Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds. And Texas Republicans have proposed a bill
Speaker 1: that would let the Department of Public Safety hunt, arrest,
Speaker 1: and deport undocumented immigrants. We have a great show today.
Speaker 1: The Washington Post Ashley Parker stops by to talk Trump's
Speaker 1: impending indictment. Then we'll talk to Politico's Ian Ward about
Speaker 1: the Federal Society's newest turns and twists. But first we
Speaker 1: have the host of the Origin Story podcast, Ian dunt.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Fast Politics, fan favorite and my personal favorite. Ian.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, thank you, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: I special correspondent from the UK. Wait, that doesn't this
Speaker 1: mean I've been demoted because last time I spent to you,
Speaker 1: I was the hold of fucking Europe. But now apparne,
Speaker 1: I'm back to just the UK. That's right. No, no,
Speaker 1: our special European correspondent, We'll give you Italy and France
Speaker 1: and Germany. Sure you can have them. Oh good, thank you. No, no,
Speaker 1: let us not save me and things about those countries
Speaker 1: of which I have sold my memoir because I might
Speaker 1: have to go and try to sell them books. Ian,
Speaker 1: what the fuck is happening over there? And why do
Speaker 1: you guys seem to be getting worse? Oh, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure that we are getting worse. I think, Oh well, congratulation, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've been. We're sort of just stumbling along the bottom
Speaker 1: of the barrel. Now. Really, there's there's no real sense
Speaker 1: of you know, if you were to take our previous
Speaker 1: prime minister, Is Trust, or our prime minister before that,
Speaker 1: Boris Johnson, they were they were probably worse than Risci Sunak,
Speaker 1: the guy that we have now, you know, they were
Speaker 1: in the real let's just strip naked, poor gasoline everywhere
Speaker 1: and just set this whole fucker on fire sort of category,
Speaker 1: whereas Rishi Sunak has like a little bit more sense
Speaker 1: to him and a little bit more moderation. So we're
Speaker 1: not strictly improving, but I think probably we're not declining anyone. Congratulated,
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you very much. So would you say
Speaker 1: which he seed up? I mean for those of us
Speaker 1: who need to make conversation with our European friends, or
Speaker 1: is he better than Liz Trust? Yes, but then you've
Speaker 1: got to remember that Liz Trust was only in office
Speaker 1: for a few short weeks, and in that time the
Speaker 1: Queen died and she destroyed the British economy. So as
Speaker 1: a sort of set of achievements, she's not hard to
Speaker 1: hurdle over. Really, he's a very odd fish. She's seen
Speaker 1: act so the way he likes to present himself, and
Speaker 1: I think the person that he truly is is a
Speaker 1: kind of mid level European technocrat. That's really what he is.
Speaker 1: You know, he's not particularly charismatic. He likes to pride
Speaker 1: himself on fixing problems. He's incredibly nerdy and genuinely nerdy.
Speaker 1: He's not putting it on, and so lots of the
Speaker 1: stuff he does is sort of tolerably okay. I mean,
Speaker 1: in any kind of rational country, he certainly wouldn't be
Speaker 1: Prime minister. He would be a sort of ambitious young
Speaker 1: junior minister in a minor department. But nevertheless, you know,
Speaker 1: he is Prime Minister, and he's better than any of
Speaker 1: at least the three people that have preceded him. So
Speaker 1: he sort of sets out some of these Brexit problems
Speaker 1: and it comes back. He's come up with a solution
Speaker 1: with the Europeans to the Northern Irish issue, which is
Speaker 1: sort of bedeviled the Brexit arrangements for some time, and
Speaker 1: it's sort of tolerable, it's sort of allowable. Pretty lukewarm stuff,
Speaker 1: but okay, can you explain what it is? Yeah? So,
Speaker 1: and the big problem that we had with Brexit was,
Speaker 1: you know, you're going to put out of the regulatory
Speaker 1: system and the custom system of Europe and that would
Speaker 1: sort of work out geographically if it wasn't for the
Speaker 1: Republic of Ireland, which is still within the European system.
Speaker 1: This has really been thought out well, yes, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: So the peace process requires there to be no border
Speaker 1: on the island of Ireland, so between the UK's Northern
Speaker 1: Ireland and the European Republic of Ireland. That meant you
Speaker 1: couldn't put the border down the middle. So what Boris
Speaker 1: Johnson did when he pulled Britain out of Europe was
Speaker 1: to say, we'll find so we'll put the border in
Speaker 1: the Irish Sea. And what that did was just car
Speaker 1: of a whole right through the middle of the UK's
Speaker 1: territorial integrity and of course explode the really quite sensitive
Speaker 1: emotional and religious tensions around Ireland and around its relationship
Speaker 1: with the UK. This deal supposedly fixes that. I mean,
Speaker 1: it does it through a very very EU system, which
Speaker 1: is the sort of crazily protracted legal process of vetoing
Speaker 1: new laws on regulations when they come in. You've got
Speaker 1: countries like Norway, they have similar who also have quite
Speaker 1: a distant relationship to Europe but are close to them.
Speaker 1: They have similar systems in place. Europe always likes these
Speaker 1: systems because what happens is you go, oh, look, you
Speaker 1: can complain about a new law if you want, but
Speaker 1: just for the record, if you get rid of that
Speaker 1: new law, then you're going to be blocked out of
Speaker 1: that part of the Single market. And if you're blocked
Speaker 1: out of that part of the Single market, you will
Speaker 1: take economic damage. So what happens is people never ever
Speaker 1: veto the law, like Norway occasionally acted like it might
Speaker 1: over a sort of immigration things like that, but they
Speaker 1: never veto because the consequences are so great. And that's
Speaker 1: basically what Richie Soona came back with. There was a
Speaker 1: hint of a sort of Tory Brexitter rebellion led by
Speaker 1: our old friend Boris Johnson, but it kind of pissed
Speaker 1: itself away into nothing really and any teams to have
Speaker 1: gotten away with it. So on that side, it seems
Speaker 1: like it's pretty sensible stuff from Richie Soonac. But now
Speaker 1: take this other bill that he's done, completely insane. It's
Speaker 1: called the EU Retained Law Bill, and this is what
Speaker 1: it does. It says, we've had forty years of relationship
Speaker 1: with Europe. We've got European law all over our statute book.
Speaker 1: So what we're going to do is, on December the
Speaker 1: thirty first of this year, we're going to switch it
Speaker 1: all off. We just we don't even know what it is.
Speaker 1: We can't tell you what it is. We're just going
Speaker 1: to set an arbitrary deadline to switch off a bunch
Speaker 1: of laws. So when people then ask the government, so
Speaker 1: which laws are you talking about? Which ones you know?
Speaker 1: They're like, well, we don't really know what they are,
Speaker 1: so we're going to start counting them. They counted, they've
Speaker 1: got a few thousand. Later they found a few more thousand.
Speaker 1: They now have confirmed. They know that they do not know.
Speaker 1: Sorry to go with Donald rumsfold on you. They know
Speaker 1: that they don't know or the law that are going
Speaker 1: to get switched off, but they're going to switch them
Speaker 1: off anyway. And basically just throw the whole regulatory system,
Speaker 1: the country's basic legal system, into complete disarray for no
Speaker 1: reason whatsoever. Now that is like classic Brexit lunacy. So
Speaker 1: she's seeing like at the same time, he's the clever
Speaker 1: technocrat fixing broadrams, and he's also the arsonist that's just
Speaker 1: going to burn the house down because he feels like it.
Speaker 1: And it's quite unclear which of these personalities is going
Speaker 1: to come to the fort on any given day. That
Speaker 1: sounds incredible. Can you explain? So is Brexit? I mean,
Speaker 1: are we still dealing with this? Like is there any
Speaker 1: kind of fix here? Now? Everyone just wants it to
Speaker 1: go away, and you can't have it go away though, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it just can't. It can't go away because it's too big.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's really about your laws, your trading patterns,
Speaker 1: the deals you do with other people. It's it's ultimately
Speaker 1: also about the fact that this is a pretty small
Speaker 1: country and we're right next to the largest consumer market
Speaker 1: in the history of mankind, the largest single market history
Speaker 1: of mankind, and the most sophisticated one. So on that basis,
Speaker 1: you will get remorselessly pulled into its gravity. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not you just no matter what the Brexits say,
Speaker 1: you can't make Europe just go away, you know, you
Speaker 1: can't row the island away from the European mainland and
Speaker 1: pretend that it's not happening. And so it just keeps
Speaker 1: on coming back. So now everyone's board of it. Remain
Speaker 1: as a board of it, leave as a board of it.
Speaker 1: But it just won't stop happening because it's just too
Speaker 1: big an issue to leave. By the wayside. Can you
Speaker 1: explain to me why they can't just do another vote
Speaker 1: and go back to normal. That is just poison at
Speaker 1: the moment, that whole idea. So people hurt myself, and
Speaker 1: that's obviously what I want, and it's what everybody wants.
Speaker 1: Right well, now it's what half the people want, which
Speaker 1: are the people that voted to stay, you know, all
Speaker 1: of us that lost, We obviously want to play the
Speaker 1: game again, you know. And there is at the moment
Speaker 1: very strong and persistent polling that shows that most people
Speaker 1: think Brexit was a mistake, we shouldn't have done it,
Speaker 1: and we should go back in. However, and I know
Speaker 1: this sounds counterintuitive, but that doesn't translate into people thinking
Speaker 1: we should reopen the issue because they know what it means,
Speaker 1: and they're right to know what it means, which is
Speaker 1: that we will spend another six years having all the
Speaker 1: same insanely boring debates again about regulatory divergence and custom
Speaker 1: standards and phyto and phytosanitary checks, all of the most
Speaker 1: tedious political questions known to mankind. We'll have all of
Speaker 1: that again. All the families will fall out again over
Speaker 1: Christmas dinner and you're arguing with your father in law,
Speaker 1: and everyone will hate each other again, And so they
Speaker 1: just don't want to do it. It's basically just this
Speaker 1: sort of really pussy spot that you can't bear to
Speaker 1: pop because I think it's just going to hurt too much.
Speaker 1: So for the time being, neither of the parties wants
Speaker 1: to reopen it. Even Labor, which is supported by remainers
Speaker 1: populated entirely by remainers. They just won't go ahead and say.
Speaker 1: What they'll do is say we're going to build a
Speaker 1: closer trading relationship. And my suggestion is that will last
Speaker 1: for five, six, seven years and gradually will just become
Speaker 1: closer and closer to Europe until we're sort of back in. Yeah. Oh,
Speaker 1: so you think eventually you'll just ignore Brexit away. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it'll be slow and tedious, and I think the best
Speaker 1: way who would have thought and the best way of
Speaker 1: doing it will be to try to extract it from
Speaker 1: the culture war element, the sort of oh, you know,
Speaker 1: the lost metropolitans and the cities versus the real people
Speaker 1: in the rural areas and the towns, and just to
Speaker 1: have it as this sort of technical process which is
Speaker 1: about trade. And from our point of view, if you
Speaker 1: can do that, you can secure your place back there
Speaker 1: without any of the toxic poison that we unleashed over
Speaker 1: the last few years. So I think ultimately will happen.
Speaker 1: It's the direction of travel, and even just demographically, I mean,
Speaker 1: if you've been to university, if you're under the age
Speaker 1: of really kind of like fifty five sixty years old,
Speaker 1: you were typically pro European. So each day that passes
Speaker 1: this is not a nice point to make. Demographically, the
Speaker 1: system improves for remainers because more of the people who
Speaker 1: truly opposed it, the older people shuffle off, you know,
Speaker 1: life's mortal coil, and more young people come online into
Speaker 1: the voting demographic who would vote in the next referendum,
Speaker 1: So you know, the direction of travel the sort of
Speaker 1: destiny element of it is pretty clear, but it's going
Speaker 1: to be a long, slow, slow process. Can you explain
Speaker 1: to me why Boris Johnson is in trouble? Yeah, because
Speaker 1: he's fucking Moro on this time? Yeah, you know what
Speaker 1: I wish. You know, it's weird having this at the
Speaker 1: sort of twentieth anniversary of the Iraq War, because Tony
Speaker 1: Blair's reputation was completely destroyed by deciding to support you
Speaker 1: guys over Iraq. Hey, Hey, hey, not me, baby, We
Speaker 1: all have to date responsibility. You do so, Lena now.
Speaker 1: And you know what that was like a catastrophic, highly
Speaker 1: preventable decision, which he deserves to be massively criticized for.
Speaker 1: And yet at least it was a big cool you know,
Speaker 1: at least it was like a moment of sort of
Speaker 1: world shaking significance. You take Boris Johnson, what does his
Speaker 1: career get ruined by him because he had to have
Speaker 1: birthday parties during lockdown in his house like that. It's like,
Speaker 1: you're just devolve into the status of a child, and
Speaker 1: this week he finally got his come uppance. This is
Speaker 1: a guy that has been lying his entire life, you know,
Speaker 1: his first jobs in journalism, he got sacked from for
Speaker 1: just basically transcribing work from other people and putting it
Speaker 1: in his copy. Throughout his political career, he just lied
Speaker 1: and lied and lied and died, not least about Brexit.
Speaker 1: Then now it's like he finally got caught right. He
Speaker 1: said there were no parties, He said the rules were
Speaker 1: followed at all times, he said the guidance was followed
Speaker 1: at all times. And then a series of photographs videos
Speaker 1: come out showing him at parties with a drink in
Speaker 1: his hand, no one social distancing, blah blah blah. The
Speaker 1: trouble is he said all those things about their not
Speaker 1: being any parties and the rules being followed to the
Speaker 1: House of Commons, and that means that he's in contempt
Speaker 1: of the House of Commons, that he's misled the House
Speaker 1: of Commons. You can do that in two ways. You
Speaker 1: can do it intentionally or he can do it recklessly.
Speaker 1: But either way he would be considered in contempt of
Speaker 1: the House of Commons. And so there is now an
Speaker 1: inquiry into his behavior. If that inquiry by the Privileges
Speaker 1: Committee finds that he is guilty of that, he could
Speaker 1: be sanctioned by ten days suspension from the House of Commons,
Speaker 1: and if that happens, it triggers a recal petition from
Speaker 1: his local constituents who can basically say, well, we want
Speaker 1: to get rid of him, we want to have a
Speaker 1: vote to get rid of him, And that opens up
Speaker 1: the possibility that what's happening now is the end of
Speaker 1: his political career. So this week he sat in front
Speaker 1: of the committee and answered questions, and that is the
Speaker 1: fate that is staring him in the face at the moment.
Speaker 1: Why would that be the end of his political career
Speaker 1: because you'll probably lose. He could come back, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's perfectly possible, but he would probably lose that by
Speaker 1: election fight, so he would be thrown out of the Commons.
Speaker 1: Quite an extraordinary thing, by the way, for a prime
Speaker 1: minister with a huge majority at the beginning of the
Speaker 1: parliament to then finish the parliament actually getting booted out
Speaker 1: of the House of Commons even as an MP. But
Speaker 1: something else interesting happened during that day that sort of
Speaker 1: signifies it. Right, So he sat there, he's answering questions.
Speaker 1: He comes across like a really angry, petulant, entitled child,
Speaker 1: just sort of shouting about this is all nonsense. How
Speaker 1: can you question me like this? To the MPs? His
Speaker 1: stories are preposterous, you know, I mean, just not even
Speaker 1: a child could believe all he was saying. But halfway
Speaker 1: through that testimony, MPs went off to vote on Rishie's
Speaker 1: Sunac's Brexit deal, this Northern Land Protocol element, and Boris
Speaker 1: Johnson had come out against that. Now, once upon a
Speaker 1: time Boris Johnson comes out against something, he's going to
Speaker 1: add a whole mass of Conservative MPs behind him. It
Speaker 1: means that the government's in real trouble. This time just
Speaker 1: over twenty of them voted with him, hardly any at all.
Speaker 1: It was like a drop in the ocean. He doesn't
Speaker 1: actually have that many allies left to him, so it's
Speaker 1: this kind of pitiful spectacle. He was firing his guns,
Speaker 1: he was doing all the things, all the bluster, all
Speaker 1: the sort of mock Bonhomy charisma that he can deploy,
Speaker 1: and none of it was working, and his parliamentary support
Speaker 1: was falling away, and he was engage in a process
Speaker 1: that could well see him thrown out of Parliament altogether.
Speaker 1: So the way it looked this week was it was
Speaker 1: the final days of Boris Johnson. I have trouble believing
Speaker 1: that Boris will ever leave us, especially because even if
Speaker 1: he's not in office, he still will have a sort
Speaker 1: of shadow or journalistic career. Right, Oh, yeah, no, he will.
Speaker 1: He will. But you know, something interesting happened, which I
Speaker 1: think is like it's sort of like the definition of
Speaker 1: the distinction between Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, which we've
Speaker 1: spoken about before actually, which is that Boris Johnson lost
Speaker 1: his base. He was unable to keep people with him
Speaker 1: throughout this. So yesterday they had question Time, which is
Speaker 1: the sort of flagship BBC current affairs program. It's terrible.
Speaker 1: I mean, it is fucking dreadful, but but it is.
Speaker 1: It's the flagship debate of lots of people screaming at
Speaker 1: each other for no reason. I'm sorry, but I don't
Speaker 1: understand why we don't have that in America. Well, actually,
Speaker 1: the fun part of it is just watching members of
Speaker 1: the public get to scream at cabinet secretaries and that's
Speaker 1: actually quite a rewarding emotional experience. But nevertheless, it's not
Speaker 1: the place you go to for forensic, detailed political debate.
Speaker 1: And in the audience by a long distance, the audience
Speaker 1: had voted for Boris Johnson in the last selection more
Speaker 1: than any other single party that were available. And they
Speaker 1: were asked yesterday by the host, can you put your
Speaker 1: hand up if you believe Boris Johnson, And not one
Speaker 1: single person in that hall put their hand up. That's
Speaker 1: sort of the key distinction to me of like, you know,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump can come out and say it about the
Speaker 1: election or about whatever else and a set amount of
Speaker 1: people will follow through with him. With Boris Johnson, he
Speaker 1: lost those guys. He lost his base. And because he
Speaker 1: lost his base and now he's losing his support in
Speaker 1: the Parliamentary Party. Yes, he'll still be writing pieces for
Speaker 1: the Telegraph and still be writing really badly researched books
Speaker 1: about Churchill and which he pretends that he's his modern
Speaker 1: day representative, but he won't have that political strength. And
Speaker 1: at the moment I have to say throughout, for the
Speaker 1: first time in my lifetime, you would say that his
Speaker 1: star is significantly on the decline. And it feels like
Speaker 1: we're closing page on his influence on British politics, his
Speaker 1: heavy duty influence on British politics. Jesus, poor Boris, No,
Speaker 1: don't say that. How can you even say that terrible guy,
Speaker 1: so he could really be brought down by party gad.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, well, I mean he sort of already
Speaker 1: has been, right, I mean, he already lost his position
Speaker 1: in Downing Street. You know. The thing that I think
Speaker 1: is going to kill him is this again, in a
Speaker 1: pretty Trumpian way, He's gone down constantly trying to discredit
Speaker 1: and malign and corrode the basic democratic institutions around him.
Speaker 1: So the Privileges Committee is established by the House of
Speaker 1: Commons according to rules that are set by the House
Speaker 1: of Commons. It is a parliamentary body and Boris Johnson
Speaker 1: has spent the last few weeks calling it a kangaroo court,
Speaker 1: claiming it was rigged against him, claiming everyone's biased and
Speaker 1: they're changing the terms of reference and basically questioning the
Speaker 1: integrity of all the MPs who sits on it, including
Speaker 1: five Conservative MPs. His allies in the media like Nadine Dorries,
Speaker 1: is arguably the stupidest woman in British political life, have
Speaker 1: been doing exactly the same sorts of attacks, same with
Speaker 1: Jacob Brice Mark. So it's been a really sustained assault
Speaker 1: on the committee. Now. The interesting thing is during the
Speaker 1: committee hearings Towards the end, the MP started asking him
Speaker 1: about this comments, and they were doing it in a
Speaker 1: way that demonstrated their absolute abject anger towards him for
Speaker 1: what he had done. I suspect if he had not
Speaker 1: tried to do this, if he had not tried to
Speaker 1: corrode the way that Parliament worked, they would have said, yes,
Speaker 1: you misled the House, Yes it was reckless, but we're
Speaker 1: gonna put a sanction on you of less than ten days.
Speaker 1: If it was less than ten days, it wouldn't trigger
Speaker 1: the election that could see him lose the hold of
Speaker 1: his political career. But because he's behaved this way, because
Speaker 1: he's tried to bring the standard system down all around Parliament,
Speaker 1: they actually seem like they're going to be sterner, and
Speaker 1: I suspect it will be because of that. But he'll
Speaker 1: find himself in hotter water than he might otherwise have been.
Speaker 1: All of which, frankly, is morally really quite reassuring and enjoyable.
Speaker 1: And I'd be lying if I had the spend a
Speaker 1: huge amount of this week just laughing and laughing as
Speaker 1: I watched the process. Ian, I hope you will come
Speaker 1: back to tell us what is happening across the pond
Speaker 1: and make us feel a little better. That's good. I
Speaker 1: will endeavor to do that. That's right. We'd like to
Speaker 1: think of you as our shot. Ashley Parker is a
Speaker 1: White House reporter for The Washington Post. Welcome Too Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: Ashley Parker. Thanks for having me. Very excited to have
Speaker 1: you in this at the end of the weirdest newsweek ever.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess whenever you're covering Trump, you're always
Speaker 1: unprecedented times, but this feels more unprecedented than usual. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's true. I mean, for at least covering
Speaker 1: Trump in his presidency, right, A lot of it was,
Speaker 1: you know, as a White House reporter, was responding to
Speaker 1: the latest thing he did or said or was trying
Speaker 1: to do. And this is actually in again. We've certainly
Speaker 1: been following what he's been putting out on truth social
Speaker 1: but this has been this kind of weird waiting holding period,
Speaker 1: waiting for something that would be potentially unprecedented in modern
Speaker 1: times to happen, which is a former president getting indicted.
Speaker 1: Will you explain to me because I think it's relevant.
Speaker 1: This entire news cycle started on Saturday morning, almost a
Speaker 1: week ago, with the truth from Donald Trump that said
Speaker 1: I'm going to be arrested on Tuesday. After that, two
Speaker 1: hours later, there was follow up from one of his
Speaker 1: spokespeople who said, maybe now he kind of made that up, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, can you explain. Yeah, so we all see this,
Speaker 1: and of course it does exactly what Trump loves doing,
Speaker 1: which is Sunday sort of not just reporters, but the
Speaker 1: entire country, the entire world into a frenzy with him
Speaker 1: squarely at the center. And then you know, when everyone
Speaker 1: reaches out to his team in his campaign and people
Speaker 1: in his world to figure out, like, what does he mean?
Speaker 1: What does he know that we don't know? The sort
Speaker 1: of answer that comes back is, oh, we don't know either.
Speaker 1: We didn't know he was going to send that. We
Speaker 1: don't really understand where he got that from. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've talked to some people since who sort of claim
Speaker 1: that he got that idea from, you know, the sort
Speaker 1: of New York Police tried to coordinate potential security logistics
Speaker 1: with the Secret Service and something leaked and Trump got
Speaker 1: wind of it. But that feels more like a conspiracy
Speaker 1: theory than you know, anything we'd feel comfortable like nailing
Speaker 1: down and putting in the paper, right, right right, And
Speaker 1: there clearly were a lot of whispers, but not a lot,
Speaker 1: you know, because there was some sense from the Manhattan
Speaker 1: Age that they were going to go right. Yes, the
Speaker 1: Post we have sort of been pretty careful about how
Speaker 1: we've been phrasing this. I don't believe we've said, you know,
Speaker 1: a likely or an expected indictment the way some other
Speaker 1: news organizations have. But and again I'm not a legal expert,
Speaker 1: but yes, the indications are sort of Historically, Trump was
Speaker 1: invited to testify before the grand jury, and that's often
Speaker 1: something that happens at the very end when a case
Speaker 1: is wrapping up, right, So it was a very clear
Speaker 1: signal that this case was wrapping up. And that's also
Speaker 1: something that often but not always, happens shortly before an indictment.
Speaker 1: So reading the tea leaves people could kind of feel
Speaker 1: comfortable making that assumption. We at the Post did not.
Speaker 1: But it was very clear that something was going to
Speaker 1: happen either way, that this case is coming to a close,
Speaker 1: whether it ends in an indictment or not. I mean,
Speaker 1: what's happened now seems kind of extraordinary because nothing has happened. Yeah, sorry,
Speaker 1: but do you find a point on it nothing has
Speaker 1: happened yet, and we're all sort of still waiting with
Speaker 1: bated breath, right, I mean, I think we ever and
Speaker 1: else has news coverage plans ready to go for any
Speaker 1: outcome and any contingency. At every day we sort of
Speaker 1: show up at work ready, ready to launch and report
Speaker 1: on whatever has happened, and then like every day we
Speaker 1: go home and are like, Okay, let's like let's do
Speaker 1: it again tomorrow. To just look at this in a
Speaker 1: slightly different way, there would be no way to not
Speaker 1: cover that. I mean, you couldn't say, like, I mean,
Speaker 1: you couldn't say, wow, not cover this. It does seem
Speaker 1: like all the evidence points in one way. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean you would sort of be negligent as a news
Speaker 1: organization if you didn't have coverage plans, frankly, for all
Speaker 1: conceivable outcomes. I think that was something a lot of
Speaker 1: news organizations learned on election Night twenty sixteen, that anything
Speaker 1: that anything can happen the thing you expect and the
Speaker 1: thing that all signs point towards, and the thing that
Speaker 1: many people for whatever reason did not expect. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's a huge story. No matter what happens,
Speaker 1: It's a story you know, with not just potential legal ramifications,
Speaker 1: but also this is what I've been focused more on,
Speaker 1: with potential huge political ramifications. So let's talk about those
Speaker 1: political ramifications. I want to game this out for you.
Speaker 1: Right now. He is raised, you know, more than a
Speaker 1: million dollars, probably at this point more like two million dollars.
Speaker 1: Right now, this has been I think a big win
Speaker 1: for him. Do you think that's right? I mean, it
Speaker 1: sort of depends on what context and the truth is.
Speaker 1: I don't think we totally know. Yes, it has been
Speaker 1: a huge fundraising way right. He is always good at
Speaker 1: what he has portrayed as under attack or as a victim.
Speaker 1: That is always a bood for Trump fundraising. Yes, that's true.
Speaker 1: His team has come around to the idea, and not
Speaker 1: just his team, but a lot of Republicans, including a
Speaker 1: lot of Republicans who don't like him and would like
Speaker 1: to see him go away, and even some Democrats to
Speaker 1: this idea that this is something they believe that very
Speaker 1: clearly helps him in the short term, especially in shoring
Speaker 1: up his base and a Republican primary, and even maybe
Speaker 1: again it's worth noting his base doesn't actually need to
Speaker 1: be shored up, right like those people are going. But yes,
Speaker 1: it shows up his base right, like probably the crowds
Speaker 1: and a waygo this weekend will be maybe even bigger
Speaker 1: and even more fired up in this current moment than
Speaker 1: they would have before, but also potentially in the short
Speaker 1: term and show enough some of these Republicans who maybe
Speaker 1: voted for him twice but we're curious about a Dessantist
Speaker 1: or the Tim Scott or whoever. But there's also a
Speaker 1: view and again we just don't know the answers to
Speaker 1: these questions yet that it certainly could hurt him in
Speaker 1: a general election, which is ultimately like the final test
Speaker 1: that matters. It's it's really nice to when your party's nomination,
Speaker 1: but it's like even cooler to in the White House.
Speaker 1: That's the main goal. So you know, among these kind
Speaker 1: of more moderate Republicans, these independent voters, these Democrats who
Speaker 1: maybe have some concerns about Biden but are certainly not
Speaker 1: going to vote for Trump again, you know, these like
Speaker 1: forty thousand people basically in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. This
Speaker 1: is the sort of thing that does not help him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it also it's worth noting, I mean I spent
Speaker 1: I guess there was probably last month or so, but
Speaker 1: I spent a couple of days interviewing more than thirty
Speaker 1: six voters in Pennsylvania, and the posted a huge project
Speaker 1: where there are five of US reporters out across the
Speaker 1: country interviewing more than one hundred and fifty voters told
Speaker 1: him all who had voted for Trump, often both times,
Speaker 1: and even among them there's a sense of sort of chaos,
Speaker 1: exhaustion and fatigue. And even though they don't blame him,
Speaker 1: they like him. They generally like his policies as president.
Speaker 1: And they'll say, look, these things are witch hunts, right.
Speaker 1: The media is out to get him. The Democrats are
Speaker 1: out to get him, the Ryno Republicans are out to
Speaker 1: get him, and never Trumpers are out to get him.
Speaker 1: They don't blame him for this, and they'll certainly put
Speaker 1: you anything that comes out of the Manhattan DA in
Speaker 1: this category. They also say, but at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, we really want to beat Biden or whoever
Speaker 1: the Democrat is. At the end of the day, it
Speaker 1: might just be better to have a candidate who's not
Speaker 1: been so unfairly persecuted, right, right, So it doesn't even
Speaker 1: help him necessarily with all Republican voters. Is there a
Speaker 1: world in which voters make a decision that says, I mean,
Speaker 1: this is the thing I'm the most focused on. Is
Speaker 1: there a world in which voters decide like, for example,
Speaker 1: if you were and again you've gone into my head now,
Speaker 1: so I apologize, But here's this opportunity right this week,
Speaker 1: and and say you were a Republican who wanted to win,
Speaker 1: which obviously they do, right, I mean Kevin McCarthy, Like Saturday, Saturday,
Speaker 1: right after Trump truths, he says like this is a
Speaker 1: partisan which hunt right, Like a few hours later he
Speaker 1: immediately is like, whatever it is he our guy didn't
Speaker 1: do it. Republicans had yet another opportunity to break with him,
Speaker 1: and they were like, no, well not just Kevin McCarthy.
Speaker 1: I mean, look at what's more interesting to me is
Speaker 1: look at his twenty twenty four Republican primary rights people
Speaker 1: who are either already declared running against him or we
Speaker 1: know are very likely to run against him. Right, what
Speaker 1: about Ron de Santis, Yeah, run de Santis. Mike Pence, Yeah.
Speaker 1: The vig Ramaswanni Nicki Haley, Mike Pence came out and
Speaker 1: basically said the same thing Ron de Santis stood kind
Speaker 1: of a three step, right. First he was quiet, then
Speaker 1: he came out and attacked that Manhattan Da album Bragg
Speaker 1: you know, again, sort of saying this is a political persecution,
Speaker 1: but also took the opportunity to very clearly repeat the
Speaker 1: fairly sorted issue at the heart of this indication, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, Trump paid money hush money to a porn start, right,
Speaker 1: and noting that like he would know nothing about how
Speaker 1: that sort of thing, right exactly, which fair most people
Speaker 1: don't are not in the weeds about money to a
Speaker 1: porn star. You know that they've sort of made this
Speaker 1: calculation in theory, this should be a vulnerability, right, former
Speaker 1: president potentially getting indicted, and they have made a calculation
Speaker 1: that this is not the moment to try to deliver
Speaker 1: a knock out blow and if anything, if they don't
Speaker 1: stand behind him, a certain portion of the base will
Speaker 1: punish him, which is a fascinating moment. I mean. The
Speaker 1: person who maybe made sort of the most accurate point
Speaker 1: in certain ways was Governor Chris Christie, who was in
Speaker 1: a very different mold. If he ends up running for president,
Speaker 1: you could see him sort of kamikaze style trying to
Speaker 1: destroy Trump in the same way he did to Rubio
Speaker 1: on that New Hampshire debate stage right, right right. But
Speaker 1: Christie's point was sort of like me, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: Trump's right where he likes to be, at the center
Speaker 1: of turmoil and chaos. Maybe this helps him in the
Speaker 1: short term. But like, I think we can all agree
Speaker 1: on some general conventional wisdom that like, in general, getting
Speaker 1: indicted is like not in that positively. I mean, I
Speaker 1: almost wonder if it's like almost so echo chambered that
Speaker 1: they no longer are able to see even a sense
Speaker 1: of like a normal non MAGA voter, who could you know,
Speaker 1: the PERSUADEA Alls might feel. Well, what's interesting is I
Speaker 1: just had a story on this. There's been a lot
Speaker 1: of discussions, both from other Republicans running or expected front
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four, Republican strategist posters Republican groups of
Speaker 1: sort of how do you defeat The first challenge for
Speaker 1: them is how do you defeat someone like Trump in
Speaker 1: a Republican primary? And the base on the whole does
Speaker 1: not want to see him attacked, right right, because his
Speaker 1: strongest when he's a victim, when he's an outsider, when
Speaker 1: he's fighting against the man, the establishment, the swamp. They're
Speaker 1: sort of learning the lessons from twenty sixteen. They're also
Speaker 1: learning that, you know, what worked in a general is
Speaker 1: not what works obviously in a Republican primary. And what
Speaker 1: they've sort of alighted on is this idea and they
Speaker 1: haven't perfected it yet. Of Look, he did he did
Speaker 1: a lot of good things, right, but like almost coming
Speaker 1: at him from a place of disappointment, you know, like
Speaker 1: we were so excited he was great in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: you know, but he said he was going to build
Speaker 1: the wall and he just did him right. And he
Speaker 1: said Mexico was going to pay for the wall, and
Speaker 1: they just did right. And and you know, we just
Speaker 1: he's great and it's not even his fault, right about
Speaker 1: all these political persecutions, But we just like we need
Speaker 1: to be Biden and it's just time to move on
Speaker 1: from all these distractions to a new generation of leaders.
Speaker 1: So I think that's what you are going to ultimately hear. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the thing about all of this stuff is
Speaker 1: it might work if you had a normal person, you know,
Speaker 1: if you had a Debia or you had a Reagan.
Speaker 1: But you don't have a normal Republican. Trump is not
Speaker 1: going to say, Okay, I guess my time is over.
Speaker 1: He's going to say rob to sanctimonious. But he's certainly
Speaker 1: not going to bow out right or halt his campaign.
Speaker 1: But I do think one thing you're seeing is one
Speaker 1: thing they learned in twenty teen, in twenty twenty, and
Speaker 1: throughout his entire presidency very clearly, is that attacks on
Speaker 1: his character don't work because love him or hate him,
Speaker 1: who Donald Trump is is just fully baked into the cake.
Speaker 1: And frankly, you knew that when you went to the
Speaker 1: polls in twenty sixteen, right, the idea that one more
Speaker 1: controversy or scandal or woman coming out of the you know,
Speaker 1: coming out to allege something against him, will change anyone's mind,
Speaker 1: it simply won't, Right, So that's why you're not really
Speaker 1: hearing arguments about can you believe that he might have
Speaker 1: paid hush money to a porn star? Everyone's like it's
Speaker 1: like I was like, yeah, like we can believe that,
Speaker 1: and it either bothers us or it doesn't. But it's
Speaker 1: more the sort of again the like chaos, exhaustion, fatigue,
Speaker 1: like wouldn't it be nice to have a candidate who's
Speaker 1: not just facing this investigation, but we should note three
Speaker 1: others that we haven't you know, we haven't even talked
Speaker 1: about and haven't even drawn to a close. But I
Speaker 1: want to just talk about this. Caitlyn Collins tweeted this
Speaker 1: from truth Social. Trump indicates that there could be potential
Speaker 1: death and destruction if he's charged. It seems like the base,
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, is less, and perhaps it's because many
Speaker 1: of them went to jail for January six seemed less
Speaker 1: interested in causing violence in his name, including his truth
Speaker 1: Social about a week earlier about you know, protest and
Speaker 1: take Back our Nation as well. It all just lands
Speaker 1: in a very different context after January sixth, Right, sort
Speaker 1: of the thing people thought could never happen happened once.
Speaker 1: And so what you have seen in this truth that
Speaker 1: Caitlin tweeted just came out kind of twelve hours ago.
Speaker 1: But if you look at the one about protest take
Speaker 1: Back our Nation, you very clearly saw Republicans up and
Speaker 1: down the board sort of saying like nothing but peaceful protests, right,
Speaker 1: either trying to claim that that's what Trump meant, or
Speaker 1: calling for that themselves in the site idea which you
Speaker 1: know it was actually funny. It was a quote, background
Speaker 1: anonymous quote I put in a Washington Post piece after
Speaker 1: the election before January sixth, that gets resurfaced like every
Speaker 1: three weeks, but from a Republican saying, look, we just
Speaker 1: need to give him a little time to like send
Speaker 1: some tweets, go golfing. Yes, it's not like he's trying
Speaker 1: to overturn the election. Yeah, and then he'll and then
Speaker 1: he'll leave. That notion is gone. And sort of every
Speaker 1: Republican understands or seems it is behaving as if they
Speaker 1: know they want to do their part to say this
Speaker 1: is not going to happen again. And you're seeing that
Speaker 1: in all of their responses. When an anonymous Republican told
Speaker 1: you that quote, were you like, oh, this is a
Speaker 1: throwaway quote, or did you think like this will continually
Speaker 1: haunt us next. I probably shouldn't admit this, but when
Speaker 1: I mean, I knew it was a good quote, and
Speaker 1: that's why I put it in the story. But at
Speaker 1: that moment when this person told it to me, it
Speaker 1: seems outlandish. Of course, in hindsight, right after after the
Speaker 1: deadly January sixth attacks on the US capital, but at
Speaker 1: the time this person was articulating what was widely believed
Speaker 1: in not just Republican circles, but even in people in
Speaker 1: the Trumps. Right. You have to remember at that time,
Speaker 1: we were chasing rumors that like he was going to
Speaker 1: go tomorrow lago for Thanksgiving and just never come back,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, right, so it wasn't I mean, again
Speaker 1: this hindsight twenty twenty, this quote resurfaces literally like every fortnight. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but at the time I didn't think, wow, this is
Speaker 1: you know, gonna seem very embarrassing, and yeah, it felt
Speaker 1: like a totally reasonable, reasonable point of view in that moment.
Speaker 1: Here we are back in this sort of weird, trumpy
Speaker 1: news cycle. Do you think there's a chance And again
Speaker 1: this is like I'm asking question that's like your opinion,
Speaker 1: but I'm not going to ask you your political opinion
Speaker 1: because obviously I don't want to be me and I
Speaker 1: just had Charlie to have a John, so I know
Speaker 1: I have to you know, good with this straight reporters
Speaker 1: and not try to get them to have opinions. But
Speaker 1: thank you for not getting me fired, Molly Well. John
Speaker 1: Allen is always like I will not weigh it if
Speaker 1: you want to say something, but I'm just curious. I mean,
Speaker 1: do you think that there's a world in which the
Speaker 1: Manhattan DA doesn't go first and that this just you know,
Speaker 1: the DOJ goes first or Georgia goes first? I mean,
Speaker 1: or do you really think that because of what happened
Speaker 1: this week, the Manhattan DA will go first? So this
Speaker 1: is really just a gas on your part. But and
Speaker 1: you can add the caveats you want. Yeah, no, I
Speaker 1: mean I will say, like, based on and again this
Speaker 1: is not my reporting, but based on my colleagues reporting
Speaker 1: and my kind of consumption of it and discussions I've had,
Speaker 1: it seemed like at least initially, the Manhattan DA was
Speaker 1: going to be first in drawing to a club. I
Speaker 1: don't know that that means an indictment, but the Manhattan DA,
Speaker 1: in inviting Trump to testify, seemed ahead of schedule of
Speaker 1: these other investigations. But again, like you can have a
Speaker 1: pain as much attention, but you can look at Fulton
Speaker 1: County where they were staying down there that there should
Speaker 1: be you know, announcements kind of imminently, right, So I
Speaker 1: mean the truth is I just I don't know, and
Speaker 1: I don't really know what those final outcomes or announcements
Speaker 1: will will be nobody does right, No, exactly right. I
Speaker 1: mean that is and you know that is something. I
Speaker 1: feel like that, just the concrete of it, it's like
Speaker 1: we've lost a little bit of sight of that. Really, nobody,
Speaker 1: including Trump or his people or Jim Jordan, really even
Speaker 1: know what is. You know, until we see paper, we
Speaker 1: don't know anything. Really. Yeah, I mean these investigations are
Speaker 1: supposed to be leak proof. That's how they're supposed to work.
Speaker 1: You know, there's tea leaves people are trying to read
Speaker 1: here and there, But I sort of I think we'll
Speaker 1: know when we know. Yeah, Thank you so much, Ashley Parker,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. Ian Ward is a reporter of Politico. Welcome,
Speaker 1: do you fast politics? Ian, thanks for having me. Jesse
Speaker 1: read this piece in Political magazine. He's like, you got
Speaker 1: to get this guy. And we agree, which we often
Speaker 1: mostly do. But I'm going to read the title because
Speaker 1: I feel like that's the beginning of this whole interview.
Speaker 1: The Federalist society isn't quite so sure about democracy anymore.
Speaker 1: I mean when I read that, I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I was also like, really, talk to me about
Speaker 1: where this, Talk to me about I want the whole
Speaker 1: story here. What were you doing where you came to
Speaker 1: this conclusion, etc. Yeah. Sure, So I've been covering the
Speaker 1: conservative legal movement for a while now, and I went
Speaker 1: down to Austin at the beginning of March for the
Speaker 1: Federal Society's National Student Symposium, which is an annual gathering
Speaker 1: at the Federalist Society host for its student law chapters.
Speaker 1: So mostly right leaning law students, and it's sort of
Speaker 1: a weekend long together the pop kilt parties, panels, networking sessions,
Speaker 1: and you know, these are students who are coming from
Speaker 1: mostly elite law schools, right and they get together sort
Speaker 1: of to discuss ideas and have debates, and you know
Speaker 1: it's they invite a lot of conservative lawyers. Federal judges
Speaker 1: are there. It's a big opportunity for law students to
Speaker 1: meet future employers. But I mean the main, the main
Speaker 1: meat of the symposium are these panels where lawyers get together,
Speaker 1: lawyers and judges get together to debate sort of what's
Speaker 1: up with the conservative legal movement. And the theme of
Speaker 1: the symposium this year was law and democracy. Ironic, I
Speaker 1: want to just pausors in it. So this is like
Speaker 1: sepack if the people who were part of it actually mattered. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a nerdy seepack, right, you know, sepack
Speaker 1: the crowd this year. I mean you saw the reports
Speaker 1: coming out of it. Sepack with smart people. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: see pack with smart people and everyone's wearing a student tie,
Speaker 1: you know, and went to Yale Law School uses their
Speaker 1: salad for before or other flock. Yeah yeah, yeah. So,
Speaker 1: I mean the theme was law and democracy, which is
Speaker 1: a sort of pregnant topic, to say the least for
Speaker 1: the conservative legal movement right now as it sort of
Speaker 1: figures out how to navigate the post Dobs world and
Speaker 1: navigate its role in the country now that Conservatives have
Speaker 1: a majority on the Supreme Court and after the Trump
Speaker 1: years have gotten lots of federal judges on the bench,
Speaker 1: and there's a tension there with law and democracy, and
Speaker 1: there always has been within the conservative legal movement. I mean,
Speaker 1: the Federal Society at least was founded with this sort
Speaker 1: of dual mandate, which was you know, they say it's
Speaker 1: emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to
Speaker 1: say what the law is, not what the law should be. Right,
Speaker 1: that's kind of aping the marboring first medicine thing. But
Speaker 1: you know, and they'll acknowledge to you that those things
Speaker 1: can kind of be intention right. On the one hand,
Speaker 1: they are tasked with reading what's written in the Constitution, right,
Speaker 1: and they apply sort of originalist framework to that, trying
Speaker 1: to make sense of what the document meant at the
Speaker 1: time of its founding. But at the same time they've
Speaker 1: championed this idea of judicial restraint, which is that judges
Speaker 1: should in general defer to the democratic process and trying
Speaker 1: not to intervene to directly and not make the law,
Speaker 1: just understand it except when they want him too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's changed over time, and that was part of
Speaker 1: the big takeaway. And the piece was I actually talked
Speaker 1: to Eugene Meyer, who's the president CEO of the Federal Society,
Speaker 1: and he says, you know, he told me they've always
Speaker 1: been the tension within the conservative legal movement, but that
Speaker 1: over time, and in recent years especially, the group has
Speaker 1: moved away from sort of an idea of judicial restraint
Speaker 1: really you don't say, yeah, more assertively towards an idea
Speaker 1: they say reading the laws written, you can quipal with
Speaker 1: that as you want. Yeah, So that was sort of
Speaker 1: the general tone that the organization is moving away from
Speaker 1: judicial restraint and embracing a sort of more assertive role.
Speaker 1: I have to tell you, I feel like it's like, brilliantly,
Speaker 1: I'm on a great there, moving away from judicial restraint.
Speaker 1: Really you don't say, yeah, I think judicial restraint made
Speaker 1: sense for the conservative legal movement, you know, in the
Speaker 1: eighties and nineties, two thousands, when they really saw the
Speaker 1: courts as pulling the country to the left and as
Speaker 1: more progressive than the general population. And it made sense
Speaker 1: in that case to say, well, you know, judgicition and
Speaker 1: intervene in the legisure process and so on. But now
Speaker 1: that the tables are turned, I think their commitment to
Speaker 1: that other principles is being tested. Yeah. Now it's just
Speaker 1: every lunatic for themselves. So talk to me about some
Speaker 1: of the other ideas you saw coming out of there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, there was a panel on election law where
Speaker 1: the idea of the independent state legislature theory came up,
Speaker 1: which is in the Supreme Courts considering now and more
Speaker 1: b Harper, and that's the idea that state legislatures should
Speaker 1: have more Some people say total, some people say just
Speaker 1: more control over the execution of federal election, and it
Speaker 1: seems unlikely that the Court's going to adopt that idea
Speaker 1: in its most radical form, and many of the people
Speaker 1: at the conference were skeptical about it and noted that
Speaker 1: this would be incredibly disruptive to the American electro system.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a bit of tension within that movement
Speaker 1: because the judges who have flirted with that idea on
Speaker 1: the High Court, you know, do have ties to the
Speaker 1: Federal Society and are sort of poster children for the
Speaker 1: conservaive legal movement. So I don't want to give the
Speaker 1: impression that like the Federal Society is a single entity, right,
Speaker 1: or that the conservative legal movement has no fissures. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of politics within those organizations. But so
Speaker 1: some some members you know, are really hesitant to adopt
Speaker 1: the uh you know, independence of legitis there, and some
Speaker 1: are more willing to play around with it. But it's
Speaker 1: in that world and people in that world are talking
Speaker 1: about it, which when you look a sort of at
Speaker 1: the details of the of the theory, is a sort
Speaker 1: of alarming thing, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, Can you explain
Speaker 1: why it's alarming? I would recommend, you know, going to
Speaker 1: read some of the some of the things that've been
Speaker 1: written about the independent state legislature there. But I think,
Speaker 1: as we saw in twenty twenty, if state let's just
Speaker 1: have the opportunity to exert more power in federal elections,
Speaker 1: I think we basically know how that would how that
Speaker 1: would play out, right right, right, you know, I feel
Speaker 1: like we're in the forefront of conservative judiciary kind of
Speaker 1: like they've sort of caught the car and are trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what to do with it. They have
Speaker 1: a kind of power that they've never had before, right
Speaker 1: because they control the Supreme Court. Now, what was your
Speaker 1: sense on how they are going to use this power? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think that really is an open question.
Speaker 1: I think part of what compelled me to go to
Speaker 1: the conference was that it's a forum for young people
Speaker 1: within the consort of the legal movement to share their views.
Speaker 1: And I do think there are some emerging generational divides
Speaker 1: within the conservaive legal movement. OH explain that A good
Speaker 1: example is the conservative jurisprudence towards what's knows like the
Speaker 1: administrative state or the executive agencies. So for many years
Speaker 1: conservative lawyers have of being critical of the court's decision
Speaker 1: as known as the Chevron Doctrine, which gives pretty broad
Speaker 1: latitude towards administrative agencies to interpret law and an apt
Speaker 1: law and the way they see fit. Conservatives traditionally not
Speaker 1: like that because they think it, you know, empowers the
Speaker 1: bureaucracy too much and takes the decision making power out
Speaker 1: of the democratically elected officials hands and puts it in
Speaker 1: the hands of sort of like Washington egghead bureaucrats. But
Speaker 1: there's a sort of grumbling and some movement among younger
Speaker 1: conservatives who say, you know, maybe what we want to
Speaker 1: do with the administrative state has not gut it and
Speaker 1: take away all the power from it. Maybe what we
Speaker 1: want to do is use the power of the administrative
Speaker 1: state to advance, you know, our vision of what the
Speaker 1: country should look like. So there's some younger legal conservatives
Speaker 1: who are kind of doing a one eighty on the
Speaker 1: Chevron doctrine. I mean, that's one of them. I wrote
Speaker 1: the piece back in December about our growing movement led
Speaker 1: by an academic at Harvard named Adrian Vermuele who calls
Speaker 1: himself a post liberal. We're gonna die. He and Patrick
Speaker 1: Denine is the big spokesperson for those those academics. You know,
Speaker 1: he is kind of articulating this vision of a legal
Speaker 1: theory called common good constitutionalism, which basically throws out the
Speaker 1: window all the presuppositions of the conservative legal movement and says,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't want to do originalism, we don't
Speaker 1: want to do textualism, we don't want to do judicial restraint.
Speaker 1: We want to use the law not to protect individual
Speaker 1: rights and liberties, but to instantiate a common good, which
Speaker 1: in his definition is a pretty radically conservative and catholically
Speaker 1: inflected vision of American politics. And he's gotten a lot
Speaker 1: of traction among young conservatives. So that's another fault line.
Speaker 1: Can you give us an example of what that would be.
Speaker 1: He has advocated for this sort of funny but banning pornography, right, Wow,
Speaker 1: good for them, that's a wildly unpopular watch them lots
Speaker 1: of luck. Yeah, but right, that runs a foul of
Speaker 1: sort of traditional conservative views on First Amendment problems, right,
Speaker 1: which is that there should be sort of free speech absolution.
Speaker 1: He says, no, you know, pornography is a is a
Speaker 1: social ill, and conservatives should use the power of the
Speaker 1: state to ban it. Good luck, team Yeah, but you
Speaker 1: know stuff like that, you know, really restrictive abortion laws,
Speaker 1: bands on homosexuality and gay marriage, things like that. That's
Speaker 1: another fault line with the within the conservaive legal movement.
Speaker 1: I think it's aligned a lot of the time by
Speaker 1: some of the coverage of the conservative legal movement, which
Speaker 1: can assume that they sort of all walk in lockstep
Speaker 1: and that they're all on the same page and that
Speaker 1: they're basically just doing the bidding of the GOP. And
Speaker 1: I do think there's a lot more factional disputes that
Speaker 1: are worth paying attention to within that world. That's pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: I mean, it does seem to me like conservatives have
Speaker 1: really figured out how to choose their judiciary in a
Speaker 1: way that liberals, you know, they don't have the same infrastructure, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there have been sort of a board of
Speaker 1: efforts over the years to build quote unquote a left
Speaker 1: wing federalists society that has failed. I mean as the
Speaker 1: American Constitution Association. I think that's the name, but it's
Speaker 1: not the same thing, and that has to do with
Speaker 1: all sorts of things. Primarily, I think the right has
Speaker 1: much deeper pockets when it comes to funding the type
Speaker 1: of organization that is the Federal Society. I think they
Speaker 1: figured out how to use judicial power well, but they
Speaker 1: also underneath the execution of judicial power there is a
Speaker 1: lot of dissent and debate and disagreement about, you know,
Speaker 1: exactly how that power should be executed. And I don't
Speaker 1: think it does anyone a service to ignore that. Yeah, no, no,
Speaker 1: I think that's I mean, I think if anything, that's
Speaker 1: sort of the biggest game in town that no one's
Speaker 1: talking about is the incredible. I mean, it's from what
Speaker 1: I understand, and I you know, I'm very I am
Speaker 1: friendly with someone who was very involved in the Federal Society,
Speaker 1: George Conway, and so I mean, from what I understand
Speaker 1: from younger lawyers too, their tentacles are long and they
Speaker 1: kind of groom people in a way that I don't
Speaker 1: think liberals even understand how to get involved in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I've seen people. These are ambitious people, right,
Speaker 1: you know, they are gunning for federal clerkships and positions
Speaker 1: in high powered legal firms. And you know, a couple
Speaker 1: of people, since me being a member of the Federalist
Speaker 1: Society is unnecessary credential if you want a clerkship with
Speaker 1: a powerful federal judge. So and you know, these people
Speaker 1: at the conference were you know, anywhere from just undergraduate
Speaker 1: in their early thirties, and they have chapters on undergraduate
Speaker 1: campuses and law school campers around the country. So yeah,
Speaker 1: its tentacles are very, very, very far reaching. There seems
Speaker 1: to be to me a connection between Catholicism and this
Speaker 1: conservative legal movement. Like if you look at the Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: there is a like they're all Catholics. Have you seen
Speaker 1: sort of an overlap between that and the federalist society. Well,
Speaker 1: I'll just give a quick anecdote. I mean, I know
Speaker 1: it's a dicey question, but it's sort of interesting, isn't it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know it is interesting. I was EPICS conference, which
Speaker 1: was on Friday and Saturday night, and I overheard a
Speaker 1: couple of the lawsuit on Saturday evening saying, hey, we
Speaker 1: got to dip out early to hit Saturday Mass before
Speaker 1: you know we had home on Sunday. I just thought
Speaker 1: that was funny, because, yeah, there is a pretty strong
Speaker 1: catholic I think there are legal theorists on the right
Speaker 1: who lean explicitly into the Catholicism. Adrian Vermuel is one
Speaker 1: example of that, if you think about the makeup of
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court, there's a religious component to this. I mean,
Speaker 1: whether or not it's a chicken or an egg, right,
Speaker 1: we don't know. Yeah. I think thinking about the question
Speaker 1: of religious liberty and the concerned legal movements view towards
Speaker 1: religious liberty over the past ten years a sort of
Speaker 1: instructive in this front. You know, there used to be
Speaker 1: a sort of let people do this they want attitude
Speaker 1: that religious liberty was not interfering, was creating sort of
Speaker 1: neutral spaces where people didn't explicitly practice their religion, but
Speaker 1: you know, weren't compelled to by that any sort of
Speaker 1: religious faith. And that shifted a bit. Now you're now
Speaker 1: seeing cases like last term, that was a case involving
Speaker 1: a high school football coach who parade on the field,
Speaker 1: and the conservative majority ruled that that was allowed in
Speaker 1: the name of protecting religious liberty. And they construed protecting
Speaker 1: religious liberty God is creating religiously neutral spaces, but is
Speaker 1: creating positive protections for people to express their faith in
Speaker 1: public forums. Right. So that's a sort of shift within
Speaker 1: how they're thinking how the right's been thinking about religious
Speaker 1: liberty that I think is sort of instructive about their
Speaker 1: brother goals. Yeah, so so interesting. I really appreciate you
Speaker 1: joining us, and please come back. And I think, like,
Speaker 1: you know, what you're doing is really interesting, I mean,
Speaker 1: sitting through those Thank you so much for joining us,
Speaker 1: Thanks for having met Jesse Cannon Trump, possibly the greatest
Speaker 1: non intentional comedian of our time. Let me read the
Speaker 1: most ironic quote of all time. Trump told his supporters
Speaker 1: in Waco, Texas, I am your redemption. And ironically, this
Speaker 1: is on the thirtieth anniversary of the Waco standoff, right
Speaker 1: as that documentary dropped on Netflix. And all I have
Speaker 1: to say is, yes, sir, you sure are their redemption.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, if redemption is whatever making everything worse
Speaker 1: is pretty amazing stuff. Today this weekend, Trump did a
Speaker 1: rally on the thirtieth anniversary of Waco Waco, which is
Speaker 1: you know, saying the quiet part loud behind Trump was
Speaker 1: footage from January sixth, So in case you were wondering
Speaker 1: if they indorse it, they indorse it. And for that
Speaker 1: that moment where they started to play January sixth coverage,
Speaker 1: that is this, well, I think that was a sort
Speaker 1: of step further than I've ever seen, and so that
Speaker 1: is our moment of fuck Gray. I saw somebody on
Speaker 1: Twitter say that there's no way that someone who went
Speaker 1: to jail for January sixth doesn't speak at the yard
Speaker 1: seat this next time. Don't you agree? Very likely? Very like.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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