Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds. And our f K Junior's son leaked
Speaker 1: a video showing Donald Trump talking to his dad saying
Speaker 1: that he would appoint him to his administration. In case
Speaker 1: you're wondering why our of K Junior is worrying for President,
Speaker 1: he is running to help Donald J.
Speaker 2: Trump.
Speaker 1: We have such a great show for you today. We
Speaker 1: brought in the big guns. Yale professor Jason Stanley stops
Speaker 1: by to talk to us about the parallels between creeping
Speaker 1: bapcism in Europe and the United States. But we keep
Speaker 1: it light, don't worry. Then we'll talk to strict scrutinies
Speaker 1: Kate Shaw about the damage done by the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: this term. But first we have Atlantic columnist George Conway.
Speaker 1: Welcome back, too, Fast Politics, my friend, George Conway.
Speaker 3: Hello back, I'm two thousand.
Speaker 4: Yes, and yet we'd like more of you.
Speaker 1: George Conway. I'm sorry to tell you well, you know,
Speaker 1: not fair, I know, but so let's get going here
Speaker 1: on the world's luckiest politician, especially legally, Can you explain
Speaker 1: to me what happened yesterday with Judge a lean cannon
Speaker 1: because that is it seemed inevitable.
Speaker 4: But still, wow, it.
Speaker 3: Did seem inevitable. And I sort of We had.
Speaker 5: This lawyer who wrote an amicus brief for a group
Speaker 5: of lawyers pointing out that the argument that Trump was
Speaker 5: making about the question about the appointment of the special prosecutor,
Speaker 5: which is simply wrong. There's just no a challenge right
Speaker 5: for any number of reasons. And I remember joking to him,
Speaker 5: the lawyer who was actually going to go up and argue,
Speaker 5: which was very unusual for a district court to do,
Speaker 5: to have an amicus cury, I argue before a district court.
Speaker 5: I said, make sure you concede the motion, lose the motion?
Speaker 5: Wait why, because that way it would be something to
Speaker 5: take up to the Eleventh Circuit. See the judge that
Speaker 5: nothing was ever gonna happen. Okay, she was clearly playing
Speaker 5: for time and for whatever reason, motivated to help him.
Speaker 5: And I hate to say that, I hate to question
Speaker 5: initial motives, but in that case, I really really do
Speaker 5: question her motives. I question confidence as well. But you know,
Speaker 5: she basically if you look back at everything she's done,
Speaker 5: she's strung out the clock, and now she dismisses the
Speaker 5: case since it's going to take months for it to
Speaker 5: get back to her, if it ever does. And basically
Speaker 5: she feels like, Okay, I did my job, which was
Speaker 5: the basically protect him from this case, and that's all
Speaker 5: she ever seemed to do by slowing it down by
Speaker 5: I mean, you look at the Menendez trial. That case
Speaker 5: was brought I don't know how much longer, way after
Speaker 5: the Marlago search for away, after the indictment of Trump.
Speaker 4: I think it's almost done. Yeah, it's in front.
Speaker 5: Of the jury right now. Charge as I understand it,
Speaker 5: and that you know, it's actually quite a very similar
Speaker 5: case in the following sense. You know, the FBI went
Speaker 5: to the guy's house and found all this stuff gold bar,
Speaker 5: the FBI went to Bump's house and found the stolen
Speaker 5: classified documents. I mean, it's a simple case. It's almost
Speaker 5: like a drug bus case. I mean, maybe maybe Menendez
Speaker 5: has a defense that you know, his wife was taking
Speaker 5: all this stuff and he didn't know about it, but
Speaker 5: I don't know. I mean, we'll see, we'll see how
Speaker 5: that comes out. But the point is that they got
Speaker 5: that case to try a really fast and that's the
Speaker 5: way it's supposed to work, and that's the way it
Speaker 5: should have worked here. But then, you know, what happened
Speaker 5: with her was in the summer of twenty It was
Speaker 5: twenty twenty two, for goodness sakes, right, you know, it
Speaker 5: was almost two years ago that the search warrant was
Speaker 5: executed at mar Alago, and they had engaged in two
Speaker 5: couple months of litigation about whether they could conduct an
Speaker 5: investigation because the District Court was infare with the investigation
Speaker 5: to the point where the Court of Appeals for the
Speaker 5: Eleventh Circuit had to reverse her twice. And you know,
Speaker 5: ever since then, she basically will hold motions and delay
Speaker 5: them and sit on them and then hold arguments on
Speaker 5: on motions on whether to hold motions. I mean, you know,
Speaker 5: she was just basically every procedural delay you could possibly
Speaker 5: imagine she used to help Trump. And I think it's
Speaker 5: partly there is some favoritism there, but there's also an
Speaker 5: incompetence there. I mean, that got to the point where
Speaker 5: I think The New York Times reported that the chief
Speaker 5: judge of the United States District Court for the Southern
Speaker 5: District of Flora, who is a Bush appointee, whose name
Speaker 5: was actually floated in I think two thousand and five
Speaker 5: or two thousand and six in it went in the
Speaker 5: run up to the choice that I think to replace
Speaker 5: Sandrade O'Connor at the seat that ultimately first was going
Speaker 5: to go to Roberts and then Ranquist died and then
Speaker 5: it ultimately went to Aledo. She was one of the
Speaker 5: names that had been floated for that list. She's a
Speaker 5: very good judge by all accounts. And the point about
Speaker 5: it is she tried to get this woman to procures herself,
Speaker 5: Judge Cannon to accuse herself, and then apparently another judge
Speaker 5: did that also because they just felt that she just
Speaker 5: wasn't handling it correctly. And it's amazing. You never ever
Speaker 5: hear that internal stuff happening in a court, and the
Speaker 5: fact that it happened to hear it, I mean, it
Speaker 5: just doesn't happen, first of all, and the fact that
Speaker 5: it here is just amazing. And the fact that it
Speaker 5: happened here and it got into the newspaper means it
Speaker 5: was just the talk of a courthouse. And that's you know,
Speaker 5: courthouse is our gossipy places. I'll tell you that right. Anyway,
Speaker 5: The point is I'm rambling on here. I mean, if
Speaker 5: we were television, we you know the thing as it
Speaker 5: should have been like for ten seconds now Now now I.
Speaker 4: Think people are interested in sort of the story behind it.
Speaker 5: I mean, she just just delayed this case and delayed
Speaker 5: this case and delayed this case. And the reason why
Speaker 5: I made that argument to that lawyer, say, mat me,
Speaker 5: the joke half joking really that we want to lose
Speaker 5: this motion was so that you could go up to
Speaker 5: the Eleventh Circuit. And the circuit's going to reverse again.
Speaker 5: I don't think there are certainly not. I mean they're not.
Speaker 5: I could go up to the Supreme Court. I don't
Speaker 5: think so. But if it does, I mean I've been
Speaker 5: wrong about the Supreme Court so far.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Are you shocked at how partisan the Supreme Court is?
Speaker 5: I'm going to be careful with motives, Okay. I think
Speaker 5: the Supreme Court decision in the immunity case is raw
Speaker 5: for a lot of different reasons. I do understand the
Speaker 5: need to protect the presidency to some extent from baseless prosecutions,
Speaker 5: but that's a whole other story. Anyway. The point about
Speaker 5: this is there's a rule and unwritten rule in the
Speaker 5: Eleventh Circuit which is the federal judicial circuit that includes Flora.
Speaker 5: That says basically that if a judge screws something up
Speaker 5: three times in the same direction, they reserve the right
Speaker 5: to take the case reverse it.
Speaker 4: So could they take the case and reverse it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're gonna this is going to go up.
Speaker 4: And what do you think will happen?
Speaker 5: The case was a dismissal and it's going to get reversed.
Speaker 5: I mean, there's a clear precedent that there's a statutory
Speaker 5: basis for the appointment, and there's no basis to conclude
Speaker 5: that the appointment is unconstitutional because this is an inferior officer.
Speaker 4: Do you think then the Supreme Court will step in
Speaker 4: and save him.
Speaker 5: I don't think so, not this one.
Speaker 4: Because it's so clear cut, or.
Speaker 5: It's just absolutely clear cut.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 5: The United States against Nixon implicitly upheld the very same
Speaker 5: kind of mechanism where and the statute Congress has written
Speaker 5: in statute that basically, the Attorney General has the power
Speaker 5: to appoint whoever to prosecute cases, and that's his producative
Speaker 5: and it's totally constitutional on the appointmance cause of the
Speaker 5: Constitution because the person being appointed there is an inferior officer.
Speaker 5: He reports to the Attorney General. He can be fire
Speaker 5: Attorney General. Office can be terminated by regulation of the
Speaker 5: by regulation issued by the Attorney General. He can be
Speaker 5: ordered to stand down. He's an inferior officer. And the
Speaker 5: only you know, under the constitution, the only officers that
Speaker 5: are required to be appointed by the President and confirmed
Speaker 5: by the Senate are so called the non inferior offices
Speaker 5: on principal officers, and those are basically cabinet members who
Speaker 5: directly report to the President. And that's that's just different.
Speaker 5: So there's just no issue here. But she got a
Speaker 5: role and it'll get reversed. But the point is that
Speaker 5: she's run out the clock right right, even a quick
Speaker 5: appeal on which I don't think is going to be
Speaker 5: warranted here for any reason. I mean, it's going to
Speaker 5: take it's going to take several months. So I don't
Speaker 5: see you this case. But this case wasn't going anywhere
Speaker 5: anyway because she had she had sufficiently delayed. I mean, basically,
Speaker 5: now I don't have to do any work on it.
Speaker 5: I can just kick it because now it's come back
Speaker 5: to me. If it ever comes back to me again,
Speaker 5: it'll be twenty twenty five, and either.
Speaker 3: Trump has won or he hasn't.
Speaker 5: Pears. So's that's what happened there, and it's very disappointing
Speaker 5: and very disturbing.
Speaker 1: The Trumps people are already talking about her as the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court justice.
Speaker 4: I'm sure you've seen this.
Speaker 5: She probably be the first appointment he'd make to the
Speaker 5: Eleventh Circuit Jesus.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's crazy.
Speaker 1: This feels like a very dark moment for a lot
Speaker 1: of Democrats, right, because I mean, just from my point
Speaker 1: of view, Vance is really a scary choice, right, it
Speaker 1: feels like a very dark We've had this terrible crushing
Speaker 1: Biden is old news cycle, then we had this really
Speaker 1: just kind of grim.
Speaker 5: The thing that you should be pleased about with Jade Vance.
Speaker 5: He's a total shameless opportunist, right, so explain he doesn't
Speaker 5: actually believe in any Yes, that is true. Might think
Speaker 5: we've estaffed back over the years, so you know, Trump
Speaker 5: isn't a true believe either in it from themselves. I mean,
Speaker 5: that's just cynically. You might actually be able to take
Speaker 5: some solows in there.
Speaker 1: But what I think is interesting about Vance is that
Speaker 1: I'm not convinced that he grows the electorate. Like as
Speaker 1: a woman, there's nothing about jd. Vance that appeals to me.
Speaker 3: I agree with that.
Speaker 5: I mean it was he was not the logical choice
Speaker 5: from a political standard.
Speaker 1: If you were gaming this out politically, who in your mind? See,
Speaker 1: I think like, had he pick Nikki Haley.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Haley would have been great for him. But of
Speaker 5: course Haley would have been great for the Republican Party,
Speaker 5: even though it might have issues with her. She would
Speaker 5: have won this election in the landslide, which is absolutely insane,
Speaker 5: Which shows you the Republican parties insane even after all
Speaker 5: that has happened, you know, five p. Thirty eight and
Speaker 5: you could take them for them for what they're worth.
Speaker 5: I mean basically says it's like fifty one percent chance
Speaker 5: of I forget who.
Speaker 4: Winning, right, but it's very tight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's all gonna be determined by turnout. And
Speaker 3: you know, but the point is that if Haley.
Speaker 5: Had been the nominee, it would have been loved in
Speaker 5: a five or ten point plot.
Speaker 4: Yes, but she's not.
Speaker 5: Oh no. But that's the point is that's that's how
Speaker 5: crazy the Republican Party is. I mean, they didn't you know,
Speaker 5: they had so many obvious choices that took to make
Speaker 5: and they had to go with this guy. Why it's
Speaker 5: just the same.
Speaker 1: Right, I mean, part of it is they just don't
Speaker 1: have a real Like what I was struck by when
Speaker 1: you listened to Vance and you I watched last night.
Speaker 4: I watched the whole thing. Thank you, I win for
Speaker 4: watching that whole thing.
Speaker 1: And what was interesting to me about that night was
Speaker 1: that it was the rhetoric was really toned down because
Speaker 1: you had a lot of really crazy people up there.
Speaker 1: You had Amber Rose, who's a she's an only fans,
Speaker 1: she's famous for having dated Kanye. She has a tattoo
Speaker 1: on her forehead. I thought I was seeing something. I
Speaker 1: was like, I wrote to a political friend and I
Speaker 1: was like, it looks like there's something on her forehead.
Speaker 4: It's a tattoo. Right.
Speaker 1: I always feel like face tattoos should be where we
Speaker 1: call it off. But I mean, like tattoo anywhere else
Speaker 1: but your face. Right, What I was.
Speaker 4: Struck by was the rhetoric was really toned down.
Speaker 1: But for them, if you tone down the rhetoric, there's
Speaker 1: nothing else, right, Like, there's no policy. So it's not
Speaker 1: like Amber Rose is up there talking about policy. She
Speaker 1: was like, I was a Democrat, now I'm a Republican.
Speaker 1: Republicans love people, we all love each other.
Speaker 5: But it's a cult. That's the nature of a personality cult.
Speaker 5: It's not a political party. It's personality cult. That's what
Speaker 5: it is essentially.
Speaker 1: But Jadie Vance is like he is a recent convert
Speaker 1: to the cult. And also it feels to me like
Speaker 1: and I don't quite understand this. He does seem so
Speaker 1: ambitious that he would invoke the twenty fifth Amendment on
Speaker 1: Trump if he could.
Speaker 5: He's an opportunity. It's sort of like Star Wars. We
Speaker 5: only end up with Sith Lord at a time because
Speaker 5: one ends up killing the other. Right, I wouldn't trust
Speaker 5: jd Vance as far as control, that's my take. But
Speaker 5: that's easier said than not. It's hard to get the
Speaker 5: emperor alone. I mean, look at how cowed the cabinet was.
Speaker 5: I mean, you'll talk about the twenties froth.
Speaker 1: A meenment, right, No, it's true. I mean, that's a
Speaker 1: really good point. The president has a lot of.
Speaker 5: Power, pa nearly a one who has such a committed
Speaker 5: or group of supporters who are completely insane. We saw
Speaker 5: that in twenty twenty one January. After January sixth, I mean,
Speaker 5: there should have been no question the guy was not
Speaker 5: in any condition to execute the office president of the
Speaker 5: United States, you know, And there were discussions on the
Speaker 5: cabinet members, but they were terrified to do it right
Speaker 5: and Pence within Pennsy would have had to go along.
Speaker 5: I wouldn't trust JD. Vance, but Trump has seen enough
Speaker 5: sycophanic behavior from the guy that he knows that he
Speaker 5: feels he can keep the guy under control. For Trump, weird,
Speaker 5: Pence was the better choice. He doesn't have that kind
Speaker 5: of ambition. He's ambitious enough to sacrifice his principles, as
Speaker 5: we've seen, but he does have some kind of war
Speaker 5: sense of right and wrong. He just gets confused about
Speaker 5: it from time to time. I don't think Vance has
Speaker 5: that core, since I think Vance is purely cynical in
Speaker 5: the way that how frankly appreciates.
Speaker 1: But what's interesting about if you look at the choice
Speaker 1: of Pence versus the choice of Vans, Pence was really,
Speaker 1: you know, he needed the evangelicals. Pence got him the evangelicals.
Speaker 1: Then Pence was so good at getting him the evangelicals
Speaker 1: that Trump didn't need Pence anymore.
Speaker 4: But when it comes to JD.
Speaker 3: Vans and say it's nothing.
Speaker 1: He doesn't grow the electorate. Like working class men love Trump.
Speaker 1: They're not going to love him more because of Jade Vance,
Speaker 1: are they. I mean, unless I'm missing something, No.
Speaker 5: He doesn't pull off the you know, he came into
Speaker 5: this into the media environment after writing that book Killbilly Elergy,
Speaker 5: but he's not really one of them, and for any
Speaker 5: number of reasons, and he doesn't have the same kind
Speaker 5: a pull. I think he's not going to have the
Speaker 5: same kind of magnetism to the core MAGA base that
Speaker 5: that Trump does. He turns off women, there's no question
Speaker 5: about that. I think. I don't think he's he's attracted
Speaker 5: candidate to a lot of women.
Speaker 4: I mean, not to me, But what do I know?
Speaker 5: Right, I got an earful from a lot of people
Speaker 5: yesterday about that. It's like they couldn't believe women. They
Speaker 5: couldn't believe like, well, I wouldn't have picked him. That's
Speaker 5: that's that's good.
Speaker 4: That's just good for them.
Speaker 5: Yeah, go on, there's a joke somebody made about you
Speaker 5: think people from Pennsylvania like people from Ohio.
Speaker 3: They don't rare.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, So I don't see what he ASTs Urubo.
Speaker 5: At least you you you know, you can lock down Florida.
Speaker 5: Florida probably will go Republican, but it's you. You never know.
Speaker 5: Florida's were logical choice with somebody else, But the best
Speaker 5: choice would have been a Nikki Haley, right, But he
Speaker 5: would never abide by that because he would never She's
Speaker 5: not sycophanic enough.
Speaker 1: Well, and also so she can't really exist in mega
Speaker 1: right because the misogyny is the point.
Speaker 5: And there's also racism. And we remember one of the
Speaker 5: things that Trump was quoted as saying, I forget who
Speaker 5: reported it, he said that Nicky Haley has a complexion problem.
Speaker 1: Right, And the people discovering that Vance's wife is not
Speaker 1: white are having that same conversation online right now in
Speaker 1: varying degrees of disgusting. So there you go, just a
Speaker 1: completely crazy you run on racism and then.
Speaker 5: Right you look at the headline on Drudge jduv called
Speaker 5: Trump voters idiots. Sounds kind of elitist to the.
Speaker 1: Actually, George Conway, we got some legal, we got some political.
Speaker 4: I still think that Joe Biden can do this.
Speaker 3: I did that.
Speaker 4: If you make this election about Donald Trump, Democrats can win.
Speaker 5: That's what I've been saying. I've been seeing it publicly
Speaker 5: or privately, but somebody's got to actually do that, and
Speaker 5: it's got happling. See it.
Speaker 1: Well, I hope it happens, and I hope that you
Speaker 1: are involved in it.
Speaker 4: George Conway. I hope you'll come back.
Speaker 3: I shall.
Speaker 1: Are you concerned about Project twenty twenty five and how
Speaker 1: awful Trump's second term could be and will be if
Speaker 1: he wins, Well, so are we, which is why we
Speaker 1: partnered with iHeart to make a limited series with the
Speaker 1: experts on what a disaster trump Ism would be for
Speaker 1: America's future. Right now, you can find the first episode
Speaker 1: by looking up Molly John Fast Project twenty twenty five
Speaker 1: on YouTube.
Speaker 4: If you're thinking you.
Speaker 1: Are more of a podcast person than a YouTube person,
Speaker 1: all you have to do is look it up on
Speaker 1: YouTube and hit play and then lock the screen and
Speaker 1: then you can listen to it as a podcast. New
Speaker 1: episodes are dropping in the next few weeks as well.
Speaker 1: We need to educate Americans on what Trump's second term
Speaker 1: would do to this country, on what would happen in
Speaker 1: Trump's second term and what it would do to this
Speaker 1: Please watch and help US spread the word. Jason Stanley
Speaker 1: is a professor at Yale as well as the author
Speaker 1: of a racing history. Welcome back to Fast Politics. My friend,
Speaker 1: and you actually are my friend. We do hang out,
Speaker 1: which is amazing because I feel like I don't have
Speaker 1: any friends.
Speaker 2: Jason Stanley, Hi, Mollie.
Speaker 3: It's always wonderful to be in conversation with you, even
Speaker 3: or perhaps especially in these dramatic times.
Speaker 4: So you're a fancy Yale professor.
Speaker 1: So because you're a fancy Yale professor, you spent your
Speaker 1: summer doing what fancy Yale professors do, which is teaching
Speaker 1: and lecturing overseas.
Speaker 4: You've been in Ukraine, You've been in.
Speaker 3: Germany, Germany and Austria.
Speaker 4: So what's the mood.
Speaker 3: Well over there different moods in different places. In Ukraine, obviously,
Speaker 3: the mood is grim. I was in Ukraine teaching in
Speaker 3: August twenty twenty three at the very beginning stages of
Speaker 3: the so called counter Offend, and the mood then was positive.
Speaker 3: It's turned very grim. Obviously. The US elections bear directly
Speaker 3: on that. The Ukrainians know what happens if the US
Speaker 3: gives up on them. They know that their democracy doesn't
Speaker 3: just come to an end. But if anyone has seen
Speaker 3: pictures of what Russia does to the cities it invades,
Speaker 3: it absolutely levels them. So Ukrainians know that they can
Speaker 3: expect that if the US withdraws aid and they can
Speaker 3: expect an emboldened Russia that will have much more international
Speaker 3: power if they managed to win this war. So that
Speaker 3: was Ukraine. I expect that's going to be a topic
Speaker 3: of much more discussion now that Trump has selected JD.
Speaker 3: Vance as his vice presidential running mink vance and is,
Speaker 3: like many of these far right politicians worldwide, is partial
Speaker 3: to Putin. So that's the Ukraine part of the story.
Speaker 3: I mean, they're waiting.
Speaker 4: So Trump is also partial to Putin.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, so now you have two politicians. Vance in particular
Speaker 3: is just one of his signature issues is not caring
Speaker 3: about what happens to Ukraine. So Ukrainians are defending democracy.
Speaker 3: They're defending their democracy, and they're defending democracy worldwide. This
Speaker 3: is a very grim time for them.
Speaker 4: I just want you to expand on this.
Speaker 1: Russia rolling into Ukraine is not ultimately terrible for Ukraine.
Speaker 1: But one of the reasons why they're getting all the
Speaker 1: support is not because of Ukraine is so important to
Speaker 1: the world. Though they are, you know whatever, They're relevant
Speaker 1: and important. But part of the reason they're doing this
Speaker 1: is because it feels very clear to a lot of people.
Speaker 1: And I think I actually heard Joe Biden say this
Speaker 1: is that once Putin is able to take Ukraine, he
Speaker 1: will take Moldova, he will take these other smaller countries,
Speaker 1: and sooner or later he will roll into Poland. And
Speaker 1: that a lot of this is about stopping Putin's war
Speaker 1: of aggression before he gets to Europe.
Speaker 3: Well, so there's multiple things here. It's whether or not
Speaker 3: you think Putin will eventually threaten Poland, and he may
Speaker 3: very well. Putin is one of the central figures and
Speaker 3: funding and backing the attack on democracy worldwide. If US
Speaker 3: gives up on Ukraine, it puts Putin in an immensely
Speaker 3: powerful international position. It shows to autocrats all over the
Speaker 3: world that they will have a free hand, that the
Speaker 3: United States will not protect democracies. It sends a signal
Speaker 3: to China that they can do what they want with Taiwan.
Speaker 3: Whereas if Ukraine does win the war, it substantially weakens
Speaker 3: Putin's power and say on the international scene. So Essentially,
Speaker 3: it really is the way we have to see the
Speaker 3: world right now is as a fight between a unified
Speaker 3: anti democratic international as we saw in the late twenties
Speaker 3: and thirties, the fascist Internationale and forces that support that
Speaker 3: are trying to defend replacing leaders by elections right system,
Speaker 3: and Ukraine replaces leaders by elections. It's one of the
Speaker 3: few countries in that part of the world that does.
Speaker 3: Putin's Russia and Putin himself are the main supporters of
Speaker 3: attacking systems where you can replace leaders by elections, and
Speaker 3: so allowing Putin to shut down Ukraine's democracy and adding
Speaker 3: Ukraine to essentially his empire will not only, as you
Speaker 3: rightly point out, increase the military threat to Europe, but
Speaker 3: it means that the forces that want to end replacing
Speaker 3: leaders by elections will be massively empowered.
Speaker 1: One of the things that was very hardening is what
Speaker 1: happened in France. That was exactly what you're talking about,
Speaker 1: this pro democracy coalition getting together and defeating the far right.
Speaker 4: Can you explain that to us.
Speaker 3: Yes, So Europe faces many of the same forces that
Speaker 3: we do. I mean, really it's an international fight, and
Speaker 3: in my month in Europe that was very clear to me,
Speaker 3: and I just smoothly rolled into lectures, interviews, media discussions
Speaker 3: about far right anti democratic movements that are vilifying immigrants,
Speaker 3: that are vilifying LGBT, pushing for restrictions on abortion. There's
Speaker 3: a lot of very similar issues happening, which is no
Speaker 3: surprise given that we have an international anti democratic movement. Now,
Speaker 3: what we saw in France is it took people by
Speaker 3: surprise in a good way. Is we saw people who
Speaker 3: usually bicker with each other unifying. So what we have
Speaker 3: in the United States is we have we're seeing people
Speaker 3: who don't agree with each other unifying. On the right,
Speaker 3: we see LGBT billionaires like Peter Thiel supporting Christian nationalists.
Speaker 3: We see different forces lining up behind an an anti
Speaker 3: democratic movement. We need different forces who disagree with each
Speaker 3: other lining up to defend democracy. And that's what you
Speaker 3: saw in France, different left wing parties that usually bicker
Speaker 3: and argue with each other deciding to run as a coalition.
Speaker 3: So you had, in a shock, a really complete defeat.
Speaker 3: I mean the pen she ended up with a large
Speaker 3: amount of seats, but I mean it was a shock.
Speaker 3: I think they finished third out of the three major
Speaker 3: parties going into that election. Everyone was expecting the worst.
Speaker 3: You had, you know, usually divided left, unifying for democracy.
Speaker 3: And I just think it's a symbol for the world
Speaker 3: of what you need to do to beat autocracy in
Speaker 3: the UK, because.
Speaker 1: The thing is, I feel like there are so many
Speaker 1: narratives that inadvertently or or perhaps purposefully, I'd like to
Speaker 1: think it's Inaverton want to sort of try to sort
Speaker 1: of pump up the narrative that this fall to autocracy
Speaker 1: is inevitable. But the UK is a really good example
Speaker 1: of they really did reject you know, they rejected gb News,
Speaker 1: which was a news station started by Rupert Murdoch to
Speaker 1: try to sell them Brexit, and then they rejected this
Speaker 1: far right party too.
Speaker 3: Can you talk about the UK it's more complice because
Speaker 3: the Conservatives just destroyed the country and take an enormous
Speaker 3: amount of reality denial to look at the UKA and
Speaker 3: not just see that the Conservatives just utterly destroyed the
Speaker 3: UK and so fourteen years of rule and it's just like,
Speaker 3: you know, it's just on along so many dimensions. The
Speaker 3: country was so weakened, the NHL, National Health Service, the
Speaker 3: so many aspects of what makes the UK distinctive flourishing
Speaker 3: were just severely damaged by the long Conservative rule. It
Speaker 3: was just self evident to so many people that the
Speaker 3: cultural politics of the Conservatives were hiding a really nefarious
Speaker 3: economic agenda that was terrible for Britain. So I think,
Speaker 3: when you know we see this in the United States,
Speaker 3: when you know we saw it, say under Bush, when
Speaker 3: to some extent we saw it in Trump's first turn,
Speaker 3: and not to some extent we saw it. Republicans come in,
Speaker 3: they pass an enormous tax cut for corporations and billionaires
Speaker 3: while telling the working class that they're for them, and
Speaker 3: then the economy, the US spirals massively into some crushing
Speaker 3: economic crisis, and then the Democrats come in and have
Speaker 3: to clean things up. So that's what we saw with Biden.
Speaker 3: We had multiple crises. Under the Trump's first term, we
Speaker 3: had this enormous tax cut that just you know, exponentially
Speaker 3: increased our deficit, and Biden came in and did things
Speaker 3: for the working class, and the US economy is thriving
Speaker 3: and flourishing. So I think that's really what happened in
Speaker 3: the UK, that the cultural politics of the Conservatives just
Speaker 3: people finally realized, Okay, this is ruining our country. But
Speaker 3: I think a country we can look to is Poland.
Speaker 4: Yes, can you talk about that?
Speaker 3: Yes? I think the two figures you need to look
Speaker 3: at in the world as sort of central figures in
Speaker 3: the attack on democracy are Puten and Victor o Abaun,
Speaker 3: and Victor Arbau is doing it within Europe. Of course,
Speaker 3: Victorn recently went to Moscow and then went to visit
Speaker 3: Trump in Florida. So Poland, the Peace the Law and
Speaker 3: Justice Party took up Victor Baund's politics in Poland. When
Speaker 3: they won, they replaced the courts. So there's now sort
Speaker 3: of a standard mechanism. You replace the courts by justices
Speaker 3: that are loyal to the party, to the League and
Speaker 3: Poland or Bond died that. Poland did that. You find
Speaker 3: judges who are pretty explicitly in the pocket of the
Speaker 3: anti democratic party, and you strong arm your way through
Speaker 3: the justice system to replace more impartial justices by those justices.
Speaker 3: That's the first and most important stage. Peace did that,
Speaker 3: or Bond did that long ago. Then you use the
Speaker 3: courts to target the media, to target your political opponents,
Speaker 3: to target business people, to target businesses that your friends desire,
Speaker 3: so you've can force help them to your friends. So
Speaker 3: or Buck perfected that, and Poland just took up that strategy.
Speaker 3: We can see from Orbond's frequent visits to the Heritage
Speaker 3: Foundation and tomorrow Lago that they're really taking advice from
Speaker 3: him about how to do this. So've already done it.
Speaker 3: They've already done it to a large extent. But the second,
Speaker 3: if Trump wins, will see a much more complete destruction
Speaker 3: of the rule of law and the replacement of the
Speaker 3: rule of law by the rule of Trump and the courts.
Speaker 3: So in Poland, what happened is that Pea's lost, which
Speaker 3: one had predicted, because Peace had controlled the media, Peace
Speaker 3: controlled the courts, and Law and Justice is still a
Speaker 3: very powerful party in Poland. But they lost due to
Speaker 3: to a unified anti autocratic, anti authoritarian political movement. The
Speaker 3: people who objected to what was happening to Poland, who
Speaker 3: didn't want to see Poland become another Hungary, lined up
Speaker 3: together and defeated the authoritarian party. Now, of course, we
Speaker 3: still have the justices in Poland, the legal judges in
Speaker 3: Poland that are essentially in the pockets of the Law
Speaker 3: and Justice Party. We still have the damage that so
Speaker 3: many years of rule of essentially a kind of one
Speaker 3: party state did, but by unifying against them, they defeated them.
Speaker 3: That is really hopeful. And it's not like the case
Speaker 3: of UK where if you're still voting on make Britain
Speaker 3: Great Again, you're really just not seeing the complete dismantling
Speaker 3: of your country.
Speaker 4: I'm curious if.
Speaker 1: You could explain sort of what is appealing to American voters.
Speaker 4: I understand that Trump has.
Speaker 1: This message, but like very rich people are very very
Speaker 1: rich people, like the richest people in the world, all
Speaker 1: want Trump and it can't just be for the tax cut.
Speaker 1: There has to be something else that is driving this.
Speaker 3: Right or now, Yes, there is something else driving this,
Speaker 3: as you know, but let's begin with the pragmatic issues
Speaker 3: that you've just raised. It's not just the tax cuts.
Speaker 3: It's the complete destruction of the regulatory apparatus of government
Speaker 3: that is prom and so you can basically pollute the SKA.
Speaker 3: You can see what's happened by the justices he's appointed
Speaker 3: in the Supreme Court. You can dismantle the regulatory power,
Speaker 3: the power of the regulatory agencies, giving massive power to
Speaker 3: those who want to pollute the skies, exploit their labor,
Speaker 3: labor forces you're just giving you you know, you're bringing
Speaker 3: America back to the early twentieth century. So that just
Speaker 3: helps corporations who don't want to have to deal with
Speaker 3: environmental issues. I mean, we have to remember, before there
Speaker 3: was an EPA, before there was serious environmental regulatory structure,
Speaker 3: you know, our cities were a lot filthier and more
Speaker 3: polluted than they are now. So we can expect to
Speaker 3: go back to that, and that's in the interests of
Speaker 3: all the businessmen who want to enrich themselves at the
Speaker 3: cost of our country. So there's those practical elements. Then
Speaker 3: the second part, which is a mixture of practical and personal,
Speaker 3: is that the billionaire class often thinks this happened with
Speaker 3: Putin as well, often thinks that, oh, well, if we
Speaker 3: get ourselves in with the autocrat, then it will help
Speaker 3: us because he's going to have his favorites. So that's
Speaker 3: what you're seeing.
Speaker 5: Now a lot.
Speaker 3: You know, like, Okay, if we line up behind him,
Speaker 3: he's going to bend the government to our favor and
Speaker 3: that's right. Trump will pick people he likes, but you
Speaker 3: know it's going to be on very chaotic and arbitrary grounds.
Speaker 3: You're kissing his ass now will be fairly arbitrarily related
Speaker 3: to whether or not he chooses to use the quarts
Speaker 3: to punish you, to enrich other people he might be
Speaker 3: interested in enriching. It's just all about currying favor with him.
Speaker 3: But what we've seen from the past is that, and
Speaker 3: even the recent past, is that the oligarchs think, oh, well,
Speaker 3: you know, I can make him my friend and that
Speaker 3: will benefit me over this system we have where it's
Speaker 3: all pretty fair. Free market capitalism not fair. But and
Speaker 3: then the final thing is this machismo. A lot of business.
Speaker 3: You know, I won't mention any names here. A lot
Speaker 3: of super powerful, wealthy people don't think democratically. Hitler was
Speaker 3: very aware of this. There's a speech he gave to
Speaker 3: the industrialists who He's like, you don't think democratically. You
Speaker 3: think you're the boss. You shouldn't want a political system
Speaker 3: where everyone thinks democratically. You should want a political system
Speaker 3: where there's a boss and everyone else. And that's what's
Speaker 3: going on now. A lot of the oligarchs, they just
Speaker 3: are horrified or disgusted by the fact that Joe Schmoe
Speaker 3: and New Jersey can vote to raise their taxes. You know,
Speaker 3: they think of themselves as people who did it all themselves,
Speaker 3: and it's a winners and losers world, and winners should
Speaker 3: get everything. And so that is the ideology Trump presents.
Speaker 1: Right, and I guess that's very appealing to wealthy people,
Speaker 1: though it's insane, and we've seen before that what it
Speaker 1: will do ultimately is, you know, having a fed controlled
Speaker 1: by a leader will ultimately kill the economy. Jason, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining us. I hope you'll come back.
Speaker 3: Thank you, of course, anytime.
Speaker 1: Molly Kate Shaw is a law professor at University of Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: co host of the podcast Strict Scrutiny, and an ABC
Speaker 1: legal analyst.
Speaker 4: Welcome back to Fast Politics, Kate Shaw.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me, Molly.
Speaker 1: I'm so happy to have you because I think of
Speaker 1: you as one of those people who makes the law
Speaker 1: accessible to me. And when we say accessible, it always
Speaker 1: sounds like, you know, that we're sort of saying the
Speaker 1: prison is a little bit stupid, which may or may
Speaker 1: not be true about me, But it's more that we're
Speaker 1: right now, we're watching the Supreme Court do things with
Speaker 1: the law that none of us could have anticipated, and
Speaker 1: so the more we talk about it, I feel like,
Speaker 1: the better it is for all.
Speaker 4: Of us just to understand what the hell is going on.
Speaker 4: So my first question, this is like a long way
Speaker 4: of leading up to this, but my first.
Speaker 1: Question is sort of we had these two seismics, blockbuster decisions,
Speaker 1: one that gave the executive more power immunity, right, Nixon,
Speaker 1: Whatever the president does is fine, because what are crimes anyway?
Speaker 1: And then the other one, which is this, you know,
Speaker 1: this sort of trying to dismantle the administrative state with Chevron.
Speaker 1: I would love you to talk about them, but also
Speaker 1: about sort of what you think is going on there.
Speaker 6: Sure, I totally agree with that basic observation, which is
Speaker 6: that the law is kind of inaccessible and opaque, and
Speaker 6: a lot of the time I think that's by design.
Speaker 2: I think the.
Speaker 6: Justices shroud the institution in secrecy quite deliberately, and they say, well,
Speaker 6: our work product is transparent, anyone can read it, but
Speaker 6: they do not write in an accessible fashion, and so
Speaker 6: I do think a lot of translation is required. You know.
Speaker 6: In some ways, I think the immunity decision was more
Speaker 6: direct and straightforward in that it really did say without
Speaker 6: saying the sentence you said, Molly, right, if the president
Speaker 6: does it that means it's not illegal, which is of
Speaker 6: course the famous Nixon comment and his interview with Robert Frost.
Speaker 6: That's basically what the decision says, that much of what
Speaker 6: the president does while president can never be subject to
Speaker 6: criminal consequences even after the president leaves office. And that's
Speaker 6: just not something we've ever had as a principle in
Speaker 6: our law. In fact, everything in our constitutional tradition runs
Speaker 6: exactly in the opposite direction. I mean to go back
Speaker 6: to Nixon for a minute. You know, when Nixon left office,
Speaker 6: the understanding was that he was very vulnerable to criminal
Speaker 6: charge and trial and conviction, and the reason that his successor,
Speaker 6: Gerald Ford, pardoned him was to spare him and the
Speaker 6: country from the process of a criminal trial. And the
Speaker 6: pardon itself that Ford wrote basically said, Nixon has already
Speaker 6: suffered this grave indignity of having to leave the office
Speaker 6: in disgrace, and that's pretty serious punishment. And for that reason,
Speaker 6: I'm going to grant him a pardon. But the pardon
Speaker 6: would never have been necessary if Nixon couldn't be prosecuted anyway.
Speaker 6: And essentially that's what this immunity decision involving Donald try
Speaker 6: Trump says the president, when he does things as president,
Speaker 6: can never be criminally prosecuted, even if the things he
Speaker 6: does as president violate the law.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 6: So that's I think the core holding of that opinion,
Speaker 6: and I think it's a wildly dangerous one, and I
Speaker 6: think it's it would be dangerous under any circumstances. It
Speaker 6: is especially dangerous in that it's been issued at a
Speaker 6: moment when obviously the front runner for the presidency right now,
Speaker 6: Donald Trump, has pledged to exact retribution upon his enemies
Speaker 6: and to engage in all manner of other activities, some
Speaker 6: of which might violate law. But it turns out under
Speaker 6: this opinion, he himself will not face any possibility of
Speaker 6: criminal liability, even for violating clear statutory law. So that's
Speaker 6: decision one that I think was a real earthquake on
Speaker 6: the very last day of the term.
Speaker 1: I would like to pause and just say, for the
Speaker 1: two of us, you know, you're married to someone who's
Speaker 1: on cable news. You're on cable news. I'm on cable news.
Speaker 1: There is it certainly a feeling. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you feel this way, but I certainly feel like Trump
Speaker 1: has already said that he's going to exact retribution on
Speaker 1: you know, whether it's Maggie or it's Joe, or it's
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, we are in the crosshairs here.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, I think he's been really clear that
Speaker 6: the people that he' views as his enemies, and that's
Speaker 6: some members of the kind of professional democratic classorate, actual
Speaker 6: politicians that Biden family, people like that, but also the press,
Speaker 6: Like he has said very clearly that on his enemies
Speaker 6: list are members of the press.
Speaker 2: And you know, in addition to.
Speaker 6: What's in the opinion about just kind of general criminal immunity,
Speaker 6: there's a long discussion of the basically sacricinct relationship between
Speaker 6: the president and the Department of Justice, and the suggestion
Speaker 6: is that the president can tell the Department of Justice
Speaker 6: to do anything he wants and that no court can
Speaker 6: second guess that, and that in some ways is as
Speaker 6: chilling to me as the holding about immune because there
Speaker 6: has always been an understanding in democratic and Republican administrations
Speaker 6: alike that there is a degree of separation between the
Speaker 6: political actors in the White House and right around the
Speaker 6: president and the prosecutors in the Department of Justice, and
Speaker 6: there has been this kind of insurgent component of the
Speaker 6: conservative legal movement that for decades has basically said that
Speaker 6: the president actually needs to have more control over the
Speaker 6: entire apparatus of government, maybe most importantly the Department of Justice.
Speaker 6: But the traditions of the DOJ have been very opposed
Speaker 6: to that. I mean, the reason that Trump got such
Speaker 6: pushback in DJ when he tried to weaponize the department
Speaker 6: to help him in his post election efforts is because
Speaker 6: those norms are so internalized by DOJ officials that no,
Speaker 6: you don't just do the political bidding of the president,
Speaker 6: because there is a degree of independence at the department
Speaker 6: basically since it's post Civil war, founding has been understood
Speaker 6: to possess. And the opinion says basically that none of
Speaker 6: that is constituted required and maybe it's even constitutionally problematic
Speaker 6: for the DJ to exercise independent So that suggests, you know,
Speaker 6: the president would be immune from going after adversaries, but
Speaker 6: also that he has the constitutional authority to tell DOJ
Speaker 6: to do whatever he wants it to do. And I mean,
Speaker 6: I think it's actually really important to try to push
Speaker 6: back on that opinion in that age, just because the
Speaker 6: court says it that's just one actor, and you know,
Speaker 6: individuals inside the Department of Justice can decide the court
Speaker 6: is incorrect and its assessment of the proper relationship between
Speaker 6: the Department of Justice and the president. But also I
Speaker 6: think it's possible to read the opinion as saying, well,
Speaker 6: the President can never face consequences for telling DJ what
Speaker 6: to do, you know, even if it's for you know,
Speaker 6: corrupt motives or self serving motives or things like that.
Speaker 6: But that does not mean that that DOJ attorneys don't
Speaker 6: have their own legal obligations. And if there are statutes
Speaker 6: that require them to act based on their best view
Speaker 6: of the law and not what the president's sort of
Speaker 6: whim suggests they should do, and constitutionalms and obligations, that
Speaker 6: DOJ attorneys still have those. So I actually think there's
Speaker 6: that that's a really important part of the opinion, like
Speaker 6: what it says, and I think it says quite dangerous
Speaker 6: things about that relationship. But it doesn't totally end, in
Speaker 6: my mind, at least, the practice, the long settle practice
Speaker 6: of the DOJ understanding itself to have a degree of
Speaker 6: independence and autonomy from the president.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, and it is really just unbelievably scary
Speaker 1: and also weird. I mean, not to put too fine
Speaker 1: a point on it, there is a feeling I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people are having right now, which is
Speaker 1: that the Supreme Court and the billionaire class are pretty
Speaker 1: committed to trying to make Donald Trump president and they
Speaker 1: will do anything. I'm a little bit in despair about it.
Speaker 1: I don't know how you feel. Tell me something that
Speaker 1: will make me feel less depressed about this.
Speaker 6: Well, that's usually my role on the podcast that I
Speaker 6: co host, Like I think dispositionally inclined to optimism and
Speaker 6: like ascribing good faith to most early least a lot
Speaker 6: of actors. And I too feel like pretty despairing at
Speaker 6: the moment. I mean, I think despair is not an option,
Speaker 6: like we have to keep at it because there's no alternative.
Speaker 6: But I think it is very very difficult. I mean,
Speaker 6: I think that, and that's part of the reason I'm
Speaker 6: actually coming back to DOJ because I too feel that
Speaker 6: I have very little faith that if it comes down
Speaker 6: to one or two outcome determinative states in the presidential election,
Speaker 6: and there's some litigation that ends up at the Supreme Court,
Speaker 6: the notion that the Court will simply act in good
Speaker 6: faith and decide what the law requires it seems so naive.
Speaker 2: To even like entertain that possibility.
Speaker 6: So it does feel to me as though if it's
Speaker 6: close and the court is going to make some decisive determination,
Speaker 6: things will obviously break in favor of Donald Trump. It's
Speaker 6: very hard for me to see if there's a remotely
Speaker 6: plausible legal argument, and good lawyers can always make them.
Speaker 6: And so this is I guess a place to maybe
Speaker 6: like locate a little bit of hope if there is
Speaker 6: any I mean one lawyers will have a lot of
Speaker 6: power here to decide whether to cooperate in advancing a
Speaker 6: set of legal arguments that are specious but maybe could
Speaker 6: be made to look plausible that could help Trump win
Speaker 6: in one or two states that could tip the balance,
Speaker 6: or they could decide not to. I mean, I do
Speaker 6: think you saw many, many, not all, but many law
Speaker 6: firms and practicing lawyers essentially turn away from assisting in
Speaker 6: the post election efforts to contest Joe Biden's victory in
Speaker 6: twenty twenty, and so, like you know, the kind of
Speaker 6: legal culture and legal norms and norms in the world
Speaker 6: of law that discourage and maybe meet out professional consequences
Speaker 6: to individuals who assist an effort to thwart the Democratic will. Like,
Speaker 6: I think that's one possible like lever that could matter,
Speaker 6: And I do think another one is you know, the
Speaker 6: levers inside government, and that presupposes that Trump wins. But
Speaker 6: I do think that in terms of, you know, staunching
Speaker 6: some of the worst potential consequences of a Trump victory,
Speaker 6: there will be actors inside the federal agencies that will
Speaker 6: be in a position to actually push back in meaningful ways.
Speaker 6: Although I do think the Supreme Court made it much harder.
Speaker 6: But that's already like at a pretty big bleak place.
Speaker 6: I'm saying, like, here are some things that can be
Speaker 6: done to mitigate the awfulness of a second Trump administration.
Speaker 6: But I think that it would again be naive not
Speaker 6: to be thinking about that. Maybe the last thing I'll
Speaker 6: say is like, if there's a very decisive win for
Speaker 6: the Democratic candidate that cannot be undone.
Speaker 4: Then maybe we get to keep American.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so it's organizing and its politics. I mean, the
Speaker 6: law in the courts I don't think are the place
Speaker 6: to locate your hopes right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so funny because it's like we were told
Speaker 1: Mahler would save us. I mean, I'd say this as
Speaker 1: just a journalist and on the opinion side, no less.
Speaker 1: But we were told that the courts were going to
Speaker 1: save us. We were told that Maler was going to
Speaker 1: save us. We were told that this guy who's done
Speaker 1: a million different crimes is going to be held responsible.
Speaker 1: And in fact, it falls again to the voters. The
Speaker 1: thing I found the most dispiriting, now that we're just
Speaker 1: talking about my mental health here was, you know, very
Speaker 1: rich people who who I know who are just just
Speaker 1: want the tax cut, and they don't care about the
Speaker 1: end of American democracy. And one of the things I'm
Speaker 1: struck by is the trump Ism is not just about
Speaker 1: cutting taxes for the wealthy. I mean, that's sort of
Speaker 1: the more of the Mitt Romney school. This is really
Speaker 1: about like radically changing the way America works.
Speaker 6: It feels to me so shortsighted, even as a matter
Speaker 6: of like personal, you know, financial interest for the very
Speaker 6: wealthy class, in that a lot of what the Trump
Speaker 6: administration would a second Trump administration would entail the kind
Speaker 6: of deregulation.
Speaker 2: And this ties back to the Supreme Court.
Speaker 6: So these other major decisions, including the one that overruled Chevron,
Speaker 6: but a handful of others that are a little bit
Speaker 6: more under the radar, have I think ensured that if
Speaker 6: a president comes into office who wants the federal government
Speaker 6: to not only work to advance, you know, like the
Speaker 6: fight against climate change, but essentially to give carte blanche
Speaker 6: to industry to act as aggressively, you know, as they
Speaker 6: want to maximize profits and you know, accelerate the destruction
Speaker 6: of the planet, they'll be able to do that, right
Speaker 6: and at a certain point, like a wildly unstable climate
Speaker 6: isn't a favorable business environment.
Speaker 4: And so I mean, and maybe it's.
Speaker 6: A time horizon issue, but I just think that climate
Speaker 6: disaster is going to be wildly expensive, and of course
Speaker 6: it will fall in wildly disproportionate ways on the individuals
Speaker 6: with the fewest resources, but it won't be good for anyone.
Speaker 6: And so I actually do think that I'm not sure,
Speaker 6: I'm not the person to make the case, but it
Speaker 6: does feel to me like there are very strong cases
Speaker 6: to be made that are like the business cases against authoritarianism.
Speaker 6: I'm not sure if the individuals who are just thinking
Speaker 6: about the very short term, you know, tax benefits that
Speaker 6: a Trump administration might confer on them would be open
Speaker 6: to that.
Speaker 2: But if they think even like a half.
Speaker 6: Generation or a generation out about kids and grandkids and like.
Speaker 2: The imperative of a habitable planet.
Speaker 6: Even if democracy as a concept feels abstracted, people like
Speaker 6: if it's a people motivated by their kind of bottom
Speaker 6: line and sort of pocketbook interest, like it feels as
Speaker 6: though there too, just climate alone should be enough to
Speaker 6: at least get people pause about what a second Trump
Speaker 6: administration would mean.
Speaker 4: It's so insane.
Speaker 1: You know, we're in this really important window where you know,
Speaker 1: we have about five years before we get into like
Speaker 1: I mean, I think we're already probably past that, but
Speaker 1: for climate, we're in a really delicate spot. I was
Speaker 1: wondering if you could talk a little bit about what
Speaker 1: sort of you're seeing right now. So the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: is done with this insane semester, do you think you
Speaker 1: could talk for a minute about what it would look like.
Speaker 1: Just come with me to fantasy land. Democrats hold the Senate,
Speaker 1: they win the House, and they win the presidency. We
Speaker 1: have the Supreme Court that's radically remaking our country. What
Speaker 1: would be the least disruptive way to get this Supreme
Speaker 1: Court to look a little more like the country.
Speaker 6: This is, I like residing in this kind of fantasy
Speaker 6: landns me too. But I think you're right that, like,
Speaker 6: you know, even if somehow the Democrats have an incredible election,
Speaker 6: there is still this quite radical Supreme Court that, without
Speaker 6: any kind of reform, stands in the way of meaningful
Speaker 6: policy that the voters, you know, in this scenario would
Speaker 6: have chosen, because any new legislation, certainly any new regulation
Speaker 6: promulgated by an agency under a democratic administration, would run
Speaker 6: into the buzzsaw of this Supreme Court that wants government
Speaker 6: to do as little as possible at least, you know,
Speaker 6: when it comes to matters involving like the general health
Speaker 6: and welfare redistribution, you know, those sorts of things, like
Speaker 6: they're they're fine with certain kinds of aggressive government action
Speaker 6: like a big, you know, tax cut for example. I
Speaker 6: can't imagine them entertaining a serious challenge to But that's
Speaker 6: legislation too. It's just they're very hostile to some kinds
Speaker 6: of legislation. So I think one would be you just
Speaker 6: add you know, some more seats to the Supreme Court,
Speaker 6: and it's not I don't think you know, you add
Speaker 6: you know, another add another five seats to the Supreme Court, right,
Speaker 6: like actually increase the size to keep pace with the
Speaker 6: size of the country and to keep pace with the
Speaker 6: size of other supreme courts, and you know, kind of
Speaker 6: relative terms, our Supreme Court is actually really small. So
Speaker 6: you could do that, and you could do it, you know,
Speaker 6: you'd have to get rid of the filibuster. I presume
Speaker 6: I don't know if your scenario was like sixty Democratic senators.
Speaker 4: It's fantasy land, so we can do whatever we want.
Speaker 6: But assuming that the fantasy there is just like I
Speaker 6: don't even know if the math is possible. It's like,
Speaker 6: I guess it's possible, but say you're under sixty but
Speaker 6: over fifty Democratic senators. Yeah, I mean, I think to
Speaker 6: do anything, not just on the Supreme Court, but you know,
Speaker 6: most things, you need to either totally jettison or really
Speaker 6: restrict the availability of the filibuster. And then you could
Speaker 6: just buy statute add some seats to the Supreme Court
Speaker 6: and fill them with justices who are not going to
Speaker 6: be this wildly hostile to anything a democratic administration might
Speaker 6: want to do. And again I'm saying democratic administration because
Speaker 6: I think that's also what's so hard. If you are
Speaker 6: inclined to kind of look in good faith at these
Speaker 6: justices in some ways, like the tension between the two
Speaker 6: big cases that you mentioned and some of their very
Speaker 6: different treatment of you know, say, arguments by the Republican
Speaker 6: presidential front runner for immunity and arguments that the democratic
Speaker 6: president and his agencies get to just like make policy.
Speaker 6: They are just so deeply hostile to anything that the
Speaker 6: Biden administration has done, whether we're talking about COVID policies,
Speaker 6: whether we're talking about student loan forgiveness. You know, they
Speaker 6: have struck down again and again relatively routine agency action
Speaker 6: if the agency happens to be part of a democratic administration,
Speaker 6: and they have just been wildly receptive to even the
Speaker 6: most outlandish arguments offered by former President Trump, including obviously
Speaker 6: in the immunity case, but also in the case regarding disqualification. Right,
Speaker 6: that's earlier this term. So it's almost like feels like
Speaker 6: AI history.
Speaker 1: Can you talk about that where they quickly put him
Speaker 1: right back on the ball after a few days.
Speaker 4: Talk about that, because that's so interesting time.
Speaker 6: That was a case where the State of Colorado tried
Speaker 6: to invoke this provision of the Fourteenth Amendment that disqualifies
Speaker 6: individuals who had been in public office and then engage
Speaker 6: in insurrection from holding future public office. And you know,
Speaker 6: this was an argument that had gained some traction in
Speaker 6: academic work and you know, op ed pages and things
Speaker 6: like that, and the voters of Colorado actually decided to
Speaker 6: try to invoke this provision to keep Trump off the
Speaker 6: Colorado primary ballot. And the Colorado courts actually took a
Speaker 6: good look at the Constitution and assessed the events leading
Speaker 6: up to and on January sixth, and said, yeah, what
Speaker 6: the constitution is. This part of the Constitution is designed
Speaker 6: to address exactly the scenario, which is someone who has
Speaker 6: engaged in insurrection and is trying to come back to
Speaker 6: public office and he is constitutionally Trump is constitutionally ineligible
Speaker 6: to run for office. And so they kept him off
Speaker 6: the ballot, and the Supreme Court, in you know, lightning speed,
Speaker 6: basically within a couple of weeks, took the case up
Speaker 6: and ruled against what the Colorado Supreme Court had concluded
Speaker 6: and held that Trump had to be back on the ballot.
Speaker 6: And honestly, if you survey academics, law professors, people who
Speaker 6: really do read and teach the Constitution for a living,
Speaker 6: there's almost no one who will defend the substance of
Speaker 6: the courtse analysis in that case, even if some people say, like, yeah,
Speaker 6: it was actually reasonable for the Court to say, it
Speaker 6: would be so destabilizing for each date to decide for
Speaker 6: itself who is on the presidential about like, there is
Speaker 6: a pragmatic reason that it was dangerous for Colorado to
Speaker 6: do what it had done and to open the door
Speaker 6: to some states trying to keep Biden off and other
Speaker 6: states trying to keep Trump off. But what's so galling,
Speaker 6: and this is I think true about the Immunity case
Speaker 6: and the Colorado case, is this is a Supreme Court
Speaker 6: majority that has said to us again and again, courts
Speaker 6: are not supposed to worry about consequences. Courts are not
Speaker 6: supposed to worry about policy. Courts are supposed to read
Speaker 6: the words of the Constitution. And that is their job.
Speaker 6: That's the way they stay in their assigned institutional role.
Speaker 6: So when it comes to questions about like the Second
Speaker 6: Amendment and what it would mean for our country and
Speaker 6: our children and schools and mass shootings, what it would
Speaker 6: mean to read the Second Amendment in one way versus another,
Speaker 6: or what it would mean for people's liberty and equality
Speaker 6: to read the Constitution to protect or not to protect
Speaker 6: the ability to terminate a pregnancy. The Court in all
Speaker 6: those kinds of cases has said, it's not to us
Speaker 6: to think about consequences, like we read the words of
Speaker 6: the Constitution.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 6: But of course, when it comes to these efforts by
Speaker 6: former President Trump to get bailed out of these, you know,
Speaker 6: either of this disqualification in Colorado or this criminal prosecution
Speaker 6: in DC, all of a sudden, the court is perfectly
Speaker 6: willing to consider the consequences of adopting one reading of
Speaker 6: the Constitution versus another.
Speaker 2: And it is the inconsistency that I find so calling.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and they're hypocrites.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you, Kate Shaw, so interesting, really appreciate you.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 4: No moment secret. Jesse Cannon, my Jong Fast.
Speaker 3: I know I've told the story on here before of
Speaker 3: how long I've known Bob Benandez was corrupt, but it's
Speaker 3: nice to see the law is finally caught up to
Speaker 3: something I've known for almost two decades.
Speaker 1: And we don't want to be partisan here, though we are,
Speaker 1: but we do want to say corruption is bad.
Speaker 4: If you're on the left or the right.
Speaker 1: Gold bars should be in safes and not in the
Speaker 1: trunk of your car. Menande should resign, but then again,
Speaker 1: so should Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: And that is our moment of fuck array.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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Speaker 1: in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you
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Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.