case,
Speaker 3: the administration is justifying this as a violation of the
Speaker 3: Immigration and Nationality Act, saying that they're expressing support here
Speaker 3: for a terrorist organization and thus these students are eligible
Speaker 3: for deportation.
Speaker 1: Fire has spoken out against us tell us why. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And again people could point out some irony here.
Speaker 8: I don't really see it as irony because fire has
Speaker 8: been one of the ones pointing out actually alone to
Speaker 8: a degree, pointing out that pro Palestinian protesters are responsible
Speaker 8: for all but essentially three of the highest number of
Speaker 8: campus shoutdowns of speakers on record. It's been overwhelmingly a
Speaker 8: pro Palestinian movement in some cases. I remember they did
Speaker 8: a shoutdown, they shut down an event of someone who
Speaker 8: was just there to talk about black holes, you know,
Speaker 8: like it was it was ridiculous, and we called it
Speaker 8: out all the time.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 8: So I think that a lot of these protests have
Speaker 8: been in some cases a disaster for free spee.
Speaker 1: She's not going to be freedom.
Speaker 8: However, again, you have to follow process and you have
Speaker 8: to prove it. So when they first accused Mamood Khalil,
Speaker 8: for example, I was like, well, you know, Colombia was
Speaker 8: a disaster, and I'm willing to bet, not willing to bet.
Speaker 8: I suspect they might actually have something more serious on him,
Speaker 8: like he was involved in some of the vandalism, or
Speaker 8: some of the anti Semitic harassment himself, or some of
Speaker 8: the really bad in some cases criminal behavior that took
Speaker 8: place at Harvard, or at least things that they could
Speaker 8: have kicked him out of school for. But as the
Speaker 8: case went on, We're like, the government's not making this argument.
Speaker 8: They're basically pointing to flyers that a group that he
Speaker 8: was loosely affiliated with circulated, and I'm like, Okay, that's
Speaker 8: saying that you're kicking him out just for speech that
Speaker 8: would be protected by an American citizen, and that's problematic
Speaker 8: according to the law. There was a weird argument that
Speaker 8: I keep on getting that people here on a green card,
Speaker 8: and green card is, you know, one step away from
Speaker 8: citizenship have no free speech rights, and that's absurd.
Speaker 1: Teen forty five.
Speaker 8: The Supreme Court was incredibly clear in a place called
Speaker 8: in a case called Bridges y. Wickson, that resident aliens
Speaker 8: do have First Amendment rights. Now, what the full parameters
Speaker 8: of those rights are is the one remaining question. But
Speaker 8: it certainly should not be that you can you can
Speaker 8: be at a protest at a college campus where there
Speaker 8: are ten protesters, all of it peaceful, all of it protected,
Speaker 8: and all nine of those protesters are fine because they're
Speaker 8: American citizens, but the tenth has to show as papers
Speaker 8: and could be kicked out of the country for being
Speaker 8: on the on the wrong side of it. So the
Speaker 8: Mamoud Khalil case actually just got worse the longer it
Speaker 8: went on, and the osterric case is even worse because
Speaker 8: the only thing they're pointing at this tough students, is
Speaker 8: that she wrote a op ed that was critical of Israel,
Speaker 8: that was critical, and it was much more it was
Speaker 8: much more mainstream that it was being presented as. And
Speaker 8: this is the young woman that they actually, you know,
Speaker 8: drove a van by and playing closed policemen, you know,
Speaker 8: stuffer and take her away for deportation. That that's scary stuff.
Speaker 8: And it's one of these things where you think about
Speaker 8: all the great Americans that we are proud to have
Speaker 8: come to this country and eventually became naturalized or didn't
Speaker 8: in some cases, who would be horrified if they were deported.
Speaker 8: I think of, you know, Christopher Hitchins. I don't think
Speaker 8: Christopher Hitchins. He definitely was here on a green card
Speaker 8: for a long time. I don't think he ever actually
Speaker 8: became a citizen. And the idea or for that matter,
Speaker 8: what I point this out to conservatives, what about oh
Speaker 8: my god Peterson or Elon Musk, you know. So, I
Speaker 8: think that I understand that people are concerned about what
Speaker 8: happened at Columbia and a lot of these schools. I
Speaker 8: am too passionately, so I think they shamed themselves during
Speaker 8: this period. But that's not the same thing as saying
Speaker 8: these students are responsible for it and that they should
Speaker 8: be kicked out because of their opinion. That's much more dangerous.
Speaker 5: And Grid, you didn't just write Canceling of the American Mind.
Speaker 5: That was a follow up to a really great book
Speaker 5: you wrote as.
Speaker 4: Well, called The Coddling of the American Union with John Hyde,
Speaker 4: and that's a really important book. I mean, I would
Speaker 4: say that's like a landmark book in the way that
Speaker 4: we've sort.
Speaker 5: Of come to view our culture.
Speaker 4: And the reason I want to ask you about that
Speaker 4: is in the midst of this conversation about quote unquote
Speaker 4: woke right, one of the things that as a conservative
Speaker 4: I worried about sometimes pre twenty twenty four is that
Speaker 4: there were cancels. There were cancelations that did see conservative
Speaker 4: students being the victims of attacks on free speech. They
Speaker 4: were really truly being victimized in some cases.
Speaker 1: And absolutely that fueled.
Speaker 4: Though, a really interesting sense of victimhood on the right,
Speaker 4: which is something the right critiqued the left for sort
Speaker 4: of being defined by for a very long time. And
Speaker 4: I'm curious, as the author of Coddling and Canceling, if
Speaker 4: you see that sort of instinct, instinctive illiberalism that comes
Speaker 4: when you end up genuinely being a victim actually starting
Speaker 4: to fuel right wing encroachments on speech.
Speaker 5: Is there something to that?
Speaker 8: Oh?
Speaker 1: No, I think there absolutely is.
Speaker 8: I think I'm reading Mussa Algarby's book We've Never Been Woke,
Speaker 8: and he really kind of saw James Lindsay's term woke right,
Speaker 8: you know, coming that essentially when you look at some
Speaker 8: of the tenets of the right of the heart, the
Speaker 8: authoritarian left and the authoritarian right, both of which I
Speaker 8: very much oppose, they have.
Speaker 1: Very similar characteristics.
Speaker 8: And it goes so far as to have people like
Speaker 8: Chris Rufo, you know, talking about their admiration for Graham,
Speaker 8: Sheet and Lenin and like all of these monsters that
Speaker 8: my family had to flee Russia to fight because they
Speaker 8: were so good at manipulating the public, oftentimes with an
Speaker 8: initial sense of grievance that called for centralization of power
Speaker 8: on the basis of identity, that the woke right and
Speaker 8: work left are more similar than they're comfortable with, even
Speaker 8: to the point at which they're citing the same And
Speaker 8: I'm going to show my own bias here historical monster
Speaker 8: to justify their position.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and last part here is on these law firms.
Speaker 3: This is one where I have not yet victims.
Speaker 5: Again, this is the victims.
Speaker 1: I had around this one.
Speaker 3: But go ahead, Greg, we're gonna put it up there
Speaker 3: on the screen. We haven't even done a full segment
Speaker 3: just because it is kind of convoluted in a way.
Speaker 3: You're like, the president is like attacking a law firm
Speaker 3: and thus saying that he had to do like pro
Speaker 3: bono work for him personally.
Speaker 1: But why is that a free speech problem there?
Speaker 8: Oh my god, it's well, it's rob for a free
Speaker 8: speech organization because we go into court to defend freedom
Speaker 8: of speech. And we're all lawyers, not all of us.
Speaker 8: I'm actually really glad that some of us are social
Speaker 8: scientists as well. But what they're saying is, and it
Speaker 8: went beyond just people who opposed the administration people, I mean,
Speaker 8: but they're going after law firms for example. You know,
Speaker 8: helped with the January sixth prosecutions or helped oppose some
Speaker 8: of the attempts for the over the twenty twenty election,
Speaker 8: the argument that who fought against the idea that the
Speaker 8: election was stolen, which, by the way, it wasn't. And
Speaker 8: what they're saying to some of these law firms now
Speaker 8: is that because you opposed the administration on their position
Speaker 8: on affirmative action, you know, for example, like that's word,
Speaker 8: that's one of our justifications for targeting you. I'm like,
Speaker 8: so wait. But here's the most important thing. The way
Speaker 8: they're targeting them is one telling these law firms that
Speaker 8: they're losing their security clearance, which as a DC lawyer,
Speaker 8: that's you know, death sentence for some of these lawyers.
Speaker 8: But more importantly and more horrifyingly, they're telling them that
Speaker 8: they can't go into federal buildings. And guess what's a
Speaker 8: really important federal building for lawyers a court. So like,
Speaker 8: the idea that the federal government has power to say
Speaker 8: that lawyers can't enter court rooms is an extraordinary addition
Speaker 8: to power. And because Fire is currently in court with
Speaker 8: with Donald Trump's personal lawyer in a case where he's
Speaker 8: he's suing a polster for getting a poll wrong and
Speaker 8: Seltzer back in Iowa. And because we're a nonprofit that
Speaker 8: goes into court, we're very aware of the idea like,
Speaker 8: how on earth are we supposed to do our advocacy
Speaker 8: in this situation in which lawyers can be told that
Speaker 8: they can't enter a courtroom if you oppose the administration?
Speaker 1: Wow, very interesting. Greg.
Speaker 3: We can always look to you and your organization. We
Speaker 3: really really appreciate the work that you guys do over
Speaker 3: here at breaking points, and we're just really happy to
Speaker 3: have you on man, So thank you.
Speaker 1: Oh, we appreciate it.
Speaker 8: It can be it can feel like a really thankless
Speaker 8: job to constantly be angering both sides the political spectrum.
Speaker 8: But at least I've had a lot of practice.
Speaker 1: That's great.
Speaker 3: Well, there are a lot of people out there who
Speaker 3: definitely see and appreciate the work that you guys do.
Speaker 1: So thank you very much, Greg, Thank you so much,
Speaker 1: take care, Thank you.
Speaker 3: Guys so much for watching it. Emily, thank you for
Speaker 3: being here. It was great fun. I hope the audience
Speaker 3: got what it needed, what it deserved.
Speaker 1: Possibly all we do with dev huh, Yeah, that's where givers.
Speaker 1: I'm a giver.
Speaker 3: I'm forgetting what movie you are from. Anyway, all right,
Speaker 3: we will see You'll be on tomorrow with crystals.
Speaker 1: Right I go. We will see you all later.