Speaker 1: The Armstrong and Getty Show vice president who died. Yes,
Speaker 1: we're still on the air bound. So much for tuning in.
Speaker 1: I wish we could have done this together, and it's
Speaker 1: gotten a one more smoothly. But but I'm grateful we're
Speaker 1: able to connect virtually. Man, that is a long pause.
Speaker 1: Uh So we are lucky enough that not only is
Speaker 1: Lonnie Chin great to talk about every week with politics
Speaker 1: and all kinds of different stuff, but one of his
Speaker 1: areas of expertise is he's worked on a couple of
Speaker 1: presidential campaigns, and I want to know what he thinks
Speaker 1: of this one. Lonie Chen is with the Hoover Institution
Speaker 1: Stanford University. In fact, he heads up their public policy
Speaker 1: department there and joins us, Now, Lonnie, how are you, sir?
Speaker 1: Are we on yet? I don't. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you watched any or all of the Joe Biden town hall,
Speaker 1: But is his whole campaign is floundering as it seems?
Speaker 1: Or am I overstating it or what's your take on it? Well? Look,
Speaker 1: I mean I think it's tough. On the one hand, right,
Speaker 1: you can't break through at a campaign when you have
Speaker 1: a pandemic that's occupying everyone's attention. That having been said,
Speaker 1: you've got to get your you've got to get good
Speaker 1: swings in when you're at the plate, and these swings
Speaker 1: they're taking are like massive whish. Well, here's what here's
Speaker 1: what I don't get. I don't get with the Democrats ever,
Speaker 1: on the problem of audio visual because every creative person
Speaker 1: in America that there are people that make gazillions of
Speaker 1: dollars a year making motion pictures, who would volunteer their
Speaker 1: time to Democratic candidate to beat Trump. Why don't they
Speaker 1: hire one of them to get the microphone right for
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton or the camp or the lighting right for
Speaker 1: Joe Biden. Why don't they do that? Well, it's an
Speaker 1: amazing thing. I mean you you guys mentioned sort of
Speaker 1: presidential campaigns and how this usually works. I mean, it
Speaker 1: is generally the case that before you do an event
Speaker 1: involving the candidate like this, you you will have tested it.
Speaker 1: You will have made sure the candidate understands exactly when
Speaker 1: they're supposed to come out, what it's gonna look like.
Speaker 1: And yes, accidents do happen. I don't want to make
Speaker 1: it sound like everything perfect, but usually you've got the
Speaker 1: technology down and you've got an exact run of show.
Speaker 1: And the fact that this happened, I mean, it is
Speaker 1: either the case that Biden is just out of it
Speaker 1: or his campaign is committing malpractice one of those two things,
Speaker 1: and neither is good. Would it be reasonable to assume
Speaker 1: people were being screamed at at the end of that thing? Oh? Yes, unquestionably, unquestionably.
Speaker 1: I mean this is not the first town hall they've done,
Speaker 1: by the way, which has been you know, kind of
Speaker 1: kind of weird or had elements of it that that,
Speaker 1: you know, indicate that that was not well planned. Four.
Speaker 1: So this is not the first time it's happened. This
Speaker 1: was just probably the most extreme example of it. But
Speaker 1: we are in May of an election year. Uh, these
Speaker 1: guys need to get their act together pretty quickly because
Speaker 1: these are the kinds of unforestaers. I mean, if you're
Speaker 1: gonna beat an incumbent president, you need to be firing
Speaker 1: at all cylinders. I don't care how you know how
Speaker 1: much people think stuff does Trump Trump does is unpopular.
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, it's hard to beat
Speaker 1: an incumbent president, and these guys are not going to
Speaker 1: be able to do it with this. You know, two
Speaker 1: cents show they're running now well, especially if your argument
Speaker 1: is competence, steadfast leadership, preparedness, and the one thing you
Speaker 1: must avoid is the appearance of being dottering. I mean
Speaker 1: that was over four anyway, Lani Chen David and Diane
Speaker 1: Stephy research fellow whoever institution? Uh, Jack, do you have
Speaker 1: another politics question? Because I really want to get onto
Speaker 1: the civil liberties thing with lan He who is the
Speaker 1: director of Domestic Policies Studies that stands. This period is
Speaker 1: to me one of the real turning points in UM
Speaker 1: looking at executive power, specifically governor's executive power and as
Speaker 1: opposed to local control and UH and states of emergency
Speaker 1: and that sort of thing. What's what's your take briefly
Speaker 1: on what's happening. Yes, governors have a tremendous amount of power,
Speaker 1: and actually even more than that, you know, pretty much
Speaker 1: all of the authorities that are dealing with these public
Speaker 1: health matters, even the local county health authorities may have
Speaker 1: a tremendous amount of ability to essentially effectuate whatever policy
Speaker 1: they want. There's no real UH mechanism for appeal. There's
Speaker 1: no real mechanism for someone to come in and to
Speaker 1: check them. It is the expansion of executive power in
Speaker 1: a way that we haven't seen, I think in a
Speaker 1: long time. And we always knew that executive power was
Speaker 1: at its zenis was at its height when there is
Speaker 1: a state of emergency. There's a lot of research that
Speaker 1: shows that. But what we're seeing in places like California,
Speaker 1: in Michigan else Square, where people are are starting to
Speaker 1: get a little bit frustrated with these governors are doing,
Speaker 1: is that governors really are exercising a scope and amount
Speaker 1: of power that we've not seen recently. So there's good
Speaker 1: reason to be concerned about not just what that means
Speaker 1: for now, but what it means for going forward as
Speaker 1: we try and deal with the the after effects of
Speaker 1: the peak of this virus. Right, you mentioned civil liberties.
Speaker 1: One issue is how much authority are we going to
Speaker 1: give governors, for example, to track our movements, to track
Speaker 1: where we're going, who we've interacted with, what that looks like.
Speaker 1: These are very real and very important questions. Well, you're
Speaker 1: a lawyer, and lawyers often look at just you know,
Speaker 1: what's legal and what's not legal, but how about what
Speaker 1: you can pull off? I just wonder if you reach
Speaker 1: a point where people just say sorry, we ain't listening anymore.
Speaker 1: We just ain't gonna listen to you anymore. And then
Speaker 1: what are you doing? And you know, how far do
Speaker 1: you want to push so you don't end up at
Speaker 1: that breaking point? Well, that's a great question. I think
Speaker 1: we're getting pretty close to that in some parts of California,
Speaker 1: and certainly in some parts of California where it's pretty
Speaker 1: clear people you can maintain social distance because they've got uh,
Speaker 1: you know, just a lot more a lot more land
Speaker 1: than they do in a place like downtown San Francisco,
Speaker 1: let's say, for example, and they're saying, look, why should
Speaker 1: we abide by the same restrictions that everybody else is
Speaker 1: abided by? And in terms of how it gets enforced,
Speaker 1: the answer is, you know, will governors actually go to
Speaker 1: the extent of calling on state troopers or in California,
Speaker 1: the Highway patrol to enforce their dictates? And and are
Speaker 1: the how are the police going to feel about that?
Speaker 1: You know, I think it's an interesting question. We haven't
Speaker 1: gotten there yet, and I hope we don't, But it's
Speaker 1: an interesting question about how people react and respond when
Speaker 1: the state really uses its power to enforce what it wants.
Speaker 1: We have Elon Musk saying we're reopening the Tesla plant
Speaker 1: in the defiance of Alameda Counties. Dictates that we've received
Speaker 1: emails on he from multiple peace officers saying there is
Speaker 1: no way I'm going to kick kids off a player
Speaker 1: for instance, there say that we have no cases in
Speaker 1: this part of the country. Um, there's no risk I'm
Speaker 1: being called and told to bust. You know, fourteen year
Speaker 1: olds who are skateboarding not gonna do it. So that
Speaker 1: is a that's a pretty significant breakdown of authority. It
Speaker 1: is and and and we're but the problem is we're
Speaker 1: putting these peace officers, were putting these these people who
Speaker 1: are laying their lives on the line to protect us
Speaker 1: every day, we're putting them in an awful position. Lan
Speaker 1: he I'm afraid we've got to end there. I missed
Speaker 1: the time. Que We've got about fifteen seconds left with
Speaker 1: lan he Chen of the whoever institution, Stanford University. Hey,
Speaker 1: we sure appreciate the time as always great to do
Speaker 1: with the things. If this thing comes back strong in
Speaker 1: the fall and they try to clamp down again, I
Speaker 1: don't know if people are gonna listen and well, they've
Speaker 1: blown their credibility in a lot of cases. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: that's why you've got to be so careful with that.
Speaker 1: With the empower, are strong and