Speaker 1: Bushkin. This is solvable. I'm Jacob Weisberg. When you look
Speaker 1: at modern democracies across the globe, we rank oh eights
Speaker 1: at the bottom. Currently, we're about twenty six out of
Speaker 1: thirty two in terms of turnout levels. Voting in America
Speaker 1: is optional. In twenty sixteen, over eighty two million Americans
Speaker 1: of voting age did not vote. Each year, people fite
Speaker 1: a variety of reasons for choosing not to vote, But
Speaker 1: what about people who want to vote and can't. Homeless people,
Speaker 1: people who are transient and move around a great deal,
Speaker 1: people who may have been furloughed and lost their jobs
Speaker 1: and have been displaced. All of these people are American
Speaker 1: citizens who deserve the right to vote. There was a
Speaker 1: Supreme Court case the cut back on the protections of
Speaker 1: the Voting Rights Act. Are we feeling the effects of
Speaker 1: that now? Every single day? Voter suppression is an urgent problem.
Speaker 1: Between twenty fourteen and twenty sixteen, over sixteen million citizens
Speaker 1: were removed from state voter registration roles, and in twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen alone, nearly one million ballots cast were rejected. I
Speaker 1: don't understand why people aren't angrier. There's nothing more fundamental
Speaker 1: in a democracy than the right to vote. Marching for
Speaker 1: the streets is absolutely one powerful vehicle for a reform.
Speaker 1: The other way that you can achieve meaningful reform is
Speaker 1: that the ballot box. Voter suppression is solvable. Kristen Clark
Speaker 1: is the president and executive director of the National Lawyer's
Speaker 1: Committee for Civil Rights under Law. The committee was established
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty three at the request of President John F.
Speaker 1: Kennedy to target, in particular, the inequities confronting African Americans
Speaker 1: and other minorities. Clark sees the disenfranchisement of millions of
Speaker 1: American voters as central to her work. Here's our conversation.
Speaker 1: Voter suppression is solvable, and we can do it by
Speaker 1: restoring the Voting Rights Act and resisting efforts made to
Speaker 1: deny people access to vote by mail in the midst
Speaker 1: of the pandemic. You know, I think our listeners have
Speaker 1: at least some familiarity with the old voter suppression, the
Speaker 1: Jim Crow era poll taxes, literacy requirements, all those things
Speaker 1: that were supposed to be ended by the Voting Rights Act.
Speaker 1: But there's a new voter suppression that we're dealing with.
Speaker 1: How is it different from the old voter suppression. They're
Speaker 1: like cousins of the old tactics from the Jim Crow era.
Speaker 1: Long gone are the days of literacy tests and understanding clauses,
Speaker 1: and instead what we see today are equally nefarious efforts
Speaker 1: to make it harder for vulnerable communities to vote. Polling
Speaker 1: places consolidations, literally efforts to shut down the vast majority
Speaker 1: of polling sites in a community under the guise of
Speaker 1: wanting to save money or save expense, but in ways
Speaker 1: that we'll make it literally harder for people to vote.
Speaker 1: On election day, we see purging of the voter registration roles,
Speaker 1: and it'll be packaged as we're just cleaning up the roles.
Speaker 1: But often when you dig deep, what you find our
Speaker 1: efforts to remove African American and Latinos from the registration roles.
Speaker 1: People who are legitimately registered, who exercise that right and
Speaker 1: have every right to be there. So why do these
Speaker 1: kinds of procedural changes and rule change disproportionately affect Black,
Speaker 1: Latino and other minority voters. You know, our country has
Speaker 1: a long and sordid history of efforts to deny African
Speaker 1: Americans access to the franchise In nineteen sixty five on
Speaker 1: Bloody Sunday, when peaceful demonstrators, including John Lewis, were brutally
Speaker 1: assaulted while crossing the Edmund Pettit's Bridge in search of
Speaker 1: in the quest for the right to vote. Those horrible
Speaker 1: events gave rise to passage of the Voting Rights Act. Today,
Speaker 1: that racial history still looms heavy, and we continue to
Speaker 1: see states that have built into their DNA this desire,
Speaker 1: this unfortunate need to oppress people of color. African Americans
Speaker 1: and Latinos are growing in number in many parts of
Speaker 1: the country, and there is a correlation. We often find
Speaker 1: that it is in those very communities where white people
Speaker 1: seek to maintain and preserve the status quote seek to
Speaker 1: resist the change in demographic shifts that may be happening
Speaker 1: in their communities. So this ugly racial history is something
Speaker 1: that we have to confront, that we have to air
Speaker 1: out when we talk about voter suppression and when we
Speaker 1: talk about exactly why we need to restore the Voting
Speaker 1: Rights Act and have in place once again it's full protections.
Speaker 1: So the Voting Rights Act, past in nineteen sixty five,
Speaker 1: was supposed to prevent using those kinds of pretexts that
Speaker 1: have the effect of suppressing voting. There was a Supreme
Speaker 1: Court case, if I remember, maybe ten years ago, that
Speaker 1: cut back on the protections of the Voting Rights Act.
Speaker 1: Are we feeling the effects of that now every single day.
Speaker 1: That Supreme Court ruling Shelby County, Alabama versus Holder was
Speaker 1: issued in twenty thirteen and has literally opened up the
Speaker 1: floodgates to voter suppression efforts all across the country. Part
Speaker 1: of the Act required that certain states with very long
Speaker 1: and egregious histories of voting discrimination get federal review of
Speaker 1: any new voting change before it could be put into effect.
Speaker 1: And that federal review process was about looking to see
Speaker 1: if it's a voting change that would make it harder
Speaker 1: for African Americans, Latinos, or other protected communities of color
Speaker 1: to vote. And that Section five federal review process throughout
Speaker 1: the decades had done remarkable work in blocking literally hundreds
Speaker 1: of discriminatory voting changes from taking root, and it also
Speaker 1: had a powerful deterrent effect as well. The Supreme Courts
Speaker 1: its decision basically brought that federal review process to a
Speaker 1: grinding halt. I'll give you an example. On the day
Speaker 1: that the Supreme Court issued its Shelby County decision, the
Speaker 1: state of Texas moved forward with a discriminatory photoid law
Speaker 1: that had been blocked previously by this review process. It's
Speaker 1: a law that literally disenfranchised thousands of people who voted
Speaker 1: a year after year but simply didn't have one of
Speaker 1: the strict, narrow categories of photoid required by this law
Speaker 1: if you have a passport or a driver's license fine,
Speaker 1: a concealing carry permit fine. But under the initial iteration
Speaker 1: of the law, student ID didn't qualify. And the law
Speaker 1: also didn't think about the poorest of the poor in
Speaker 1: our country, people who don't fly, people who don't have
Speaker 1: driver's life since it is because they rely on public
Speaker 1: transportation and so forth. And so it's been a very
Speaker 1: messy picture since that Supreme Court ruling. That ruling one
Speaker 1: is one that absolutely has made it harder for people
Speaker 1: to have voice in our democracy. And because when you
Speaker 1: haven't been mentioned COVID nineteen yet, I mean, if in
Speaker 1: normal times you would be dealing with all these reverses
Speaker 1: to voting rights, and now we have voting is dangerous,
Speaker 1: potentially physically dangerous in a way no one would have expected.
Speaker 1: What's the Lawyer's Committee's approach to having a successful vote
Speaker 1: in November. Here's what we know, and here's what we're
Speaker 1: fighting for. States have to provide as many avenues as
Speaker 1: possible for people to have voice. They have to have
Speaker 1: a robust absence voting system that is streamlined and easy
Speaker 1: for people to participate in, one in which we're providing
Speaker 1: postage paid envelopes and easing the deadlines for people to
Speaker 1: request the ballot and return the ballot. That's key. We
Speaker 1: also need to provide expanded early voting opportunities, give people
Speaker 1: a period of two weeks to come out prior to
Speaker 1: election day to vote, and make that period one that
Speaker 1: is open and accessible so that people can comply with
Speaker 1: social distancing guidelines and so forth. But we have to
Speaker 1: also prepare for in person voting on election day, and
Speaker 1: what we've seen is that in some states where they
Speaker 1: reduced ninety five percent or more of polling sites, there
Speaker 1: have been really long lines because there are some people
Speaker 1: for whom the experience of turning out and voting in
Speaker 1: person is incredibly important to them. Wisconsin and Georgia have
Speaker 1: been two states where we've seen really significant problems this season. Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: particularly Milwaukee reduced upwards of about one hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: pulling sites to five, resulting in miserably long lines that
Speaker 1: stretched for hours on election day, and we saw a
Speaker 1: similar picture in Georgia. We're running out of time to
Speaker 1: get this right. But that three part strategy we deem
Speaker 1: really critical to a successful election season in the midst
Speaker 1: of this pandemic. So Kristen, let's break this solvable down
Speaker 1: a little bit. You mentioned these three aspects to it.
Speaker 1: First of all, you know, I think some people see
Speaker 1: mail in voting if you did it the right way
Speaker 1: as a kind of panaceist, send everyone who's registered a
Speaker 1: ballot within a prepaid envelope. You know. Absentee voting just
Speaker 1: has been a part of voting in our country for decades.
Speaker 1: It extends back to the eighteen hundreds, and it has
Speaker 1: been and done in ways where we've not seen fraud.
Speaker 1: So these baseless sham claims that we have seen put
Speaker 1: forth by the President are frankly very hard to understand
Speaker 1: given that he himself, his voted apps and Tee, his
Speaker 1: wife and daughter and many family members have voted apps
Speaker 1: and Tee, and you know, have made our work a
Speaker 1: little bit harder because there's some officials who are kind
Speaker 1: of heating his call and are throwing up unnecessary obstacles
Speaker 1: for voters. All the while, as we continue to wrestle
Speaker 1: with this pandemic that is continuing to have such a
Speaker 1: devastating impact on the public, why can't we just have
Speaker 1: mail voting for everybody? So in our experience, mail voting
Speaker 1: will not work for everybody. I'll give you an example.
Speaker 1: Utah when to one hundred percent vote by mail system
Speaker 1: a few years ago and didn't think about the unique
Speaker 1: needs of Navajo speaking voters in San Juan County, many
Speaker 1: of whom need oral language assistance in order to cast
Speaker 1: an effective ballot. San Juan County, we sued them and
Speaker 1: now they do provide in person voting opportunities for Navajo
Speaker 1: speaking voters and understand and appreciate that the law requires
Speaker 1: that they provide oral language assistance. We've also seen discrimination
Speaker 1: and voter suppression in some vote by mail systems, and
Speaker 1: this is an issue we're really paying close attention to. Now.
Speaker 1: I'll give you an example, an example from the twenty
Speaker 1: eighteen midterm election cycle in Georgia. We were monitoring what
Speaker 1: was happening across the state very carefully and found that
Speaker 1: Gwinette County was an outlier. They were rejecting absent see
Speaker 1: ballots that extraordin narrowly high rates. We went in and
Speaker 1: looked at the data and found that African American and
Speaker 1: Asian Americans were having their absence HEE ballots rejected at
Speaker 1: far greater rates than white voters. And we sued the
Speaker 1: county and found out that they were using things like
Speaker 1: this voter provided two digits of their birth year and
Speaker 1: not four digits. They were looking at minutia right. Really,
Speaker 1: and for all of those reasons, vote by mail may
Speaker 1: not work for everybody. There are some communities that just
Speaker 1: may not have faith and vote by mail and faith
Speaker 1: that their ballot will be counted, and so no matter what,
Speaker 1: they intend to go and vote in person on election
Speaker 1: day and feel more confident about showing up in person
Speaker 1: and voting. And then you also have homeless people and
Speaker 1: people who are transient and move around a great deal,
Speaker 1: particularly low income people, people who may have been furloughed
Speaker 1: and lost their jobs and have had to move around
Speaker 1: a lot and have been displaced. All of these people
Speaker 1: are American citizens who deserve the right to vote. But
Speaker 1: I point out those examples just to make clear that
Speaker 1: vote by mail may not work for everyone, which is
Speaker 1: why providing these three avenues is really critical to getting
Speaker 1: it right in twenty twenty. So tell me about early
Speaker 1: voting in person. That's the thing I know the least about.
Speaker 1: I've never done early in person voting. I'm not even
Speaker 1: sure if we have that in New York, where I live.
Speaker 1: How does it work? Yeah, Early voting opportunities sadly are
Speaker 1: not in place in every single state, but they are
Speaker 1: in many. It's another chance to go and vote, often
Speaker 1: at your local elections office or some designated site at
Speaker 1: periods of time before election day. It's helpful to people
Speaker 1: who may work on election day and may not have
Speaker 1: confidence that they can actually get off in time to vote.
Speaker 1: It's helpful for parents who may have childcare responsibilities that
Speaker 1: they can't maneuver around on election day, or people who
Speaker 1: just know that they may not be home or in
Speaker 1: their jurisdiction on election day. So it's just yet another
Speaker 1: avenue that gives people a chance to turn out and vote.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you that in places like North Carolina, early
Speaker 1: voting has become incredibly popular and heavily promoted by churches
Speaker 1: for example, that encourage sold to the polls, encouraging people
Speaker 1: to leave church on Sunday and go and early vote.
Speaker 1: So it is another way for people to have voice,
Speaker 1: and during the pandemic especially important because it's helping to
Speaker 1: ease that strain and burden that officials will otherwise experience
Speaker 1: on that one election day. How will we judge Kristin
Speaker 1: if we've had a successful election, or how will we
Speaker 1: judge how successful it's banned on November third? You know,
Speaker 1: sadly we saw voter turnout level drop in two sixteen,
Speaker 1: and in my view, we want a democracy in which
Speaker 1: we have high turnout, high participation rates, high numbers of
Speaker 1: eligible people who are registered to vote. To me, the
Speaker 1: measure of success is getting those numbers up and doing
Speaker 1: all that we can to help people overcome the unnecessary
Speaker 1: barriers that we often throw up that make it harder
Speaker 1: for people to vote. When you look at modern democracies
Speaker 1: across the globe, we rank always at the bottom. Currently
Speaker 1: we're about twenty six out of thirty two in terms
Speaker 1: of turnout levels, and that's because we don't have things
Speaker 1: like same day registration across the Board. We don't make
Speaker 1: election Day a holiday. We do things like purging the
Speaker 1: voter rolls, polling place consolidations of failing to account for
Speaker 1: the very real impact that the pandemic is having on
Speaker 1: people's lives. So if we can take steps now then
Speaker 1: get our numbers up across the board, that to be
Speaker 1: will be one measure of success. We run a program
Speaker 1: at the Lawyer's Committee called Election Protection. Election Protection is
Speaker 1: the nation's largest and longest running nonpartisan voter protection program.
Speaker 1: It came about in the wake of Bush fee Gore
Speaker 1: when the American public just started to pay a lot
Speaker 1: more attention to the way in which our elections are run,
Speaker 1: and we thought it was really critical that we provided
Speaker 1: a nonpartisan place where people can report issues, bring forth complaints.
Speaker 1: We hear from people and the hundreds of thousands who
Speaker 1: are reporting complaints happening all across the country by way
Speaker 1: of our eight sixty six our Vote Hotline, and we've
Speaker 1: got a network of thousands of trained legal volunteers who
Speaker 1: help resolve those issues one by one. But sometimes we
Speaker 1: learn about issues that are truly breaks in the systems
Speaker 1: that require litigation, and so it's been a busy season
Speaker 1: for us in twenty twenty, and we anticipate that it
Speaker 1: will remain busy until the bitter end. What can you
Speaker 1: do about that? At the Lawyer's committee. If someone says
Speaker 1: my polling place opened an hour late, it's an hour later.
Speaker 1: They can't go back in time. Do you is there
Speaker 1: some remedy for that? It's one of the most heartbreaking problems. Frankly.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we will go to court and we will sue
Speaker 1: to get an extension of the polling hours, as we
Speaker 1: did recently in Georgia. We saw an extension of the
Speaker 1: poll hours proved critical for voters in the Louisville area
Speaker 1: during their recent primary, where they had one polling site
Speaker 1: for an entire county and voters were driving up to
Speaker 1: that location trying desperately to get into the parking lot
Speaker 1: before six pm and ended up finding a door shut
Speaker 1: in their face. But a thirty minute extension was granted,
Speaker 1: allowing those people the opportunity to vote. So we will
Speaker 1: fight tooth and nail for voters and do all that
Speaker 1: we can to make sure that if and when states
Speaker 1: get it wrong on the front end, that they're giving
Speaker 1: people that extra opportunity on the back end to come
Speaker 1: back out. The frustrating part is knowing that there's some
Speaker 1: people who only have one shot on election day. That
Speaker 1: person who may have paid bus fare to get to
Speaker 1: a polling site and won't have bus fare to come
Speaker 1: back again later in the day. That parent who may
Speaker 1: have arranged childcare to go vote and just won't be
Speaker 1: able to do it again later in the day. That
Speaker 1: person who talked to their boss think got time away
Speaker 1: from work to go vote, who won't be able to
Speaker 1: get that time off again. That part kills me. But
Speaker 1: we still do everything in our power to make sure
Speaker 1: that we let officials know we're watching and we expect
Speaker 1: them to get it right, and that we're prepared to
Speaker 1: go to court to get people that extra time, to
Speaker 1: see what we can do to level the playing field. Kaysen,
Speaker 1: you're a lawyer. You keep a pretty cool head about this,
Speaker 1: But I don't understand why people aren't angrier. There's nothing
Speaker 1: more fundamental in a democracy than the right to vote.
Speaker 1: There are people actively and openly trying to take that
Speaker 1: vote away from people. I'm worried we're going to have
Speaker 1: a tremendous wave of anger on November third and after
Speaker 1: as a result of people being disenfranchised in all the
Speaker 1: ways we've talked about, but we need the anger now.
Speaker 1: We need the anger now for sure. One place where
Speaker 1: we are seeing anger is in the streets. I am
Speaker 1: heartened by the ways in which we're seeing people embrace
Speaker 1: the Black Lives Matter movement and really taking to the
Speaker 1: streets to channel anger about police injustice and racial injustice
Speaker 1: in our country. My hope is that in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: we will see people channel that anger as well to
Speaker 1: the ballot box, and that this will result in the
Speaker 1: higher turnout levels that we deserve. My hope is that
Speaker 1: for the people who are very incensed and enraged about
Speaker 1: police violence perpetrated against unarmed African Americans in our country
Speaker 1: will realize that marching for the streets is absolutely one
Speaker 1: powerful vehicle for reform. But the other way that you
Speaker 1: can achieve meaningful reform is at the ballot box. Your
Speaker 1: mayor is often the one who has the prerogative in
Speaker 1: the right to put in place a police chief. Your
Speaker 1: elected district attorney is the one who makes decisions about
Speaker 1: whether or not to prosecute an officer who used violence,
Speaker 1: so use force without basis your sheriff, a position that
Speaker 1: very few people pay attention to is often an elected
Speaker 1: person who makes decisions about how the jails are run,
Speaker 1: how they're responding to the pandemic. So with some aggressive
Speaker 1: voter education work, I am hoping that a lot of
Speaker 1: the angst that we are seeing in response to the
Speaker 1: deaths of George Floyd and Brianna Taylor and Rachiard Brooks
Speaker 1: and so many others will be energy that we see
Speaker 1: propel people to the ballot box this fall. Chris, and
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you what brought you personally to
Speaker 1: the issue of voting rights and voter suppression. I know
Speaker 1: you've had a long career in civil rights law, and
Speaker 1: you worked in the New York State Attorney General's Office
Speaker 1: as head of the Civil Rights Division, But why is
Speaker 1: this your issue personally? So I started off my career
Speaker 1: at the Justice Department. It was my first job out
Speaker 1: of law school, working in the voting section of the
Speaker 1: Civil Rights Division, doing voting rights cases in the Deep South.
Speaker 1: And I can remember being in Louisiana, just outside Baton Rouge,
Speaker 1: and I was monitoring a school board election. Black voters
Speaker 1: had called the Justice Department to express concern about potential
Speaker 1: voter suppression and I remember stepping out side the polling
Speaker 1: site at this local school and seeing all of these
Speaker 1: cars doing a U turn and not coming to the
Speaker 1: polling place. And it was because a cop had set
Speaker 1: up a speed trap feet from the school. And this
Speaker 1: speed trap was absolutely having its intended effect of discouraging
Speaker 1: black voters from going and voting. And you know, I
Speaker 1: was able to use my power and position as a
Speaker 1: Justice Department attorney to call the local law enforcement office
Speaker 1: and they got that copper move. But remember thinking, my goodness,
Speaker 1: if voters didn't call us, if we didn't respond, if
Speaker 1: we weren't there, how many people would have been blocked
Speaker 1: from voting that day. So, you know, doing this work
Speaker 1: throughout the years and just seeing the Shenanigans, seeing the
Speaker 1: nefarious attempts, seeing these Jim Crow type tactics constantly rearing
Speaker 1: their head, just makes clear the work is important. And indeed,
Speaker 1: elections in our country come down to razor thin margins.
Speaker 1: You know, our elections are often hotly contested and every
Speaker 1: vote matters. And I'm a civil rights lawyer through and through,
Speaker 1: but I'm a voting rights lawyer at my heart, and
Speaker 1: there's sadly has never been a dull moment in the
Speaker 1: two decades during which I've been doing this work. What
Speaker 1: are a few things that listeners can do if they're
Speaker 1: concerned about having a fair and successful election in their
Speaker 1: local communities, and if they're concerned, as we all should be,
Speaker 1: about having a fair and successful election throughout the country.
Speaker 1: So a few things. One, Now is the time to
Speaker 1: get registered if you're not already, or to just confirm
Speaker 1: your voter registration status. Sadly, you know there are states
Speaker 1: that will move people on to the inactive list and
Speaker 1: you may not find out. So regardless of whether or
Speaker 1: not you think you're registered, now it's the time to
Speaker 1: just get registered or to check on your voter registration status.
Speaker 1: The second thing is we need more conversation to promote
Speaker 1: voter education in our communities and across the country. So
Speaker 1: open up conversations with folks. You may go to school
Speaker 1: with folks, you may go to church with folks, at
Speaker 1: home with family members about voting and why it's important.
Speaker 1: And it's about far more than just what's at the
Speaker 1: top of the ballot. It's about far more than just
Speaker 1: the presidential seat. It's about connecting the right to vote
Speaker 1: up to the issues that you care about that animate
Speaker 1: your life, whether again it's criminal justice, fairhousing, abortion, understanding
Speaker 1: and appiating how the right to vote links up with
Speaker 1: issues that impact your day to day life. Are the
Speaker 1: kinds of conversations that we need more of. The third
Speaker 1: thing is make a plan, Make a plan now to vote.
Speaker 1: There's still primaries happening, there's still special elections that will
Speaker 1: happen between now and November, and then there's big general
Speaker 1: election on November third. But now's the time to figure out, Okay,
Speaker 1: what are the rules for voting absentee in my state?
Speaker 1: If that's the way I want to vote? What's the
Speaker 1: deadline for requesting an absen see ballot? If that's what
Speaker 1: I got to do, what's the deadline for returning it?
Speaker 1: When can I early vote? What are the hours for
Speaker 1: voting on election day itself? Where's my polling place going
Speaker 1: to be? What's going to be on the ballot? Are
Speaker 1: there a bunch of local races, state races along with
Speaker 1: the congressional seats? Are there ballot initiatives that I should
Speaker 1: read up on now so that I can understand them
Speaker 1: and be ready on election day? What about my grandmother
Speaker 1: who needs a ride to the polls. Now, it's the
Speaker 1: time to really think through all of those questions and
Speaker 1: just make a plan so that you are ready on
Speaker 1: November third. And our election protection hotline our eight six
Speaker 1: six our vote Hotline is one place that people can
Speaker 1: turn to if they need help with those kinds of questions.
Speaker 1: We need to get this right in twenty twenty. This
Speaker 1: is an election season like none other, and it's one
Speaker 1: in which we have to provide maximum opportunities and ways
Speaker 1: for people to have voice in our election. Kristin Clark,
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us today. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for having me. That was Kristin Clark, President and Executive
Speaker 1: Director of the National Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights under Law.
Speaker 1: Remember to check out our show notes for links to
Speaker 1: the suggestions our guests make for ways that you can
Speaker 1: get involved. Solvable is brought to you by Pushkin Industries.
Speaker 1: Our show is produced by Camille Baptista, Senior producer Jocelyn Frank.
Speaker 1: Catherine Girardou is our managing and producer, and our executive
Speaker 1: producer is Mia Lobell. Special thanks to Heather Fane, Eric Sandler,
Speaker 1: Carly Migliori and Kedija Holland. I'm Jacob Weisberg,