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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,

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Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of

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Speaker 1: today's best minds, and James Comer has finally admitted in

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Speaker 1: writing that the vibes based Biden impeachment hearings have been defeated.

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Speaker 1: We have such a great show for you today.

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Speaker 2: Lawyer ROBERTA. Kaplan and Imron Ahmed.

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Speaker 1: Who is the founder for Countering Digital Hate, talk to

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Speaker 1: us about their victory.

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Speaker 2: Over one Elon Musk in court.

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Speaker 1: Then we're joined by Slight Senior editor Dahlia Lithwick to

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Speaker 1: talk about the horrors of today's Supreme Court oral arguments

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Speaker 1: on miff thepristone. But first we have former Senator and

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Speaker 1: host of the Al Franken podcast.

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Speaker 2: The One, the Only Al Franken.

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Speaker 1: Welcome back, too Fast Politics, my friend Al Franklin.

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Speaker 3: Hi, Mollie. Hi.

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Speaker 2: There's a lot of depressing shit going on right now.

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Speaker 1: But they're like these little green shoots that are kind

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Speaker 1: of like spring A little bit. Go with me here, Okay,

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Speaker 1: So I'm thinking because you're like, what.

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Speaker 3: No, I'm excited. I'm excited for the green shoot.

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Speaker 2: I always try to be like a.

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Speaker 1: Little it's spring, right, I'm also very a very depressive person.

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Speaker 1: So always I'm trying to not completely unlike you, who

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Speaker 1: is happy and cheerful.

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Speaker 3: I think of you as a happy person.

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Speaker 1: Well, thank you, But I'm thinking about like Lisa Murkowski, right,

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Speaker 1: And last week she said something to the effect of

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Speaker 1: I'm not getting on this clown car. You know her,

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Speaker 1: you've served with her. I'm curious what your take on

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Speaker 1: that was.

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Speaker 3: Well, she's in Alaska. She I believe it was two

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Speaker 3: elections ago. She had to run, serve as an independent

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Speaker 3: anyway and write in and right and yeah, and she won.

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Speaker 3: And I think she realizes that she doesn't have to

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Speaker 3: be a Republican, she can be an independent. I don't

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Speaker 3: know who she'll cauc us with. It'd be great if

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Speaker 3: she caucus with the Democrats. But I see no problem

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Speaker 3: for her being an independent.

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Speaker 2: There are these states where it's just everything you.

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Speaker 1: Think about American politics is completely different. But so this

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Speaker 1: is what she said. She said, she's not voting for Trump,

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Speaker 1: and she very independent minded and I'm navigating my way

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Speaker 1: through some.

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Speaker 2: Interesting political times. Let's just leave it at that. And

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Speaker 2: she did not close the door to becoming an independent.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think she pays a price for that.

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Speaker 3: In Alaska, I think Alaskan's like independence. I think she'd

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Speaker 3: be fine doing that, And it really would be a

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Speaker 3: question who she caucuses, especially if this election we lose

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Speaker 3: a couple seats. I mean, you know, we could get

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Speaker 3: down the forty nine Democrats, and if she decides to

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Speaker 3: caucus with Democrats and we'd be back to fifty. And

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Speaker 3: if the president is still Biden and Vice President of Harrison,

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Speaker 3: we have the vote, and so it could mean all

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Speaker 3: the difference in the world. And who has a majority,

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Speaker 3: who's a majority leader.

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Speaker 2: I'm thinking about Angus King.

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Speaker 1: There are Republicans who have been like, no, this is

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Speaker 1: too insane for me. Not in the House, obviously, because

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Speaker 1: New Insane is the brand, but in the Senate.

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Speaker 3: Do you know the House much better than I do?

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Speaker 3: What the hell's going on there? Now? They're down the

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Speaker 3: one right, I mean, it's like it really is like

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Speaker 3: a very badly written political drama that it's down to

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Speaker 3: one now. It's crazy.

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Speaker 1: It's Alpha House without any likable characters. It's veep without

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Speaker 1: the sort of humor. So I would say what happened

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Speaker 1: here is that when McCarthy left, he had a five

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Speaker 1: seat majority. And again McCarthy knew what he was doing, right,

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Speaker 1: he pissed off a lot of Democrats, so he never

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Speaker 1: was going to have the votes if Republicans turned on him,

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Speaker 1: which was strategically stupid. And you know McCarthy, or at

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Speaker 1: least I assume you know McCarthy. I think of him

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Speaker 1: as a very stupid fellow.

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Speaker 3: I didn't think of him as a super bright guy,

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Speaker 3: but I didn't know well enough to think of him

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Speaker 3: that way.

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Speaker 2: He's no Louis Gohmert.

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Speaker 1: Oh, we should establish the floor, which is like a

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Speaker 1: Louis Gohmert or a Tommy Tuberville. That's the bottom.

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Speaker 3: He's not there. He's not there.

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Speaker 2: He's not there. Yeah, he's a little smarter than that.

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Speaker 1: But I would think So what I would say is

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Speaker 1: what happened was m Gates, first of all, had this

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Speaker 1: Gates eight that threw him out. M Gates had a

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Speaker 1: huge fundraising bump from that. So already, like throughout this

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Speaker 1: entire time, the House has been rewarded for bad, stupid

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Speaker 1: behavior with small dollar donors. So, I mean, I think

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Speaker 1: that's like an interesting motivator when you look at this

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Speaker 1: and they put in Mike Johnson, who was Trump's guy,

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Speaker 1: right because of the his work on the twenty twenty election.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, he had filed a brief right for the Supreme

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Speaker 3: Court to revisit the election.

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Speaker 1: It was the idea that you could just throw out

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Speaker 1: all your votes in your state if you wanted to.

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Speaker 2: Even this Supreme Court.

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Speaker 3: Was like too much, Please don't involve us in this, please.

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Speaker 1: Right, which is like, we're trying to destroy the EPA

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Speaker 1: and we want to take away women's reproductive rights.

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Speaker 2: But even this is too much for us.

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Speaker 1: So that crew then, so they put him in again.

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Speaker 1: Like I mean, I wonder always how much this has

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Speaker 1: to do with Trump? Right, Like everything Trump touches turns

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Speaker 1: to gold exactly, and I think the opposite. So Trump

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Speaker 1: puts him in, he decides to run not one, but

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Speaker 1: two impeachments, and the rest is history.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, how's biden impeachment going?

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Speaker 1: If vibes based, baby vibes based, it's always a bad sign.

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Speaker 1: I'm not a lawyer, but it's always a bad sign

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Speaker 1: when your witness is in jail.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, they have to keep him in jail so

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Speaker 3: he won't flee the country, right.

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Speaker 2: That's right from their defense.

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Speaker 3: In his defense I'm only in jail. I'm only in

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Speaker 3: jail because they're afraid out flee the country. I didn't

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Speaker 3: commit a crime, I contend, but I'm only in prison

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Speaker 3: so that I don't flee the country.

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Speaker 2: It's hard to argue with that, you know.

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Speaker 3: No, well, this is that guy. What's his name?

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Speaker 2: His name is Smirnoff, like the vodka.

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Speaker 3: I had a little key to that to remember that,

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Speaker 3: but I wasn't thinking vodka. Of course, it's Smearanov, not

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Speaker 3: like the Smearnov.

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Speaker 2: Smearnoff. It's the same, thank you. It's very one letter,

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Speaker 2: one letter. He's so mean, this producer we have.

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Speaker 1: But yes, I think we would have actually gotten in

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Speaker 1: a lot of trouble for calling him Smirnoff.

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Speaker 2: Whatever.

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Speaker 3: It'd be a smear, that's right.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the poor guy's already in jail, and I

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Speaker 1: would like to add that the FBI had sort of

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Speaker 1: flagged him as a very bad bet, you know, Like

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Speaker 1: remember the beginning of this was that Republicans were like,

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Speaker 1: we know, there's someone who has this dirt and the

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Speaker 1: head of the FBI sort of slow rolled it and

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Speaker 1: they got furious. And it turns out that was because

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Speaker 1: this guy they knew he was incredible. So I feel

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Speaker 1: like that's an amazing little bit of.

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Speaker 3: And I believe his name is Smirnov. I believe that anyway.

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Speaker 1: So the point is this guy, so now comer, has

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Speaker 1: this theory that he can refer this to the DOJ

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Speaker 1: and that for a criminal charge, and that somehow that

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Speaker 1: will make it seem like he hasn't completely fucked up.

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Speaker 2: And he actually sent a fundraising email.

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Speaker 3: He's referring to the now.

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Speaker 1: He's he's referring Biden and Hunter pot Hunter. He has

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Speaker 1: two things right, the tax thing and the gun thing,

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Speaker 1: and for both right. The gun thing was that he

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Speaker 1: put the gun in a trash thing behind a school

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Speaker 1: and he didn't get rid of it the right way.

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Speaker 3: That seems very irresponsible, very irresponsible. And where would you

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Speaker 3: put a gun by a school.

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Speaker 1: I'm not defending him, but the gun and the taxes

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Speaker 1: and both things he's had been charged for. I mean

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Speaker 1: there has been a lot of like the man has

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Speaker 1: really been charged more than he probably would have been

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Speaker 1: had he been.

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Speaker 2: Just a normal moron.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, if that's fair, that's how they get to Biden's

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Speaker 3: going after the sun. And also what's bad about about

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Speaker 3: him is that he's fifty four, so he minds minds

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Speaker 3: people that the president has a son at fifty four

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Speaker 3: years old.

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Speaker 2: Nobody looks good.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I don't want to get too stupid here,

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Speaker 1: but anyway, the point is, Comer actually sent a fundraising

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Speaker 1: email last day or two on this idea that he had.

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Speaker 1: He was going to refer these and this is like

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Speaker 1: what they think of as their off ramp to this impeachment,

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Speaker 1: is that they're going to do this and it's going

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Speaker 1: to look like they really did this, but they really

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Speaker 1: didn't do anything. And then they have the other impeachment

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Speaker 1: than my orc has impeachment, which actually, you know, it's

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Speaker 1: the first time in one hundred and sixty four years

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Speaker 1: that a cabinet member has been impeached. Again, it's like

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Speaker 1: they never read the rest of the Statute High Crimes

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Speaker 1: and Misdemeanors, right, So you can't just impeach them for

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Speaker 1: like you don't like the policy. Like that's not how

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Speaker 1: any of this works.

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Speaker 3: Did you read these articles of impeachment? I mean I didn't,

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Speaker 3: did you.

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Speaker 1: I mean they're written in I can't read crayon. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Look, Trump was very mad that he had

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Speaker 1: been impeached twice, and he figured at least one impeachment

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Speaker 1: would make.

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Speaker 2: Up for that.

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Speaker 3: Well, I got it, but I actually don't know what

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Speaker 3: the charges are. But they have to come up with something.

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Speaker 3: So what are they They carried out policy that they

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Speaker 3: didn't vote for or something like that to be something.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to look it up, or Jesse's going to

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Speaker 1: look it up if we are lucky.

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Speaker 3: You know what it is is that we had no

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Speaker 3: interest in looking it up because we know how bogus

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Speaker 3: it is. It may be one thing if there was Okay,

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Speaker 3: he's been impeach there must be something serious. Let's see. No,

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Speaker 3: we went this is bogus. I'm not going to look

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Speaker 3: it up.

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Speaker 2: I have it here. So let's see.

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Speaker 1: In preach for high crimes and mismeanors, okay, in violation

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Speaker 1: of his constitutional oath, engaged in a pattern of conduct

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Speaker 1: that is incompatible with his duties as Officer of the

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Speaker 1: United States.

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Speaker 2: As followers, okay.

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Speaker 1: Article one, he did not ensure the laws passed by

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Speaker 1: Congress and written into law for the Secure Fence Act

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Speaker 1: of two thousand and six, which requires a Secretary of

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Speaker 1: Homeland Security to maintain operational control over the entire international,

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Speaker 1: land and maritime borders of the United States. The term

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Speaker 1: operational control is defined as the prevention of all unlawful

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Speaker 1: entries into the United State. It's including entries by terrorists,

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Speaker 1: other unlawful aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and contraband.

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Speaker 3: They're basically saying people enter the country illegally and therefore

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Speaker 3: we impeach you.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And also it's a ballsy move in the fact

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Speaker 1: that it makes I think that's not how any of

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Speaker 1: this works. But yeah, so I think it'll go to

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Speaker 1: the Senate, and I think nothing will happen.

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Speaker 3: I actually do think that they will dispose of it

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Speaker 3: sort of instantly because the idea, the spectacle of a

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Speaker 3: trial there, I think would be a Shonda for Theonda

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Speaker 3: for everybody. I mean, see if you know you know, No,

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Speaker 3: I'm saying that the Senate is not going to want

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Speaker 3: to have this because it'll be a giant waste of

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Speaker 3: time and it'll also be embarrassing. I think actually having

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Speaker 3: this trial would be very embarrassing for the Republicans. So

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Speaker 3: I think both both Republicans and want to go like, well,

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Speaker 3: thank you very much, House, But no.

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Speaker 1: I think that's right. And I also think, you know,

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Speaker 1: they put themselves in this.

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Speaker 3: So how many weeks has it been to say Peachton.

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Speaker 1: They impeached him one nine, twenty twenty three, so he

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Speaker 1: introduced it.

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Speaker 2: A year ago, more than a little more than a

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Speaker 2: year ago.

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Speaker 1: They were very hot to impeach someone as soon as

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Speaker 1: they got to control the House, right, which is incredible,

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Speaker 1: but you know, everybody now the House is out for

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Speaker 1: two weeks, the Senators out for two weeks. Ukraine still

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Speaker 1: has no money. You know, they're on the battlefields running

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Speaker 1: out of munitions. I mean, there's still the question of

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Speaker 1: like the money for you know. It just it's really

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Speaker 1: been interesting to me because like one of the things

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Speaker 1: that I thought was kind of amazing was, you know,

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Speaker 1: you did have over Christmas break you had Chris Murphy

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Speaker 1: and you had Kirsten Cinema.

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Speaker 3: Blank for are you talking about the border?

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Speaker 1: The three of them negotiating a border bill, and they

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Speaker 1: sort of called Republicans bluff in an amazing way.

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Speaker 3: Yeah no, And then Trump said no, I want it

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Speaker 3: as an issue, and the Republicans backed off because dear

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Speaker 3: leader wants this as an issue, So we're not going

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Speaker 3: to pass something that actually does some good on from

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Speaker 3: their point of view, we're not going to pass this.

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Speaker 3: The question that I have is does this work for Trump?

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Speaker 3: Does this work as a border issue? And the answer

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Speaker 3: I think is kind of yes. I mean do Republicans

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Speaker 3: does his base do they remember that there was a

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Speaker 3: bill that addressed most of the issues. You know, Trump said, no,

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Speaker 3: I'm going to do a perfect bill.

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Speaker 2: Exactly, I'm going to find a perfect solution.

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Speaker 1: Like there are other things that coming out of the

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Speaker 1: House that have like worked for Democrats to I actually

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Speaker 1: think the impeachment ends up working for Democrats and the

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Speaker 1: kicking the camp because if the border is the biggest thing,

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Speaker 1: why did you reject this bill? Very conservative that's shut

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Speaker 1: down the border and you know has these deporting I mean,

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Speaker 1: it has all the Republican fever dream stuff and negotiated

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Speaker 1: by James Langford. But I think what's interesting about this

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Speaker 1: situation too is like the Republican Study Committee, eighty percent

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Speaker 1: of the Caucus, they are coming out with some of

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Speaker 1: the most bad shit.

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Speaker 2: You know, they're going to raise retirement.

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Speaker 1: Age, They're going to do all the things that voters hate, right,

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Speaker 1: They're going to rethink Obamacay. You know, it's just like

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Speaker 1: a laundry list of all this stupid shit.

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Speaker 3: You know, it's almost like they don't talk to each other.

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Speaker 3: It's almost like, don't do that because that's what they

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Speaker 3: accuse us of doing. Now we're going to do it

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Speaker 3: anyway because that's what we think should be done. And

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Speaker 3: you know, when you have a majority of one, it's chaos.

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Speaker 1: It also has been chaos this whole time too, so

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Speaker 1: it'll be interesting to see.

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Speaker 2: But I think what is You know, you.

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Speaker 1: Got k Granger stepping off appropriations a SAP right, Like

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Speaker 1: you have these people with these very powerful positions being like,

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Speaker 1: fuck it, it's not worth it. And then you have

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Speaker 1: people like from Wisconsin Mike Gallagher, who's like this sort

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Speaker 1: of like you know that was supposed to be this

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Speaker 1: generation's Paul Ryan and he's like, I'm out, man, I'm

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Speaker 1: going to go work for Peter TiAl a Palenteer. Actually

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Speaker 1: Peter Till is not I don't know that Peter Till

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Speaker 1: still owns palenter but you know that or still has

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Speaker 1: a controlling state. But but you know, he's like, I'm

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Speaker 1: out of here. I'm not even going to finish that

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Speaker 1: get d Yeah, like it's not worth it. Power is

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Speaker 1: not worth.

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Speaker 3: Well, it's just how much power is it really? And

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Speaker 3: it's just chaos and Johnson, I remember, I kept hearing

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Speaker 3: like he's one, he's done it as many times as

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Speaker 3: he can. He's defied the nutcases too many times. And

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Speaker 3: then he did it again, and this was supposed to

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Speaker 3: be the time that he'd be called on it and

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Speaker 3: they'd get rid of him again, like they got rid

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Speaker 3: of McCarthy. I don't know if there's an appetite for

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Speaker 3: that either.

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Speaker 1: Well, as they were leaving, Marjorie Taylor Green filed emotion

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Speaker 1: to vacate, which she called both a pink slip and

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Speaker 1: a warning, which I just say, like, the people who

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Speaker 1: cover Congress try to be, you know, the sort of

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Speaker 1: straight news people try.

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Speaker 2: To be right down the middle and not political in

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Speaker 2: a certain way.

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Speaker 1: And I saw I heard one congressional reporter like being like,

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Speaker 1: this person is a fucking moron.

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Speaker 2: You can't have a pink slip. That's a warning.

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Speaker 3: Well, it is what it is. Where it's going to

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Speaker 3: be two weeks of wondering what the hell she's thinking

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Speaker 3: and talking about, and when they get back, she'll try

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Speaker 3: to figure out what she's thinking. And taught that's how

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Speaker 3: I read it. She made her statement. That's a statement.

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Speaker 3: That's what it is, right, and she's going to either

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Speaker 3: have to pull the trigger or not. And the thing is

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Speaker 3: is that McCarthy accepted that one member can pull the trigger. Right.

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Speaker 2: It's so stupid, I mean, just an impossible way to work.

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Speaker 3: But I think it's been that way before, but they

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Speaker 3: haven't done it. And now this group becides it's something

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Speaker 3: I can do. There's more than a few nutcases, so

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Speaker 3: at any point that one nutcase decides to do it,

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Speaker 3: they'll do it. So it's in her court and we

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Speaker 3: have to wait two weeks to see what she does.

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Speaker 2: Oh, Frankin, thank you.

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Speaker 3: Well. I hope we solve something.

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Speaker 2: ROBERTA.

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Speaker 1: Kaplan is a lawyer who represented Eating Carroll in her

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Speaker 1: case against Donald Trump, as well as arguing United States

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Speaker 1: versus windsor Imron Ahmed is the founder of Countering Digital Hate.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Fast Politics.

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Speaker 4: Hi, I'm am Ron Ahmed. I'm chief executive ASCENTI for

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Speaker 4: Countering Digital Height Great.

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Speaker 5: And I'm ROBERTA. Otherwise known as Robbie Kaplan, and I'm

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Speaker 5: a lawyer and to partner at Kaplin HECKERD Thing.

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Speaker 1: Yes, you guys are coming on today to talk about

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Speaker 1: a very interesting case. So want who wants to sort

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Speaker 1: of set the stage on maybe Iran? You wanted to

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Speaker 1: sort of paint the picture of what happened here.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, So my organization studies the dynamics by which hate

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Speaker 4: and disinformation, the lies that underpin hate spread online. When

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Speaker 4: Elon must took over X, he made it clear to

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Speaker 4: people that he was putting up the bas signal for racist,

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Speaker 4: for homophobes and misogynists to come back to the platform.

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Speaker 4: He actually unbanned tens of thousands of people who've been

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Speaker 4: banned previously, he reinstating their accounts. He made it clear

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Speaker 4: that he wasn't going to enforce the rules, and we

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Speaker 4: wanted to know what does that effect does that have

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Speaker 4: on a platform, So we did a study looking at

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Speaker 4: how many times racial swear words like the N word

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Speaker 4: were being used on the platform in the week after

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Speaker 4: he took over compared to the before he took over,

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Speaker 4: and we found, for example, that anti black swear words

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Speaker 4: went up two hundred and two percent, so they trip number.

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Speaker 4: We found that anti gay, anti women, anti Jew, anti

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Speaker 4: Lslim words went up substantially. When we published a report

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Speaker 4: on it. It ended up on the front page of

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Speaker 4: The New York Times. A bunch of advertisers Elon Musk

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Speaker 4: claims Reddit and then wrote to him saying, we're pulling

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Speaker 4: our advertising because of this article, and he subsequently sued us.

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Speaker 4: We argue that we were just putting up a mirror

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Speaker 4: to his platform and that if you don't like the

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Speaker 4: image and a mirror, go for a have a shave.

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Speaker 4: But he decided to sue the mirror and that.

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Speaker 1: Is where Robbie comes in. Robbie, will you explain to

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Speaker 1: us what happened next?

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Speaker 5: Yeah. So it was a really kind of interesting lead

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Speaker 5: up to the actual file complaint and it was very revealing. Basically,

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Speaker 5: the first thing they did is they had one lawyer

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Speaker 5: I've basically threatened us with a pseudo defamation claim. He

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Speaker 5: said that he was going to be a came under

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Speaker 5: the Lanermac, which has to be with Pulse Advertising. We

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Speaker 5: wrote back and said, forget it, that's ridiculous, no client,

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Speaker 5: go for it. Then another lawyer showed up and this

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Speaker 5: ended up being very important to the judge's ultimate decision.

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Speaker 5: The other brings a complaint that has nothing to do

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Speaker 5: with defamation. It alleged to his technical contrad violations and

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Speaker 5: statutory violations having to deal with how CCdh got these tweets,

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Speaker 5: which were public tweets on Twitter, there was any secret information,

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Speaker 5: and why that ended up being so important to the judge,

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Speaker 5: And he said, look, if you had a defamation claim,

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Speaker 5: that would be one thing, But you're studiously avoiding saying

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Speaker 5: that there was anything inaccurate and what ccdch reported. So

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Speaker 5: therefore this is clearly just a case to stifle speech.

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Speaker 1: This is not the first time you've sort of represented

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Speaker 1: people being kind of punished for having information, if that

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Speaker 1: makes sense. You know, you've worked on the Egene Carol case,

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Speaker 1: so you have gone, you know, sort of into the limestone.

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Speaker 1: But I'm just curious Elon musk is or was the second, first,

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Speaker 1: or second richest person in the world. I mean, even

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Speaker 1: though this case seems on the marit pretty flimsy, does

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Speaker 1: he have great lawyers?

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Speaker 5: So first of all, I looked it up last night.

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Speaker 5: I think he's now the third richest person in the world,

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Speaker 5: but that's still three. They believe that really rich. I

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Speaker 5: think when you're that rich, there are lawyers who will

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Speaker 5: work for you no matter what. What was really interesting

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Speaker 5: here is that the first group of lawyers, obviously for

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Speaker 5: whatever reason, didn't feel comfortable bringing the place that was

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Speaker 5: actually brought because, as the judge pointed out, it was

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Speaker 5: such a ridiculous case.

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Speaker 4: One of the things that really comes across to me

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Speaker 4: is that this is not a man who is taking

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Speaker 4: good advice from smart people, because I mean, it's all

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Speaker 4: kicked off with him replying to one of those Twister

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Speaker 4: Files journalists in quotation marks calling me a rat on

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Speaker 4: his platform, you know, calling CCdh the Certificatory of Digital

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Speaker 4: Aid and Evil organization, him calling up the chair of

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Speaker 4: my board and demanding a meeting, and the chair of

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Speaker 4: my board said, no, you speak to the CEO. You know,

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Speaker 4: this is a guy who's kind of behaving in a

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Speaker 4: really erratic and really frenetic way, almost unhil inged, you know.

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Speaker 4: And then the day after he tried to contact the

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Speaker 4: chair of my board and I said, you know, and

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Speaker 4: he told them to salve to me. Then this initial

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Speaker 4: complaint came in from one set of lawyers, and after

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Speaker 4: we responded to one set of lawyers, within days he'd

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Speaker 4: come up with a new lawsuit which came in from

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Speaker 4: a second set of lawyers, and the difference I think,

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Speaker 4: you know, ironically, for me is that even though I

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Speaker 4: run an organization with only thirty staff, where you know,

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Speaker 4: we're a non profit, we had Roberta on our side.

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Speaker 4: We had a whole bunch of professionals, and we dealt

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Speaker 4: with it in a sort of smart and calibrated way,

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Speaker 4: and that's why he's ended up being comprehensively defeated.

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Speaker 2: Do you have thoughts on this, Robbie.

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Speaker 5: Look, you know I've said this before and I'll say

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Speaker 5: it again. I think we are all living right now

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Speaker 5: in an age of bullies.

439
00:22:44,200 --> 00:22:44,720
Speaker 2: Right now.

440
00:22:44,840 --> 00:22:47,800
Speaker 5: There have been bullies throughout history, that's for sure. What

441
00:22:48,040 --> 00:22:53,160
Speaker 5: makes it so dangerous today is that social media provides

442
00:22:53,520 --> 00:22:57,439
Speaker 5: a weapon that bullies can use that is really unique

443
00:22:57,480 --> 00:23:01,640
Speaker 5: in the history of humankind, and it is incredibly destructive

444
00:23:02,119 --> 00:23:07,280
Speaker 5: and incredibly dangerous. And the idea that groups like Mrun's group,

445
00:23:07,520 --> 00:23:10,240
Speaker 5: our clients CCdh, who are trying to tell people the

446
00:23:10,359 --> 00:23:14,760
Speaker 5: truth about the misinformation, the hate, the disinformation on social media,

447
00:23:15,200 --> 00:23:18,200
Speaker 5: and then to have someone like Elon Musk turn around

448
00:23:18,280 --> 00:23:21,440
Speaker 5: and sue them, which really was a huge crisis for them.

449
00:23:21,440 --> 00:23:23,960
Speaker 5: I mean, as Amroun said, they're not for profits, they're

450
00:23:24,000 --> 00:23:27,800
Speaker 5: not rolling in dough. It just shows how dangerous this

451
00:23:27,880 --> 00:23:30,080
Speaker 5: kind of behavior is. In other words, the lawsuit in

452
00:23:30,080 --> 00:23:32,720
Speaker 5: a way was just an extension of Elon's bully And

453
00:23:32,760 --> 00:23:36,240
Speaker 5: again I think Judge Bryer saw through that and pointed

454
00:23:36,240 --> 00:23:37,200
Speaker 5: it out in his opinion.

455
00:23:37,640 --> 00:23:40,439
Speaker 1: By the way the opinion was, really it was like

456
00:23:40,480 --> 00:23:42,440
Speaker 1: a judge who had had enough? Right?

457
00:23:42,560 --> 00:23:43,640
Speaker 2: Can you talk about that?

458
00:23:44,040 --> 00:23:46,639
Speaker 5: One nice thing about our court system United States and

459
00:23:47,240 --> 00:23:49,600
Speaker 5: federal court judges is many of them do not have

460
00:23:49,800 --> 00:23:53,359
Speaker 5: patients for people who seek to manipulate the court system

461
00:23:53,359 --> 00:23:55,960
Speaker 5: in order to kind of sporture other people or to

462
00:23:56,000 --> 00:23:58,919
Speaker 5: bring claims that are essentially frivolous. It's critical. As the

463
00:23:58,920 --> 00:24:03,879
Speaker 5: opinion was of ex Corp and Elon, the or argument

464
00:24:03,920 --> 00:24:08,800
Speaker 5: was one hundred times worse. I really grilled the lawyers

465
00:24:08,800 --> 00:24:11,120
Speaker 5: for ex Corp. And they were completely unable to answer

466
00:24:11,160 --> 00:24:14,200
Speaker 5: his questions. And as a lawyer represented Apply, you never

467
00:24:14,240 --> 00:24:17,639
Speaker 5: want to be in that position. It's obvious it's a

468
00:24:17,680 --> 00:24:20,200
Speaker 5: bad position for you to be in personally because your

469
00:24:20,200 --> 00:24:23,440
Speaker 5: reputation matters, and it's a terrible position for any client

470
00:24:23,480 --> 00:24:25,400
Speaker 5: to be in. It was very clear from that opinion,

471
00:24:25,600 --> 00:24:27,800
Speaker 5: and excuse me from that argument that they were going

472
00:24:27,880 --> 00:24:30,480
Speaker 5: to lose. And one thing I should point out is California,

473
00:24:30,600 --> 00:24:34,200
Speaker 5: I think has the first anti slap law in the country,

474
00:24:34,480 --> 00:24:36,800
Speaker 5: and he made it very clear that under the California law,

475
00:24:36,880 --> 00:24:39,240
Speaker 5: now CDCH is going to be able to recover its

476
00:24:39,280 --> 00:24:40,600
Speaker 5: cost and feet, can you.

477
00:24:40,560 --> 00:24:44,760
Speaker 1: Explain to me and what slap laws are and what

478
00:24:44,800 --> 00:24:47,200
Speaker 1: they mean, just for people who are not completely read

479
00:24:47,200 --> 00:24:47,560
Speaker 1: in on this.

480
00:24:47,800 --> 00:24:50,080
Speaker 5: The whole point of slap laws is basically to prevent

481
00:24:50,119 --> 00:24:53,200
Speaker 5: lawsuits like this. The point is that if you bring

482
00:24:53,359 --> 00:24:57,240
Speaker 5: a lawsuit, the point of which is to stifle someone's speech,

483
00:24:57,680 --> 00:24:59,360
Speaker 5: and the point of the suit is to make them

484
00:24:59,359 --> 00:25:02,359
Speaker 5: go through all the burdens and costs by suing them.

485
00:25:02,640 --> 00:25:05,760
Speaker 5: That is what's called a slap lawsuit. And there are

486
00:25:05,800 --> 00:25:09,040
Speaker 5: statutes in various states, including California, New York, and elsewhere

487
00:25:09,240 --> 00:25:13,359
Speaker 5: that basically say, in that kind of situation, the court

488
00:25:13,440 --> 00:25:17,000
Speaker 5: can basically a number one require you to neet a

489
00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:19,080
Speaker 5: pretty high standard to be able to go further in

490
00:25:19,119 --> 00:25:22,359
Speaker 5: the case, although that wasn't even necessary here, and two

491
00:25:23,160 --> 00:25:26,200
Speaker 5: to make you pay costs if you lose to try

492
00:25:26,200 --> 00:25:27,600
Speaker 5: to deter people from doing this.

493
00:25:27,560 --> 00:25:28,119
Speaker 3: In the future.

494
00:25:28,280 --> 00:25:30,800
Speaker 4: That's the most powerful thing for US is that, I mean,

495
00:25:30,840 --> 00:25:34,040
Speaker 4: funnily enough, because I'm British by origin, even though I

496
00:25:34,040 --> 00:25:37,120
Speaker 4: live Atchington, d C. In the UK, if you bring

497
00:25:37,119 --> 00:25:40,200
Speaker 4: a lawsuit against someone and you lose, you pay both

498
00:25:40,240 --> 00:25:44,639
Speaker 4: sides costs, and that deters people from bringing frivolous lawsuits,

499
00:25:44,760 --> 00:25:47,640
Speaker 4: whereas in the US, because each side pays their own costs.

500
00:25:47,680 --> 00:25:49,800
Speaker 4: It's really important that we've got the cost shifting in

501
00:25:49,800 --> 00:25:52,800
Speaker 4: this case because otherwise it's bullying would have worked. In

502
00:25:52,840 --> 00:25:54,960
Speaker 4: one respect, it would have worked because he would have

503
00:25:55,119 --> 00:25:57,639
Speaker 4: you know, his aim was to try and bleed us

504
00:25:57,680 --> 00:26:00,320
Speaker 4: as much as possible. I mean, it's funny because you know,

505
00:26:00,359 --> 00:26:02,720
Speaker 4: we talk a lot about bullying is really at the

506
00:26:02,760 --> 00:26:05,480
Speaker 4: heart of a lot of how Elon behaves. And I

507
00:26:05,560 --> 00:26:08,240
Speaker 4: read you know, the Baals Rising since biography of him.

508
00:26:08,520 --> 00:26:10,560
Speaker 4: This is a guy who was bullied when he was young.

509
00:26:11,040 --> 00:26:14,879
Speaker 4: It's almost sort of banal, how simple the psychology is.

510
00:26:14,920 --> 00:26:16,600
Speaker 4: This guy who was bullied when he was young and

511
00:26:16,640 --> 00:26:18,959
Speaker 4: had a really difficult up bringing with his father, and

512
00:26:19,000 --> 00:26:21,639
Speaker 4: then when he became a grown up, he bought the playground.

513
00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:25,040
Speaker 4: He changed the playground so that he's the most important

514
00:26:25,119 --> 00:26:27,120
Speaker 4: kid on the playground. He bought you know, he bought

515
00:26:27,160 --> 00:26:29,480
Speaker 4: himself a crown, and he put the crown in his

516
00:26:29,520 --> 00:26:31,440
Speaker 4: head and he walks around the playground saying, I'm the

517
00:26:31,520 --> 00:26:35,800
Speaker 4: king of the playground. And then someone came along and said, hey, sorry, Elon,

518
00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:39,720
Speaker 4: Actually you're you're behaving like an asshole. Actually you're all wow,

519
00:26:40,200 --> 00:26:44,159
Speaker 4: you know, Nazi's why supremacist to run riot over this playground.

520
00:26:44,680 --> 00:26:47,240
Speaker 4: He sues the kid who's doing that? And what was

521
00:26:47,320 --> 00:26:50,200
Speaker 4: really interesting about the way the judge I didn't think

522
00:26:50,200 --> 00:26:52,360
Speaker 4: he was I didn't think he was exasperated. I think

523
00:26:52,400 --> 00:26:55,080
Speaker 4: it was more of that measured, calm tone that you

524
00:26:55,119 --> 00:26:58,560
Speaker 4: get when the teacher finally arrives on the playground and goes, Elon,

525
00:26:59,320 --> 00:27:02,800
Speaker 4: what are you up to get back in class, young man?

526
00:27:03,280 --> 00:27:05,960
Speaker 4: And I think that, really, you know, it really was

527
00:27:06,359 --> 00:27:09,159
Speaker 4: one of those moments. But I've said before that, you know,

528
00:27:09,280 --> 00:27:11,840
Speaker 4: I feel a lot of sympathy for Elon. I know

529
00:27:11,840 --> 00:27:14,560
Speaker 4: what it's like to grow up with a difficult situation

530
00:27:14,680 --> 00:27:17,200
Speaker 4: at home, and I learn a lot about bullying growing

531
00:27:17,240 --> 00:27:19,320
Speaker 4: up as well. The difference between me and Elon is

532
00:27:19,440 --> 00:27:21,879
Speaker 4: that whereas he buys the playground, I know that the

533
00:27:21,920 --> 00:27:24,120
Speaker 4: only way that you can ever stand up to bullies

534
00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:27,040
Speaker 4: is to actually stand up to them, and we did.

535
00:27:27,560 --> 00:27:31,480
Speaker 4: And it turns out the bullies, like they're often kind

536
00:27:31,480 --> 00:27:34,679
Speaker 4: of damaged themselves, you know, And I think he's really exposed.

537
00:27:35,359 --> 00:27:36,439
Speaker 3: How damaged he is.

538
00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:40,800
Speaker 4: There three speech absolutists who seeks to silence people using

539
00:27:40,920 --> 00:27:42,200
Speaker 4: law fair, how pathetic.

540
00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:45,320
Speaker 1: I'm like so uninterested in him, but I am interested

541
00:27:45,359 --> 00:27:49,760
Speaker 1: in this idea of a sort of trump es the

542
00:27:49,880 --> 00:27:53,560
Speaker 1: right wing world that works very hard to use the

543
00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:57,960
Speaker 1: legal system to try to silence speech. Which, Robbie, this

544
00:27:58,080 --> 00:28:01,719
Speaker 1: is not the first time you've seen a conservative or

545
00:28:01,800 --> 00:28:03,520
Speaker 1: I would I want to say a trump is because

546
00:28:03,560 --> 00:28:06,199
Speaker 1: even though we don't know if Elan is going to

547
00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:09,639
Speaker 1: become a Trumpist, he certainly is well on the path.

548
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:12,760
Speaker 1: I worry more about this sort of like you know,

549
00:28:12,920 --> 00:28:16,919
Speaker 1: book banning, anti speech crusade by that crew. But it

550
00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:21,359
Speaker 1: sounds like legally the courts are not very delighted by this.

551
00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:24,160
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that's first of all. Let me begin

552
00:28:24,200 --> 00:28:26,399
Speaker 5: by saying I have nothing to add really to what

553
00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:29,240
Speaker 5: Imron just said. That was the perfect statement of the

554
00:28:29,280 --> 00:28:33,240
Speaker 5: situation that he and our client was in in terms

555
00:28:33,280 --> 00:28:35,760
Speaker 5: of the courts. That's exactly right. Look, there are a

556
00:28:35,800 --> 00:28:39,960
Speaker 5: lot of legitimate disputes, criminal and civil that need to

557
00:28:39,960 --> 00:28:42,520
Speaker 5: get litigated in the courts every day. The courts, for

558
00:28:42,560 --> 00:28:48,120
Speaker 5: the most part, are overburdened, underpaid overworld, and as a result,

559
00:28:48,160 --> 00:28:50,760
Speaker 5: the idea that they have to essentially spend their time,

560
00:28:51,320 --> 00:28:54,800
Speaker 5: you know, dismissing frivolous claims like this, the whole point

561
00:28:54,840 --> 00:28:59,320
Speaker 5: of which is fundamentally inconsistent with our First Amendment, tends

562
00:28:59,360 --> 00:29:02,160
Speaker 5: to aggravate them. And you can see why if you

563
00:29:02,200 --> 00:29:03,240
Speaker 5: think about it for a second.

564
00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:09,160
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, definitely true. So California with the slap laws,

565
00:29:09,360 --> 00:29:11,719
Speaker 1: can you just explain a little bit about the jurisdiction.

566
00:29:12,400 --> 00:29:14,760
Speaker 5: Yeah, he brought that where Twitter is located. So they

567
00:29:14,800 --> 00:29:16,560
Speaker 5: brought the case in California. They had the right to

568
00:29:16,600 --> 00:29:18,760
Speaker 5: do that. You know, there are a lot of tech

569
00:29:18,800 --> 00:29:21,840
Speaker 5: cases in California, and so I think they actually thought

570
00:29:21,880 --> 00:29:24,240
Speaker 5: that would be a good place for them. It turns

571
00:29:24,240 --> 00:29:24,760
Speaker 5: out it was not.

572
00:29:28,960 --> 00:29:33,360
Speaker 1: That's I mean, I feel like that's amazing. I mean, now,

573
00:29:33,400 --> 00:29:34,760
Speaker 1: where are you with the case?

574
00:29:35,480 --> 00:29:38,320
Speaker 5: So they said yesterday they should have a very brief

575
00:29:38,480 --> 00:29:42,040
Speaker 5: statement on Twitter ex corpse saying that they intended to appeal.

576
00:29:42,400 --> 00:29:44,440
Speaker 5: I'm going to take them at their word that they

577
00:29:44,440 --> 00:29:47,080
Speaker 5: intend to do that. I don't think their prospects before

578
00:29:47,120 --> 00:29:49,480
Speaker 5: the ninth Circuit are any better than they were before

579
00:29:49,560 --> 00:29:50,120
Speaker 5: Judge Bryer.

580
00:29:50,240 --> 00:29:52,920
Speaker 4: But we'll see the truth is that we're up for this.

581
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:55,640
Speaker 4: We'll beat them again. This has been you know, this

582
00:29:55,680 --> 00:29:58,520
Speaker 4: is kind of a classic example of the strives On effect.

583
00:29:58,520 --> 00:30:00,160
Speaker 4: The truth is that all they've done is get giving

584
00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:04,120
Speaker 4: us more voice at CCdh. They've given us more credibility.

585
00:30:04,160 --> 00:30:07,920
Speaker 4: We've now seen off an attempt to disparage and destroy

586
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:11,400
Speaker 4: our research capacity, and the truth is that it's also

587
00:30:11,920 --> 00:30:14,600
Speaker 4: brought us in thousands of new donors, people who are

588
00:30:14,640 --> 00:30:17,800
Speaker 4: giving recurring donations. It's actually made us a stronger organization,

589
00:30:17,920 --> 00:30:21,240
Speaker 4: and it's baffle harder than my team. So bring it on, Elon.

590
00:30:23,360 --> 00:30:25,040
Speaker 1: You'll be shocked to hear that you guys are not

591
00:30:25,120 --> 00:30:27,800
Speaker 1: the only people I've had on this podcast in the

592
00:30:27,880 --> 00:30:30,720
Speaker 1: last month who are being sued by Elon. Are you

593
00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:33,760
Speaker 1: surprised that this man who's so who has so much

594
00:30:33,800 --> 00:30:38,240
Speaker 1: capital and is control so many important public companies, has

595
00:30:38,280 --> 00:30:39,240
Speaker 1: such bad judgment.

596
00:30:39,400 --> 00:30:40,480
Speaker 2: I'm just curious about that.

597
00:30:40,760 --> 00:30:43,440
Speaker 4: When I started CCdh, I remember going to someone for advice.

598
00:30:43,560 --> 00:30:46,840
Speaker 4: He's quite a well known comedian, movie star, and I

599
00:30:46,840 --> 00:30:49,080
Speaker 4: said to him, like, you know, I have to run

600
00:30:49,080 --> 00:30:51,560
Speaker 4: an organization. It's a really serious job. You're kind of

601
00:30:51,600 --> 00:30:55,840
Speaker 4: just an anarchic fundster. And he said to me, that's nonsense.

602
00:30:55,920 --> 00:30:58,640
Speaker 4: I have really good lawyers, have really good rights to this,

603
00:30:58,720 --> 00:31:01,760
Speaker 4: I have really good security, think about everything, and it's

604
00:31:01,800 --> 00:31:03,800
Speaker 4: only because I have the basics in place that I'm

605
00:31:03,800 --> 00:31:07,160
Speaker 4: able to be creative. And it really struck me. It

606
00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:10,040
Speaker 4: really humbled me because it made me realize to what extent,

607
00:31:10,600 --> 00:31:13,440
Speaker 4: even as the front person for an organization, you are

608
00:31:13,480 --> 00:31:19,480
Speaker 4: dependent upon organization and discipline and professionalism. And I think

609
00:31:19,520 --> 00:31:21,240
Speaker 4: that one of the problems that Elon has is that

610
00:31:21,440 --> 00:31:24,240
Speaker 4: he's not listening to those people. It's really important that

611
00:31:24,320 --> 00:31:26,920
Speaker 4: you do listen. And it's really clear that he's just

612
00:31:27,080 --> 00:31:29,560
Speaker 4: he thinks that he's a great businessman. He thinks that

613
00:31:29,600 --> 00:31:33,240
Speaker 4: he is some kind of wild, you know, entrepreneur who

614
00:31:33,280 --> 00:31:35,280
Speaker 4: can do whatever he can, and he's he's got the

615
00:31:35,320 --> 00:31:38,800
Speaker 4: Midas touch. But actually, you know, look at everything he's

616
00:31:38,840 --> 00:31:42,600
Speaker 4: done on X. The irony is that every single thing

617
00:31:42,680 --> 00:31:45,320
Speaker 4: that's gone wrong for X, that he's blamed everyone else

618
00:31:45,360 --> 00:31:49,600
Speaker 4: for that is proof that his touch isn't Midas's touch.

619
00:31:50,120 --> 00:31:52,719
Speaker 4: He turns anything to do with X and turns it

620
00:31:52,760 --> 00:31:55,040
Speaker 4: to shit. There is a lesson to be learned. There

621
00:31:55,040 --> 00:31:57,840
Speaker 4: will write textbooks about this one day, How not to

622
00:31:57,920 --> 00:32:00,600
Speaker 4: manage a company, how not to behave as a CEO.

623
00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:03,320
Speaker 2: You know, there's so many sort of unforced errors.

624
00:32:03,680 --> 00:32:07,040
Speaker 1: So to talk about this sort of online hate that

625
00:32:07,120 --> 00:32:11,040
Speaker 1: you're seeing and what worries you more the online hate

626
00:32:11,200 --> 00:32:14,720
Speaker 1: or the misinformation the foreign actors?

627
00:32:14,920 --> 00:32:17,040
Speaker 2: I mean, what is this sort of thing that keeps

628
00:32:17,080 --> 00:32:17,720
Speaker 2: you up at night?

629
00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:18,200
Speaker 3: Look?

630
00:32:18,240 --> 00:32:21,720
Speaker 4: I mean, disinformation and hate are intrinsically into linked. I mean,

631
00:32:21,960 --> 00:32:24,520
Speaker 4: you know, especially when it comes to things like antisemitism,

632
00:32:24,560 --> 00:32:27,000
Speaker 4: which is one of our major areas of study. Anti

633
00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:29,880
Speaker 4: Semitism has always been based on lies, whether it's the

634
00:32:29,960 --> 00:32:32,480
Speaker 4: blood libel two thousand years ago, it's the protocols of

635
00:32:32,520 --> 00:32:34,760
Speaker 4: the Elders of Zion in the twentieth century that informed

636
00:32:34,840 --> 00:32:37,760
Speaker 4: Hitler's ideology, or in the twenty first centuries the Great

637
00:32:37,760 --> 00:32:41,040
Speaker 4: Replacement theory. And we are interested in why it is

638
00:32:41,120 --> 00:32:44,840
Speaker 4: that lies get hyper amplified on these platforms, because, of course,

639
00:32:45,200 --> 00:32:47,520
Speaker 4: the way that platforms really work is they don't present

640
00:32:47,560 --> 00:32:50,600
Speaker 4: you with everyone's posts. What they do is they order

641
00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:53,400
Speaker 4: it into a timeline, and that's run by algorithms which

642
00:32:53,400 --> 00:32:57,080
Speaker 4: are designed for commercial purposes, and they amplify the most

643
00:32:57,080 --> 00:33:00,240
Speaker 4: controversial content first, and I think the ness efet to

644
00:33:00,360 --> 00:33:03,040
Speaker 4: that on society. It's a bit like climate change. The

645
00:33:03,080 --> 00:33:06,960
Speaker 4: temperatures rising every day, icebergs are melting. I started this

646
00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:10,760
Speaker 4: work because my colleague was assassinated in the British Parliament

647
00:33:10,960 --> 00:33:15,200
Speaker 4: during the the EU referendum, the Brexit referendum. We saw

648
00:33:15,240 --> 00:33:17,480
Speaker 4: the massive rise of anti semitism on the left in

649
00:33:17,520 --> 00:33:20,440
Speaker 4: the UK. We saw other things happening around the world

650
00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:24,880
Speaker 4: Bolsonaro du Terte. And as we see more icebergs melting,

651
00:33:25,320 --> 00:33:30,080
Speaker 4: as we see more forest fires, more hurricanes, what terrifies

652
00:33:30,160 --> 00:33:33,040
Speaker 4: me is that we don't have enough time to save

653
00:33:33,080 --> 00:33:37,680
Speaker 4: democracy before people realize that something fundamental has shifted. That

654
00:33:37,760 --> 00:33:42,440
Speaker 4: it's because it's a negative byproduct of the digitization.

655
00:33:41,760 --> 00:33:42,560
Speaker 2: Of our economy.

656
00:33:42,720 --> 00:33:43,440
Speaker 3: And unless we.

657
00:33:43,360 --> 00:33:46,320
Speaker 4: Put some rules in place, we put some transparency in place,

658
00:33:46,320 --> 00:33:49,600
Speaker 4: some accountability in place, we may not have a long

659
00:33:49,760 --> 00:33:53,960
Speaker 4: time to save democracy. Especially this year. There are over

660
00:33:54,080 --> 00:33:56,840
Speaker 4: two billion people going to vote, and this is a

661
00:33:56,920 --> 00:33:59,959
Speaker 4: year in which democracy has to stand strong against authoritaire.

662
00:34:00,600 --> 00:34:02,440
Speaker 4: So you want to know what makes me worry at night.

663
00:34:02,880 --> 00:34:06,520
Speaker 4: I'm Askgan. My family are Afgan. In the seventies, we

664
00:34:06,640 --> 00:34:09,120
Speaker 4: had women in government, we had women in many skirts

665
00:34:09,160 --> 00:34:13,240
Speaker 4: walking around cable And what worries me is what happens

666
00:34:13,280 --> 00:34:17,640
Speaker 4: in our democracy crumble because empires do collapse, and lies

667
00:34:17,760 --> 00:34:20,360
Speaker 4: and hate there are two of the things that can

668
00:34:20,400 --> 00:34:24,200
Speaker 4: collapse even in empire, a civilization as great as the

669
00:34:24,280 --> 00:34:25,320
Speaker 4: United States today.

670
00:34:25,640 --> 00:34:27,560
Speaker 5: Again, I have not a word to add to them.

671
00:34:29,760 --> 00:34:31,359
Speaker 5: In I was one of the very few people who

672
00:34:31,520 --> 00:34:33,080
Speaker 5: like makes me silent.

673
00:34:35,960 --> 00:34:37,319
Speaker 2: Robbie, what keeps you up at night?

674
00:34:37,840 --> 00:34:39,120
Speaker 5: Exactly the same thing?

675
00:34:39,200 --> 00:34:39,440
Speaker 1: I mean?

676
00:34:39,719 --> 00:34:42,120
Speaker 5: You know, I say, and I really believe this that

677
00:34:42,440 --> 00:34:45,320
Speaker 5: as an American, I believe that we are in a

678
00:34:45,360 --> 00:34:48,480
Speaker 5: moment in which the survival of our democracy is very

679
00:34:48,600 --> 00:34:53,040
Speaker 5: much in question. One of the single greatest contributing factors

680
00:34:53,080 --> 00:34:57,160
Speaker 5: to that is how siloed people are, how manable are

681
00:34:57,239 --> 00:35:01,799
Speaker 5: open they are to misinformation and disinformation, how unwilling they

682
00:35:01,840 --> 00:35:05,200
Speaker 5: are to have discourse civily with people who they disagree with.

683
00:35:05,640 --> 00:35:07,799
Speaker 5: And a lot of that, not all of it, thought,

684
00:35:07,880 --> 00:35:10,280
Speaker 5: A lot of that can be blamed on social media

685
00:35:10,520 --> 00:35:12,480
Speaker 5: and the danger of these algorithms.

686
00:35:12,560 --> 00:35:16,120
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm very depressed. Thank you both so much.

687
00:35:16,520 --> 00:35:18,600
Speaker 4: Thank you, Molly, Thanks so much, Molly.

688
00:35:20,719 --> 00:35:24,239
Speaker 2: Dahlia Letswick as a senior editor at Slate.

689
00:35:24,160 --> 00:35:29,080
Speaker 1: Host of the podcast Amicus, and author of Lady Justice,

690
00:35:29,480 --> 00:35:34,799
Speaker 1: Welcome Back, Too Fast Politics, My Supreme Court. I want

691
00:35:34,880 --> 00:35:39,839
Speaker 1: to say, Guru, my person, the person who I want

692
00:35:39,880 --> 00:35:42,120
Speaker 1: to be if I ever grow up, which I never will,

693
00:35:42,200 --> 00:35:44,040
Speaker 1: but maybe, well, Dahlia, thank you.

694
00:35:44,480 --> 00:35:48,240
Speaker 6: There was an awesome moment, Molly, where Justice Kagan said

695
00:35:48,680 --> 00:35:51,879
Speaker 6: in casting about for someone who had standing to bring

696
00:35:51,920 --> 00:35:55,160
Speaker 6: this myth of pristone suit said where is your person?

697
00:35:55,640 --> 00:36:00,160
Speaker 6: So I am your person and Justice Kagan's person, I

698
00:36:00,200 --> 00:36:00,840
Speaker 6: am the person.

699
00:36:01,400 --> 00:36:04,560
Speaker 1: So often with this Supreme Court, we are just bracing

700
00:36:04,800 --> 00:36:09,960
Speaker 1: for them to remake our country in some terrifying conservative weirdness.

701
00:36:10,040 --> 00:36:12,720
Speaker 2: But today it did seem like this case.

702
00:36:12,840 --> 00:36:14,840
Speaker 1: And I think, like I feel like this case is

703
00:36:14,880 --> 00:36:18,200
Speaker 1: like the Canary and the coal Mine, Like it's definitely comming,

704
00:36:18,400 --> 00:36:20,120
Speaker 1: but it may not be this that does it.

705
00:36:20,640 --> 00:36:23,040
Speaker 6: Yeah, And I think what I would say is this

706
00:36:23,120 --> 00:36:27,080
Speaker 6: is a marker for a couple of things. One is

707
00:36:27,120 --> 00:36:31,640
Speaker 6: the cases that come from Judge Matthew Kusmeerick's Court in Amarilla,

708
00:36:31,719 --> 00:36:36,000
Speaker 6: Texas that are deranged and then come up through the

709
00:36:36,040 --> 00:36:39,759
Speaker 6: Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is deranged by the

710
00:36:39,800 --> 00:36:42,640
Speaker 6: time they make their way to the Supreme Court overto

711
00:36:42,760 --> 00:36:45,640
Speaker 6: windows have been flung open. Moll like now it's like

712
00:36:45,920 --> 00:36:48,600
Speaker 6: we're going to get a hey eight to one or

713
00:36:48,680 --> 00:36:51,239
Speaker 6: seven to two. The Supreme Court says these doctors had

714
00:36:51,280 --> 00:36:54,799
Speaker 6: no standing. That doesn't make this court normal. That just

715
00:36:54,920 --> 00:36:59,400
Speaker 6: means it's not as crazy as the craziest person seeking

716
00:36:59,440 --> 00:37:01,080
Speaker 6: to impose a national.

717
00:37:00,760 --> 00:37:02,640
Speaker 5: Wife pin on with the pristo.

718
00:37:03,400 --> 00:37:05,800
Speaker 1: So what I was struck by, and I just listened

719
00:37:05,840 --> 00:37:07,640
Speaker 1: to some of it, and I am not a lawyer,

720
00:37:08,120 --> 00:37:11,759
Speaker 1: was that Alito has brainworms.

721
00:37:12,320 --> 00:37:15,719
Speaker 6: He just has abortion derangement syndrome. I mean, I think

722
00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:20,279
Speaker 6: there's like a really good piece to be written, and

723
00:37:20,360 --> 00:37:22,440
Speaker 6: I guess I just assigned it to myself.

724
00:37:22,600 --> 00:37:25,480
Speaker 2: Yes it is. I can't wait to read it. What

725
00:37:25,800 --> 00:37:27,160
Speaker 2: if you used.

726
00:37:26,840 --> 00:37:32,600
Speaker 6: His theory of standing for any other area of the law,

727
00:37:32,960 --> 00:37:36,680
Speaker 6: Like imagine if you could, like, you know, sue the

728
00:37:36,760 --> 00:37:41,040
Speaker 6: EPA over climate change, or imagine, you know, because somebody

729
00:37:41,120 --> 00:37:45,239
Speaker 6: had their feelings hurt, and the fact that Alito has

730
00:37:45,280 --> 00:37:47,880
Speaker 6: his feelings hurt and so his heart goes out to

731
00:37:48,120 --> 00:37:51,279
Speaker 6: a clutch of doctors who have their feelings hurt by

732
00:37:51,320 --> 00:37:54,759
Speaker 6: the fact that mitha pristone is in the world. Just

733
00:37:54,960 --> 00:37:57,719
Speaker 6: I think, to me highlights the fact that you know,

734
00:37:57,840 --> 00:38:01,400
Speaker 6: Leah Littman's been saying this forever, my friend who teaches

735
00:38:01,400 --> 00:38:02,320
Speaker 6: at Michigan.

736
00:38:01,960 --> 00:38:04,400
Speaker 2: But you know I from Strict Scrutiny.

737
00:38:03,920 --> 00:38:07,520
Speaker 6: Yeah, at the Strict Scrutiny podcast. But it's just feelings

738
00:38:07,520 --> 00:38:10,560
Speaker 6: all the way down. And so there was this amazing

739
00:38:10,880 --> 00:38:14,640
Speaker 6: back and forth where several of the justices, including the

740
00:38:14,680 --> 00:38:19,960
Speaker 6: conservative justices, were like, this handful of doctors who doesn't

741
00:38:20,239 --> 00:38:24,799
Speaker 6: want to someday have a person who is prescribed if

742
00:38:24,800 --> 00:38:30,560
Speaker 6: of pristone by someone else, who then has extremely rare complications,

743
00:38:31,120 --> 00:38:35,440
Speaker 6: stagger into their office so that they have to be

744
00:38:35,960 --> 00:38:41,280
Speaker 6: quote unquote complicit in something bad. Is not a sery

745
00:38:41,400 --> 00:38:45,200
Speaker 6: of standing. It's not a theory of Article three standing.

746
00:38:45,520 --> 00:38:48,680
Speaker 6: It's a theory of feelings. And the fact that Alito,

747
00:38:49,120 --> 00:38:52,680
Speaker 6: who only has feelings, he has all the feelings, is

748
00:38:52,920 --> 00:38:56,960
Speaker 6: the mayor of feelings down should surprise nobody, right. I mean,

749
00:38:57,000 --> 00:39:02,920
Speaker 6: they kept pressing Aaron Hawley, that's Holly's wife, who was

750
00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:06,520
Speaker 6: representing the plaintiffs, and they kept saying, like, explain to

751
00:39:06,680 --> 00:39:11,800
Speaker 6: us why it is that state and federal conscience laws

752
00:39:11,880 --> 00:39:15,600
Speaker 6: that already allow a physician to opt out if they

753
00:39:15,640 --> 00:39:20,160
Speaker 6: don't want to provide abortion care. Why those laws are insufficient?

754
00:39:20,200 --> 00:39:22,600
Speaker 6: Why you have to take if a pristone from every

755
00:39:22,600 --> 00:39:26,680
Speaker 6: single physician and person in America. And her answer was

756
00:39:26,719 --> 00:39:32,720
Speaker 6: some version of complicity, complicity, complicity, And that's not an answer.

757
00:39:33,239 --> 00:39:33,600
Speaker 2: Yeah.

758
00:39:33,680 --> 00:39:35,640
Speaker 1: What I think when we were talking about shifting the

759
00:39:35,640 --> 00:39:40,240
Speaker 1: Overton window, which I think is really what this argument,

760
00:39:40,360 --> 00:39:43,279
Speaker 1: this oral argument was about, right, was this is they're

761
00:39:43,320 --> 00:39:47,560
Speaker 1: not going to get metha pristone this time, but they're

762
00:39:47,600 --> 00:39:50,279
Speaker 1: smart enough to be to be setting the table for

763
00:39:50,400 --> 00:39:53,279
Speaker 1: next time. And so one of the things that I

764
00:39:53,400 --> 00:39:57,239
Speaker 1: was struck by was, you know, their problem was standing, right,

765
00:39:57,280 --> 00:39:59,720
Speaker 1: They didn't have the standing because it's a made up case.

766
00:40:00,360 --> 00:40:02,800
Speaker 1: You know, nobody is injured. I mean, the whole idea

767
00:40:02,840 --> 00:40:04,840
Speaker 1: of the law is that you have.

768
00:40:04,960 --> 00:40:08,520
Speaker 6: A plaintiff, right, Yeah, you have to have a plaintiff,

769
00:40:08,520 --> 00:40:11,680
Speaker 6: and they have to have what's known as a cognizable injury.

770
00:40:11,800 --> 00:40:15,840
Speaker 6: Something has to have happened to them. And even amongst

771
00:40:15,880 --> 00:40:21,719
Speaker 6: the doctors who submitted declarations in this case, nobody actually

772
00:40:21,880 --> 00:40:26,920
Speaker 6: had something happened to them. Even as I said justices

773
00:40:27,200 --> 00:40:30,840
Speaker 6: like Kavanaugh and the Chief Justice and Amy Cony Barrett,

774
00:40:30,840 --> 00:40:34,439
Speaker 6: who probably are very solicitous of the argument that MIFA

775
00:40:34,480 --> 00:40:37,640
Speaker 6: pristone is just bad because I don't like it. Even

776
00:40:37,920 --> 00:40:41,240
Speaker 6: they couldn't seem to find anything to hang this onto,

777
00:40:41,880 --> 00:40:45,680
Speaker 6: and they kept saying like, there's much narrower relief available

778
00:40:46,200 --> 00:40:49,920
Speaker 6: than branding MiFi pristone nationwide for everyone.

779
00:40:50,280 --> 00:40:53,720
Speaker 1: When Alito was talking about Comstock, what got me very

780
00:40:53,840 --> 00:40:57,319
Speaker 1: anxious was he was going on and on about how

781
00:40:57,360 --> 00:41:02,520
Speaker 1: Comstock isn't some weird thing, when in fact it is right.

782
00:41:02,560 --> 00:41:04,239
Speaker 1: I mean, can you talk about that?

783
00:41:04,880 --> 00:41:05,200
Speaker 5: Yeah?

784
00:41:05,600 --> 00:41:09,279
Speaker 6: The Compstock Act of eighteen seventy three was this right

785
00:41:09,360 --> 00:41:15,720
Speaker 6: completely eighteen seventy baby, and it was this like anti vice,

786
00:41:15,920 --> 00:41:21,799
Speaker 6: anti obscenity, anti porn law that was entirely the brainchild

787
00:41:22,000 --> 00:41:26,680
Speaker 6: of one religious zealot who liked pawing through people's male who.

788
00:41:26,560 --> 00:41:28,839
Speaker 2: Happened to also be pro choice right.

789
00:41:28,960 --> 00:41:32,160
Speaker 1: That piece in the Washington Post says that actually, nearing

790
00:41:32,200 --> 00:41:35,360
Speaker 1: his death, he said he believed that some abortions were okay.

791
00:41:35,880 --> 00:41:40,239
Speaker 6: He just mostly seems to have been very proud of

792
00:41:40,360 --> 00:41:45,480
Speaker 6: driving people to suicide going through the males. And this

793
00:41:45,640 --> 00:41:49,760
Speaker 6: law has been defunct for all intents and purposes, and

794
00:41:50,000 --> 00:41:52,800
Speaker 6: you know today, I'm sorry. Then and then at the arguments,

795
00:41:52,840 --> 00:41:56,320
Speaker 6: you have Justice Alito saying making it sound as though

796
00:41:56,800 --> 00:41:59,840
Speaker 6: this is this is you know, good law, and he

797
00:42:00,040 --> 00:42:02,839
Speaker 6: kept saying, this is a prominent provision. It's not some

798
00:42:03,280 --> 00:42:06,480
Speaker 6: obscure sub section, as though you know, we all live

799
00:42:06,560 --> 00:42:09,440
Speaker 6: under comstock and we don't know it. And it's this

800
00:42:09,560 --> 00:42:14,360
Speaker 6: weird wish casting where he's like hoping to instantiate a

801
00:42:14,400 --> 00:42:17,480
Speaker 6: world in which we are all bound by Comstock that

802
00:42:17,560 --> 00:42:19,719
Speaker 6: nobody can put anything in the mails, and you can't

803
00:42:19,719 --> 00:42:22,319
Speaker 6: put abortion devices in the mails, and you can't put

804
00:42:22,320 --> 00:42:25,560
Speaker 6: information about abortion in the mail. He's acting as though

805
00:42:25,600 --> 00:42:29,880
Speaker 6: that's already the case, and it's probably just worth saying, Mollie,

806
00:42:29,920 --> 00:42:33,920
Speaker 6: we know that if Donald Trump is elected, the people

807
00:42:34,000 --> 00:42:37,520
Speaker 6: who want to run this Justice Department will take the

808
00:42:37,560 --> 00:42:40,319
Speaker 6: position that comstock is good law on day one.

809
00:42:40,680 --> 00:42:44,239
Speaker 1: Yeah, and comstock has really not been used regularly in

810
00:42:44,239 --> 00:42:47,480
Speaker 1: about one hundred years. So this is like, you know,

811
00:42:47,600 --> 00:42:53,359
Speaker 1: it was wildly popular from eighteen seventy three to nineteen,

812
00:42:53,560 --> 00:42:57,200
Speaker 1: you know, fifty two or whatever, but it hasn't It's

813
00:42:57,280 --> 00:43:01,240
Speaker 1: really not anything that anyone uses today, which is why

814
00:43:01,480 --> 00:43:04,440
Speaker 1: that Alito is. I always feel like Alito is the

815
00:43:04,440 --> 00:43:07,600
Speaker 1: one who's telling you what the Heritage Foundation is working.

816
00:43:07,320 --> 00:43:10,960
Speaker 6: On, right, I mean, surprising no one ever. Two years

817
00:43:10,960 --> 00:43:14,480
Speaker 6: ago it was Alita that was citing witch burners right

818
00:43:14,520 --> 00:43:17,239
Speaker 6: as though that was good law. So I think it's

819
00:43:17,360 --> 00:43:19,920
Speaker 6: fairly safe to say that if he still thinks that

820
00:43:19,960 --> 00:43:23,040
Speaker 6: Sir Matthew Hale, who said you could beat your wife

821
00:43:23,239 --> 00:43:26,160
Speaker 6: is a good legal source, then Comstock must be good

822
00:43:26,200 --> 00:43:28,520
Speaker 6: law as far as he's concerned. And I get it,

823
00:43:28,600 --> 00:43:31,480
Speaker 6: I suppose, but I think you're exactly right. Like the

824
00:43:31,520 --> 00:43:35,040
Speaker 6: slippage here is saying no, this isn't some obscure law.

825
00:43:35,400 --> 00:43:38,400
Speaker 6: This is, you know, the cloud under which we all operate,

826
00:43:39,000 --> 00:43:42,680
Speaker 6: and it's almost like they're really really hoping that by

827
00:43:42,719 --> 00:43:46,399
Speaker 6: saying it enough times they'll make it so and thus

828
00:43:46,440 --> 00:43:48,399
Speaker 6: do away with abortion nationwide.

829
00:43:48,680 --> 00:43:51,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is definitely where all of this is going.

830
00:43:51,400 --> 00:43:53,880
Speaker 2: I mean, how do you think this ends up splitting?

831
00:43:54,160 --> 00:43:56,759
Speaker 6: I mean, listening to arguments, I felt like it was

832
00:43:56,840 --> 00:43:59,800
Speaker 6: kind of eight to one that there's no standing here,

833
00:44:00,080 --> 00:44:02,960
Speaker 6: and you know, with wiggle room, right saying like maybe

834
00:44:03,000 --> 00:44:05,920
Speaker 6: if the states come, they'd have standing, which is something

835
00:44:05,960 --> 00:44:10,440
Speaker 6: that judge Cosmeerk is already starting to tee up and

836
00:44:10,840 --> 00:44:15,440
Speaker 6: certainly seeing some of this constuck nonsense, you know, like

837
00:44:15,480 --> 00:44:18,160
Speaker 6: a loaded gun on the table for the next time round.

838
00:44:18,560 --> 00:44:21,440
Speaker 6: So yeah, I think that you'll probably get some grumpy

839
00:44:21,480 --> 00:44:25,920
Speaker 6: descent maybe from Justice Thomas, Justice Alito saying like they

840
00:44:25,960 --> 00:44:29,440
Speaker 6: don't they no stink in standing, This already violates comstock.

841
00:44:29,880 --> 00:44:33,080
Speaker 6: And then right all the papers will harald like, oh,

842
00:44:33,120 --> 00:44:35,800
Speaker 6: look at how moderate the Court was on Mifa pristo,

843
00:44:36,080 --> 00:44:38,799
Speaker 6: Like they've sure learned their lesson. And I think this

844
00:44:38,960 --> 00:44:40,920
Speaker 6: is one of those, like we said at the beginning,

845
00:44:40,960 --> 00:44:45,120
Speaker 6: over to the window cases, where the only lesson to

846
00:44:45,200 --> 00:44:48,360
Speaker 6: have been learned is any case that comes from the

847
00:44:48,400 --> 00:44:52,640
Speaker 6: Fifth Circuit comes with the stink of overreach. That doesn't

848
00:44:52,719 --> 00:44:57,240
Speaker 6: mean the Supreme Court is doing bang up law right exactly.

849
00:44:57,320 --> 00:44:59,000
Speaker 2: Don't give them a pass on this.

850
00:44:59,760 --> 00:45:04,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, on the very rare occasion that this Supreme Court

851
00:45:04,920 --> 00:45:08,960
Speaker 1: doesn't do something insane, you know, we want to reward

852
00:45:09,040 --> 00:45:12,359
Speaker 1: them and be like, maybe they're not all, but I

853
00:45:12,360 --> 00:45:15,400
Speaker 1: think it is really important, Like when you listen to that,

854
00:45:15,800 --> 00:45:20,239
Speaker 1: you really see that Thomas and Alito will do anything

855
00:45:20,800 --> 00:45:23,040
Speaker 1: to roll back women's reproductive health.

856
00:45:23,160 --> 00:45:26,319
Speaker 6: Right, and that they'll do it on a theory that

857
00:45:26,360 --> 00:45:30,319
Speaker 6: would apply to no other area of the law, which

858
00:45:30,360 --> 00:45:34,279
Speaker 6: is that some doctor might have some moderately bad thing

859
00:45:34,440 --> 00:45:38,279
Speaker 6: happen from which they're already shielded by conscience laws. And

860
00:45:38,320 --> 00:45:41,600
Speaker 6: that is so unacceptable that we should take abortion pills,

861
00:45:41,640 --> 00:45:45,960
Speaker 6: which are the safest, easiest means of terminating a pregnancy

862
00:45:46,120 --> 00:45:49,400
Speaker 6: for over sixty percent of American pregnant people. And it's

863
00:45:49,480 --> 00:45:55,040
Speaker 6: so myopic and self indulgent and also religiously bonkers that

864
00:45:55,200 --> 00:45:58,239
Speaker 6: to suggest that, oh, well, they didn't go for it,

865
00:45:58,560 --> 00:46:02,520
Speaker 6: that sen suggests much other than we only you know,

866
00:46:02,640 --> 00:46:04,600
Speaker 6: need to wait for this to come next time.

867
00:46:04,719 --> 00:46:07,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, I listened to your podcast.

868
00:46:07,280 --> 00:46:07,719
Speaker 5: Thank you.

869
00:46:07,960 --> 00:46:08,840
Speaker 6: I listened to yours.

870
00:46:08,960 --> 00:46:12,800
Speaker 1: You're welcome, and it's very very very good and everyone

871
00:46:12,800 --> 00:46:14,040
Speaker 1: should listen to it.

872
00:46:14,160 --> 00:46:15,959
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I'm a huge fan of yours,

873
00:46:16,000 --> 00:46:17,080
Speaker 2: but you're so smart.

874
00:46:17,560 --> 00:46:20,640
Speaker 1: And when I was listening to Amoicus Slade, I am

875
00:46:20,680 --> 00:46:23,560
Speaker 1: also a I joined, so whatever it is that I

876
00:46:23,600 --> 00:46:25,520
Speaker 1: don't have to listen to ads. But when I was

877
00:46:25,560 --> 00:46:29,120
Speaker 1: listening to Amicus, you had an incredibly good interview with

878
00:46:29,280 --> 00:46:32,000
Speaker 1: a woman who was both a lawyer and a doctor,

879
00:46:32,280 --> 00:46:36,480
Speaker 1: Carrie and Baker, and she talked about how much anti

880
00:46:36,600 --> 00:46:40,920
Speaker 1: choice activists worked hard at every point to try to

881
00:46:41,000 --> 00:46:44,040
Speaker 1: keep this drunk from coming to the United States, and

882
00:46:44,200 --> 00:46:46,080
Speaker 1: I just was curious if you could talk a little

883
00:46:46,080 --> 00:46:50,319
Speaker 1: bit about this sort of legacy of methapristone and just

884
00:46:50,480 --> 00:46:54,480
Speaker 1: how you know, they really acted in this really crazy

885
00:46:54,520 --> 00:46:55,560
Speaker 1: way about it.

886
00:46:55,560 --> 00:46:59,560
Speaker 6: It was such a like scales fall off my eyes moment, Mollie,

887
00:46:59,600 --> 00:47:01,600
Speaker 6: because I I thought I knew this case pretty well,

888
00:47:01,600 --> 00:47:04,879
Speaker 6: and I thought I knew medication abortion pretty well, and

889
00:47:05,160 --> 00:47:11,319
Speaker 6: I thought that all these decades of roadblocks and over regulation,

890
00:47:11,560 --> 00:47:13,880
Speaker 6: you know, how is it possible that myth of pristone,

891
00:47:14,200 --> 00:47:18,439
Speaker 6: you know, for decades has been legal in most other

892
00:47:18,560 --> 00:47:21,719
Speaker 6: countries and over the counter, as it should be, and

893
00:47:21,880 --> 00:47:26,120
Speaker 6: none of these restrictions that are only now finally we can,

894
00:47:26,400 --> 00:47:28,600
Speaker 6: you know, get it through telemedicine and you don't have

895
00:47:28,680 --> 00:47:31,040
Speaker 6: to be in person, you can put it in the mails.

896
00:47:31,400 --> 00:47:35,560
Speaker 6: Why are we decades behind other places? And what she

897
00:47:35,800 --> 00:47:39,720
Speaker 6: helped explain is that this was the plan all along,

898
00:47:39,960 --> 00:47:44,560
Speaker 6: that even when it was being developed in France, American

899
00:47:44,920 --> 00:47:51,720
Speaker 6: anti choice activists were terrorizing the scientists and terrorizing the regulators.

900
00:47:52,000 --> 00:47:55,960
Speaker 6: That it has been the reason the FDA did this

901
00:47:56,080 --> 00:47:59,960
Speaker 6: in these sort of mincing baby steps that always met

902
00:48:00,280 --> 00:48:03,240
Speaker 6: a drug that, let's be honest, it's safer than talent

903
00:48:03,320 --> 00:48:07,000
Speaker 6: all it's safer than viagra. Millions and millions of people

904
00:48:07,040 --> 00:48:10,360
Speaker 6: have used it. And the reason it was so wildly

905
00:48:10,440 --> 00:48:13,880
Speaker 6: over regulated is not because it was a dangerous drug,

906
00:48:14,000 --> 00:48:16,320
Speaker 6: or not because the FDA didn't know what it was doing,

907
00:48:16,400 --> 00:48:20,880
Speaker 6: but because the same tactics that were used to close

908
00:48:20,960 --> 00:48:25,120
Speaker 6: clinics shutter clinics, demand that clinics have extra wide hallways

909
00:48:25,239 --> 00:48:27,480
Speaker 6: and HVAC systems. All of the things that were being

910
00:48:27,560 --> 00:48:32,359
Speaker 6: directed at abortion clinics for surgical abortions were also being

911
00:48:32,440 --> 00:48:36,000
Speaker 6: directed at Mefypristown. And so the result is you have

912
00:48:36,120 --> 00:48:39,240
Speaker 6: this drug that takes decades to come on the market

913
00:48:39,280 --> 00:48:42,960
Speaker 6: in ways they're comparable to other countries, and we all

914
00:48:42,960 --> 00:48:45,000
Speaker 6: are sitting there saying, ah, it must be a super

915
00:48:45,000 --> 00:48:48,400
Speaker 6: crazy dangerous drug. Nothing out of the sort. It was

916
00:48:48,520 --> 00:48:52,359
Speaker 6: by design made to look dangerous by those who didn't

917
00:48:52,360 --> 00:48:53,920
Speaker 6: want it. And the other thing she said, and I

918
00:48:53,960 --> 00:48:58,080
Speaker 6: thought this was almost more compelling, Molly, and she was unbelievable,

919
00:48:58,480 --> 00:49:02,320
Speaker 6: is that if you have devoted as the anti choice folks,

920
00:49:02,360 --> 00:49:08,000
Speaker 6: have decades to shuttering clinics, to having abortion doctors you know,

921
00:49:08,200 --> 00:49:13,400
Speaker 6: terrorized and murdered, and to throwing bricks through the windows

922
00:49:13,400 --> 00:49:17,319
Speaker 6: of places where surgical abortions are administered, and yelling at

923
00:49:17,320 --> 00:49:20,080
Speaker 6: people as they walk into a clinic and calling it

924
00:49:20,600 --> 00:49:24,120
Speaker 6: free speech, and having crisis pregnancy centers set up next

925
00:49:24,120 --> 00:49:27,480
Speaker 6: door to clinics so that you can direct people away.

926
00:49:27,560 --> 00:49:31,960
Speaker 6: Like that whole battalion of actions goes away if a

927
00:49:32,040 --> 00:49:36,880
Speaker 6: doctor can just prescribe with a pristone in a telemedicine appointment,

928
00:49:37,000 --> 00:49:38,759
Speaker 6: or you could just get it in the mail. So

929
00:49:38,960 --> 00:49:44,000
Speaker 6: this really blows up the entire decades long post Rose

930
00:49:44,000 --> 00:49:50,160
Speaker 6: strategy of terrorizing women, terrorizing physicians, terrorizing clinic workers, because

931
00:49:50,200 --> 00:49:53,120
Speaker 6: all that goes away. And so this is the whole

932
00:49:53,280 --> 00:49:56,759
Speaker 6: enchilada to get rid of medication abortion, because there's no

933
00:49:56,960 --> 00:50:00,200
Speaker 6: strategy if you can't do all those things that have

934
00:50:00,239 --> 00:50:02,720
Speaker 6: worked for years to shut our clinics around the country.

935
00:50:02,960 --> 00:50:05,600
Speaker 1: One of the things the Heritage Foundation is working on

936
00:50:05,800 --> 00:50:09,000
Speaker 1: next and I read it on their website so I

937
00:50:09,040 --> 00:50:13,440
Speaker 1: know it's true, is they hate all regulation except when

938
00:50:13,480 --> 00:50:15,880
Speaker 1: it comes to women's bodies. They want to regulate I

939
00:50:16,080 --> 00:50:19,319
Speaker 1: viapp And if you read this, what they have on

940
00:50:19,360 --> 00:50:24,480
Speaker 1: the website. It's like dangerous and expensive and there's no protocol.

941
00:50:23,960 --> 00:50:25,480
Speaker 2: And why isn't it regulated?

942
00:50:25,920 --> 00:50:29,200
Speaker 1: And it just struck me as we talk about these

943
00:50:29,280 --> 00:50:34,200
Speaker 1: Republican justices trying desperately to get this medicine off the market.

944
00:50:34,040 --> 00:50:37,000
Speaker 2: That regulation is where they're going with a lot of

945
00:50:37,040 --> 00:50:38,319
Speaker 2: this right.

946
00:50:38,080 --> 00:50:42,120
Speaker 6: And not just regulation. But remember the promise of Dobbs.

947
00:50:42,160 --> 00:50:43,759
Speaker 6: We talked about this a little bit when you came

948
00:50:43,800 --> 00:50:46,000
Speaker 6: on my show, But the promise of Dobbs was this

949
00:50:46,160 --> 00:50:48,000
Speaker 6: was going to be left to the states and the

950
00:50:48,200 --> 00:50:52,160
Speaker 6: justices were out of the abortion business much less less

951
00:50:52,239 --> 00:50:55,719
Speaker 6: the life begins at personhood, you know, all of that

952
00:50:55,880 --> 00:50:59,040
Speaker 6: stuff business. That was the promise, right, and that was

953
00:50:59,080 --> 00:51:01,480
Speaker 6: always a lie. We knew that was a lie. We

954
00:51:01,560 --> 00:51:06,360
Speaker 6: read Clarence Thomas's concurrencying, Oh, but the way we're coming

955
00:51:06,400 --> 00:51:10,200
Speaker 6: for your birth control, we're coming from LGBTQ rights in

956
00:51:10,280 --> 00:51:13,279
Speaker 6: same sex marriage. Like it's all coming down, and I

957
00:51:13,320 --> 00:51:16,520
Speaker 6: think we just contented ourselves that they were telling us

958
00:51:16,600 --> 00:51:19,799
Speaker 6: the truth. But you're exactly right when you read the

959
00:51:19,840 --> 00:51:23,600
Speaker 6: Alabama ivf. That Supreme Court decision, which is by the way,

960
00:51:23,920 --> 00:51:29,720
Speaker 6: entirely theological and in no way constitutional, what's really really

961
00:51:29,840 --> 00:51:33,160
Speaker 6: clear is that the endgame here is fetal personhood, and

962
00:51:33,200 --> 00:51:37,000
Speaker 6: the endgame is a national ban. And you're completely right

963
00:51:37,200 --> 00:51:40,560
Speaker 6: that anybody who thought that, because they told us in

964
00:51:40,680 --> 00:51:43,440
Speaker 6: Dabbs that it stops at abortion and it stops at

965
00:51:43,480 --> 00:51:46,600
Speaker 6: the state. Anyone who thought that was like not the

966
00:51:46,640 --> 00:51:50,160
Speaker 6: most glorious lucy football in the history of lucy footballs.

967
00:51:50,520 --> 00:51:52,800
Speaker 6: Just I guess those are the people who are surprised

968
00:51:52,800 --> 00:51:54,239
Speaker 6: now that they're coming for IVF.

969
00:51:54,719 --> 00:51:58,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're not, unfortunately. Thank you, thank you, Thank you, Dahlia.

970
00:51:58,680 --> 00:52:02,040
Speaker 1: You are awesome. I so appreciate getting to talk to you.

971
00:52:02,040 --> 00:52:05,359
Speaker 1: You were the person I absolutely wanted to talk to about.

972
00:52:05,040 --> 00:52:07,720
Speaker 6: This, and you are my person too, and you're probably

973
00:52:07,840 --> 00:52:10,040
Speaker 6: Justice Kagan's person. She just doesn't know it yet.

974
00:52:10,160 --> 00:52:10,920
Speaker 5: Thanks Mollie.

975
00:52:14,520 --> 00:52:20,120
Speaker 2: No, No, Jesse Cannon, my junk fast.

976
00:52:20,320 --> 00:52:24,080
Speaker 3: We've all been waiting for a gag on Trump, but

977
00:52:24,400 --> 00:52:27,760
Speaker 3: we got that in somewhat form in a legal order today.

978
00:52:27,760 --> 00:52:28,920
Speaker 3: Tell me what you're seeing here.

979
00:52:29,000 --> 00:52:33,360
Speaker 1: So the judge presiding over Donald Trump's criminal trial is

980
00:52:33,600 --> 00:52:37,720
Speaker 1: no dumb dumb and he has already ordered a gag

981
00:52:37,840 --> 00:52:39,120
Speaker 1: order on Donald Trump.

982
00:52:39,160 --> 00:52:43,480
Speaker 2: You'll notice this follows Donald Trump true thing. Remember truth Social.

983
00:52:43,320 --> 00:52:47,279
Speaker 1: His highly overvalued meme stock of a company which is

984
00:52:47,400 --> 00:52:49,560
Speaker 1: now trading today publicly.

985
00:52:49,840 --> 00:52:52,400
Speaker 2: It's a spac it's a scam, it's whatever.

986
00:52:52,800 --> 00:52:55,680
Speaker 1: Maybe it's not a scam. Maybe it's really worth billions

987
00:52:55,719 --> 00:52:56,440
Speaker 1: of dollars.

988
00:52:56,600 --> 00:52:58,880
Speaker 3: I think those bibles he's selling are the real scam.

989
00:52:59,560 --> 00:53:00,800
Speaker 2: I like the gold sneakers.

990
00:53:01,040 --> 00:53:03,640
Speaker 1: This is in a rambling and angry posts on his

991
00:53:03,719 --> 00:53:07,479
Speaker 1: social media site truth Social on Tuesday, mister Trump made

992
00:53:07,600 --> 00:53:11,640
Speaker 1: ominous references to mister Cohen, claiming without explanation that his

993
00:53:11,719 --> 00:53:13,320
Speaker 1: former fixer was death.

994
00:53:13,640 --> 00:53:15,239
Speaker 2: This is never a good thing to do.

995
00:53:15,560 --> 00:53:18,560
Speaker 1: He also referred to one of mister Bragg's prosecutors in

996
00:53:18,600 --> 00:53:23,560
Speaker 1: pejorative terms. Both comments would now arguably violate the gag order.

997
00:53:23,880 --> 00:53:27,560
Speaker 1: He's gagged, but that doesn't mean he'll stop. As we've

998
00:53:27,600 --> 00:53:32,000
Speaker 1: seen before, nothing makes Donald Trump stop and his big

999
00:53:32,040 --> 00:53:37,440
Speaker 1: mouth and his itchy thumbs because he truths with his thumbs.

1000
00:53:37,640 --> 00:53:41,160
Speaker 1: That is our moment of fuck Gray. That's it for

1001
00:53:41,280 --> 00:53:45,080
Speaker 1: this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday

1002
00:53:45,080 --> 00:53:48,040
Speaker 1: and Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes

1003
00:53:48,040 --> 00:53:51,360
Speaker 1: sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard,

1004
00:53:51,719 --> 00:53:54,680
Speaker 1: please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.

1005
00:53:55,080 --> 00:53:56,720
Speaker 1: And again thanks for listening.