WEBVTT - Weekend Law: Abortion, Guns & Trump 0:00:03.200 --> 0:00:08.000 This is Bloomberg Law with June Brusso from Bloomberg Radio. 0:00:09.320 --> 0:00:13.640 I'm going to make sure that every single justice up 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:17.800 in that court knows we are here, we are watching, 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:21.800 and we demand that they put our lives over the 0:00:21.840 --> 0:00:23.360 interests of the gun lobby. 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:27.440 Hundreds of protesters were outside the Supreme Court on Tuesday 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:31.720 to support the federal ban on domestic abusers having guns, 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:36.400 and inside, the justices seem to agree, suggesting during oral 0:00:36.520 --> 0:00:39.560 arguments that they'll preserve the ban and it didn't even 0:00:39.600 --> 0:00:43.479 seem like a hard issue. Both liberals and conservatives sounded 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:46.440 persuaded that the ban is in line with the long 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:51.680 standing practice of disarming dangerous people, and the defendant undoubtedly 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:55.800 fit in that category. Here's Chief Justice John Roberts questioning 0:00:55.840 --> 0:00:56.520 his attorney. 0:00:56.880 --> 0:00:59.640 You don't have any doubt that your client's a dangerous person. 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:00.600 Do you. 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:02.880 I would want to know what dangerous person means. 0:01:03.360 --> 0:01:07.039 That's not being someone who's shooting at people. 0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:08.880 That's a good start. 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:12.880 My guest is Second Amendment expert Adam Winkler, a professor 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:16.520 at UCLA Law School. Let's start with the big question. 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:21.280 Did it seem like justices across the board were inclined 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:23.200 to uphold this federal gun ban. 0:01:23.840 --> 0:01:24.360 It did. 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:27.360 It felt very one sided in the Supreme Court, and 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:30.440 it felt like almost all the justices, if not all, 0:01:30.480 --> 0:01:34.400 the justices, were inclined to uphold the federal ban in 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:34.880 this case. 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:38.520 This is the first test of last year's ruling in 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:42.200 Brewin that established a constitutional right to carry a handgun 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:42.840 in public. 0:01:43.120 --> 0:01:43.959 So in order to. 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:45.959 Understand it, I think we have to take a look 0:01:46.000 --> 0:01:50.960 at the historical analysis test established in Bruin that's caused 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:53.800 so much confusion in the lower courts and led to 0:01:53.840 --> 0:01:56.760 them striking down gun control laws that have been on 0:01:56.800 --> 0:01:58.080 the books for decades. 0:01:58.360 --> 0:01:59.960 So tell us about that test. 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:04.160 In the Bruin case, Justice Thomas's majority opinion said that 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:08.560 for gun laws to be constitutionally permissible today, they must 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:12.760 have historical analogs in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds, when 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:16.160 the Second Amendment was adopted and the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:19.760 incorporating the Second Amendment to apply to the states. As 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:22.799 a result, courts have really struggled over the last year 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:26.240 or so trying to find gun laws back in those 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:31.559 days that are sufficiently analogous to many common sense, mainstream 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:35.080 gun laws that we have today. Truth be told, many 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:38.359 of our gun laws are kind of twentieth century inventions. 0:02:38.440 --> 0:02:41.600 Bans on felons possessing firearms, bans on the mentally ill 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:44.720 possessing firearms, and the issue into this case, ban on 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:48.680 domestic abusers possessing firearms. These are laws that don't have 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:53.079 any obvious analog in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds, and 0:02:53.480 --> 0:02:56.120 so this law was struck down by the Fifth Circuit, 0:02:56.240 --> 0:02:58.399 just like courts around the country have been striking down 0:02:58.400 --> 0:03:02.120 gun laws for lack of a clear historical precedent. 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:05.640 So then how did the justices get around that lack 0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:09.400 of a clear historical precedent and all end up seemingly 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:10.720 in favor of this bank. 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:13.000 First of all, I think it's important to note what 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:17.760 Elizabeth Proligar, the Flicitor General, began her oral argument with 0:03:17.960 --> 0:03:21.640 by noting the statistics that show that domestic abusers with 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:26.000 firearms are an incredibly deadly mix, and that forty eight 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:29.240 states and the federal government have prohibited domestic abusers from 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:32.560 possessing firearms, showing that what she intended to do was 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:35.240 not just rely on the history and tradition, but on 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:38.320 the common sense idea that some people are too dangerous 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:41.440 to have firearms. But the court seemed to be inclined 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:46.160 to do is allow the government to frame their gun 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:49.200 laws at a higher level of generality. You don't have 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:52.280 to show that there's a history and tradition of domestic 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:56.400 abusers being prohibited from possessing firearms, and of course there 0:03:56.480 --> 0:03:58.920 isn't a long history and tradition of that, but maybe 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:01.680 you could show that there's a history and tradition of 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:06.800 prohibiting dangerous people from possessing firearms, and domestic abusers are 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:09.960 just a modern day understanding of people who are just 0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:10.920 too dangerous to. 0:04:10.800 --> 0:04:14.480 Have come Did the liberal justices seem like they wanted 0:04:14.480 --> 0:04:18.240 to use this case to revisit that history based test. 0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:20.719 Here's Justice Katanji Brown Jackson. 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:23.480 What's the point of going to the founding era? I mean, 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:25.640 I thought it was doing some work, but if we're 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:32.200 still applying modern sensibilities, I don't really understand the historical framing. 0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:36.680 That did seem like she was pressing that it's very 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:40.719 hard to defend this domestic violence abuser ban when people 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:43.240 are subject to a restraining order in light of the 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:46.520 history and tradition of which that the Bruin Court offered. 0:04:46.920 --> 0:04:49.880 Although Bruin said that you should look for analogous laws, 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:52.039 I think that at the end of the day, the 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:55.839 government is hard pressed to draw a very close analogy. Instead, 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:59.159 the analogies are very general and didn't exactly apply. 0:04:59.320 --> 0:05:03.640 On point, did a majority of the Conservative justices seem 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:06.840 to want to limit any decision to the facts here? 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:09.360 Justice Neil Gorsitch said at one point, do we need 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:10.479 to get into any of that? 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:15.719 It did seem like several of the justices, including Justices Gorsch, Thomas, 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:19.800 and Alito, we're looking for ways to narrow the consequence 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:23.479 of ruling against Rahemi in this case and in favor 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:26.599 of upholding the law, talking about whether there might be 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:30.479 different as applied challenges that someone could bring, or whether 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:33.520 there might be some common law defenses that one could 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:36.839 bring to a charge that one was possessing a firearm 0:05:36.920 --> 0:05:40.480 illegally in violation of the domestic violence restraining order, and 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:44.400 several of the justices leased Justice Alito expressed some discomfort 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:47.839 with the idea that these domestic violence restraining orders could 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:51.560 be very long lasting and yet don't have very serious 0:05:51.800 --> 0:05:57.160 procedural requirements that correspond with broad notions of due process. 0:05:57.240 --> 0:06:01.000 Perhaps, the Solicitor General said, the Court use the present 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:03.640 case to give more guidance to the lower courts and 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:07.960 to correct lower courts quote profound misreading of the bruined decision. 0:06:08.400 --> 0:06:11.560 Do you think we'll get any major statements out of 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:12.200 this ruling. 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:15.120 I think that's going to be one of the big questions. 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:18.520 Is this a really narrow ruling that just cobbles together 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:22.440 a majority, or is it an opinion that will provide 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:26.440 more guidance to the lower courts. Justice Kagan specifically asked 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:29.719 about that and about the necessity, and the Solicitor General 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:32.640 had a very clear and precise answer that there were 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:36.160 three errors being committed by the lower courts. They were 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:39.600 only looking to regulation and not looking to other historical sources. 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:42.480 They were looking at regulation, but we're really looking for 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:47.000 twins rather than for historical analogs. And also that the 0:06:47.120 --> 0:06:50.919 absence of regulation should not always be read against the government, 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:53.760 especially when a problem like domestic violence was not really 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:55.240 thought of as a problem back then. 0:06:55.640 --> 0:06:59.760 So I admit that I find this historical analysis test 0:07:00.279 --> 0:07:04.640 with Second Amendment cases just bordering on ridiculous. Were there 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:08.720 any clues as to whether the Conservatives remained behind the 0:07:08.800 --> 0:07:11.720 historical analysis that Thomas put in place. 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:14.880 Well, I think that the Solicitor General made a very 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:18.840 strategic choice not to challenge the history and tradition test 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:25.520 of Bruin, but instead seek to, if anything, recapture its fluidity, 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:29.040 its ability to be useful to uphold laws, not just 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:32.480 to strike down laws. And so she was not asking 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:35.280 the court to abandon the history and tradition test. Rather, 0:07:35.360 --> 0:07:38.000 she was saying that the lower courts have been misapplying 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:40.560 that test, and that to capture the true essence of 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:43.520 that test means that you should approach the issue the 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:46.240 way she did, at a slightly higher level of generality, 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:50.960 focusing on dangerousness rather than looking for historical precedence of 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:54.280 domestic abusers being prohibited access to firearms. 0:07:54.600 --> 0:07:57.080 If you had to guess, would you guess that it's 0:07:57.120 --> 0:08:00.520 going to be a limited opinion or a broader opinion. 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:02.480 If you were to guess, I would say this is 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:05.440 likely to be a nine to nothing, maybe eight to 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:08.760 one or seven to two opinion. And I think because 0:08:08.800 --> 0:08:11.600 of that, the larger the majority, the less likely it 0:08:11.680 --> 0:08:14.200 is to be very far reaching. That it may be 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:17.080 one of these cases that gets assigned to Justice gorsicch 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:19.720 to just do as little damage as possible to the 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:22.360 bruined test. But I do think that it's no matter 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:25.800 how big the majority is to uphold the federal law here. 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:28.640 If indeed the court does uphold the federal law here, 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:32.600 it will be very good news for gun safety reform advocates. 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:35.679 They've been struggling to defend gun laws in courts, bands 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:39.199 on guns without serial numbers, bands on assault weapons. Even 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:42.000 last week a court struck down the restriction on felons 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:45.040 possessing firearms. So if the court does move to this 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:48.240 higher level of generality it says that government can prohibit 0:08:48.360 --> 0:08:51.600 people who are dangerous from having firearms, it would provide 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:54.600 a basis for defending a lot of core gun laws 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:58.080 that we really rely on in modern twenty first century. 0:08:57.720 --> 0:08:59.120 America and adam. 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:02.480 Last week, so Supreme Court agreed to decide the fate 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:06.640 of the federal criminal ban on bump stocks, the attachments 0:09:06.640 --> 0:09:09.760 that let a semi automatic rifle fire much like a 0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:10.439 machine gun. 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:12.360 What do you make of that? Do you make anything 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:12.640 of it? 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:13.080 No? 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:15.040 I don't make much of it. I think that is 0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:18.120 really an administrative law case. And it's about whether the 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:23.120 administrative agency went too far in interpreting its powers under 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:27.439 the Gun Control Act and other federal statutes that regulate firearms. 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:30.040 And so I think that although they both deal with 0:09:30.120 --> 0:09:33.719 firearms regulation, both these cases, they're very different ones. A 0:09:33.800 --> 0:09:36.280 Second Amendment case that's going to be decided on Second 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:39.160 Amendment grounds and how huge impact on how other Second 0:09:39.200 --> 0:09:41.760 Amendment cases are handled. Whatever the court does on the 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:45.520 bump stocks will be much more important for administrative law 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:49.679 and the scope of administrative agency authority under the Constitution. 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:53.600 A lot of administrative law cases this term. Thanks so much, 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:57.000 Adam Best, Professor Adam Winkler of UCLI Law School. 0:09:57.320 --> 0:09:57.840 A note. 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:01.800 Michael Bloomberg, the founder majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:04.760 parent of Bloomberg Radio, is a donor to groups that 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:09.160 support gun control, including Every Town for Gun Safety. Coming 0:10:09.240 --> 0:10:13.320 up next, the battle over abortion rights. This is Bloomberg Ohio. 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:14.360 We did it. 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:17.200 We did it. 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:20.439 It was a huge win for abortion rights in Ohio, 0:10:20.720 --> 0:10:24.280 a Republican state where voters approved a ballot measure to 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:27.520 enshrine the right to an abortion in the state constitution 0:10:27.960 --> 0:10:31.200 that gives abortion rights a seven out of seven winning 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:35.000 streak in state ballot initiative fights since the Supreme Court 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:39.200 overturned Roe v. Wade last year, and while abortion rights 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:41.600 may not have been on the ballot in other states, 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:45.520 it was the driving issue in races in Kentucky and Virginia, 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:49.120 where it trounced the opposition, beating back an attempt to 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:55.520 reframe the issue by Republicans. Thank you. Kentucky Democratic Governor 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:59.480 Andy Basher resoundingly won reelection in the red state of 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:03.280 Kentucky by putting abortion rights front and center in his 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:08.400 campaign against the Trump backed Republican Attorney general who supported 0:11:08.400 --> 0:11:11.760 the states near total ban on abortion. Joining me is 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:15.520 an expert in reproductive rights, Mary Ziegler, a professor at 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:19.920 UC Davis Law School. Mary in Ohio, fifty six percent 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:24.280 voted for the constitutional right to abortion, despite a host 0:11:24.320 --> 0:11:28.000 of obstacles put in the way by Republicans, including purging 0:11:28.000 --> 0:11:31.520 the voter rolls and changing language in the ballot measure 0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:34.360 to call a fetus and unborn child. 0:11:35.120 --> 0:11:37.679 There have been a lot of obstacles. Republicans began by 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:41.480 trying to lift the threshold for passage of a ballot initiative, 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:45.280 and that proposal was defeated by Ohio voters in August. 0:11:45.640 --> 0:11:50.560 There's been information published on official government websites in Ohio 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:54.160 giving a misleading account of what issue on the ballot 0:11:54.240 --> 0:11:59.000 initiative would have meant. There's been the language anti worshion 0:11:59.080 --> 0:12:03.720 language used to describe what voters were choosing. And yet, 0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:06.319 you know, despite all of that, pulling on the valid 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:10.560 initiative actually been pretty remarkably consistent for some time now, 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:13.400 So voters had made up their minds and all of 0:12:13.440 --> 0:12:17.120 these various strategies by Republicans didn't work. 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:20.400 Yeah, and also making it a no vote in August 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:23.520 but a yes vote in November. It seems like the 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:27.120 Republicans were just trying to sow confusion rather than waning 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:28.120 on the issue. 0:12:28.320 --> 0:12:30.000 Yeah, I mean, I think that's one of the things 0:12:30.040 --> 0:12:33.599 that's striking. There hasn't really been an effort in Ohio 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:37.000 to convince voters that abortion rights were a bad idea 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:39.679 on the merits. Instead, there have been efforts to stop 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:43.520 voters either from understanding the issue or deciding it. And 0:12:43.679 --> 0:12:46.800 that obviously tells you Ohio Republicans were in trouble. Right, 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:50.280 If you yourself conceived that your position is that unpopular, 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:53.480 you're not starting from a position of strength. I think, 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:55.760 by the same token, if you've lost seven of seven 0:12:55.840 --> 0:12:59.000 valid initiative races in the space of a year, the 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:01.880 problem is not you know, just packaging or funding that 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:05.120 the problem is substance, and I think that's becoming increasingly clear. 0:13:05.960 --> 0:13:08.600 You mentioned the seven to zero winning street. 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:12.640 What have the abortion rights advocates been doing to be 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:13.520 so effective? 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:15.920 I mean, I think, first of all, they have the 0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:19.680 advantage of what Republicans are doing in a lot of states. 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:23.120 Right So Republicans in Virginia, for example, tried to say, oh, hey, 0:13:23.160 --> 0:13:25.320 you know, the Democrats are extreme because they don't want 0:13:25.360 --> 0:13:28.160 there to be any restrictions on abortion. And it's been 0:13:28.160 --> 0:13:31.040 easy for Democrats to carry that attack by pointing to 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:33.120 the bands that are actually on the books and large 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:35.600 spots of the country that are not, you know, moderate 0:13:35.720 --> 0:13:38.960 compromises at all. I think the other thing that abortion 0:13:39.080 --> 0:13:42.800 rights supporters have done relatively well is to realize that 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:45.720 ballot initiatives are very much the politics of the local. 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:48.120 So a message that will work in Ohio will not 0:13:48.200 --> 0:13:51.080 necessarily work in California or Kansas. That you have to 0:13:51.160 --> 0:13:54.439 tailor what you're saying how you write your valid initiative, 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:57.800 what arguments you make for it to the audience in 0:13:57.840 --> 0:14:01.160 that state. And I think that's been pretty successfully done 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:01.839 too so far. 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:06.000 So in Virginia, along with the fear mongering, it seemed 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:09.800 like abortion opponents were trying out some new tactics, sort 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:15.280 of rebranding. Republicans, like the Governor Glenn Youngkin didn't talk 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:19.120 about abortion bans, but rather limits on abortion. 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:21.520 I really feel that this is a moment for us 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:24.000 to come together around reasonable limits. 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:28.280 Actually it seemed to backfire. Republicans lost control of both 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:30.160 chambers of the state legislature. 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:33.040 Governor Youngkin was on the record as saying that he 0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:36.240 was piloting what he saw as a potential way forward 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:39.280 for Republicans on abortion in every state, and that was 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:42.440 to go on the offense and essentially accuse Democrats of 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:46.920 being the real extremists on abortion and using, like you said, 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:50.280 a limit, as Youngkin would have framed it, to rally 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:55.560 Republicans around. And that obviously didn't work, And if anything, 0:14:55.600 --> 0:14:58.360 it seemed that the abortion issue helped Democrats, I think, 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:02.000 achieve a surprisingly good result in Virginia and taking control 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:05.080 of both houses of the Virginia legislature. And I think, 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:07.960 you know, the reason it didn't work is because Youngin 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:12.720 was using an old playbook before Roe was gone. Republicans 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:16.800 would hold up, you know, regulations that were popular in isolation, 0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:19.160 like a fifteen week ban or a ban on so 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:22.200 called partial birth abortion, and say, you know, aren't you 0:15:22.360 --> 0:15:25.120 for this voters and a lot of voters would say, sure, 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:28.440 you know, that sounds reasonable. But now when Democrats say 0:15:28.520 --> 0:15:31.280 that isn't really where Glenn Youngkin wants to stop. That's 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:33.680 as much as he thinks he can get today. But 0:15:33.800 --> 0:15:35.600 tomorrow he's going to come back and ask for a 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:37.880 six week ban or a ban at fertilization. That argument 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:40.600 has a lot more credibility with voters because, of course, 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:43.440 you know, anti abortion activists are admitting as much, anti 0:15:43.480 --> 0:15:46.960 abortion politicians are admitting as much. There's many state bans 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:49.640 that already go that far. So when young Kin claims 0:15:49.640 --> 0:15:52.360 to be the voice of moderation and reason, it doesn't 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:55.360 have the same force it would have before Dobbs. So 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:57.880 I think that's one of the reasons that strategy didn't 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:00.000 actually play out as Youngkin had planned. 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:03.960 Kentucky Governor Andy Basheer seemed to pull out all the 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:08.200 stops against his Republican opponent, Daniel Cameron. For example, he 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:11.960 ran a very stark attack ad that featured a young 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:15.360 woman who'd been raped by her stepfather when she was twelve. 0:16:15.840 --> 0:16:17.000 Here's part of that ad. 0:16:17.480 --> 0:16:20.600 This is to you, Daniel Cameron, to tell a twelve 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:22.880 year old girl she must have the baby of her 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:27.560 stepfather who raped her is unthinkable. I'm speaking out because 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:31.240 women and girls need to have options. Daniel Cameron would 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:32.080 give us none. 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:35.080 Mary, what's your take on Basher's campaign. 0:16:35.680 --> 0:16:37.800 Well, I think what you're seeing in the fight between 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:40.200 Cameron and Bashir is sort of the mirror image of 0:16:40.240 --> 0:16:42.560 what happens when you try to do the opposite of 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:45.440 what Glenn Youngkin did. So, at least at the beginning 0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:48.200 of his campaign, Daniel Cameron said, I'm not going to 0:16:48.280 --> 0:16:50.400 run away from my position on abortion. I'm going to 0:16:50.480 --> 0:16:52.720 make it part of my campaign. I'm going to emphasize 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:55.040 that I've been in court, I've been the one fighting 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:58.880 for Kentucky's abortion band like I'm mister anti abortion right. 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:02.000 And I was happy to have him do that because 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:04.040 then Basher could say, you know, I am the voice 0:17:04.080 --> 0:17:06.120 of reason right and not even really have to get 0:17:06.160 --> 0:17:09.400 into questions about abortion that would be tricky in Kentucky. 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:12.520 He could focus on things like victims of sexual assault 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:17.040 and accuse Cameron of being heartless toward those patients and 0:17:17.480 --> 0:17:20.080 leave any of the trickier questions in a red state 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:23.919 like Kentucky off the table. So I think the lesson 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:27.479 is that whether you're trying to strike a kind of 0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:33.080 faux moderate tone like Youngkin, or you're trying to, you know, 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:36.359 run to energize the base, which I think is what 0:17:36.440 --> 0:17:39.760 Cameron was doing, that there are perils either way. 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:44.600 Constitutional amendments to protect abortion access are already on the 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:47.960 ballot in twenty twenty four in Maryland and New York. 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:51.320 In what other states do you see momentum to put 0:17:51.359 --> 0:17:54.240 abortion rights on the ballot in twenty twenty four? 0:17:54.560 --> 0:17:58.400 Probably the most consequential is Florida. New York, and Maryland 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:02.280 are not in any real jeopardy of changing their abortion 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:07.360 policy significantly absent the constitutional amendment. Florida has a very 0:18:07.400 --> 0:18:10.480 conservative state Supreme Court that is likely to overturn a 0:18:10.560 --> 0:18:14.080 nineteen eighty nine precedent recognizing state of wors rights, So 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:18.720 absent intervention by voters, you're likely to see Florida's six 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:21.439 weekman go into effect in the not too distant future. 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:26.240 Florida is more complicated. Florida has a sixty percent threshold 0:18:26.359 --> 0:18:31.480 for passing ballid initiatives. And second, there's already a challenge 0:18:32.000 --> 0:18:34.359 before the Florida Supreme Court, which as I mentioned, is 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:38.080 very conservative, by the Attorney General, Ashley Moody that's attempting 0:18:38.160 --> 0:18:41.240 to get that issue off the ballot by essentially arguing 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:44.119 it's confusing to voters. So this is another kind of 0:18:44.160 --> 0:18:46.479 parallel to what we saw in Ohio, where Republicans are 0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:49.240 trying to keep voters from weighing in, but this time 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:52.000 they're relying on a very conservative state Supreme Court, which 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:54.359 may be a more successful strategy. 0:18:54.880 --> 0:18:58.199 Well, the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision left us with this 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:02.600 state by state fight over abortion rights. Thanks so much, 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:06.040 Mary Best, Professor Mary Ziegler of u C. Davis Law 0:19:06.080 --> 0:19:09.920 School coming up next. Donald Trump shouts at the judge 0:19:09.920 --> 0:19:12.680 in a wild day on the witness stand. I'm June 0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:14.720 Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg. 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:18.800 It's a case that be dismissed. Immediately the fraud was 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:21.119 on the air from the court the court. 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:23.359 Was the fraud sturing this case. 0:19:23.480 --> 0:19:28.639 They made references to assets that were very valued well, 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:29.080 and they. 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:32.159 Said they had no idea, they had no idea what 0:19:32.200 --> 0:19:32.960 the numbers were. 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:36.720 Yes, you heard that correctly. Donald Trump said it was 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:39.760 the judge who committed fraud. It was a wild day 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:42.400 in the courtroom as the former president took the witness 0:19:42.440 --> 0:19:45.480 stand on Monday in the New York Attorney General's two 0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:49.200 hundred and fifty million dollars civil fraud trial over asset 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:52.880 valuations at the Trump organization. Less than an hour into 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:57.040 Trump's testimony, Judge Arthur and Goren, who will decide the case, 0:19:57.359 --> 0:20:00.000 threaten to remove him from the stand for giving law 0:20:00.440 --> 0:20:04.240 rambling answers to yes or no questions. New York agey 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:07.679 Letitia James said she wasn't surprised. 0:20:07.480 --> 0:20:14.600 He rambled, he hurled insults, but we expected that. At 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:19.159 the end of the day, the documentary evidence demonstrated that, 0:20:19.200 --> 0:20:23.119 in fact, he falsely inflated his assets to basically enrich 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:28.160 himself and his family. He continued to persistently engage in fraud. 0:20:28.960 --> 0:20:30.360 The numbers don't lie. 0:20:30.600 --> 0:20:34.000 Joining me is Bloomberg Legal reporter Patricia Hurtado, who was 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:37.200 in the courtroom. So, pat what was it like in 0:20:37.240 --> 0:20:41.399 the courtroom, because reading about the testimony, it seemed so 0:20:41.840 --> 0:20:45.399 contentious and just off the rails at some point. 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:48.879 Basically, you know, those of us who are trial reporters 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:52.040 are used to the controlled environment where the lawyer asked 0:20:52.119 --> 0:20:54.639 questions and the witnesses under oath and they're supposed to 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:57.800 answer truthfully to the best of their ability. Trump used 0:20:57.840 --> 0:21:00.639 it as an opportunity, as a soapbox, to take the 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:03.320 stand and give the answer and make the statement and 0:21:03.359 --> 0:21:06.080 give the spin that he wanted to give and how 0:21:06.119 --> 0:21:08.840 he felt about this lawsuit. So he called it a 0:21:08.880 --> 0:21:11.920 which hunt. He would give ad hoc answers that were 0:21:11.960 --> 0:21:15.120 not to the exact question. He would just go off 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:19.560 on a diatribe or a long long comment that the 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:22.000 judge said, are we having to listen to an essay? 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:25.359 You know? I mean, at some point the judge was 0:21:25.359 --> 0:21:28.280 trying to rein him in because the trial was veering 0:21:28.400 --> 0:21:32.200 off the rails. He was talking about, you know, motives 0:21:32.240 --> 0:21:37.080 and applying all kinds of nefarious machinations behind the seat 0:21:37.119 --> 0:21:40.560 for wives. The lawsuit got brought, he called it fraud. 0:21:40.800 --> 0:21:43.040 He said, the judge sitting right next to him was 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:46.720 biased and said the case was crazy. And then the 0:21:47.000 --> 0:21:51.960 attorney for the state said done, and then Trump said done. 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:55.600 But then he continued on and used every other question 0:21:55.880 --> 0:21:59.159 as you know, a forum to air his grievances about 0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:02.399