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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 Texas Republicans have proposed a bill

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Speaker 1: that would let the Department of Public Safety hunt, arrest,

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Speaker 1: and deport undocumented immigrants. We have a great show today.

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Speaker 1: The Washington Post Ashley Parker stops by to talk Trump's

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Speaker 1: impending indictment. Then we'll talk to Politico's Ian Ward about

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Speaker 1: the Federal Society's newest turns and twists. But first we

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Speaker 1: have the host of the Origin Story podcast, Ian dunt.

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Speaker 1: Welcome back to Fast Politics, fan favorite and my personal favorite. Ian.

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Speaker 1: Thank you very much, thank you, thank you for having me.

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Speaker 1: I special correspondent from the UK. Wait, that doesn't this

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Speaker 1: mean I've been demoted because last time I spent to you,

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Speaker 1: I was the hold of fucking Europe. But now apparne,

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Speaker 1: I'm back to just the UK. That's right. No, no,

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Speaker 1: our special European correspondent, We'll give you Italy and France

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Speaker 1: and Germany. Sure you can have them. Oh good, thank you. No, no,

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Speaker 1: let us not save me and things about those countries

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Speaker 1: of which I have sold my memoir because I might

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Speaker 1: have to go and try to sell them books. Ian,

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Speaker 1: what the fuck is happening over there? And why do

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Speaker 1: you guys seem to be getting worse? Oh, I'm not

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Speaker 1: sure that we are getting worse. I think, Oh well, congratulation, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we've been. We're sort of just stumbling along the bottom

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Speaker 1: of the barrel. Now. Really, there's there's no real sense

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Speaker 1: of you know, if you were to take our previous

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Speaker 1: prime minister, Is Trust, or our prime minister before that,

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Speaker 1: Boris Johnson, they were they were probably worse than Risci Sunak,

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Speaker 1: the guy that we have now, you know, they were

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Speaker 1: in the real let's just strip naked, poor gasoline everywhere

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Speaker 1: and just set this whole fucker on fire sort of category,

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Speaker 1: whereas Rishi Sunak has like a little bit more sense

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Speaker 1: to him and a little bit more moderation. So we're

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Speaker 1: not strictly improving, but I think probably we're not declining anyone. Congratulated,

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Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you very much. So would you say

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Speaker 1: which he seed up? I mean for those of us

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Speaker 1: who need to make conversation with our European friends, or

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Speaker 1: is he better than Liz Trust? Yes, but then you've

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Speaker 1: got to remember that Liz Trust was only in office

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Speaker 1: for a few short weeks, and in that time the

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Speaker 1: Queen died and she destroyed the British economy. So as

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Speaker 1: a sort of set of achievements, she's not hard to

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Speaker 1: hurdle over. Really, he's a very odd fish. She's seen

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Speaker 1: act so the way he likes to present himself, and

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Speaker 1: I think the person that he truly is is a

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Speaker 1: kind of mid level European technocrat. That's really what he is.

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Speaker 1: You know, he's not particularly charismatic. He likes to pride

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Speaker 1: himself on fixing problems. He's incredibly nerdy and genuinely nerdy.

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Speaker 1: He's not putting it on, and so lots of the

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Speaker 1: stuff he does is sort of tolerably okay. I mean,

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Speaker 1: in any kind of rational country, he certainly wouldn't be

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Speaker 1: Prime minister. He would be a sort of ambitious young

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Speaker 1: junior minister in a minor department. But nevertheless, you know,

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Speaker 1: he is Prime Minister, and he's better than any of

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Speaker 1: at least the three people that have preceded him. So

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Speaker 1: he sort of sets out some of these Brexit problems

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Speaker 1: and it comes back. He's come up with a solution

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Speaker 1: with the Europeans to the Northern Irish issue, which is

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Speaker 1: sort of bedeviled the Brexit arrangements for some time, and

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Speaker 1: it's sort of tolerable, it's sort of allowable. Pretty lukewarm stuff,

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Speaker 1: but okay, can you explain what it is? Yeah? So,

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Speaker 1: and the big problem that we had with Brexit was,

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Speaker 1: you know, you're going to put out of the regulatory

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Speaker 1: system and the custom system of Europe and that would

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Speaker 1: sort of work out geographically if it wasn't for the

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Speaker 1: Republic of Ireland, which is still within the European system.

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Speaker 1: This has really been thought out well, yes, exactly exactly.

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Speaker 1: So the peace process requires there to be no border

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Speaker 1: on the island of Ireland, so between the UK's Northern

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Speaker 1: Ireland and the European Republic of Ireland. That meant you

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Speaker 1: couldn't put the border down the middle. So what Boris

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Speaker 1: Johnson did when he pulled Britain out of Europe was

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Speaker 1: to say, we'll find so we'll put the border in

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Speaker 1: the Irish Sea. And what that did was just car

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Speaker 1: of a whole right through the middle of the UK's

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Speaker 1: territorial integrity and of course explode the really quite sensitive

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Speaker 1: emotional and religious tensions around Ireland and around its relationship

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Speaker 1: with the UK. This deal supposedly fixes that. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it does it through a very very EU system, which

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Speaker 1: is the sort of crazily protracted legal process of vetoing

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Speaker 1: new laws on regulations when they come in. You've got

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Speaker 1: countries like Norway, they have similar who also have quite

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Speaker 1: a distant relationship to Europe but are close to them.

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Speaker 1: They have similar systems in place. Europe always likes these

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Speaker 1: systems because what happens is you go, oh, look, you

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Speaker 1: can complain about a new law if you want, but

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Speaker 1: just for the record, if you get rid of that

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Speaker 1: new law, then you're going to be blocked out of

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Speaker 1: that part of the Single market. And if you're blocked

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Speaker 1: out of that part of the Single market, you will

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Speaker 1: take economic damage. So what happens is people never ever

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Speaker 1: veto the law, like Norway occasionally acted like it might

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Speaker 1: over a sort of immigration things like that, but they

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Speaker 1: never veto because the consequences are so great. And that's

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Speaker 1: basically what Richie Soona came back with. There was a

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Speaker 1: hint of a sort of Tory Brexitter rebellion led by

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Speaker 1: our old friend Boris Johnson, but it kind of pissed

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Speaker 1: itself away into nothing really and any teams to have

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Speaker 1: gotten away with it. So on that side, it seems

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Speaker 1: like it's pretty sensible stuff from Richie Soonac. But now

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Speaker 1: take this other bill that he's done, completely insane. It's

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Speaker 1: called the EU Retained Law Bill, and this is what

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Speaker 1: it does. It says, we've had forty years of relationship

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Speaker 1: with Europe. We've got European law all over our statute book.

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Speaker 1: So what we're going to do is, on December the

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Speaker 1: thirty first of this year, we're going to switch it

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Speaker 1: all off. We just we don't even know what it is.

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Speaker 1: We can't tell you what it is. We're just going

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Speaker 1: to set an arbitrary deadline to switch off a bunch

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Speaker 1: of laws. So when people then ask the government, so

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Speaker 1: which laws are you talking about? Which ones you know?

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Speaker 1: They're like, well, we don't really know what they are,

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Speaker 1: so we're going to start counting them. They counted, they've

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Speaker 1: got a few thousand. Later they found a few more thousand.

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Speaker 1: They now have confirmed. They know that they do not know.

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Speaker 1: Sorry to go with Donald rumsfold on you. They know

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Speaker 1: that they don't know or the law that are going

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Speaker 1: to get switched off, but they're going to switch them

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Speaker 1: off anyway. And basically just throw the whole regulatory system,

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Speaker 1: the country's basic legal system, into complete disarray for no

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Speaker 1: reason whatsoever. Now that is like classic Brexit lunacy. So

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Speaker 1: she's seeing like at the same time, he's the clever

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Speaker 1: technocrat fixing broadrams, and he's also the arsonist that's just

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Speaker 1: going to burn the house down because he feels like it.

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Speaker 1: And it's quite unclear which of these personalities is going

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Speaker 1: to come to the fort on any given day. That

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Speaker 1: sounds incredible. Can you explain? So is Brexit? I mean,

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Speaker 1: are we still dealing with this? Like is there any

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Speaker 1: kind of fix here? Now? Everyone just wants it to

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Speaker 1: go away, and you can't have it go away though, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it just can't. It can't go away because it's too big.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's really about your laws, your trading patterns,

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Speaker 1: the deals you do with other people. It's it's ultimately

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Speaker 1: also about the fact that this is a pretty small

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Speaker 1: country and we're right next to the largest consumer market

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Speaker 1: in the history of mankind, the largest single market history

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Speaker 1: of mankind, and the most sophisticated one. So on that basis,

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Speaker 1: you will get remorselessly pulled into its gravity. You know,

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Speaker 1: it's not you just no matter what the Brexits say,

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Speaker 1: you can't make Europe just go away, you know, you

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Speaker 1: can't row the island away from the European mainland and

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Speaker 1: pretend that it's not happening. And so it just keeps

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Speaker 1: on coming back. So now everyone's board of it. Remain

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Speaker 1: as a board of it, leave as a board of it.

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Speaker 1: But it just won't stop happening because it's just too

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Speaker 1: big an issue to leave. By the wayside. Can you

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Speaker 1: explain to me why they can't just do another vote

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Speaker 1: and go back to normal. That is just poison at

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Speaker 1: the moment, that whole idea. So people hurt myself, and

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Speaker 1: that's obviously what I want, and it's what everybody wants.

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Speaker 1: Right well, now it's what half the people want, which

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Speaker 1: are the people that voted to stay, you know, all

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Speaker 1: of us that lost, We obviously want to play the

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Speaker 1: game again, you know. And there is at the moment

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Speaker 1: very strong and persistent polling that shows that most people

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Speaker 1: think Brexit was a mistake, we shouldn't have done it,

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Speaker 1: and we should go back in. However, and I know

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Speaker 1: this sounds counterintuitive, but that doesn't translate into people thinking

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Speaker 1: we should reopen the issue because they know what it means,

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Speaker 1: and they're right to know what it means, which is

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Speaker 1: that we will spend another six years having all the

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Speaker 1: same insanely boring debates again about regulatory divergence and custom

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Speaker 1: standards and phyto and phytosanitary checks, all of the most

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Speaker 1: tedious political questions known to mankind. We'll have all of

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Speaker 1: that again. All the families will fall out again over

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Speaker 1: Christmas dinner and you're arguing with your father in law,

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Speaker 1: and everyone will hate each other again, And so they

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Speaker 1: just don't want to do it. It's basically just this

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Speaker 1: sort of really pussy spot that you can't bear to

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Speaker 1: pop because I think it's just going to hurt too much.

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Speaker 1: So for the time being, neither of the parties wants

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Speaker 1: to reopen it. Even Labor, which is supported by remainers

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Speaker 1: populated entirely by remainers. They just won't go ahead and say.

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Speaker 1: What they'll do is say we're going to build a

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Speaker 1: closer trading relationship. And my suggestion is that will last

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Speaker 1: for five, six, seven years and gradually will just become

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Speaker 1: closer and closer to Europe until we're sort of back in. Yeah. Oh,

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Speaker 1: so you think eventually you'll just ignore Brexit away. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it'll be slow and tedious, and I think the best

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Speaker 1: way who would have thought and the best way of

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Speaker 1: doing it will be to try to extract it from

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Speaker 1: the culture war element, the sort of oh, you know,

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Speaker 1: the lost metropolitans and the cities versus the real people

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Speaker 1: in the rural areas and the towns, and just to

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Speaker 1: have it as this sort of technical process which is

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Speaker 1: about trade. And from our point of view, if you

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Speaker 1: can do that, you can secure your place back there

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Speaker 1: without any of the toxic poison that we unleashed over

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Speaker 1: the last few years. So I think ultimately will happen.

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Speaker 1: It's the direction of travel, and even just demographically, I mean,

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Speaker 1: if you've been to university, if you're under the age

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Speaker 1: of really kind of like fifty five sixty years old,

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Speaker 1: you were typically pro European. So each day that passes

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Speaker 1: this is not a nice point to make. Demographically, the

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Speaker 1: system improves for remainers because more of the people who

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Speaker 1: truly opposed it, the older people shuffle off, you know,

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Speaker 1: life's mortal coil, and more young people come online into

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Speaker 1: the voting demographic who would vote in the next referendum,

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Speaker 1: So you know, the direction of travel the sort of

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Speaker 1: destiny element of it is pretty clear, but it's going

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Speaker 1: to be a long, slow, slow process. Can you explain

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Speaker 1: to me why Boris Johnson is in trouble? Yeah, because

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Speaker 1: he's fucking Moro on this time? Yeah, you know what

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Speaker 1: I wish. You know, it's weird having this at the

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Speaker 1: sort of twentieth anniversary of the Iraq War, because Tony

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Speaker 1: Blair's reputation was completely destroyed by deciding to support you

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Speaker 1: guys over Iraq. Hey, Hey, hey, not me, baby, We

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Speaker 1: all have to date responsibility. You do so, Lena now.

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Speaker 1: And you know what that was like a catastrophic, highly

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Speaker 1: preventable decision, which he deserves to be massively criticized for.

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Speaker 1: And yet at least it was a big cool you know,

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Speaker 1: at least it was like a moment of sort of

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Speaker 1: world shaking significance. You take Boris Johnson, what does his

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Speaker 1: career get ruined by him because he had to have

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Speaker 1: birthday parties during lockdown in his house like that. It's like,

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Speaker 1: you're just devolve into the status of a child, and

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Speaker 1: this week he finally got his come uppance. This is

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Speaker 1: a guy that has been lying his entire life, you know,

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Speaker 1: his first jobs in journalism, he got sacked from for

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Speaker 1: just basically transcribing work from other people and putting it

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Speaker 1: in his copy. Throughout his political career, he just lied

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Speaker 1: and lied and lied and died, not least about Brexit.

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Speaker 1: Then now it's like he finally got caught right. He

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Speaker 1: said there were no parties, He said the rules were

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Speaker 1: followed at all times, he said the guidance was followed

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Speaker 1: at all times. And then a series of photographs videos

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Speaker 1: come out showing him at parties with a drink in

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Speaker 1: his hand, no one social distancing, blah blah blah. The

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Speaker 1: trouble is he said all those things about their not

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Speaker 1: being any parties and the rules being followed to the

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Speaker 1: House of Commons, and that means that he's in contempt

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Speaker 1: of the House of Commons, that he's misled the House

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Speaker 1: of Commons. You can do that in two ways. You

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Speaker 1: can do it intentionally or he can do it recklessly.

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Speaker 1: But either way he would be considered in contempt of

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Speaker 1: the House of Commons. And so there is now an

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Speaker 1: inquiry into his behavior. If that inquiry by the Privileges

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Speaker 1: Committee finds that he is guilty of that, he could

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Speaker 1: be sanctioned by ten days suspension from the House of Commons,

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Speaker 1: and if that happens, it triggers a recal petition from

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Speaker 1: his local constituents who can basically say, well, we want

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Speaker 1: to get rid of him, we want to have a

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Speaker 1: vote to get rid of him, And that opens up

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Speaker 1: the possibility that what's happening now is the end of

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Speaker 1: his political career. So this week he sat in front

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Speaker 1: of the committee and answered questions, and that is the

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Speaker 1: fate that is staring him in the face at the moment.

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Speaker 1: Why would that be the end of his political career

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Speaker 1: because you'll probably lose. He could come back, I mean,

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Speaker 1: that's perfectly possible, but he would probably lose that by

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Speaker 1: election fight, so he would be thrown out of the Commons.

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Speaker 1: Quite an extraordinary thing, by the way, for a prime

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Speaker 1: minister with a huge majority at the beginning of the

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Speaker 1: parliament to then finish the parliament actually getting booted out

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Speaker 1: of the House of Commons even as an MP. But

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Speaker 1: something else interesting happened during that day that sort of

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Speaker 1: signifies it. Right, So he sat there, he's answering questions.

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Speaker 1: He comes across like a really angry, petulant, entitled child,

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Speaker 1: just sort of shouting about this is all nonsense. How

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Speaker 1: can you question me like this? To the MPs? His

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Speaker 1: stories are preposterous, you know, I mean, just not even

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Speaker 1: a child could believe all he was saying. But halfway

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Speaker 1: through that testimony, MPs went off to vote on Rishie's

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Speaker 1: Sunac's Brexit deal, this Northern Land Protocol element, and Boris

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Speaker 1: Johnson had come out against that. Now, once upon a

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Speaker 1: time Boris Johnson comes out against something, he's going to

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Speaker 1: add a whole mass of Conservative MPs behind him. It

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Speaker 1: means that the government's in real trouble. This time just

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Speaker 1: over twenty of them voted with him, hardly any at all.

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Speaker 1: It was like a drop in the ocean. He doesn't

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Speaker 1: actually have that many allies left to him, so it's

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Speaker 1: this kind of pitiful spectacle. He was firing his guns,

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Speaker 1: he was doing all the things, all the bluster, all

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Speaker 1: the sort of mock Bonhomy charisma that he can deploy,

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Speaker 1: and none of it was working, and his parliamentary support

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Speaker 1: was falling away, and he was engage in a process

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Speaker 1: that could well see him thrown out of Parliament altogether.

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Speaker 1: So the way it looked this week was it was

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Speaker 1: the final days of Boris Johnson. I have trouble believing

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Speaker 1: that Boris will ever leave us, especially because even if

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Speaker 1: he's not in office, he still will have a sort

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Speaker 1: of shadow or journalistic career. Right, Oh, yeah, no, he will.

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Speaker 1: He will. But you know, something interesting happened, which I

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Speaker 1: think is like it's sort of like the definition of

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Speaker 1: the distinction between Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, which we've

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Speaker 1: spoken about before actually, which is that Boris Johnson lost

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Speaker 1: his base. He was unable to keep people with him

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Speaker 1: throughout this. So yesterday they had question Time, which is

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Speaker 1: the sort of flagship BBC current affairs program. It's terrible.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it is fucking dreadful, but but it is.

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Speaker 1: It's the flagship debate of lots of people screaming at

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Speaker 1: each other for no reason. I'm sorry, but I don't

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Speaker 1: understand why we don't have that in America. Well, actually,

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Speaker 1: the fun part of it is just watching members of

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Speaker 1: the public get to scream at cabinet secretaries and that's

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Speaker 1: actually quite a rewarding emotional experience. But nevertheless, it's not

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Speaker 1: the place you go to for forensic, detailed political debate.

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Speaker 1: And in the audience by a long distance, the audience

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Speaker 1: had voted for Boris Johnson in the last selection more

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Speaker 1: than any other single party that were available. And they

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Speaker 1: were asked yesterday by the host, can you put your

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Speaker 1: hand up if you believe Boris Johnson, And not one

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Speaker 1: single person in that hall put their hand up. That's

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Speaker 1: sort of the key distinction to me of like, you know,

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump can come out and say it about the

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Speaker 1: election or about whatever else and a set amount of

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Speaker 1: people will follow through with him. With Boris Johnson, he

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Speaker 1: lost those guys. He lost his base. And because he

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Speaker 1: lost his base and now he's losing his support in

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Speaker 1: the Parliamentary Party. Yes, he'll still be writing pieces for

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Speaker 1: the Telegraph and still be writing really badly researched books

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Speaker 1: about Churchill and which he pretends that he's his modern

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Speaker 1: day representative, but he won't have that political strength. And

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Speaker 1: at the moment I have to say throughout, for the

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Speaker 1: first time in my lifetime, you would say that his

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Speaker 1: star is significantly on the decline. And it feels like

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Speaker 1: we're closing page on his influence on British politics, his

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Speaker 1: heavy duty influence on British politics. Jesus, poor Boris, No,

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Speaker 1: don't say that. How can you even say that terrible guy,

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Speaker 1: so he could really be brought down by party gad.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, well, I mean he sort of already

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Speaker 1: has been, right, I mean, he already lost his position

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Speaker 1: in Downing Street. You know. The thing that I think

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Speaker 1: is going to kill him is this again, in a

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Speaker 1: pretty Trumpian way, He's gone down constantly trying to discredit

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Speaker 1: and malign and corrode the basic democratic institutions around him.

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Speaker 1: So the Privileges Committee is established by the House of

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Speaker 1: Commons according to rules that are set by the House

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Speaker 1: of Commons. It is a parliamentary body and Boris Johnson

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Speaker 1: has spent the last few weeks calling it a kangaroo court,

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Speaker 1: claiming it was rigged against him, claiming everyone's biased and

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Speaker 1: they're changing the terms of reference and basically questioning the

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Speaker 1: integrity of all the MPs who sits on it, including

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Speaker 1: five Conservative MPs. His allies in the media like Nadine Dorries,

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Speaker 1: is arguably the stupidest woman in British political life, have

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Speaker 1: been doing exactly the same sorts of attacks, same with

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Speaker 1: Jacob Brice Mark. So it's been a really sustained assault

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Speaker 1: on the committee. Now. The interesting thing is during the

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Speaker 1: committee hearings Towards the end, the MP started asking him

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Speaker 1: about this comments, and they were doing it in a

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Speaker 1: way that demonstrated their absolute abject anger towards him for

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Speaker 1: what he had done. I suspect if he had not

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Speaker 1: tried to do this, if he had not tried to

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Speaker 1: corrode the way that Parliament worked, they would have said, yes,

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Speaker 1: you misled the House, Yes it was reckless, but we're

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Speaker 1: gonna put a sanction on you of less than ten days.

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Speaker 1: If it was less than ten days, it wouldn't trigger

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Speaker 1: the election that could see him lose the hold of

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Speaker 1: his political career. But because he's behaved this way, because

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Speaker 1: he's tried to bring the standard system down all around Parliament,

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Speaker 1: they actually seem like they're going to be sterner, and

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Speaker 1: I suspect it will be because of that. But he'll

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Speaker 1: find himself in hotter water than he might otherwise have been.

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Speaker 1: All of which, frankly, is morally really quite reassuring and enjoyable.

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Speaker 1: And I'd be lying if I had the spend a

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Speaker 1: huge amount of this week just laughing and laughing as

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Speaker 1: I watched the process. Ian, I hope you will come

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Speaker 1: back to tell us what is happening across the pond

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Speaker 1: and make us feel a little better. That's good. I

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Speaker 1: will endeavor to do that. That's right. We'd like to

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Speaker 1: think of you as our shot. Ashley Parker is a

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Speaker 1: White House reporter for The Washington Post. Welcome Too Fast Politics,

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Speaker 1: Ashley Parker. Thanks for having me. Very excited to have

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Speaker 1: you in this at the end of the weirdest newsweek ever.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I guess whenever you're covering Trump, you're always

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Speaker 1: unprecedented times, but this feels more unprecedented than usual. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think that's true. I mean, for at least covering

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Speaker 1: Trump in his presidency, right, A lot of it was,

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Speaker 1: you know, as a White House reporter, was responding to

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Speaker 1: the latest thing he did or said or was trying

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Speaker 1: to do. And this is actually in again. We've certainly

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Speaker 1: been following what he's been putting out on truth social

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Speaker 1: but this has been this kind of weird waiting holding period,

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Speaker 1: waiting for something that would be potentially unprecedented in modern

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Speaker 1: times to happen, which is a former president getting indicted.

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Speaker 1: Will you explain to me because I think it's relevant.

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Speaker 1: This entire news cycle started on Saturday morning, almost a

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Speaker 1: week ago, with the truth from Donald Trump that said

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Speaker 1: I'm going to be arrested on Tuesday. After that, two

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Speaker 1: hours later, there was follow up from one of his

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Speaker 1: spokespeople who said, maybe now he kind of made that up, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, can you explain. Yeah, so we all see this,

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Speaker 1: and of course it does exactly what Trump loves doing,

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Speaker 1: which is Sunday sort of not just reporters, but the

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Speaker 1: entire country, the entire world into a frenzy with him

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Speaker 1: squarely at the center. And then you know, when everyone

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Speaker 1: reaches out to his team in his campaign and people

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Speaker 1: in his world to figure out, like, what does he mean?

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Speaker 1: What does he know that we don't know? The sort

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Speaker 1: of answer that comes back is, oh, we don't know either.

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Speaker 1: We didn't know he was going to send that. We

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Speaker 1: don't really understand where he got that from. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I've talked to some people since who sort of claim

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Speaker 1: that he got that idea from, you know, the sort

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Speaker 1: of New York Police tried to coordinate potential security logistics

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Speaker 1: with the Secret Service and something leaked and Trump got

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Speaker 1: wind of it. But that feels more like a conspiracy

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Speaker 1: theory than you know, anything we'd feel comfortable like nailing

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Speaker 1: down and putting in the paper, right, right right, And

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Speaker 1: there clearly were a lot of whispers, but not a lot,

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Speaker 1: you know, because there was some sense from the Manhattan

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Speaker 1: Age that they were going to go right. Yes, the

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Speaker 1: Post we have sort of been pretty careful about how

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Speaker 1: we've been phrasing this. I don't believe we've said, you know,

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Speaker 1: a likely or an expected indictment the way some other

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Speaker 1: news organizations have. But and again I'm not a legal expert,

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Speaker 1: but yes, the indications are sort of Historically, Trump was

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Speaker 1: invited to testify before the grand jury, and that's often

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Speaker 1: something that happens at the very end when a case

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Speaker 1: is wrapping up, right, So it was a very clear

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Speaker 1: signal that this case was wrapping up. And that's also

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Speaker 1: something that often but not always, happens shortly before an indictment.

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Speaker 1: So reading the tea leaves people could kind of feel

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Speaker 1: comfortable making that assumption. We at the Post did not.

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Speaker 1: But it was very clear that something was going to

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Speaker 1: happen either way, that this case is coming to a close,

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Speaker 1: whether it ends in an indictment or not. I mean,

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Speaker 1: what's happened now seems kind of extraordinary because nothing has happened. Yeah, sorry,

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Speaker 1: but do you find a point on it nothing has

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Speaker 1: happened yet, and we're all sort of still waiting with

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Speaker 1: bated breath, right, I mean, I think we ever and

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Speaker 1: else has news coverage plans ready to go for any

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Speaker 1: outcome and any contingency. At every day we sort of

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Speaker 1: show up at work ready, ready to launch and report

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Speaker 1: on whatever has happened, and then like every day we

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Speaker 1: go home and are like, Okay, let's like let's do

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Speaker 1: it again tomorrow. To just look at this in a

428
00:22:21,040 --> 00:22:23,600
Speaker 1: slightly different way, there would be no way to not

429
00:22:23,760 --> 00:22:26,480
Speaker 1: cover that. I mean, you couldn't say, like, I mean,

430
00:22:26,520 --> 00:22:31,200
Speaker 1: you couldn't say, wow, not cover this. It does seem

431
00:22:31,840 --> 00:22:34,399
Speaker 1: like all the evidence points in one way. Yeah, I

432
00:22:34,440 --> 00:22:36,960
Speaker 1: mean you would sort of be negligent as a news

433
00:22:37,080 --> 00:22:41,680
Speaker 1: organization if you didn't have coverage plans, frankly, for all

434
00:22:41,760 --> 00:22:43,760
Speaker 1: conceivable outcomes. I think that was something a lot of

435
00:22:43,800 --> 00:22:48,320
Speaker 1: news organizations learned on election Night twenty sixteen, that anything

436
00:22:48,480 --> 00:22:51,040
Speaker 1: that anything can happen the thing you expect and the

437
00:22:51,119 --> 00:22:53,359
Speaker 1: thing that all signs point towards, and the thing that

438
00:22:53,400 --> 00:22:56,480
Speaker 1: many people for whatever reason did not expect. Right. Yeah,

439
00:22:56,640 --> 00:23:00,000
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's a huge story. No matter what happens,

440
00:22:59,840 --> 00:23:02,840
Speaker 1: It's a story you know, with not just potential legal ramifications,

441
00:23:02,840 --> 00:23:04,560
Speaker 1: but also this is what I've been focused more on,

442
00:23:04,680 --> 00:23:08,800
Speaker 1: with potential huge political ramifications. So let's talk about those

443
00:23:08,800 --> 00:23:11,880
Speaker 1: political ramifications. I want to game this out for you.

444
00:23:12,600 --> 00:23:15,919
Speaker 1: Right now. He is raised, you know, more than a

445
00:23:15,920 --> 00:23:19,760
Speaker 1: million dollars, probably at this point more like two million dollars.

446
00:23:19,960 --> 00:23:22,200
Speaker 1: Right now, this has been I think a big win

447
00:23:22,320 --> 00:23:24,560
Speaker 1: for him. Do you think that's right? I mean, it

448
00:23:24,640 --> 00:23:28,000
Speaker 1: sort of depends on what context and the truth is.

449
00:23:28,040 --> 00:23:30,879
Speaker 1: I don't think we totally know. Yes, it has been

450
00:23:30,920 --> 00:23:35,640
Speaker 1: a huge fundraising way right. He is always good at

451
00:23:35,680 --> 00:23:38,840
Speaker 1: what he has portrayed as under attack or as a victim.

452
00:23:38,920 --> 00:23:42,359
Speaker 1: That is always a bood for Trump fundraising. Yes, that's true.

453
00:23:42,480 --> 00:23:44,919
Speaker 1: His team has come around to the idea, and not

454
00:23:44,960 --> 00:23:47,440
Speaker 1: just his team, but a lot of Republicans, including a

455
00:23:47,480 --> 00:23:50,119
Speaker 1: lot of Republicans who don't like him and would like

456
00:23:50,119 --> 00:23:52,760
Speaker 1: to see him go away, and even some Democrats to

457
00:23:52,840 --> 00:23:55,800
Speaker 1: this idea that this is something they believe that very

458
00:23:55,880 --> 00:23:59,840
Speaker 1: clearly helps him in the short term, especially in shoring

459
00:24:00,080 --> 00:24:03,800
Speaker 1: up his base and a Republican primary, and even maybe

460
00:24:04,280 --> 00:24:06,959
Speaker 1: again it's worth noting his base doesn't actually need to

461
00:24:07,000 --> 00:24:10,960
Speaker 1: be shored up, right like those people are going. But yes,

462
00:24:11,160 --> 00:24:13,520
Speaker 1: it shows up his base right, like probably the crowds

463
00:24:13,520 --> 00:24:15,919
Speaker 1: and a waygo this weekend will be maybe even bigger

464
00:24:15,920 --> 00:24:18,280
Speaker 1: and even more fired up in this current moment than

465
00:24:18,359 --> 00:24:20,560
Speaker 1: they would have before, but also potentially in the short

466
00:24:20,640 --> 00:24:23,440
Speaker 1: term and show enough some of these Republicans who maybe

467
00:24:23,480 --> 00:24:27,280
Speaker 1: voted for him twice but we're curious about a Dessantist

468
00:24:27,359 --> 00:24:30,600
Speaker 1: or the Tim Scott or whoever. But there's also a

469
00:24:30,680 --> 00:24:32,280
Speaker 1: view and again we just don't know the answers to

470
00:24:32,320 --> 00:24:36,280
Speaker 1: these questions yet that it certainly could hurt him in

471
00:24:36,640 --> 00:24:39,520
Speaker 1: a general election, which is ultimately like the final test

472
00:24:39,600 --> 00:24:43,400
Speaker 1: that matters. It's it's really nice to when your party's nomination,

473
00:24:43,480 --> 00:24:45,480
Speaker 1: but it's like even cooler to in the White House.

474
00:24:45,600 --> 00:24:49,440
Speaker 1: That's the main goal. So you know, among these kind

475
00:24:49,440 --> 00:24:53,840
Speaker 1: of more moderate Republicans, these independent voters, these Democrats who

476
00:24:53,920 --> 00:24:57,760
Speaker 1: maybe have some concerns about Biden but are certainly not

477
00:24:57,800 --> 00:25:00,199
Speaker 1: going to vote for Trump again, you know, these like

478
00:25:00,200 --> 00:25:03,879
Speaker 1: forty thousand people basically in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. This

479
00:25:03,960 --> 00:25:06,640
Speaker 1: is the sort of thing that does not help him. Yeah,

480
00:25:07,200 --> 00:25:09,120
Speaker 1: and it also it's worth noting, I mean I spent

481
00:25:09,320 --> 00:25:10,919
Speaker 1: I guess there was probably last month or so, but

482
00:25:10,960 --> 00:25:13,040
Speaker 1: I spent a couple of days interviewing more than thirty

483
00:25:13,040 --> 00:25:16,600
Speaker 1: six voters in Pennsylvania, and the posted a huge project

484
00:25:16,600 --> 00:25:18,760
Speaker 1: where there are five of US reporters out across the

485
00:25:18,760 --> 00:25:21,560
Speaker 1: country interviewing more than one hundred and fifty voters told

486
00:25:21,600 --> 00:25:25,080
Speaker 1: him all who had voted for Trump, often both times,

487
00:25:25,160 --> 00:25:30,280
Speaker 1: and even among them there's a sense of sort of chaos,

488
00:25:30,320 --> 00:25:34,200
Speaker 1: exhaustion and fatigue. And even though they don't blame him,

489
00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:37,800
Speaker 1: they like him. They generally like his policies as president.

490
00:25:38,160 --> 00:25:40,639
Speaker 1: And they'll say, look, these things are witch hunts, right.

491
00:25:40,680 --> 00:25:42,600
Speaker 1: The media is out to get him. The Democrats are

492
00:25:42,600 --> 00:25:44,600
Speaker 1: out to get him, the Ryno Republicans are out to

493
00:25:44,600 --> 00:25:46,320
Speaker 1: get him, and never Trumpers are out to get him.

494
00:25:46,720 --> 00:25:49,000
Speaker 1: They don't blame him for this, and they'll certainly put

495
00:25:49,200 --> 00:25:51,240
Speaker 1: you anything that comes out of the Manhattan DA in

496
00:25:51,280 --> 00:25:53,320
Speaker 1: this category. They also say, but at the end of

497
00:25:53,359 --> 00:25:55,600
Speaker 1: the day, we really want to beat Biden or whoever

498
00:25:55,680 --> 00:25:58,360
Speaker 1: the Democrat is. At the end of the day, it

499
00:25:58,480 --> 00:26:02,040
Speaker 1: might just be better to have a candidate who's not

500
00:26:02,200 --> 00:26:08,720
Speaker 1: been so unfairly persecuted, right, right, So it doesn't even

501
00:26:08,760 --> 00:26:13,000
Speaker 1: help him necessarily with all Republican voters. Is there a

502
00:26:13,080 --> 00:26:17,640
Speaker 1: world in which voters make a decision that says, I mean,

503
00:26:17,640 --> 00:26:20,040
Speaker 1: this is the thing I'm the most focused on. Is

504
00:26:20,359 --> 00:26:23,520
Speaker 1: there a world in which voters decide like, for example,

505
00:26:23,880 --> 00:26:26,600
Speaker 1: if you were and again you've gone into my head now,

506
00:26:26,640 --> 00:26:30,680
Speaker 1: so I apologize, But here's this opportunity right this week,

507
00:26:30,840 --> 00:26:35,000
Speaker 1: and and say you were a Republican who wanted to win,

508
00:26:35,520 --> 00:26:41,640
Speaker 1: which obviously they do, right, I mean Kevin McCarthy, Like Saturday, Saturday,

509
00:26:41,880 --> 00:26:45,280
Speaker 1: right after Trump truths, he says like this is a

510
00:26:45,359 --> 00:26:48,080
Speaker 1: partisan which hunt right, Like a few hours later he

511
00:26:48,160 --> 00:26:51,040
Speaker 1: immediately is like, whatever it is he our guy didn't

512
00:26:51,040 --> 00:26:54,360
Speaker 1: do it. Republicans had yet another opportunity to break with him,

513
00:26:54,440 --> 00:26:57,280
Speaker 1: and they were like, no, well not just Kevin McCarthy.

514
00:26:57,400 --> 00:26:59,280
Speaker 1: I mean, look at what's more interesting to me is

515
00:26:59,400 --> 00:27:04,160
Speaker 1: look at his twenty twenty four Republican primary rights people

516
00:27:04,200 --> 00:27:07,119
Speaker 1: who are either already declared running against him or we

517
00:27:07,200 --> 00:27:10,520
Speaker 1: know are very likely to run against him. Right, what

518
00:27:10,560 --> 00:27:14,680
Speaker 1: about Ron de Santis, Yeah, run de Santis. Mike Pence, Yeah.

519
00:27:14,760 --> 00:27:19,439
Speaker 1: The vig Ramaswanni Nicki Haley, Mike Pence came out and

520
00:27:19,520 --> 00:27:22,640
Speaker 1: basically said the same thing Ron de Santis stood kind

521
00:27:22,680 --> 00:27:26,280
Speaker 1: of a three step, right. First he was quiet, then

522
00:27:26,320 --> 00:27:29,200
Speaker 1: he came out and attacked that Manhattan Da album Bragg

523
00:27:29,480 --> 00:27:32,120
Speaker 1: you know, again, sort of saying this is a political persecution,

524
00:27:32,200 --> 00:27:36,240
Speaker 1: but also took the opportunity to very clearly repeat the

525
00:27:36,359 --> 00:27:40,520
Speaker 1: fairly sorted issue at the heart of this indication, which is,

526
00:27:41,119 --> 00:27:44,560
Speaker 1: you know, Trump paid money hush money to a porn start, right,

527
00:27:44,680 --> 00:27:47,120
Speaker 1: and noting that like he would know nothing about how

528
00:27:47,160 --> 00:27:51,119
Speaker 1: that sort of thing, right exactly, which fair most people

529
00:27:51,359 --> 00:27:53,560
Speaker 1: don't are not in the weeds about money to a

530
00:27:53,640 --> 00:27:55,800
Speaker 1: porn star. You know that they've sort of made this

531
00:27:55,880 --> 00:28:00,320
Speaker 1: calculation in theory, this should be a vulnerability, right, former

532
00:28:00,359 --> 00:28:03,320
Speaker 1: president potentially getting indicted, and they have made a calculation

533
00:28:03,359 --> 00:28:05,320
Speaker 1: that this is not the moment to try to deliver

534
00:28:05,359 --> 00:28:07,920
Speaker 1: a knock out blow and if anything, if they don't

535
00:28:07,920 --> 00:28:11,160
Speaker 1: stand behind him, a certain portion of the base will

536
00:28:11,320 --> 00:28:13,680
Speaker 1: punish him, which is a fascinating moment. I mean. The

537
00:28:14,040 --> 00:28:17,480
Speaker 1: person who maybe made sort of the most accurate point

538
00:28:17,480 --> 00:28:21,040
Speaker 1: in certain ways was Governor Chris Christie, who was in

539
00:28:21,080 --> 00:28:24,000
Speaker 1: a very different mold. If he ends up running for president,

540
00:28:24,160 --> 00:28:27,080
Speaker 1: you could see him sort of kamikaze style trying to

541
00:28:27,119 --> 00:28:29,560
Speaker 1: destroy Trump in the same way he did to Rubio

542
00:28:29,640 --> 00:28:32,600
Speaker 1: on that New Hampshire debate stage right, right right. But

543
00:28:33,040 --> 00:28:35,280
Speaker 1: Christie's point was sort of like me, you know, maybe

544
00:28:35,520 --> 00:28:37,359
Speaker 1: Trump's right where he likes to be, at the center

545
00:28:37,400 --> 00:28:40,120
Speaker 1: of turmoil and chaos. Maybe this helps him in the

546
00:28:40,160 --> 00:28:43,040
Speaker 1: short term. But like, I think we can all agree

547
00:28:43,040 --> 00:28:46,719
Speaker 1: on some general conventional wisdom that like, in general, getting

548
00:28:46,760 --> 00:28:52,360
Speaker 1: indicted is like not in that positively. I mean, I

549
00:28:52,400 --> 00:28:55,920
Speaker 1: almost wonder if it's like almost so echo chambered that

550
00:28:56,080 --> 00:28:59,640
Speaker 1: they no longer are able to see even a sense

551
00:28:59,680 --> 00:29:05,040
Speaker 1: of like a normal non MAGA voter, who could you know,

552
00:29:05,120 --> 00:29:10,040
Speaker 1: the PERSUADEA Alls might feel. Well, what's interesting is I

553
00:29:10,160 --> 00:29:12,200
Speaker 1: just had a story on this. There's been a lot

554
00:29:12,200 --> 00:29:16,040
Speaker 1: of discussions, both from other Republicans running or expected front

555
00:29:16,040 --> 00:29:20,840
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four, Republican strategist posters Republican groups of

556
00:29:20,880 --> 00:29:24,480
Speaker 1: sort of how do you defeat The first challenge for

557
00:29:24,520 --> 00:29:26,320
Speaker 1: them is how do you defeat someone like Trump in

558
00:29:26,400 --> 00:29:31,680
Speaker 1: a Republican primary? And the base on the whole does

559
00:29:31,760 --> 00:29:35,360
Speaker 1: not want to see him attacked, right right, because his

560
00:29:35,440 --> 00:29:39,480
Speaker 1: strongest when he's a victim, when he's an outsider, when

561
00:29:39,520 --> 00:29:42,720
Speaker 1: he's fighting against the man, the establishment, the swamp. They're

562
00:29:42,760 --> 00:29:46,440
Speaker 1: sort of learning the lessons from twenty sixteen. They're also

563
00:29:46,560 --> 00:29:49,760
Speaker 1: learning that, you know, what worked in a general is

564
00:29:49,800 --> 00:29:53,040
Speaker 1: not what works obviously in a Republican primary. And what

565
00:29:53,080 --> 00:29:55,600
Speaker 1: they've sort of alighted on is this idea and they

566
00:29:55,600 --> 00:29:58,400
Speaker 1: haven't perfected it yet. Of Look, he did he did

567
00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:01,520
Speaker 1: a lot of good things, right, but like almost coming

568
00:30:01,520 --> 00:30:04,240
Speaker 1: at him from a place of disappointment, you know, like

569
00:30:04,280 --> 00:30:06,640
Speaker 1: we were so excited he was great in twenty sixteen,

570
00:30:06,960 --> 00:30:08,240
Speaker 1: you know, but he said he was going to build

571
00:30:08,240 --> 00:30:10,280
Speaker 1: the wall and he just did him right. And he

572
00:30:10,280 --> 00:30:13,880
Speaker 1: said Mexico was going to pay for the wall, and

573
00:30:14,240 --> 00:30:17,440
Speaker 1: they just did right. And and you know, we just

574
00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:20,480
Speaker 1: he's great and it's not even his fault, right about

575
00:30:20,520 --> 00:30:23,920
Speaker 1: all these political persecutions, But we just like we need

576
00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:25,880
Speaker 1: to be Biden and it's just time to move on

577
00:30:25,960 --> 00:30:29,480
Speaker 1: from all these distractions to a new generation of leaders.

578
00:30:29,560 --> 00:30:33,960
Speaker 1: So I think that's what you are going to ultimately hear. Yeah,

579
00:30:34,040 --> 00:30:35,960
Speaker 1: I mean the thing about all of this stuff is

580
00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:39,600
Speaker 1: it might work if you had a normal person, you know,

581
00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:43,480
Speaker 1: if you had a Debia or you had a Reagan.

582
00:30:43,680 --> 00:30:46,720
Speaker 1: But you don't have a normal Republican. Trump is not

583
00:30:46,760 --> 00:30:48,920
Speaker 1: going to say, Okay, I guess my time is over.

584
00:30:49,040 --> 00:30:53,040
Speaker 1: He's going to say rob to sanctimonious. But he's certainly

585
00:30:53,080 --> 00:30:56,800
Speaker 1: not going to bow out right or halt his campaign.

586
00:30:56,960 --> 00:30:58,920
Speaker 1: But I do think one thing you're seeing is one

587
00:30:58,920 --> 00:31:01,440
Speaker 1: thing they learned in twenty teen, in twenty twenty, and

588
00:31:01,440 --> 00:31:05,680
Speaker 1: throughout his entire presidency very clearly, is that attacks on

589
00:31:05,760 --> 00:31:09,880
Speaker 1: his character don't work because love him or hate him,

590
00:31:10,000 --> 00:31:14,480
Speaker 1: who Donald Trump is is just fully baked into the cake.

591
00:31:14,520 --> 00:31:16,320
Speaker 1: And frankly, you knew that when you went to the

592
00:31:16,360 --> 00:31:19,880
Speaker 1: polls in twenty sixteen, right, the idea that one more

593
00:31:20,360 --> 00:31:24,880
Speaker 1: controversy or scandal or woman coming out of the you know,

594
00:31:24,880 --> 00:31:28,280
Speaker 1: coming out to allege something against him, will change anyone's mind,

595
00:31:28,360 --> 00:31:31,280
Speaker 1: it simply won't, Right, So that's why you're not really

596
00:31:31,320 --> 00:31:34,440
Speaker 1: hearing arguments about can you believe that he might have

597
00:31:34,600 --> 00:31:38,600
Speaker 1: paid hush money to a porn star? Everyone's like it's

598
00:31:39,080 --> 00:31:41,320
Speaker 1: like I was like, yeah, like we can believe that,

599
00:31:41,360 --> 00:31:44,160
Speaker 1: and it either bothers us or it doesn't. But it's

600
00:31:44,200 --> 00:31:48,920
Speaker 1: more the sort of again the like chaos, exhaustion, fatigue,

601
00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:51,920
Speaker 1: like wouldn't it be nice to have a candidate who's

602
00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:55,320
Speaker 1: not just facing this investigation, but we should note three

603
00:31:55,360 --> 00:31:57,120
Speaker 1: others that we haven't you know, we haven't even talked

604
00:31:57,120 --> 00:32:00,040
Speaker 1: about and haven't even drawn to a close. But I

605
00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:03,520
Speaker 1: want to just talk about this. Caitlyn Collins tweeted this

606
00:32:03,720 --> 00:32:06,960
Speaker 1: from truth Social. Trump indicates that there could be potential

607
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:10,200
Speaker 1: death and destruction if he's charged. It seems like the base,

608
00:32:10,520 --> 00:32:13,720
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, is less, and perhaps it's because many

609
00:32:13,720 --> 00:32:16,680
Speaker 1: of them went to jail for January six seemed less

610
00:32:16,720 --> 00:32:21,440
Speaker 1: interested in causing violence in his name, including his truth

611
00:32:21,480 --> 00:32:24,920
Speaker 1: Social about a week earlier about you know, protest and

612
00:32:24,960 --> 00:32:27,880
Speaker 1: take Back our Nation as well. It all just lands

613
00:32:27,880 --> 00:32:31,880
Speaker 1: in a very different context after January sixth, Right, sort

614
00:32:31,880 --> 00:32:35,280
Speaker 1: of the thing people thought could never happen happened once.

615
00:32:35,640 --> 00:32:39,160
Speaker 1: And so what you have seen in this truth that

616
00:32:39,280 --> 00:32:42,160
Speaker 1: Caitlin tweeted just came out kind of twelve hours ago.

617
00:32:42,280 --> 00:32:45,080
Speaker 1: But if you look at the one about protest take

618
00:32:45,120 --> 00:32:50,000
Speaker 1: Back our Nation, you very clearly saw Republicans up and

619
00:32:50,080 --> 00:32:54,840
Speaker 1: down the board sort of saying like nothing but peaceful protests, right,

620
00:32:55,240 --> 00:32:57,960
Speaker 1: either trying to claim that that's what Trump meant, or

621
00:32:58,080 --> 00:33:01,280
Speaker 1: calling for that themselves in the site idea which you

622
00:33:01,280 --> 00:33:04,080
Speaker 1: know it was actually funny. It was a quote, background

623
00:33:04,120 --> 00:33:06,920
Speaker 1: anonymous quote I put in a Washington Post piece after

624
00:33:06,960 --> 00:33:10,080
Speaker 1: the election before January sixth, that gets resurfaced like every

625
00:33:10,120 --> 00:33:12,920
Speaker 1: three weeks, but from a Republican saying, look, we just

626
00:33:12,920 --> 00:33:14,760
Speaker 1: need to give him a little time to like send

627
00:33:14,760 --> 00:33:17,840
Speaker 1: some tweets, go golfing. Yes, it's not like he's trying

628
00:33:17,880 --> 00:33:20,760
Speaker 1: to overturn the election. Yeah, and then he'll and then

629
00:33:20,760 --> 00:33:24,040
Speaker 1: he'll leave. That notion is gone. And sort of every

630
00:33:24,080 --> 00:33:28,080
Speaker 1: Republican understands or seems it is behaving as if they

631
00:33:28,160 --> 00:33:31,480
Speaker 1: know they want to do their part to say this

632
00:33:31,560 --> 00:33:33,640
Speaker 1: is not going to happen again. And you're seeing that

633
00:33:33,680 --> 00:33:37,440
Speaker 1: in all of their responses. When an anonymous Republican told

634
00:33:37,440 --> 00:33:40,080
Speaker 1: you that quote, were you like, oh, this is a

635
00:33:40,160 --> 00:33:43,280
Speaker 1: throwaway quote, or did you think like this will continually

636
00:33:43,360 --> 00:33:50,680
Speaker 1: haunt us next. I probably shouldn't admit this, but when

637
00:33:50,720 --> 00:33:52,640
Speaker 1: I mean, I knew it was a good quote, and

638
00:33:52,640 --> 00:33:55,120
Speaker 1: that's why I put it in the story. But at

639
00:33:55,160 --> 00:33:57,720
Speaker 1: that moment when this person told it to me, it

640
00:33:57,800 --> 00:34:01,920
Speaker 1: seems outlandish. Of course, in hindsight, right after after the

641
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:06,360
Speaker 1: deadly January sixth attacks on the US capital, but at

642
00:34:06,400 --> 00:34:10,279
Speaker 1: the time this person was articulating what was widely believed

643
00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:14,000
Speaker 1: in not just Republican circles, but even in people in

644
00:34:14,200 --> 00:34:16,160
Speaker 1: the Trumps. Right. You have to remember at that time,

645
00:34:16,200 --> 00:34:18,440
Speaker 1: we were chasing rumors that like he was going to

646
00:34:18,520 --> 00:34:21,520
Speaker 1: go tomorrow lago for Thanksgiving and just never come back,

647
00:34:21,680 --> 00:34:25,000
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, right, so it wasn't I mean, again

648
00:34:25,080 --> 00:34:31,480
Speaker 1: this hindsight twenty twenty, this quote resurfaces literally like every fortnight. Yeah,

649
00:34:31,520 --> 00:34:34,480
Speaker 1: but at the time I didn't think, wow, this is

650
00:34:34,680 --> 00:34:37,839
Speaker 1: you know, gonna seem very embarrassing, and yeah, it felt

651
00:34:37,840 --> 00:34:41,240
Speaker 1: like a totally reasonable, reasonable point of view in that moment.

652
00:34:41,600 --> 00:34:44,360
Speaker 1: Here we are back in this sort of weird, trumpy

653
00:34:44,400 --> 00:34:47,560
Speaker 1: news cycle. Do you think there's a chance And again

654
00:34:47,640 --> 00:34:50,759
Speaker 1: this is like I'm asking question that's like your opinion,

655
00:34:51,120 --> 00:34:53,280
Speaker 1: but I'm not going to ask you your political opinion

656
00:34:53,280 --> 00:34:55,080
Speaker 1: because obviously I don't want to be me and I

657
00:34:55,120 --> 00:34:57,160
Speaker 1: just had Charlie to have a John, so I know

658
00:34:57,520 --> 00:34:59,920
Speaker 1: I have to you know, good with this straight reporters

659
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:02,040
Speaker 1: and not try to get them to have opinions. But

660
00:35:02,800 --> 00:35:06,839
Speaker 1: thank you for not getting me fired, Molly Well. John

661
00:35:06,840 --> 00:35:08,799
Speaker 1: Allen is always like I will not weigh it if

662
00:35:08,840 --> 00:35:11,680
Speaker 1: you want to say something, but I'm just curious. I mean,

663
00:35:11,719 --> 00:35:14,040
Speaker 1: do you think that there's a world in which the

664
00:35:14,040 --> 00:35:17,799
Speaker 1: Manhattan DA doesn't go first and that this just you know,

665
00:35:17,960 --> 00:35:20,560
Speaker 1: the DOJ goes first or Georgia goes first? I mean,

666
00:35:20,920 --> 00:35:23,600
Speaker 1: or do you really think that because of what happened

667
00:35:23,640 --> 00:35:26,080
Speaker 1: this week, the Manhattan DA will go first? So this

668
00:35:26,200 --> 00:35:28,600
Speaker 1: is really just a gas on your part. But and

669
00:35:28,760 --> 00:35:31,520
Speaker 1: you can add the caveats you want. Yeah, no, I

670
00:35:31,560 --> 00:35:34,480
Speaker 1: mean I will say, like, based on and again this

671
00:35:34,600 --> 00:35:37,440
Speaker 1: is not my reporting, but based on my colleagues reporting

672
00:35:37,520 --> 00:35:40,799
Speaker 1: and my kind of consumption of it and discussions I've had,

673
00:35:40,960 --> 00:35:45,879
Speaker 1: it seemed like at least initially, the Manhattan DA was

674
00:35:47,080 --> 00:35:49,719
Speaker 1: going to be first in drawing to a club. I

675
00:35:49,719 --> 00:35:52,760
Speaker 1: don't know that that means an indictment, but the Manhattan DA,

676
00:35:52,840 --> 00:35:56,520
Speaker 1: in inviting Trump to testify, seemed ahead of schedule of

677
00:35:56,680 --> 00:35:59,840
Speaker 1: these other investigations. But again, like you can have a

678
00:36:00,120 --> 00:36:02,440
Speaker 1: pain as much attention, but you can look at Fulton

679
00:36:02,520 --> 00:36:05,160
Speaker 1: County where they were staying down there that there should

680
00:36:05,280 --> 00:36:09,759
Speaker 1: be you know, announcements kind of imminently, right, So I

681
00:36:09,800 --> 00:36:12,239
Speaker 1: mean the truth is I just I don't know, and

682
00:36:12,360 --> 00:36:15,440
Speaker 1: I don't really know what those final outcomes or announcements

683
00:36:15,480 --> 00:36:19,520
Speaker 1: will will be nobody does right, No, exactly right. I

684
00:36:19,520 --> 00:36:21,960
Speaker 1: mean that is and you know that is something. I

685
00:36:21,960 --> 00:36:24,920
Speaker 1: feel like that, just the concrete of it, it's like

686
00:36:24,960 --> 00:36:29,280
Speaker 1: we've lost a little bit of sight of that. Really, nobody,

687
00:36:29,360 --> 00:36:33,319
Speaker 1: including Trump or his people or Jim Jordan, really even

688
00:36:33,360 --> 00:36:36,520
Speaker 1: know what is. You know, until we see paper, we

689
00:36:36,560 --> 00:36:40,680
Speaker 1: don't know anything. Really. Yeah, I mean these investigations are

690
00:36:40,800 --> 00:36:44,880
Speaker 1: supposed to be leak proof. That's how they're supposed to work.

691
00:36:45,160 --> 00:36:47,600
Speaker 1: You know, there's tea leaves people are trying to read

692
00:36:47,719 --> 00:36:50,080
Speaker 1: here and there, But I sort of I think we'll

693
00:36:50,120 --> 00:36:54,160
Speaker 1: know when we know. Yeah, Thank you so much, Ashley Parker,

694
00:36:54,400 --> 00:37:00,520
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. Ian Ward is a reporter of Politico. Welcome,

695
00:37:00,640 --> 00:37:04,280
Speaker 1: do you fast politics? Ian, thanks for having me. Jesse

696
00:37:04,400 --> 00:37:07,000
Speaker 1: read this piece in Political magazine. He's like, you got

697
00:37:07,000 --> 00:37:09,720
Speaker 1: to get this guy. And we agree, which we often

698
00:37:09,840 --> 00:37:12,120
Speaker 1: mostly do. But I'm going to read the title because

699
00:37:12,160 --> 00:37:14,600
Speaker 1: I feel like that's the beginning of this whole interview.

700
00:37:14,840 --> 00:37:18,320
Speaker 1: The Federalist society isn't quite so sure about democracy anymore.

701
00:37:18,920 --> 00:37:23,120
Speaker 1: I mean when I read that, I was like, yeah,

702
00:37:23,160 --> 00:37:27,720
Speaker 1: but I was also like, really, talk to me about

703
00:37:27,760 --> 00:37:30,759
Speaker 1: where this, Talk to me about I want the whole

704
00:37:30,800 --> 00:37:34,840
Speaker 1: story here. What were you doing where you came to

705
00:37:34,880 --> 00:37:39,560
Speaker 1: this conclusion, etc. Yeah. Sure, So I've been covering the

706
00:37:39,600 --> 00:37:42,200
Speaker 1: conservative legal movement for a while now, and I went

707
00:37:42,200 --> 00:37:44,960
Speaker 1: down to Austin at the beginning of March for the

708
00:37:45,000 --> 00:37:49,960
Speaker 1: Federal Society's National Student Symposium, which is an annual gathering

709
00:37:50,280 --> 00:37:54,160
Speaker 1: at the Federalist Society host for its student law chapters.

710
00:37:54,200 --> 00:37:57,840
Speaker 1: So mostly right leaning law students, and it's sort of

711
00:37:57,880 --> 00:38:04,400
Speaker 1: a weekend long together the pop kilt parties, panels, networking sessions,

712
00:38:04,480 --> 00:38:06,720
Speaker 1: and you know, these are students who are coming from

713
00:38:06,920 --> 00:38:10,520
Speaker 1: mostly elite law schools, right and they get together sort

714
00:38:10,560 --> 00:38:12,920
Speaker 1: of to discuss ideas and have debates, and you know

715
00:38:12,960 --> 00:38:16,720
Speaker 1: it's they invite a lot of conservative lawyers. Federal judges

716
00:38:16,760 --> 00:38:19,799
Speaker 1: are there. It's a big opportunity for law students to

717
00:38:19,840 --> 00:38:22,879
Speaker 1: meet future employers. But I mean the main, the main

718
00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:27,320
Speaker 1: meat of the symposium are these panels where lawyers get together,

719
00:38:27,400 --> 00:38:29,680
Speaker 1: lawyers and judges get together to debate sort of what's

720
00:38:29,760 --> 00:38:32,239
Speaker 1: up with the conservative legal movement. And the theme of

721
00:38:32,239 --> 00:38:36,920
Speaker 1: the symposium this year was law and democracy. Ironic, I

722
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:38,839
Speaker 1: want to just pausors in it. So this is like

723
00:38:38,960 --> 00:38:44,399
Speaker 1: sepack if the people who were part of it actually mattered. Yeah.

724
00:38:44,520 --> 00:38:47,680
Speaker 1: It's kind of a nerdy seepack, right, you know, sepack

725
00:38:47,800 --> 00:38:50,000
Speaker 1: the crowd this year. I mean you saw the reports

726
00:38:50,040 --> 00:38:53,560
Speaker 1: coming out of it. Sepack with smart people. Yeah yeah,

727
00:38:53,600 --> 00:38:56,280
Speaker 1: see pack with smart people and everyone's wearing a student tie,

728
00:38:56,680 --> 00:38:58,880
Speaker 1: you know, and went to Yale Law School uses their

729
00:38:58,920 --> 00:39:01,880
Speaker 1: salad for before or other flock. Yeah yeah, yeah. So,

730
00:39:01,920 --> 00:39:04,239
Speaker 1: I mean the theme was law and democracy, which is

731
00:39:04,280 --> 00:39:06,920
Speaker 1: a sort of pregnant topic, to say the least for

732
00:39:07,040 --> 00:39:09,840
Speaker 1: the conservative legal movement right now as it sort of

733
00:39:09,840 --> 00:39:13,200
Speaker 1: figures out how to navigate the post Dobs world and

734
00:39:13,280 --> 00:39:16,560
Speaker 1: navigate its role in the country now that Conservatives have

735
00:39:16,600 --> 00:39:19,360
Speaker 1: a majority on the Supreme Court and after the Trump

736
00:39:19,400 --> 00:39:21,960
Speaker 1: years have gotten lots of federal judges on the bench,

737
00:39:22,280 --> 00:39:25,040
Speaker 1: and there's a tension there with law and democracy, and

738
00:39:25,080 --> 00:39:28,200
Speaker 1: there always has been within the conservative legal movement. I mean,

739
00:39:28,200 --> 00:39:31,000
Speaker 1: the Federal Society at least was founded with this sort

740
00:39:31,000 --> 00:39:35,040
Speaker 1: of dual mandate, which was you know, they say it's

741
00:39:35,080 --> 00:39:38,640
Speaker 1: emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to

742
00:39:38,680 --> 00:39:41,160
Speaker 1: say what the law is, not what the law should be. Right,

743
00:39:41,200 --> 00:39:44,799
Speaker 1: that's kind of aping the marboring first medicine thing. But

744
00:39:45,160 --> 00:39:47,439
Speaker 1: you know, and they'll acknowledge to you that those things

745
00:39:47,480 --> 00:39:49,960
Speaker 1: can kind of be intention right. On the one hand,

746
00:39:50,400 --> 00:39:55,000
Speaker 1: they are tasked with reading what's written in the Constitution, right,

747
00:39:55,000 --> 00:39:57,520
Speaker 1: and they apply sort of originalist framework to that, trying

748
00:39:57,520 --> 00:39:59,160
Speaker 1: to make sense of what the document meant at the

749
00:39:59,160 --> 00:40:01,160
Speaker 1: time of its founding. But at the same time they've

750
00:40:01,200 --> 00:40:04,520
Speaker 1: championed this idea of judicial restraint, which is that judges

751
00:40:04,600 --> 00:40:08,359
Speaker 1: should in general defer to the democratic process and trying

752
00:40:08,400 --> 00:40:10,680
Speaker 1: not to intervene to directly and not make the law,

753
00:40:10,800 --> 00:40:14,600
Speaker 1: just understand it except when they want him too. Yeah,

754
00:40:14,600 --> 00:40:16,840
Speaker 1: And it's changed over time, and that was part of

755
00:40:16,840 --> 00:40:19,160
Speaker 1: the big takeaway. And the piece was I actually talked

756
00:40:19,200 --> 00:40:22,600
Speaker 1: to Eugene Meyer, who's the president CEO of the Federal Society,

757
00:40:22,640 --> 00:40:24,680
Speaker 1: and he says, you know, he told me they've always

758
00:40:24,719 --> 00:40:29,239
Speaker 1: been the tension within the conservative legal movement, but that

759
00:40:29,440 --> 00:40:32,440
Speaker 1: over time, and in recent years especially, the group has

760
00:40:32,440 --> 00:40:35,080
Speaker 1: moved away from sort of an idea of judicial restraint

761
00:40:35,600 --> 00:40:40,120
Speaker 1: really you don't say, yeah, more assertively towards an idea

762
00:40:40,480 --> 00:40:43,200
Speaker 1: they say reading the laws written, you can quipal with

763
00:40:43,239 --> 00:40:46,080
Speaker 1: that as you want. Yeah, So that was sort of

764
00:40:46,080 --> 00:40:49,759
Speaker 1: the general tone that the organization is moving away from

765
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:52,919
Speaker 1: judicial restraint and embracing a sort of more assertive role.

766
00:40:55,800 --> 00:40:59,680
Speaker 1: I have to tell you, I feel like it's like, brilliantly,

767
00:40:59,680 --> 00:41:05,160
Speaker 1: I'm on a great there, moving away from judicial restraint.

768
00:41:05,600 --> 00:41:09,239
Speaker 1: Really you don't say, yeah, I think judicial restraint made

769
00:41:09,280 --> 00:41:12,719
Speaker 1: sense for the conservative legal movement, you know, in the

770
00:41:12,760 --> 00:41:15,400
Speaker 1: eighties and nineties, two thousands, when they really saw the

771
00:41:15,480 --> 00:41:18,399
Speaker 1: courts as pulling the country to the left and as

772
00:41:19,120 --> 00:41:22,479
Speaker 1: more progressive than the general population. And it made sense

773
00:41:22,600 --> 00:41:24,400
Speaker 1: in that case to say, well, you know, judgicition and

774
00:41:24,440 --> 00:41:26,759
Speaker 1: intervene in the legisure process and so on. But now

775
00:41:26,800 --> 00:41:30,239
Speaker 1: that the tables are turned, I think their commitment to

776
00:41:30,280 --> 00:41:34,120
Speaker 1: that other principles is being tested. Yeah. Now it's just

777
00:41:34,360 --> 00:41:37,759
Speaker 1: every lunatic for themselves. So talk to me about some

778
00:41:37,800 --> 00:41:40,239
Speaker 1: of the other ideas you saw coming out of there. Yeah,

779
00:41:40,280 --> 00:41:43,560
Speaker 1: I mean, there was a panel on election law where

780
00:41:43,600 --> 00:41:46,880
Speaker 1: the idea of the independent state legislature theory came up,

781
00:41:46,920 --> 00:41:49,560
Speaker 1: which is in the Supreme Courts considering now and more

782
00:41:49,640 --> 00:41:53,000
Speaker 1: b Harper, and that's the idea that state legislatures should

783
00:41:53,040 --> 00:41:56,360
Speaker 1: have more Some people say total, some people say just

784
00:41:56,560 --> 00:42:00,920
Speaker 1: more control over the execution of federal election, and it

785
00:42:01,040 --> 00:42:03,680
Speaker 1: seems unlikely that the Court's going to adopt that idea

786
00:42:03,719 --> 00:42:06,520
Speaker 1: in its most radical form, and many of the people

787
00:42:06,520 --> 00:42:09,080
Speaker 1: at the conference were skeptical about it and noted that

788
00:42:09,239 --> 00:42:12,680
Speaker 1: this would be incredibly disruptive to the American electro system.

789
00:42:12,880 --> 00:42:15,800
Speaker 1: You know, there's a bit of tension within that movement

790
00:42:15,840 --> 00:42:19,080
Speaker 1: because the judges who have flirted with that idea on

791
00:42:19,120 --> 00:42:20,759
Speaker 1: the High Court, you know, do have ties to the

792
00:42:20,760 --> 00:42:23,360
Speaker 1: Federal Society and are sort of poster children for the

793
00:42:23,400 --> 00:42:25,840
Speaker 1: conservaive legal movement. So I don't want to give the

794
00:42:25,840 --> 00:42:28,960
Speaker 1: impression that like the Federal Society is a single entity, right,

795
00:42:29,120 --> 00:42:31,960
Speaker 1: or that the conservative legal movement has no fissures. You know,

796
00:42:32,000 --> 00:42:35,200
Speaker 1: there's a lot of politics within those organizations. But so

797
00:42:35,280 --> 00:42:37,960
Speaker 1: some some members you know, are really hesitant to adopt

798
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:40,560
Speaker 1: the uh you know, independence of legitis there, and some

799
00:42:40,680 --> 00:42:43,000
Speaker 1: are more willing to play around with it. But it's

800
00:42:43,040 --> 00:42:44,879
Speaker 1: in that world and people in that world are talking

801
00:42:44,880 --> 00:42:46,680
Speaker 1: about it, which when you look a sort of at

802
00:42:46,680 --> 00:42:49,359
Speaker 1: the details of the of the theory, is a sort

803
00:42:49,360 --> 00:42:52,880
Speaker 1: of alarming thing, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, Can you explain

804
00:42:52,920 --> 00:42:55,279
Speaker 1: why it's alarming? I would recommend, you know, going to

805
00:42:55,280 --> 00:42:56,960
Speaker 1: read some of the some of the things that've been

806
00:42:56,960 --> 00:43:00,480
Speaker 1: written about the independent state legislature there. But I think,

807
00:43:00,480 --> 00:43:03,600
Speaker 1: as we saw in twenty twenty, if state let's just

808
00:43:03,719 --> 00:43:07,719
Speaker 1: have the opportunity to exert more power in federal elections,

809
00:43:07,719 --> 00:43:10,360
Speaker 1: I think we basically know how that would how that

810
00:43:10,360 --> 00:43:13,359
Speaker 1: would play out, right right, right, you know, I feel

811
00:43:13,360 --> 00:43:17,319
Speaker 1: like we're in the forefront of conservative judiciary kind of

812
00:43:17,360 --> 00:43:20,200
Speaker 1: like they've sort of caught the car and are trying

813
00:43:20,200 --> 00:43:22,440
Speaker 1: to figure out what to do with it. They have

814
00:43:22,600 --> 00:43:24,960
Speaker 1: a kind of power that they've never had before, right

815
00:43:24,960 --> 00:43:27,600
Speaker 1: because they control the Supreme Court. Now, what was your

816
00:43:27,640 --> 00:43:30,839
Speaker 1: sense on how they are going to use this power? Yeah,

817
00:43:30,880 --> 00:43:33,160
Speaker 1: I mean I think that really is an open question.

818
00:43:33,520 --> 00:43:37,440
Speaker 1: I think part of what compelled me to go to

819
00:43:37,480 --> 00:43:40,560
Speaker 1: the conference was that it's a forum for young people

820
00:43:40,640 --> 00:43:43,520
Speaker 1: within the consort of the legal movement to share their views.

821
00:43:43,560 --> 00:43:46,320
Speaker 1: And I do think there are some emerging generational divides

822
00:43:46,360 --> 00:43:50,040
Speaker 1: within the conservaive legal movement. OH explain that A good

823
00:43:50,080 --> 00:43:53,960
Speaker 1: example is the conservative jurisprudence towards what's knows like the

824
00:43:53,960 --> 00:43:58,040
Speaker 1: administrative state or the executive agencies. So for many years

825
00:43:58,120 --> 00:44:02,160
Speaker 1: conservative lawyers have of being critical of the court's decision

826
00:44:02,320 --> 00:44:05,800
Speaker 1: as known as the Chevron Doctrine, which gives pretty broad

827
00:44:05,920 --> 00:44:11,080
Speaker 1: latitude towards administrative agencies to interpret law and an apt

828
00:44:11,200 --> 00:44:13,840
Speaker 1: law and the way they see fit. Conservatives traditionally not

829
00:44:13,920 --> 00:44:16,520
Speaker 1: like that because they think it, you know, empowers the

830
00:44:16,560 --> 00:44:20,120
Speaker 1: bureaucracy too much and takes the decision making power out

831
00:44:20,160 --> 00:44:23,719
Speaker 1: of the democratically elected officials hands and puts it in

832
00:44:23,719 --> 00:44:26,799
Speaker 1: the hands of sort of like Washington egghead bureaucrats. But

833
00:44:26,880 --> 00:44:29,800
Speaker 1: there's a sort of grumbling and some movement among younger

834
00:44:29,800 --> 00:44:32,360
Speaker 1: conservatives who say, you know, maybe what we want to

835
00:44:32,400 --> 00:44:35,200
Speaker 1: do with the administrative state has not gut it and

836
00:44:35,239 --> 00:44:37,120
Speaker 1: take away all the power from it. Maybe what we

837
00:44:37,160 --> 00:44:39,160
Speaker 1: want to do is use the power of the administrative

838
00:44:39,239 --> 00:44:41,480
Speaker 1: state to advance, you know, our vision of what the

839
00:44:41,480 --> 00:44:44,920
Speaker 1: country should look like. So there's some younger legal conservatives

840
00:44:44,960 --> 00:44:47,200
Speaker 1: who are kind of doing a one eighty on the

841
00:44:47,280 --> 00:44:49,680
Speaker 1: Chevron doctrine. I mean, that's one of them. I wrote

842
00:44:49,680 --> 00:44:53,040
Speaker 1: the piece back in December about our growing movement led

843
00:44:53,080 --> 00:44:56,560
Speaker 1: by an academic at Harvard named Adrian Vermuele who calls

844
00:44:56,600 --> 00:45:01,920
Speaker 1: himself a post liberal. We're gonna die. He and Patrick

845
00:45:02,000 --> 00:45:05,840
Speaker 1: Denine is the big spokesperson for those those academics. You know,

846
00:45:06,280 --> 00:45:09,479
Speaker 1: he is kind of articulating this vision of a legal

847
00:45:09,520 --> 00:45:12,920
Speaker 1: theory called common good constitutionalism, which basically throws out the

848
00:45:12,920 --> 00:45:16,680
Speaker 1: window all the presuppositions of the conservative legal movement and says,

849
00:45:16,719 --> 00:45:18,879
Speaker 1: you know, we don't want to do originalism, we don't

850
00:45:18,880 --> 00:45:21,400
Speaker 1: want to do textualism, we don't want to do judicial restraint.

851
00:45:21,760 --> 00:45:24,960
Speaker 1: We want to use the law not to protect individual

852
00:45:25,000 --> 00:45:28,120
Speaker 1: rights and liberties, but to instantiate a common good, which

853
00:45:28,160 --> 00:45:32,080
Speaker 1: in his definition is a pretty radically conservative and catholically

854
00:45:32,120 --> 00:45:35,680
Speaker 1: inflected vision of American politics. And he's gotten a lot

855
00:45:35,719 --> 00:45:39,680
Speaker 1: of traction among young conservatives. So that's another fault line.

856
00:45:39,960 --> 00:45:42,319
Speaker 1: Can you give us an example of what that would be.

857
00:45:42,680 --> 00:45:47,360
Speaker 1: He has advocated for this sort of funny but banning pornography, right, Wow,

858
00:45:47,760 --> 00:45:53,120
Speaker 1: good for them, that's a wildly unpopular watch them lots

859
00:45:53,120 --> 00:45:55,360
Speaker 1: of luck. Yeah, but right, that runs a foul of

860
00:45:55,400 --> 00:45:59,040
Speaker 1: sort of traditional conservative views on First Amendment problems, right,

861
00:45:59,040 --> 00:46:01,160
Speaker 1: which is that there should be sort of free speech absolution.

862
00:46:01,320 --> 00:46:04,160
Speaker 1: He says, no, you know, pornography is a is a

863
00:46:04,160 --> 00:46:06,680
Speaker 1: social ill, and conservatives should use the power of the

864
00:46:06,760 --> 00:46:11,000
Speaker 1: state to ban it. Good luck, team Yeah, but you

865
00:46:11,080 --> 00:46:14,040
Speaker 1: know stuff like that, you know, really restrictive abortion laws,

866
00:46:14,760 --> 00:46:18,799
Speaker 1: bands on homosexuality and gay marriage, things like that. That's

867
00:46:18,800 --> 00:46:21,880
Speaker 1: another fault line with the within the conservaive legal movement.

868
00:46:21,960 --> 00:46:24,040
Speaker 1: I think it's aligned a lot of the time by

869
00:46:24,160 --> 00:46:26,720
Speaker 1: some of the coverage of the conservative legal movement, which

870
00:46:27,080 --> 00:46:29,880
Speaker 1: can assume that they sort of all walk in lockstep

871
00:46:29,920 --> 00:46:31,840
Speaker 1: and that they're all on the same page and that

872
00:46:31,880 --> 00:46:34,759
Speaker 1: they're basically just doing the bidding of the GOP. And

873
00:46:34,840 --> 00:46:37,439
Speaker 1: I do think there's a lot more factional disputes that

874
00:46:37,480 --> 00:46:40,960
Speaker 1: are worth paying attention to within that world. That's pretty interesting.

875
00:46:41,000 --> 00:46:43,960
Speaker 1: I mean, it does seem to me like conservatives have

876
00:46:44,120 --> 00:46:48,000
Speaker 1: really figured out how to choose their judiciary in a

877
00:46:48,040 --> 00:46:52,120
Speaker 1: way that liberals, you know, they don't have the same infrastructure, right, Yeah,

878
00:46:52,160 --> 00:46:54,719
Speaker 1: I mean there have been sort of a board of

879
00:46:54,800 --> 00:46:58,560
Speaker 1: efforts over the years to build quote unquote a left

880
00:46:58,600 --> 00:47:02,680
Speaker 1: wing federalists society that has failed. I mean as the

881
00:47:02,719 --> 00:47:06,160
Speaker 1: American Constitution Association. I think that's the name, but it's

882
00:47:06,200 --> 00:47:07,839
Speaker 1: not the same thing, and that has to do with

883
00:47:08,080 --> 00:47:12,120
Speaker 1: all sorts of things. Primarily, I think the right has

884
00:47:12,200 --> 00:47:15,120
Speaker 1: much deeper pockets when it comes to funding the type

885
00:47:15,120 --> 00:47:17,839
Speaker 1: of organization that is the Federal Society. I think they

886
00:47:17,880 --> 00:47:21,319
Speaker 1: figured out how to use judicial power well, but they

887
00:47:21,400 --> 00:47:25,080
Speaker 1: also underneath the execution of judicial power there is a

888
00:47:25,120 --> 00:47:27,680
Speaker 1: lot of dissent and debate and disagreement about, you know,

889
00:47:27,760 --> 00:47:30,959
Speaker 1: exactly how that power should be executed. And I don't

890
00:47:30,960 --> 00:47:34,480
Speaker 1: think it does anyone a service to ignore that. Yeah, no, no,

891
00:47:34,800 --> 00:47:37,080
Speaker 1: I think that's I mean, I think if anything, that's

892
00:47:37,080 --> 00:47:39,240
Speaker 1: sort of the biggest game in town that no one's

893
00:47:39,280 --> 00:47:43,160
Speaker 1: talking about is the incredible. I mean, it's from what

894
00:47:43,239 --> 00:47:45,799
Speaker 1: I understand, and I you know, I'm very I am

895
00:47:45,880 --> 00:47:49,440
Speaker 1: friendly with someone who was very involved in the Federal Society,

896
00:47:49,640 --> 00:47:53,000
Speaker 1: George Conway, and so I mean, from what I understand

897
00:47:53,120 --> 00:47:58,879
Speaker 1: from younger lawyers too, their tentacles are long and they

898
00:47:59,000 --> 00:48:02,040
Speaker 1: kind of groom people in a way that I don't

899
00:48:02,040 --> 00:48:06,560
Speaker 1: think liberals even understand how to get involved in. Yeah,

900
00:48:06,600 --> 00:48:09,520
Speaker 1: I mean I've seen people. These are ambitious people, right,

901
00:48:09,600 --> 00:48:13,719
Speaker 1: you know, they are gunning for federal clerkships and positions

902
00:48:13,800 --> 00:48:16,680
Speaker 1: in high powered legal firms. And you know, a couple

903
00:48:16,680 --> 00:48:19,280
Speaker 1: of people, since me being a member of the Federalist

904
00:48:19,280 --> 00:48:22,799
Speaker 1: Society is unnecessary credential if you want a clerkship with

905
00:48:22,840 --> 00:48:26,720
Speaker 1: a powerful federal judge. So and you know, these people

906
00:48:26,719 --> 00:48:30,319
Speaker 1: at the conference were you know, anywhere from just undergraduate

907
00:48:30,400 --> 00:48:34,560
Speaker 1: in their early thirties, and they have chapters on undergraduate

908
00:48:34,560 --> 00:48:37,040
Speaker 1: campuses and law school campers around the country. So yeah,

909
00:48:37,040 --> 00:48:40,480
Speaker 1: its tentacles are very, very, very far reaching. There seems

910
00:48:40,560 --> 00:48:44,440
Speaker 1: to be to me a connection between Catholicism and this

911
00:48:44,600 --> 00:48:48,280
Speaker 1: conservative legal movement. Like if you look at the Supreme Court,

912
00:48:48,960 --> 00:48:52,279
Speaker 1: there is a like they're all Catholics. Have you seen

913
00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:55,560
Speaker 1: sort of an overlap between that and the federalist society. Well,

914
00:48:55,880 --> 00:48:58,120
Speaker 1: I'll just give a quick anecdote. I mean, I know

915
00:48:58,160 --> 00:49:01,160
Speaker 1: it's a dicey question, but it's sort of interesting, isn't it. Yeah,

916
00:49:01,160 --> 00:49:03,560
Speaker 1: I know it is interesting. I was EPICS conference, which

917
00:49:03,600 --> 00:49:06,560
Speaker 1: was on Friday and Saturday night, and I overheard a

918
00:49:06,600 --> 00:49:09,719
Speaker 1: couple of the lawsuit on Saturday evening saying, hey, we

919
00:49:09,719 --> 00:49:12,040
Speaker 1: got to dip out early to hit Saturday Mass before

920
00:49:12,280 --> 00:49:15,640
Speaker 1: you know we had home on Sunday. I just thought

921
00:49:15,640 --> 00:49:17,840
Speaker 1: that was funny, because, yeah, there is a pretty strong

922
00:49:17,920 --> 00:49:22,080
Speaker 1: catholic I think there are legal theorists on the right

923
00:49:22,120 --> 00:49:26,640
Speaker 1: who lean explicitly into the Catholicism. Adrian Vermuel is one

924
00:49:26,640 --> 00:49:29,160
Speaker 1: example of that, if you think about the makeup of

925
00:49:29,160 --> 00:49:32,120
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court, there's a religious component to this. I mean,

926
00:49:32,239 --> 00:49:34,600
Speaker 1: whether or not it's a chicken or an egg, right,

927
00:49:34,640 --> 00:49:37,520
Speaker 1: we don't know. Yeah. I think thinking about the question

928
00:49:37,560 --> 00:49:42,080
Speaker 1: of religious liberty and the concerned legal movements view towards

929
00:49:41,560 --> 00:49:44,239
Speaker 1: religious liberty over the past ten years a sort of

930
00:49:44,239 --> 00:49:46,840
Speaker 1: instructive in this front. You know, there used to be

931
00:49:46,880 --> 00:49:49,920
Speaker 1: a sort of let people do this they want attitude

932
00:49:50,040 --> 00:49:53,520
Speaker 1: that religious liberty was not interfering, was creating sort of

933
00:49:53,520 --> 00:49:57,799
Speaker 1: neutral spaces where people didn't explicitly practice their religion, but

934
00:49:57,960 --> 00:50:00,719
Speaker 1: you know, weren't compelled to by that any sort of

935
00:50:00,760 --> 00:50:02,799
Speaker 1: religious faith. And that shifted a bit. Now you're now

936
00:50:02,840 --> 00:50:05,280
Speaker 1: seeing cases like last term, that was a case involving

937
00:50:05,360 --> 00:50:09,200
Speaker 1: a high school football coach who parade on the field,

938
00:50:09,239 --> 00:50:12,960
Speaker 1: and the conservative majority ruled that that was allowed in

939
00:50:13,040 --> 00:50:16,480
Speaker 1: the name of protecting religious liberty. And they construed protecting

940
00:50:16,560 --> 00:50:19,920
Speaker 1: religious liberty God is creating religiously neutral spaces, but is

941
00:50:20,280 --> 00:50:24,120
Speaker 1: creating positive protections for people to express their faith in

942
00:50:24,239 --> 00:50:27,640
Speaker 1: public forums. Right. So that's a sort of shift within

943
00:50:27,760 --> 00:50:30,040
Speaker 1: how they're thinking how the right's been thinking about religious

944
00:50:30,080 --> 00:50:32,480
Speaker 1: liberty that I think is sort of instructive about their

945
00:50:32,480 --> 00:50:37,080
Speaker 1: brother goals. Yeah, so so interesting. I really appreciate you

946
00:50:37,200 --> 00:50:40,040
Speaker 1: joining us, and please come back. And I think, like,

947
00:50:40,239 --> 00:50:42,719
Speaker 1: you know, what you're doing is really interesting, I mean,

948
00:50:42,800 --> 00:50:49,759
Speaker 1: sitting through those Thank you so much for joining us,

949
00:50:50,120 --> 00:51:01,160
Speaker 1: Thanks for having met Jesse Cannon Trump, possibly the greatest

950
00:51:01,440 --> 00:51:05,400
Speaker 1: non intentional comedian of our time. Let me read the

951
00:51:05,400 --> 00:51:09,680
Speaker 1: most ironic quote of all time. Trump told his supporters

952
00:51:09,680 --> 00:51:13,200
Speaker 1: in Waco, Texas, I am your redemption. And ironically, this

953
00:51:13,320 --> 00:51:17,000
Speaker 1: is on the thirtieth anniversary of the Waco standoff, right

954
00:51:17,040 --> 00:51:19,600
Speaker 1: as that documentary dropped on Netflix. And all I have

955
00:51:19,640 --> 00:51:21,960
Speaker 1: to say is, yes, sir, you sure are their redemption.

956
00:51:22,360 --> 00:51:26,960
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, if redemption is whatever making everything worse

957
00:51:27,160 --> 00:51:31,640
Speaker 1: is pretty amazing stuff. Today this weekend, Trump did a

958
00:51:31,719 --> 00:51:36,239
Speaker 1: rally on the thirtieth anniversary of Waco Waco, which is

959
00:51:36,800 --> 00:51:40,880
Speaker 1: you know, saying the quiet part loud behind Trump was

960
00:51:41,960 --> 00:51:46,839
Speaker 1: footage from January sixth, So in case you were wondering

961
00:51:47,040 --> 00:51:51,239
Speaker 1: if they indorse it, they indorse it. And for that

962
00:51:51,239 --> 00:51:56,319
Speaker 1: that moment where they started to play January sixth coverage,

963
00:51:56,440 --> 00:51:59,839
Speaker 1: that is this, well, I think that was a sort

964
00:51:59,880 --> 00:52:02,759
Speaker 1: of step further than I've ever seen, and so that

965
00:52:02,920 --> 00:52:05,480
Speaker 1: is our moment of fuck Gray. I saw somebody on

966
00:52:05,520 --> 00:52:09,120
Speaker 1: Twitter say that there's no way that someone who went

967
00:52:09,160 --> 00:52:11,279
Speaker 1: to jail for January sixth doesn't speak at the yard

968
00:52:11,400 --> 00:52:15,600
Speaker 1: seat this next time. Don't you agree? Very likely? Very like.

969
00:52:17,520 --> 00:52:20,880
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in

970
00:52:20,960 --> 00:52:24,120
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the best minds

971
00:52:24,120 --> 00:52:27,360
Speaker 1: in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you

972
00:52:27,520 --> 00:52:30,200
Speaker 1: enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend

973
00:52:30,239 --> 00:52:33,800
Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.