Speaker 1: Yesterday on the show, I admit I was struggling a
Speaker 1: little bit with my thoughts and what I thought about,
Speaker 1: certainly not what I thought about the Biden pardons, which
Speaker 1: I thought were ridiculous and inexcusable. I was a little
Speaker 1: bit struggling with the blanket Trump pardons for everyone involved,
Speaker 1: everyone who's been convicted for January six and for all
Speaker 1: the people with criminal cases surrounding the January sixth, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one riot at the Capitol. And I hopefully this
Speaker 1: is the last I have to do. This stupid genuflection
Speaker 1: of January sixth was a bad thing, but not everyone
Speaker 1: involved in January six deserved to have the book thrown
Speaker 1: at them. And I genuinely think there was massive over
Speaker 1: prosecution of January sixth defendants. A lot of these people
Speaker 1: were being prosecuted for stuff that nobody gets prosecuted for,
Speaker 1: heavily prosecuted for things that amounted to really nothing more
Speaker 1: than trespass type crimes. Basically, the chief crime that most
Speaker 1: of the January sixth defendants in common got charged with
Speaker 1: was I think the term for it is parading. It's
Speaker 1: basically being on a patch of federal property that you're
Speaker 1: not authorized to be on. So it's a little different
Speaker 1: from trespass because it's public property, but you're not allowed
Speaker 1: to be on all kinds of public property. You can't
Speaker 1: just walk onto a military base and just waltz in
Speaker 1: and do stuff as a civilian. No, you have to
Speaker 1: be authorized to be there and to throw the book
Speaker 1: at people for crimes that are basically no more than trespass.
Speaker 1: When there is video evidence of in some cases police
Speaker 1: officers sort of waving people in, or the whole crowd
Speaker 1: going in, and people like WHOA, Okay, I guess I'll
Speaker 1: just go in to aggressively throw the book at those
Speaker 1: people I thought was wrong. I was fine with prosecuting
Speaker 1: anyone who beat up a cop or who assaulted a cop,
Speaker 1: but I thought it was a ridiculous over prosecution to
Speaker 1: make this one of the largest criminal prosecution efforts in
Speaker 1: DOJ history, To have expended that much time, that much energy,
Speaker 1: that much effort, and to make January sixth as if
Speaker 1: that was the single most horrific event in American history.
Speaker 1: It's just ridiculous. The only person killed on January sixth
Speaker 1: was a Trump protester. The you know that there were
Speaker 1: was a police officer who had a heart attack and
Speaker 1: died like the next day, and there was this massive
Speaker 1: effort to not talk about in the media and in
Speaker 1: sources the medical examiners report on him, which said, no,
Speaker 1: he died of natural causes. He didn't actually die from
Speaker 1: anything having to do with January sixth. He wasn't killed
Speaker 1: by the January sixth protesters. Now, so basically, what I'm
Speaker 1: trying to say is it's not the worst thing. It's
Speaker 1: not a good thing, but it's not the worst thing
Speaker 1: that's ever happened in American history. And the idea of
Speaker 1: making it and prosecuting everyone who was there the centerpiece
Speaker 1: of the DOJ's agenda for four years was ridiculous, and
Speaker 1: I think it was pointedly a kind of act of
Speaker 1: political vengeance that I thought was improper, especially given the
Speaker 1: kinds of things that the federal government, that federal prosecutors
Speaker 1: patently just didn't really want to concern themselves with over
Speaker 1: the last you know, eight years, even over the last
Speaker 1: four years. You know, the people who were rioting outside
Speaker 1: the Federal court House in Portland, Oregon during the George
Speaker 1: Floyd riots for months and months and months and throwing
Speaker 1: molotov cocktails into the courthouse. Oh no, we're not really
Speaker 1: very aggressively prosecuting any of those people. There were all
Speaker 1: kinds of people who got sweetheart easy deals for various
Speaker 1: aspects of George Floyd protests. Protests where actual cops actually
Speaker 1: got killed. Sorry, I don't want to imply the Capitol
Speaker 1: police are not actual cops. Protests where cops actually did
Speaker 1: get killed though in some cases, or where other people
Speaker 1: actually got killed, where people have not gotten as serious sentences.
Speaker 1: And the DJ did not make the George Floyd riots
Speaker 1: the kind of centerpiece of their enforcement in nearly the
Speaker 1: same way that they did January sixth, And it's because
Speaker 1: of the politics involved. They just decided, well, they were
Speaker 1: going to characterize January sixth because it was a right
Speaker 1: wing effort that this is the worst thing in the world,
Speaker 1: and Merrick Garland came out and said it. First. They
Speaker 1: characterized it as a white supremacist terrorism, which is ridiculous. Again,
Speaker 1: I'm not here saying any of it was good, but
Speaker 1: the idea that it was white supremacist motivated anything was ridiculous.
Speaker 1: It was a bunch of Trump supporters who were convinced
Speaker 1: that the election had been stolen from him. It didn't
Speaker 1: have anything to do with white supremacism. But Merrick Garland
Speaker 1: comes out and says white supremacist terrorism is the single
Speaker 1: biggest national security threat to the United States. He said that,
Speaker 1: not me. He said that. We then proceeded to have
Speaker 1: plain old normal terrorism in the last week of the
Speaker 1: Biden administration. And you know, Karreeine Jean Pierre got the
Speaker 1: excellent question, does the Biden administration still think that white
Speaker 1: supremacist terrorism is the single biggest threat facing the country. Now,
Speaker 1: with all that said, I totally supported the idea of
Speaker 1: Trump pardoning everyone involved with January sixth who is being
Speaker 1: aggressively over prosecuted for trespass. I wasn't crazy about the
Speaker 1: idea of just pardoning anyone who was being prosecuted for
Speaker 1: assault assaulting police officers because I think from the right
Speaker 1: and as someone who has appreciated a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of the Trump certain ways in which Trump has
Speaker 1: changed the Republican Party for the better. As far as doctrine,
Speaker 1: I've been vastly disappointed in Trump two point zero on
Speaker 1: the kind of seeming retreat on abortion. I guess we'll
Speaker 1: see what Trump two point zero is actually going to
Speaker 1: do with regards to abortion. I have been angered at
Speaker 1: the way that a couple of dufuses in the front
Speaker 1: row at January sixth started fighting cops and gave this
Speaker 1: black eye to the entire conservative movement. So I didn't
Speaker 1: necessarily want clemency for those people. Trump gave it to everybody.
Speaker 1: And I read this, this opinion by this guy named
Speaker 1: Sean Trendy who works for Real Clear Politics, and he
Speaker 1: had this to say that I thought was really insightful
Speaker 1: to understand the rights attitude regarding January sixth. They believe
Speaker 1: that the reason the dividing line between January sixth protesters
Speaker 1: getting prosecuted and say, the Portland rioters not getting prosecuted
Speaker 1: is because the quote norms are set by liberals to
Speaker 1: protect liberal in groups while allowing the prosecution of out groups.
Speaker 1: This is also the dividing line between Trump aligned populace
Speaker 1: and GOP establishment types. The latter. The establishment types say well,
Speaker 1: we should prosecute the goons. We should prosecute the goons
Speaker 1: in Oregon. Also, so the Republican establishment he types people
Speaker 1: like me, I guess, would say, hey, I think we
Speaker 1: should prosecute the people who did violence on January sixth,
Speaker 1: and we should prosecute the people who committed violent acts
Speaker 1: during the George Floyd riots, or the Portland or the
Speaker 1: Oregon courthouse riots, et cetera. The Trump folks say that
Speaker 1: this is a hopelessly naive perspective, because again, the lines
Speaker 1: are set by liberals to protect their in groups. So
Speaker 1: maybe this is the one thing that makes me think
Speaker 1: maybe I'm naive. A Trump aligned person would say, you
Speaker 1: want to not pardon the people who did violence on
Speaker 1: January sixth, I say, yes, I don't want to pardon
Speaker 1: the people who assaulted cops. What about the people in Oregon, Well,
Speaker 1: I would say, I think those people should be prosecuted too. Well,
Speaker 1: they're not gonna.
Speaker 2: Be because the norms, the rules that have been drawn
Speaker 2: up have been drawn up by liberals, by the liberals
Speaker 2: who are still obviously controlling things within the Department of
Speaker 2: Justice during the first Trump administration, who didn't initiate those prosecutions.
Speaker 1: Now. Sean Trendy writes, this isn't a defense of the
Speaker 1: populace at all. This is just to explain, and I
Speaker 1: think this does a better job of explaining this idea
Speaker 1: than anything else. This is to explain the burn it
Speaker 1: all down mindset. It is a rigged game with rules
Speaker 1: set by liberals. If this sounds like left critiques of
Speaker 1: the past decade, well that's why we're getting this horseshoe
Speaker 1: effect where Trump and RFK are all of a sudden allies.
Speaker 1: And obviously for Trump supporters people on the right to
Speaker 1: argue that January sixth was so much worse somehow than
Speaker 1: the Portland, Oregon riots or all the George Floyd riots,
Speaker 1: et cetera, that's not gonna That doesn't work. That doesn't
Speaker 1: make any sense. Even if you were to admit somehow
Speaker 1: that January sixth was worse, which I don't think it
Speaker 1: was worse than the George Floyd riots or anything else.
Speaker 1: Trump aligned people will pull to the dividing line. The
Speaker 1: dividing line between whom we punish and whom we don't
Speaker 1: is always magically set to excuse people on the left
Speaker 1: and to punish people on the right. The populist right,
Speaker 1: the Trump right. Their main deviation from the establishment is
Speaker 1: a belief that they can and should use their power
Speaker 1: to set what are viewed to be arbitrary rules to
Speaker 1: their benefit when they have the chance. That to me,
Speaker 1: is kind of a That was I think the most
Speaker 1: powerful argument I've read about why Trump pardoning all those
Speaker 1: people makes a lot of sense. Now again, I guess
Speaker 1: there's a part of me that admits, yes, I think
Speaker 1: the Trump people are totally correctly aggrieved at January sixth
Speaker 1: getting punished wholesale. George Floyd riots not getting punished hardly
Speaker 1: at all. Sweetheart deals being given to George Floyd, Rioders,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. You know, some rich liberal lawyer
Speaker 1: in Manhattan who fire bombs a police car and somehow
Speaker 1: gets a sweetheart deal, doesn't get prosecuted all that hard,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Now I guess my preference, my initial instinct
Speaker 1: would have been, listen, the Trump team needs to come in.
Speaker 1: They should actually do a review of every individual January
Speaker 1: sixth case. If it's something, and the dividing line should
Speaker 1: be did you assault a cop? If you assaulted a cop,
Speaker 1: maybe you can have your sentence commuted to something a
Speaker 1: little less severe, something that's in line with other prosecutions
Speaker 1: of other kinds of crimes throughout the country. Everyone who
Speaker 1: was just being charged with effectively trespassed who normally the
Speaker 1: federal government would not pursue prosecutions like that. Basically, I
Speaker 1: just want to actually treat the January sixth protesters the
Speaker 1: way that federal prosecutors treat others similarly situated people. And
Speaker 1: the problem maybe that I'm I'm up against it might
Speaker 1: maybe my naivete is that there we're never going to
Speaker 1: do that. They're not going to do that, They're not
Speaker 1: going to treat them similarly situatedly, And it's naive to
Speaker 1: expect it that our side should be calling balls and
Speaker 1: strikes while the other side is not doing that. I
Speaker 1: don't know. There's a part of me that says we
Speaker 1: should still do that, and there's another part of me
Speaker 1: that's naive. Now the other side maybe the third option
Speaker 1: here that maybe makes sense, and maybe this is what
Speaker 1: you know, maybe this is what Trump is thinking. Maybe
Speaker 1: we just need to kind of turn the page on
Speaker 1: January as a whole pro con good, bad, indifferent. It
Speaker 1: wasn't the defining political event of the decade. It wasn't
Speaker 1: the single worst event in human history. It wasn't a
Speaker 1: good thing. And maybe the combo, honestly of one Biden
Speaker 1: pardoning all the members of the January sixth Committee, which
Speaker 1: I did not like which he did on the morning
Speaker 1: of January twentieth, and Donald Trump pardoning all of the
Speaker 1: January sixth defendants the afternoon of January twentieth. Maybe that
Speaker 1: combo allows us to just kind of turn the page
Speaker 1: on it and just stop talking about January sixth in general.
Speaker 1: And maybe there's wisdom there, you know, maybe there's wisdom there,
Speaker 1: Maybe the combination of people pursuing their own particulular political
Speaker 1: preferences and desires. You know, Biden not wanting Lynn Cheney
Speaker 1: to have to face any kind of music for you know,
Speaker 1: was she tampering with witnesses or whatever. Trump basically saying, look,
Speaker 1: these people supported me, They've gone through hell the last
Speaker 1: four years. That's enough. Maybe that combo will just allow
Speaker 1: the country to sort of turn the page. And maybe
Speaker 1: the combo of those two pardons from Biden and Trump
Speaker 1: has the effect of we turned the page on Watergate
Speaker 1: when Gerald Ford pardons Richard Nixon. We turned the page
Speaker 1: on Vietnam when Jimmy Carter pardons all the Vietnam War
Speaker 1: draft dodgers. Maybe maybe that's what happens. I hope that's
Speaker 1: what happens. So I will say again, maybe There's there's
Speaker 1: a part of me that still is like, I don't
Speaker 1: know that I would have pardoned anyone who beat up
Speaker 1: a cop on January sixth, specifically because of how it
Speaker 1: hurt the right in no small part, and just you know,
Speaker 1: beating up cops is not a good thing. But there's
Speaker 1: also this part of me that understands that, that kind
Speaker 1: of understands the idea of maybe doing this just the
Speaker 1: combo of Biden partnering all the January sixth committee members
Speaker 1: Trump pardoning all the January sixth defendants. It's a clean slate,
Speaker 1: and we move on as a country from this whole
Speaker 1: episode when we return a couple of more Biden pardoned
Speaker 1: thoughts and a thought on how to reform the pardons
Speaker 1: system next on the John Girardi Show. After the Biden
Speaker 1: pardons and the disgraceful pardoning of his own family members, like,
Speaker 1: with literally minutes left to his administration, he pardons all
Speaker 1: the other members of his family, which which I sort
Speaker 1: of knew was happening, I will confess the morning of
Speaker 1: January twentieth, I was thinking, Wow, he still hasn't pardoned
Speaker 1: Jim Biden and the the other family members he pardoned
Speaker 1: people that morning. He pardoned the January sixth committee members,
Speaker 1: and he pardoned Anthony Fauci, and he had a big
Speaker 1: statement about those two pardons Biden did that he released,
Speaker 1: but there was no pardon yet for Jim and the
Speaker 1: other Biden family members. And I was sitting there thinking, Wow,
Speaker 1: is he really going to pardon Hunter for all the
Speaker 1: stuff he did but not pardon Jim. And then of course,
Speaker 1: like I think it was literally within an hour, because
Speaker 1: the new president is sworn in at noon on January twentieth,
Speaker 1: I think it was, and so nine o'clock our time.
Speaker 1: I think the pardon came down maybe literally at eight
Speaker 1: thirty or eight forty our time, so you know, eleven
Speaker 1: thirty eleven forty East Coast time. So at any rate,
Speaker 1: Joe pardons his family. The flurry of pardons from both sides,
Speaker 1: I think has led to some people sort of looking
Speaker 1: at the presidential pardon power, which is, you know, it's
Speaker 1: been a feature of the Constitution from the beginning. It's
Speaker 1: a holdover from the British Constitution, the unwritten British Constitution
Speaker 1: that where the monarch had the ability to pardon people
Speaker 1: for crimes. And I talked about this on the show
Speaker 1: how it was famous about Queen Victoria had very particular
Speaker 1: thoughts about the pardon power and how she would exercise
Speaker 1: it for people who committed voluntary manslaughter. And so this
Speaker 1: is a power that the monarch had in Great Britain,
Speaker 1: and the Founding Fathers retained it within our constitution, the
Speaker 1: idea being well, this is sort of like a safety
Speaker 1: release valve in the event of, you know, a bad prosecution.
Speaker 1: But there's a couple of things to think about with
Speaker 1: the pardon power. One, when the Founding Fathers put the
Speaker 1: pardon power in place, they didn't have the expansive body
Speaker 1: of federal law that we current have currently have. In fact,
Speaker 1: like the total number of federal crimes at that time
Speaker 1: was like treason and it was pretty much yet, I mean,
Speaker 1: the body of federal law just was not especially federal
Speaker 1: criminal law was not a very well developed thing. We
Speaker 1: had an Attorney General from pretty early on. The office
Speaker 1: of the Attorney General was created very shortly after the
Speaker 1: adoption of the new Constitution, but we didn't even have
Speaker 1: a Department of Justice until I think was the late
Speaker 1: nineteenth early twentieth century. The body of federal criminal law
Speaker 1: just was not really developed yet, and thus, as a result,
Speaker 1: the scope of the kinds of things that the president
Speaker 1: could pardon people for was a lot smaller. At the
Speaker 1: time of the founding, most criminal prosecution, and as a result,
Speaker 1: pardoning was happening in the United States at the level
Speaker 1: of the states. Okay, Most criminal law enforcement in America
Speaker 1: is done through state level prosecutors. Okay. Lisa Smith Camp,
Speaker 1: who's the DA of Fresno County. She is not a
Speaker 1: federal prosecutor. She's a California state prosecutor. Okay. She prosecutes
Speaker 1: people who violate California criminal law within Fresno County. Sally
Speaker 1: Moreno does that within Madera County. Okay. Most of American
Speaker 1: criminal laws handled at the state level, and the governors
Speaker 1: of the various states have the pardon power for people
Speaker 1: who violate California law, Arizona law, New Mexico law, Hawaii law,
Speaker 1: Alaska law, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. The governor can pardon people
Speaker 1: who violate state crimes the way the president can violate
Speaker 1: people who violate federal law. Can pardon people who violate
Speaker 1: federal law. But what we've seen with the presidents is Honestly,
Speaker 1: the last five or six presidents have issued pardons that
Speaker 1: were really pretty questionable, and a lot of it's happening
Speaker 1: in this sort of interregnum period between election day and
Speaker 1: inauguration day, specifically being done because there won't be political
Speaker 1: ramifications for it. Biden doesn't pardon Hunter or his family
Speaker 1: until after election day, as everyone predicted. Why well, because
Speaker 1: if he did it before election day, he would suffer
Speaker 1: some bad political result. This is the best proposal I've
Speaker 1: heard for amending the constitution to sort of reduce the
Speaker 1: pardon power, because you would have to amend the constitution,
Speaker 1: and I think at this point both Democrats and Republicans
Speaker 1: can point to instances of a president from the other
Speaker 1: party using the pardon power in a way they didn't like.
Speaker 1: I think a great proposal for limiting the pardon power
Speaker 1: would be to keep it from being like venal a
Speaker 1: venal personal political a venal personal use of the pardon
Speaker 1: power to prevent against the Joe Bidens of the world
Speaker 1: pardoning his son and his family and thereby protecting himself.
Speaker 1: That's the real thing is Biden is kind of protecting
Speaker 1: himself for his potentially criminal involvement in his son and
Speaker 1: his brother's shady business dealings. Here's the proposal that I like,
Speaker 1: no pardons between election day and inauguration day. No pardons
Speaker 1: between election day and inauguration day. I think that's a
Speaker 1: really sensible idea. In fact, maybe a month before election,
Speaker 1: just to account for the fact that so many states
Speaker 1: have early voting. No pardons between the election and inauguration day.
Speaker 1: If you want to pardon someone, you need to be
Speaker 1: able to take the political hit that results. I think
Speaker 1: that's a sound idea. Now, you can't just do that
Speaker 1: by executive order, you wave a magic wand you would
Speaker 1: need to amend the Constitution, get two thirds majorities in
Speaker 1: both houses of Congress, get three fourths of the states
Speaker 1: to vote for it. But I think that would be
Speaker 1: a really sensible way to limit the pardon power. Now,
Speaker 1: when we return talking about amending the Constitution, I want
Speaker 1: to talk about two ways in which two consecutive presidents
Speaker 1: are trying to argue that the Constitution says something different
Speaker 1: than we'd think. Biden's saying that the era is now
Speaker 1: a new amendment to the Constitution, and President Trump trying
Speaker 1: to get rid of birthright citizenship via the Fourteenth Amendment.
Speaker 1: That's next on the John Girardi Show. Two significant constitutional
Speaker 1: efforts were issued by two different presidents over the course
Speaker 1: of a couple of days, and I'm going to talk
Speaker 1: about them in turn and the issues pro and con
Speaker 1: for both of them. One is Joe Biden trying to
Speaker 1: argue that the Equal Rights Amendment is in fact a
Speaker 1: real amendment to the Constitution is now the twenty eighth Amendment.
Speaker 1: And then President Trump arguing that the Fourteenth Amendment does
Speaker 1: not protect birthright citizenship, just the Fourteenth Amendment does not
Speaker 1: protect the idea that just because you're born on American soil,
Speaker 1: that does not automatically make you an American citizen. Let's
Speaker 1: dig into it first. Let's talk about Biden's era argument. Now.
Speaker 1: I talked about this a little on the show earlier
Speaker 1: this week. The Equal Rights Amendment was this effort by
Speaker 1: liberals to sort of shoehorn in of ticking constitutional time
Speaker 1: bomb into the Constitution, a very simple text that guarantees
Speaker 1: no discrimination on the basis of sex, putting that into
Speaker 1: the Constitution. And when it was first introduced, everyone supported it.
Speaker 1: I believe President Nixon supported it, President Ford supported it.
Speaker 1: Jimmy Carter supported. Everyone supported it. Republicans liked it, Democrats
Speaker 1: liked it. It got the necessary two thirds majorities in
Speaker 1: both houses of Congress and was well on its way
Speaker 1: to ratification by the state legislatures. Again, it's two thirds
Speaker 1: majorities in both houses of Congress plus three quarters of
Speaker 1: all the state legislatures have to vote for something to
Speaker 1: be included into the Constitution as an amendment. By the way,
Speaker 1: a little basic civics thing, there's some people who don't
Speaker 1: understand what an amendment to the Constitution actually is. They'll say, well,
Speaker 1: it's not in the constitution, it's just an amendment. No.
Speaker 1: It an amendment means we are changing the constitution to
Speaker 1: say this. Everything that's in an amendment to the Constitution
Speaker 1: is part of the Constitution, unless like a subsequent amendment
Speaker 1: is repealing a prior amendment, like with prohibition for example.
Speaker 1: So if it's an amendment to the Constitution, it's in
Speaker 1: the constitution. Just a basic thing that some people screw up.
Speaker 1: So it got the necessary two thirds votes in both
Speaker 1: houses of Congress, it was well on its way to
Speaker 1: three quarters of the state legislatures ratifying it. The era itself,
Speaker 1: though had a provision saying it had a seven year
Speaker 1: window in which it needed to be ratified, needed to
Speaker 1: get the necessary three quarters of the states to ratify
Speaker 1: it within seven years. Along comes Phyllis Schlaffley. Phyllis Schlaffley,
Speaker 1: who single handedly shifted the whole Republican Party on the
Speaker 1: issue of the Equal Rights Amendment by pointing out that
Speaker 1: this would be interpreted by the courts to lead to
Speaker 1: all kinds of disastrous left wing ideas. It would further
Speaker 1: buttress the idea of abortion being part of the Constitution,
Speaker 1: It could get rid of any kind of legally recognized
Speaker 1: differences on the basis of sex, whether it's within accommodations,
Speaker 1: within sports, within bathrooms, within this, within that. And she
Speaker 1: paraded out this list of horribles things that actually became
Speaker 1: true over time, because it's how the liberals wound up
Speaker 1: interpreting other aspects of American law protecting people from discrimination
Speaker 1: on the basis of sex. It's literally what Justice Gorsuch
Speaker 1: did with the Bowstock decision. So Phylish Laughley incredibly prescient,
Speaker 1: maybe not in exactly the way that she foresaw, but
Speaker 1: definitely was prescient on this question. And because of Phylishlaffley's
Speaker 1: efforts at the grassroots level. The Equal Rights Amendment was
Speaker 1: not able to get the necessary thirty eight states to
Speaker 1: ratify it prior to the seven year deadline. In fact,
Speaker 1: many states undid their prior ratification. They voted again and said, well, now,
Speaker 1: after further consideration, we the state of whatever, have decided
Speaker 1: to withdraw our state's support for ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment. Now,
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty, Virginia became if you don't count the
Speaker 1: states that deratify and you ignore the seven year timeframe
Speaker 1: that's in the text of the era, Virginia became the
Speaker 1: thirty eighth state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty. Okay, under a Democrat, you know, state legislature.
Speaker 1: When that happened, a bunch of liberals started trying to
Speaker 1: push and they pushed for this throughout the Biden administration,
Speaker 1: push for the idea that Biden should recognize the RA
Speaker 1: as having been ratified. And the big push was always
Speaker 1: on the National Archivist, who it's not a very partisan
Speaker 1: job being the National Archivist, but for example, for example,
Speaker 1: Senator Kirsten Gillibrand from New York was really aggressively pushing
Speaker 1: that the National Archivist needed to publish the Equal Rights
Speaker 1: Amendment as the new twenty eighth Amendment of the United States.
Speaker 1: The argument from Senator Gillibrand was, hey, three fourths of
Speaker 1: the states have now ratified it. Now Here are the
Speaker 1: obvious problems with that? One, The ERA has a seven
Speaker 1: year ratification window in its own text. In order to
Speaker 1: say that the ERA is part of the Constitution, you
Speaker 1: would have to somehow argue that that seven year ratification
Speaker 1: window that's in the text of the ERA is meaningless.
Speaker 1: Now there's some argument maybe for that. The Constitution itself
Speaker 1: doesn't give like a time frame within which you need
Speaker 1: to get those three quarters of the states to ratify
Speaker 1: something for it to become part of the Constitution. But
Speaker 1: it is there in the text, and that's the terms
Speaker 1: by which the thing was proposed to everyone. So I
Speaker 1: don't know how you just ignore that. Secondly, you only
Speaker 1: get to that thirty eight number if you ignore the
Speaker 1: states that de ratified. If within whatever window you need
Speaker 1: to get to thirty eight, you have some states that
Speaker 1: de ratify, then you don't have thirty eight. You need
Speaker 1: thirty eight states to ratify a constitutional Amendment before it
Speaker 1: can become part of the Constitution. They don't have thirty eight.
Speaker 1: So you have these two really difficult legal questions that
Speaker 1: you have to kind of get over if you're going
Speaker 1: to say that the Equal Rights Amendment is going to
Speaker 1: be part of the law of the land. I've heard
Speaker 1: a smart lawyer describe this to me by saying, basically,
Speaker 1: you need a royal flush. You need to pull a
Speaker 1: royal flush. Excuse me, you need to pull a royal
Speaker 1: flush of winning several difficult to win legal arguments in
Speaker 1: order to arrive at the conclusion that the ERA is
Speaker 1: part of the Constitution. And if you know, you've got
Speaker 1: you know, the Ace of Spades, King of Spades, Queen
Speaker 1: of Spades, Jack of spades, if one of them is off,
Speaker 1: if that last one is a nine of hearts, no dice, okay.
Speaker 1: If any one of these difficult to win, difficult to
Speaker 1: convince arguments goes south, the ERA is not part of
Speaker 1: the Constitution. And who would be the body ultimately deciding
Speaker 1: is the Era part of the Constitution or not? Well,
Speaker 1: obviously that would be the Supreme Court. And let me
Speaker 1: ask you, do you really think that, John Roberts, even
Speaker 1: John Roberts, who you might think he's a waffling liberal.
Speaker 1: But one thing John Roberts is is he's kind of
Speaker 1: an institutionalist, and he doesn't like He's not gonna like
Speaker 1: this kind of a Shenanigan. There's no way that you're
Speaker 1: gonna get five of that nine to agree that all
Speaker 1: of those difficult to win legal arguments all go one way.
Speaker 1: There's just no way that's gonna happen. The most gutless
Speaker 1: aspect of Biden doing this, by the way, well, the
Speaker 1: two aspects of it that are gutless. One is that
Speaker 1: he says he thinks that the era should be is
Speaker 1: recognized as part of the Constitution, but he doesn't do
Speaker 1: anything to mandate it. He was still president at the time.
Speaker 1: It was like over the weekend, it was before January twentieth,
Speaker 1: and he doesn't say, I am ordering the National Archivist
Speaker 1: to publish it. I am demanding that all aspects of
Speaker 1: the federal government recognize and I'm demanding the DOJ recognize it,
Speaker 1: as you know, as part of the Constitution. I'm directing
Speaker 1: any lawsuits that regard this topic to consider that. Blah
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. No, he didn't do any of that.
Speaker 1: Not only did he not do that with his statement
Speaker 1: over the weekend, so basically it was just virtue signaling.
Speaker 1: It was him just saying, yeah, I definitely think it is.
Speaker 1: It's like, okay, well the president can think whatever he wants,
Speaker 1: unless he's going to order people to do stuff. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. I mean, it has no more impact than
Speaker 1: me thinking that, you know, the sky is made out
Speaker 1: of cotton candy. The other gutlass thing about it is
Speaker 1: Biden doing this the weekend before he leaves office. As
Speaker 1: I said, the last state, the state that ratified the
Speaker 1: ERA in such a way as to bring them over
Speaker 1: the hump of thirty eight if you exclude the states
Speaker 1: that you know deratified, was Virginia in twenty twenty. So
Speaker 1: all throughout Biden's four years in office, he could have
Speaker 1: done this. He could have argued, well, I think the
Speaker 1: ARA is law of the land. Go pursue it, federal government,
Speaker 1: publish it, national archivist, you know, pursue it. Department of Justice.
Speaker 1: He never did that for four years. In fact, his
Speaker 1: own DOJ issued opinions saying the ERA is not part
Speaker 1: of the constitution. His own DOJ didn't support the idea
Speaker 1: for four years, but now all of a sudden, the
Speaker 1: weekend before he leaves office, he's saying that it's part
Speaker 1: of the I think it's part of the constitution. No,
Speaker 1: it's just a gutless way for Biden to kind of
Speaker 1: save face and act like he's, Oh, I'm so pro woman,
Speaker 1: look at me. And he obviously if he actually wanted
Speaker 1: the era to be part of the constitution, he should
Speaker 1: have tried to do something about it. I don't know
Speaker 1: on day one when he took office in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: he could have done something he never did for four years.
Speaker 1: When we returned, we'll quickly talk about President Trump's executive
Speaker 1: order on birthright citizenship the legal issues there next on
Speaker 1: The John Gerardy Show. President Trump issued an executive order
Speaker 1: on day one directing the federal government to not recognize
Speaker 1: entirely birthright citizenship. This stems from the Fourteenth Amendment. The
Speaker 1: Fourteenth Amendment, says the first sentence in Section one of
Speaker 1: the Fourteenth Amendment. Fourteenth amendmentless remember, was ratified after the
Speaker 1: Civil War, and its chief effect at the time, among
Speaker 1: various other things, was to grant citizenship and rights to
Speaker 1: the newly freed slaves. It was ratified in conjunction with
Speaker 1: the thirteenth Amendment, which freed the slaves. Fourteen Amendment made
Speaker 1: them citizens. Fifteenth Amendment made them voters. He uh da
Speaker 1: da da da da. The text of the fourteenth Amendment,
Speaker 1: Section one says, all persons born or naturalized, all persons
Speaker 1: born or naturalized in the United States and subject to
Speaker 1: the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and
Speaker 1: of the state wherein they reside. Now, Supreme Court opinions
Speaker 1: looking at this, and more relevantly, federal statutes looking at this,
Speaker 1: have interpreted this as just if you're born here, you're
Speaker 1: a citizen, even if you're And the only exception that's
Speaker 1: recognized by Supreme Court decisions or by federal law is
Speaker 1: if the child of say, if the French ambassador to
Speaker 1: the United States is in Washington, d C. And the
Speaker 1: French ambassador he and his wife have their baby in
Speaker 1: America in Washington, D C. That baby is not an
Speaker 1: American citizen. That baby is a French citizen. Now ambassadors
Speaker 1: are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.
Speaker 1: Is the child of two illegal immigrants who come into
Speaker 1: the country illegally but have a baby in America. Is
Speaker 1: that baby subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.
Speaker 1: That's the central constitutional question. Maybe maybe not. But there's
Speaker 1: another problem, which is an executive order like the one
Speaker 1: President Trump issued cannot contradict a federal statute, something that's
Speaker 1: actually passed by Congress and signed into law by a president.
Speaker 1: And we have federal statutes on the books that just
Speaker 1: said you're a citizen if you're born here, without discriminating
Speaker 1: on the basis of where you're born of the legal
Speaker 1: alien parents. That's where President Trump, I think, is going
Speaker 1: to have the most difficulty. Maybe you could interpret the
Speaker 1: Constitution differently, but those federal statutes are very clear and
Speaker 1: they're on the books. So we'll see. That'll do it.
Speaker 1: John di' already show see next time on Power Talk.