Speaker 1: Look, I'm listen to your music atdigas is so dumb.
Speaker 2: Well usually that's why I'm doing it to annoy you.
Speaker 1: Partly, don't listen.
Speaker 3: Well, whiskey, come and take my pain, the money all ry,
Speaker 3: oh whiskey.
Speaker 2: Don't why think alone when you can drink it all in.
Speaker 4: With Ricochet's Three Whiskey Happy Hour, join your bartenders, Steve Hayward,
Speaker 4: John You, and the International Woman of Mystery, Lucretia, where.
Speaker 1: They lapps it up and David, ain't you easy?
Speaker 2: On the show?
Speaker 5: Tap got a giving and.
Speaker 2: Let the whiskey blow.
Speaker 4: Well, Hi everybody, and welcome to a tariff free episode
Speaker 4: of the Three Whiskey Happy Hour.
Speaker 2: Actually that's not quite true.
Speaker 4: We've dropped all our tariffs on other podcasts, but we
Speaker 4: do have one hundred and twenty five percent tariff on
Speaker 4: our own podcast for all discussions about tariffs, although we
Speaker 4: will spend a couple of minutes on it.
Speaker 2: But we're glad to have John U back this week.
Speaker 4: Because John and you are in your app since last week. John,
Speaker 4: to my shock and to the surprise of many listeners,
Speaker 4: I was in terror that was going to go very badly,
Speaker 4: but Lucretia wasn't the host and was very nice to me.
Speaker 6: And that's why you're like, Steve, You're like a beaten dog.
Speaker 6: She just didn't beat you, so you thought she was
Speaker 6: being nice to you. Yeah, just zero. You just made
Speaker 6: it back from negative one hundred to zero. But you're
Speaker 6: not at plus one hundred, my friend, Well.
Speaker 4: Okay, could beat uh. This is so I uh here,
Speaker 4: wait wait, wait wait.
Speaker 1: I want to stop you for a second. I want
Speaker 1: to point out that I think it was the week
Speaker 1: before when we maybe whenever, it was when we talked
Speaker 1: about the the death of Raoul Grajalva. I said I
Speaker 1: hated the guy, but I especially hated him because he
Speaker 1: was awful to Steve. Right, there's a compliment.
Speaker 2: I don't know, I know, I know.
Speaker 4: I just have to uh, well, all right, John, I
Speaker 4: have in the can that.
Speaker 1: As long as there's an enemy, Steve, I'm on your side.
Speaker 4: Okay, good, well, good to know that we have our
Speaker 4: snapping turtle back and forth. So's to get in trouble
Speaker 4: for that, So I guess, so catch listeners up.
Speaker 2: This is what Friday evening.
Speaker 4: I've got my last bottle of pre terraf lafreug maybe
Speaker 4: in hand because I wanted it. This was week five
Speaker 4: of five weeks in a row, on the road the
Speaker 4: entire week, and I don't even remember now where I've been.
Speaker 4: All I know is that I want to shoot my scheduler,
Speaker 4: except I look at that my scheduler every morning in
Speaker 4: the mirror, so it's my own darn fault.
Speaker 2: But I can give you a sort of a report
Speaker 2: from hind enemy lines.
Speaker 4: After class down in Malibu this week, I went to Boulder,
Speaker 4: Colorado for three days to be you know, as if
Speaker 4: being at Berkeley wasn't bad enough, John, Right, it's their
Speaker 4: annual conference on world affairs that I have not attended
Speaker 4: since before COVID, And oh my god, the Trump de
Speaker 4: arrangement syndrome is so out of control and Boulder that
Speaker 4: they really do need to be quarantined. And I'll just
Speaker 4: make a long story short.
Speaker 2: Although the panels were supposed to be about general topics,
Speaker 2: I'll skip over all that.
Speaker 4: Everything was about Trump. And so my fun provocation was saying, oh,
Speaker 4: because I was on a panel, John, you'll know of
Speaker 4: her with Ellen wintraup from fired from the Federal Election Commission.
Speaker 4: She's very upset about that, and I kept making the
Speaker 4: point that well, you liberals of boulders understand that this
Speaker 4: is the presidency that liberals have always wanted, designed by
Speaker 4: Woodrow Wilson, perfected by Franklin Roosevelt, and Roosevelt's only Trump
Speaker 4: was only exercising the powers that Roosevelt wanted to exercise.
Speaker 4: So there, and that didn't go down very well, but
Speaker 4: it was fun.
Speaker 2: I have to say.
Speaker 1: You know, you always fall back on that trope, Steve,
Speaker 1: like anybody who is a modern leftist cares about what
Speaker 1: FDR did. He's no longer the icon you think he
Speaker 1: is to the left.
Speaker 2: Well, yes, and no, I think I think yes, you're right.
Speaker 1: However, I mean, you've even got dumb ass, dumb excuse me,
Speaker 1: it's been a long day dumb conservatives speaking well of FDR.
Speaker 1: You know, So why were left on anywhere? Embrace FDR
Speaker 1: that you know, the history has moved on, Steve, The
Speaker 1: arch of history bends away from FDR.
Speaker 2: H correct?
Speaker 4: I mean I generalize it this way. You really could
Speaker 4: see the contempt for and ignorance of all history. So
Speaker 4: you know, I brought up things like Humphy's executor and
Speaker 4: various other aspects of I read a couple passages from
Speaker 4: Roosevelt's speeches and say, which, of course they've never heard.
Speaker 4: Try having Trump say those words and see how you
Speaker 4: like them. And you could see people this is brand
Speaker 4: new to them.
Speaker 2: And so I was on, I.
Speaker 4: Don't know if you know this woman Lisa Graves, John,
Speaker 4: she worked on the Senate Judiciary Committee about the same
Speaker 4: time you did, I think, in the nineties, and boy,
Speaker 4: she way out left and she said, this is the
Speaker 4: nation's worst constitutional crisis ever. And I just sort of
Speaker 4: calmly said, well, I would have thought the Civil War
Speaker 4: might have been a little worse as Oh, yeah, of course,
Speaker 4: except for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. It was.
Speaker 4: It was a lot of fun embarrassing the liberals for
Speaker 4: what they don't know and anyway, but it's exhausting. Good lord, anyway,
Speaker 4: what should we start with. You know, we're big in
Speaker 4: tariffs to death. I do think there are a couple
Speaker 4: of things that are under discussed, and we do have
Speaker 4: a question from a listener. But either you have an
Speaker 4: opening bid on what you think about where things stand today.
Speaker 1: No, John, you're you're the expert. You're the financial expert.
Speaker 2: Well no he isn't.
Speaker 6: Oh you're talking about for the economy? Well, or what anything,
Speaker 6: just the whole world. I mean, we're I think, I mean,
Speaker 6: I think of the tariffs one is a just a
Speaker 6: self self inflicted error on the part of the Trump administration.
Speaker 6: But they're moving in the right direction now, which is
Speaker 6: I think if the whole thing ended up becoming aimed
Speaker 6: at China and China's allies and ended up unifying the
Speaker 6: rest of you know, our allies, I think, actually that's
Speaker 6: what it should have been in the first place. So
Speaker 6: Trump's keeping the Chinese tariffs at over one hundred percent
Speaker 6: was that it's like one hundred and forty percent, and
Speaker 6: he suspended the other tarriffs towards other countries and say
Speaker 6: he does negotiate, you know, like free trade agreements with
Speaker 6: most of our allies. That's actually the ideal outcome to me. Now,
Speaker 6: if you'd started that way, then you wouldn't have to
Speaker 6: have lost over a trillion dollars in the stock market
Speaker 6: and taken a hit in his public approval ratings and
Speaker 6: possibly go into recession this year. So that's the self
Speaker 6: inflicted error part.
Speaker 5: I don't get.
Speaker 6: Why not just start out by saying we're gonna target
Speaker 6: all these tariffs on China and we're gonna encourage our
Speaker 6: allies to also put tariffs on China. They're the real
Speaker 6: task in all this.
Speaker 1: Can I ask you, John, if this is not my
Speaker 1: area of expertise, I don't pretend to. I look at
Speaker 1: it from a thousand foot bird's eye view, and I'm
Speaker 1: loving kind of every minute of it, just because it's
Speaker 1: the elite scum who've been getting rich of the middle
Speaker 1: class and the lower middle class for years. But leave
Speaker 1: that aside. Is there not the possibility that had had
Speaker 1: Trump gone after just China from the beginning and not
Speaker 1: all of the what is it ninety countries? Is that
Speaker 1: how many tariffs he issued? I know it was pretty
Speaker 1: clear about the fact that these are at best reciprocal tariffs.
Speaker 1: In many most cases, the tariffs imposed upon other countries
Speaker 1: weren't close to even close to what those countries were
Speaker 1: imposing on us. That's a whole different thing we don't
Speaker 1: need to talk about. But because he was, he showed
Speaker 1: his willingness to say America's first on this one. And
Speaker 1: by the way, yeah, China's the worst, and et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. But unless you guys get on board with
Speaker 1: me and America, there's also the possibility that something might
Speaker 1: happen in terms of tariffs to you and will be
Speaker 1: better off than you will because I control this. You
Speaker 1: already have huge tariffs on American goods coming into your
Speaker 1: countries as we know, so they don't have a lot
Speaker 1: to a lot to completely to push back on. I
Speaker 1: guess is the way. I mean, look at China, what
Speaker 1: are we at one hundred and twenty five percent tariffs? Okay,
Speaker 1: so there are some very serious things that we get
Speaker 1: from China that we shouldn't medications, some rare earth minerals.
Speaker 1: I get that, But do we really need more cheap
Speaker 1: Chinese junk?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 4: Maybe not, I think so I've followed along John that
Speaker 4: maybe the end game was to isolate China and bring
Speaker 4: more people over to our side. Yeah, I know, but
Speaker 4: I think the reason you wouldn't start out explicitly that
Speaker 4: way is that that wasn't gonna work.
Speaker 2: You actually needed the rough Trump treatment. Well put it
Speaker 2: this way.
Speaker 4: I mean, I've been following this trade stuff for a
Speaker 4: very long time, back to the Reagan years, and.
Speaker 2: We've been Please, actually you should view this.
Speaker 4: I think of a piece with the way Trump has
Speaker 4: treated Europe over NATO in the Ukraine situation. I think
Speaker 4: there's a similar strategy playing out and playing out pretty
Speaker 4: well perhaps. And in the case of trade, the terriffs
Speaker 4: were set. There's all a confusion about this, but it's
Speaker 4: actually very simple. A lot of the trade barriers are
Speaker 4: not tariffs. It's the non tariff trade barriers. It's the
Speaker 4: regulations that disqualify some of our imports. This has been
Speaker 4: a problem for decades.
Speaker 2: And supposedly the old the trade liberalization.
Speaker 4: Rounds are supposed to lower non tear iff trade barriers,
Speaker 4: and we go up. We've been going for years saying please,
Speaker 4: please reduce your non tariff trade barriers, and Trump just said,
Speaker 4: screw it. I'm just gonna thump you really hard. And
Speaker 4: so that's part of the game here, is not the terriffs,
Speaker 4: because I think some countries have zero tariffs formerly, but
Speaker 4: they have the non like Israel I think, but they
Speaker 4: have non tariff trade barriers, and Trump is trying to
Speaker 4: cut that at a stroke.
Speaker 2: Not you don't think so, you don't think so.
Speaker 6: If it were true, then the teriff rates he said
Speaker 6: on other countries would bear so rational relationship to a
Speaker 6: measurement of the tariffs are non type. Right, But no, no,
Speaker 6: what he did if you look at the formula. Yeah,
Speaker 6: he looked at what is the trade deficit between this
Speaker 6: country and that country and set the tariff amount based
Speaker 6: on that, which has the weird and illogical assumption that
Speaker 6: the US trade relationship trade bounced with every country in
Speaker 6: the world should be zero. Yeah, doesn't make any sense,
Speaker 6: and that the United States should not have a trade
Speaker 6: deficit at all.
Speaker 5: That doesn't making The numbers.
Speaker 6: He's out there are just like irrational, They have no nothing,
Speaker 6: They bear no relation to reality. If he actually said,
Speaker 6: we've calculated how much these non terfforate like the VAT tax, right,
Speaker 6: the sales tax in your uprageously high folded into the
Speaker 6: price of goods, discriminates against our products, I suppose, but
Speaker 6: none of the teriff rates against all the European countries.
Speaker 6: Said oh, this is how much we think the VAT
Speaker 6: is equivalent in terms of tariff term.
Speaker 5: So if they did that then I would believe them.
Speaker 5: But they didn't do that. They just made it up.
Speaker 6: And number two is why is it so bad to
Speaker 6: have a trade deficit? The United States for most of
Speaker 6: its history has had a trade deficit. The reason it's
Speaker 6: good that we have a trade deficit is that means
Speaker 6: every country have a trade deficit with We have a
Speaker 6: capital surt plus account with them that's in the positive.
Speaker 6: That means they're sending that money back to buy and
Speaker 6: invest here for most of our history because we were
Speaker 6: developing country and this is the place to invest if
Speaker 6: you believe in innovation. It's good that that's the case.
Speaker 6: We shouldn't really want a trade positive trade balance with
Speaker 6: the rest of the world.
Speaker 2: Well, I mostly agree with that.
Speaker 4: A trade deficit by itself is not something to be
Speaker 4: worried about. And I'll bet that all the people around Trump,
Speaker 4: except for Peter Navarro, understand that. I think, once again,
Speaker 4: this is probably being Trump the crazy man deliberately, so
Speaker 4: I stay crazy, not literally crazy, but I think, you know,
Speaker 4: if you're really going to shake these countries up and
Speaker 4: really deliver a blow and make them change, that's one
Speaker 4: of the things you added into the mix. Because they
Speaker 4: say this isn't even reasonable, and Trump says, precisely, it's
Speaker 4: not reasonable. Why don't I go to the question, see
Speaker 4: what you think, Lucretia. That we got from our friend
Speaker 4: the Gora, who sent me a note saying regard us
Speaker 4: of all the ins and outs of the of the
Speaker 4: economics of it that we've just talked about. Is there
Speaker 4: is there a way in which this can be compared
Speaker 4: to Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, which was not only
Speaker 4: an idea and so on merits, but upended a generation's
Speaker 4: worth of settled doctrine that upset our allies right, upset
Speaker 4: our entire establishment.
Speaker 1: And I always forgive the Gora for going off and
Speaker 1: meeting me for Richard Epstein.
Speaker 4: Almost almost Okay, what what?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 5: What happened there? And it's just what happened to you
Speaker 5: miss something kind of weird?
Speaker 1: No, I can't. I can't even get that out of
Speaker 1: my mind. The Gore is my good liber libertarian friend
Speaker 1: who lives in Australia, our friend. He's out. He's your
Speaker 1: friend too, John, you just don't know it. And he's
Speaker 1: he's very much a libertarian. I have yet to find
Speaker 1: an issue with which he and I actually disagree, but
Speaker 1: he claims to be a libertarian and doesn't like it
Speaker 1: when I slam libertarians. And and so when Richard came on,
Speaker 1: you know, a few weeks ago, when you were you
Speaker 1: were busy, he said that he was leaving me it
Speaker 1: was one of those memes with the guy Kreshia in
Speaker 1: the back and it was the gore in the middle,
Speaker 1: and it was Richard Epstein that he was having eyes for.
Speaker 2: The distracted boyfriend me. Yes, that's called right.
Speaker 5: Does he know what Richard actually looks like?
Speaker 1: Yes? But sometimes politics and political ideology texts precedents over
Speaker 1: those things. John. The good news is that for conservatives
Speaker 1: it usually doesn't have to because genuine conservatives are always
Speaker 1: more attractive. So that's sort wait, I have to tell you, sorry,
Speaker 1: but we need to lighten this up. This talk of
Speaker 1: tariffs is very heavy. So the other day someone posted
Speaker 1: this picture of all of these women from Martha's Martha's
Speaker 1: Vineyard and just you know, this whole litany of all
Speaker 1: of their hypocrisies about you know, yeah, sure I believe
Speaker 1: in uh, you know, clean energy, but I don't want windmills,
Speaker 1: and yeah, you know, just all of these hypocrisies that
Speaker 1: were used to from the left. But the funny thing
Speaker 1: was they were all dressed in the same dumb outfit
Speaker 1: and a couple of them were thin and attractive, but
Speaker 1: most of them were overweight. And he'd made the comment
Speaker 1: something along the lines of they go to XX some
Speaker 1: kind of fancy yoga and spend seventeen dollars on smoothies.
Speaker 1: So I wrote back, and I think this got more
Speaker 1: more what likes and things like that than anything I've
Speaker 1: ever written. And I wrote back and I said, looks
Speaker 1: to me like they should do a little more yoga
Speaker 1: and have a few less seventeen dollars smoothies, because the
Speaker 1: hypocrisy and double standards of the left are just boring.
Speaker 1: But lookism never is.
Speaker 7: Oh boy, after I called them fat, basically all right.
Speaker 2: One last thing on Orry's right, one.
Speaker 4: Last thing on Tariff's and this again, John, maybe back
Speaker 4: a little bit in your wheelhouse too. I'm not sure,
Speaker 4: but you know, one of the thoughts is what's trump way.
Speaker 2: Up to here?
Speaker 4: What are some of the ancillary purposes? And one was, well,
Speaker 4: we want to drive down interest rates because driving down
Speaker 4: interest rates good for consumers, good for home buyers, et cetera,
Speaker 4: and will greatly reduce the cost of refinancing our huge
Speaker 4: debt that Biden ran up and so farth And it
Speaker 4: looked on day one like it might happen. You know,
Speaker 4: the ten year note actually dipped below four percent, but
Speaker 4: then it snapped back really big. It's now back almost
Speaker 4: to where it was before the tariff cycle began. It's
Speaker 4: I think it ended at four point four or five today,
Speaker 4: And so people are saying the bond market rebelled during
Speaker 4: the week, and you know the famous line of James
Speaker 4: Carville from thirty years ago, when I'm reincarnated, I want
Speaker 4: to come back as the bond market because that seems
Speaker 4: to control everything, and there's certain truth to that. I mean,
Speaker 4: the thing to say I think about the bond market
Speaker 4: is it is the ultimate discipliner now of profligate governments.
Speaker 4: The more governments run up debt, the more they have
Speaker 4: to pay attention when the bond market says you've got
Speaker 4: to stop or things are going to go upside down
Speaker 4: really fast.
Speaker 2: Whether there's a coordinated effort or not, I don't know.
Speaker 4: There's lots of rumors about it, but that's typical of
Speaker 4: the media and stuff today. But it does look like
Speaker 4: that may have been a factor in things, that things
Speaker 4: were about to go weird in the bond market, and
Speaker 4: that would have been very bad.
Speaker 6: Look, you can see why the bond rates would be
Speaker 6: going up because right you have trade deficits with these
Speaker 6: countries they bring the money to the United States, they
Speaker 6: have to earn dollars, Yeah, a lot of them. A
Speaker 6: lot of foreign investors and governments use treasury bills as
Speaker 6: their safest, safest place to park money. If you think
Speaker 6: we're going to have a recession and we're going to
Speaker 6: be cutting trade with the rest of the world, they're
Speaker 6: going to take their money and invest it somewhere else,
Speaker 6: and so there's probably less demand for dollars. There's less
Speaker 6: demand for treasury bills.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 6: Over I think something like over a trillion and a
Speaker 6: half dollars have just you know, have been just disappeared
Speaker 6: from the stock market, and asset about money has not
Speaker 6: come back.
Speaker 2: You know what, I'm well fake money. It's I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry. I'm still up on the ear because I
Speaker 2: know what the hell I'm doing. But that's me. I was.
Speaker 4: I was down on Wednesday when things went well, excuse me,
Speaker 4: I went really bad. I better take drinks, more Scots
Speaker 4: I'm having I think I said this, I'm having let
Speaker 4: froud again because darn it, I want it and it's
Speaker 4: my last.
Speaker 1: Well, there's the problem. You're instead of smoking, you're getting
Speaker 1: your all of your carcinogens inside whiskey.
Speaker 2: It could be right, somebody talk while I caught for
Speaker 2: a minute.
Speaker 6: Yes, Steve, the reason you're there's reason you're you know,
Speaker 6: even for the years, because you probably dug a hole
Speaker 6: and put your money in there in the backyard and
Speaker 6: then undug it up and pulled it out yesterday. Because
Speaker 6: if you were just out of the market, you would
Speaker 6: have gone up, and now you're back to where you were.
Speaker 6: I still destroyed trillions of dollars in assets that were
Speaker 6: there before because and not and not because of anything
Speaker 6: that happened in the economy. It's because of bad public policy.
Speaker 5: That's why.
Speaker 1: Because of that's why.
Speaker 2: Well the way a manteu so first of all, I
Speaker 2: was not the last thing.
Speaker 6: I also don't think this comparison to SDI makes sense
Speaker 6: to me. I mean, there's a difference between like having
Speaker 6: a revolutionary view of the way certain policies should be
Speaker 6: and really being insightful.
Speaker 5: That's not happening with trade.
Speaker 6: He's like pulling out the oldest, you know, sort of
Speaker 6: discredited ideas about how trade works, and he's using it
Speaker 6: to attack our allies.
Speaker 5: Not our enemies.
Speaker 6: I mean SDI was aimed at the Soviet Union, not
Speaker 6: our allies. A lot of the I mean a lot
Speaker 6: of the trade measures he's talking about are aimed at
Speaker 6: countries that have been our friends for since before World
Speaker 6: War Two. Not I don't see why we should be
Speaker 6: out there punishing the Europeans. I don't see why we
Speaker 6: should be out there punishing.
Speaker 1: One tariff that Trump imposed was higher than that imposed
Speaker 1: upon the country itself.
Speaker 5: Not one?
Speaker 1: Not one?
Speaker 6: What do you mean?
Speaker 1: I mean if we imposed a thirty percent tariff on Denmark? Denmark,
Speaker 1: I don't know the actual numbers. I'm making this up,
Speaker 1: but Denmark imposed a sixty percent tariff on us in
Speaker 1: every single case. Yes, it is. I can chew the charge.
Speaker 6: In fact, there's almost no correlation between the tariffs he
Speaker 6: put on and the tariffs they have on us. Like
Speaker 6: he put over a huge teriflema.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean what I said.
Speaker 5: We was in Korea have.
Speaker 6: A free trade agreement. Korea has almost no tariffs on
Speaker 6: American goods.
Speaker 1: And what was the tariffy placed on South Korea?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 5: I think it was like.
Speaker 6: Enormous because he only cares about the trade deficit with
Speaker 6: Korea because they send us a lot of TVs and cars.
Speaker 5: We have a huge trade deficit with career. That doesn't
Speaker 5: have anything to do with the tariff rate.
Speaker 1: But remember what the purpose is. The purpose is to
Speaker 1: stop buying goods and goods I'll leave services alone. That's
Speaker 1: a different subject. Goods that Americans want, stop buying them
Speaker 1: from other countries and go back to making them in
Speaker 1: the United States. I know that's an oversimplification, but no,
Speaker 1: I think that's what Meg is demanding.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that makes no sense.
Speaker 6: As a matter of economics, we should the other way. No, No,
Speaker 6: should the United States make everything for itself. Like if
Speaker 6: it's cheaper to make avocados in Mexico, we should still
Speaker 6: not allow avocados or Mexico and growma in the United States.
Speaker 1: They used to grow, they used to grow in the
Speaker 1: United States. Why do they Why are they cheaper to
Speaker 1: be grown in Mexico. Why, there's a very good reason
Speaker 1: for it. We don't have tariffs on that, or didn't.
Speaker 1: And they can exploit the labor in other countries that
Speaker 1: we don't allow to be exploited here, and that's why
Speaker 1: they can do it. It's you know, it's it's having
Speaker 1: Nike build their stupid four hundred dollars worthless tennis shoes
Speaker 1: in some you know backwoods with three year olds sewing
Speaker 1: them because they don't have to pay them anything.
Speaker 4: And then well, you know, but didn't we give Nike
Speaker 4: a special exemption on their shoes.
Speaker 2: I think we did.
Speaker 4: It's very well, look, let's get out on this and
Speaker 4: move on to something that we actually know more about,
Speaker 4: like the law and the kind institution. I will just
Speaker 4: mention this again from my personal stock experience, and this
Speaker 4: goes back gosh, almost fifty years. So you know, my dad,
Speaker 4: as I mentioned, was in specially electronics manufacturing, and at
Speaker 4: one point, this would be late sixties, he bought a
Speaker 4: small company that made consumer electronics.
Speaker 2: He thought he wanted to try consumer electronics.
Speaker 4: And they made or my dad helped design and brought
Speaker 4: out a new line of record players. They're portable record players.
Speaker 4: You could actually put batteries in them. His idea this
Speaker 4: is before you know, even cassette players, right or the
Speaker 4: Walkman or ghetto blasters. He thought, oh, people might want
Speaker 4: to take a record player to the beach. This is
Speaker 4: the heyday of all the beach bank at Bingo movies
Speaker 4: and stuff.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: So, and you also get a model and it pulled
Speaker 4: it up like a small suitcase with the speakers built
Speaker 4: in and all that, and this was in the days. Well,
Speaker 4: he also had a model that you could use a
Speaker 4: plug for. He also made some Cebee radios that, oddly enough,
Speaker 4: in the I learned in the Cebee radio community that
Speaker 4: still exists. Ham radio people are still kind of popular
Speaker 4: as a cult item, you know, more than fifty years
Speaker 4: after he quit making them. And the problem then was,
Speaker 4: I remember this as a teenager. You can't compete with
Speaker 4: the Japanese. You know, he had cheap labor on assembly
Speaker 4: lines at minimum wage, and the Japanese could still make
Speaker 4: them and export them to America cheaper.
Speaker 2: So he ended up giving it up.
Speaker 4: And you know that was true in American TVs, right,
Speaker 4: we quit making TVs.
Speaker 6: The reason why this is as good as a matter
Speaker 6: of trade is that, yeah, then you know, the US
Speaker 6: laborer can focus on producing the things that we're efficient
Speaker 6: at that don't depend on little labor costs. Right.
Speaker 5: We don't make cheap clothes.
Speaker 6: In the United States anymore at all, like cheap every
Speaker 6: day close.
Speaker 5: They're mostly made abroad. I think that's a good thing.
Speaker 6: I don't think Americans if we can avoid it should
Speaker 6: be spending their time.
Speaker 5: And you know, cheap garment factories. Far better for.
Speaker 6: Them to spend time and energy making higher value goods
Speaker 6: and make it.
Speaker 1: And I at least offer an ulternative.
Speaker 6: Americans to spend time making people's underwear if we don't
Speaker 6: have to.
Speaker 1: How about we make those cheap, useless clothes as expensive
Speaker 1: as making decent clothes, and we stop allowing women to
Speaker 1: hugely overweight, obese women running around in cheap yoga pants
Speaker 1: and UH and crop tops.
Speaker 2: How about we.
Speaker 1: What I what I don't understand, John, is why you
Speaker 1: say it's it's it's not sound economic theory to think
Speaker 1: that if we impose tariffs so that it becomes more
Speaker 1: expensive to make these goods in other countries, UH, does
Speaker 1: not sound that will it'll bring back manufacturing. But the
Speaker 1: opposite happened. The opposite happened because they could make them
Speaker 1: more cheaply in other countries, because they didn't have to
Speaker 1: be subject to labor laws and environmental laws and on
Speaker 1: and on and on and on. They started making them elsewhere.
Speaker 1: Why can't that be reversed? What economic theory says that
Speaker 1: can't be reversed?
Speaker 6: Well, the decline in manufacturing in the United States. First
Speaker 6: of all, the percentage of manufacturing United States has actually
Speaker 6: been rather constant since the eighties. Right, It hasn't actually
Speaker 6: gone down because of trade relation, has gone down because
Speaker 6: of America's moved to become a service dominated economy.
Speaker 5: Well, no, productivity is a lot higher.
Speaker 6: I mean, this is the the key answer, though, is
Speaker 6: you want Americans to focus on high productivity jobs, because
Speaker 6: productivity is what gives you a salary.
Speaker 5: We shouldn't be having.
Speaker 6: Americans work on these low productive jobs like making underwear
Speaker 6: and socks. Right, that's a waste of people's.
Speaker 5: Time here in the United States.
Speaker 6: Well, far better for that to occur in other countries
Speaker 6: that have lower labor costs, and people who work here
Speaker 6: should focus on things with write more value. It doesn't
Speaker 6: make sense for any country to want to produce everything
Speaker 6: in themselves. North Korea does that, So the Soviet Union
Speaker 6: tried that at least have failed economy.
Speaker 4: What you're saying is that Ricardo was still right, and
Speaker 4: there's an irony here.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean love of comparative advantage. I mean it's
Speaker 6: mathematically true.
Speaker 4: Well, what I recall is that the liberal critics of
Speaker 4: free trade thirty forty years ago, all said.
Speaker 6: Really sound like they sound like Lucretia. Well, Cretia sounds
Speaker 6: like Ross Perrot, arguing this is again the.
Speaker 2: Genius of Trump. He's mad.
Speaker 4: He's made Democrats come out for free trade and against tariffs,
Speaker 4: which you know, you.
Speaker 1: Guys, what what is your definition of free trade? Don't
Speaker 1: ever use that unless you actually mean free trade. Free
Speaker 1: trade is we send our stuff over, they send their
Speaker 1: stuff back. That's free trade. There is no such thing
Speaker 1: as free trade. We don't have free trade now, we
Speaker 1: didn't have it before. This idea that Trump is trying
Speaker 1: to restore free trade that we that we have but
Speaker 1: we don't have. I mean, it's so stupid.
Speaker 2: Well, look at the.
Speaker 4: John's point that actually I want to restate it more precisely, John.
Speaker 2: The man.
Speaker 4: Our manufacturing output share of the economy has been flat
Speaker 4: for what forty fifty years? It has not gone down.
Speaker 4: What's gone down is manufacturing employment.
Speaker 2: Again. An example is.
Speaker 4: I know a guy in Madison, Wisconsin, has an aluminum
Speaker 4: cast parts company. They make transverse axle casings, some of
Speaker 4: which they sell to Volkswagen in Germany.
Speaker 2: It's an export business. Used to be.
Speaker 4: It has been the family for like one hundred years
Speaker 4: in Madison used to be a Vabia Larry labor intensive job.
Speaker 4: Now it is all automated and he has six employees,
Speaker 4: all highly paid, highly trained.
Speaker 2: Because it's computerized, they.
Speaker 4: No longer have the quality control inspection done with you know,
Speaker 4: human beings with magnifying glasses. It's all computerized with laser beams.
Speaker 4: And he says the competition is really tough with China.
Speaker 4: He says he's always competing with China to sell to
Speaker 4: Voltswagen and BMW into American automakers. And then the other
Speaker 4: problem is for Lucretia I think is, oh, let's suppose
Speaker 4: we do this and we stick with it in a
Speaker 4: very aggressive way. I don't think it's going to bring
Speaker 4: back the places that started our focus on this, which
Speaker 4: is Michigan, Indiana.
Speaker 1: Ohio, Michigan. I don't care. You accused me of that
Speaker 1: last week too, But.
Speaker 4: That's not about did I make that point last week
Speaker 4: that the American auto industry moves south and is thriving
Speaker 4: that sort will go to Okay, if you're happy with that,
Speaker 4: that's fine.
Speaker 2: But I think that you know, thinking.
Speaker 1: About the fact that you say that that manufacturing in
Speaker 1: the United States has remained flat since what did you say,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty Yeah, when every American household has probably five
Speaker 1: times the amount of goods that they purchase, whether it's
Speaker 1: instead of one car, they now have three, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. So the fact that it stayed
Speaker 1: flat means it fell greatly. And that includes the whole
Speaker 1: discussion of automation and so forth. And so I don't
Speaker 1: agree with John from the point of view that somehow
Speaker 1: it's demeaning work to make socks or something like that.
Speaker 1: Those people that don't make socks anymore because they're made
Speaker 1: in Bangladesh or Indonesia or China, they're on welfare, John,
Speaker 1: they're not producing, they're not you know, having salary jobs
Speaker 1: where they have a good living. They have turned the
Speaker 1: entire country into elites versus everybody else. And that's what
Speaker 1: Trump is trying to fix. Bessett came out and said,
Speaker 1: in so many words, that's what we're trying to fix.
Speaker 6: We are a vastly richer country than we were before.
Speaker 1: Yes, but not everybody.
Speaker 6: But as a country, not every single person. Some people
Speaker 6: are going to do better, some people are going to
Speaker 6: do worse. But as a country, you were vastly wealthier.
Speaker 6: You just poor people have multiple cars and televisions. When
Speaker 6: I was growing up in the seventies, I don't remember
Speaker 6: poor people having multiple cars. Says what we just we
Speaker 6: are wealthier country.
Speaker 5: I don't think that.
Speaker 6: You know the fact, from what I can tell, the
Speaker 6: bottom of the bell curve of our income distribution has
Speaker 6: gotten a lot smaller. There's been a lot more movement
Speaker 6: and pushing into the middle. But second, it's not that
Speaker 6: it's demeaning work. It's that it's work that's it's just
Speaker 6: not worth it given the job skills that Americans have.
Speaker 6: If there are people who are unemployed, it's because nowadays
Speaker 6: they choose to be unemployed.
Speaker 2: We have.
Speaker 6: We're in a labor shortage right now. We've been for
Speaker 6: several years. I mean, maybe we're eat Starbucks is demeaning,
Speaker 6: but you get paid a lot more and it's a
Speaker 6: lot more productive work based on the salaries and benefits
Speaker 6: than you.
Speaker 5: Do making cheap clothing.
Speaker 6: That's the way economy. Economy is now knowledge economy. It's
Speaker 6: a services based economy because that's the future, okay, And
Speaker 6: that's how people a going to get better paid and
Speaker 6: it's not by like trying to resurrect, you know, defunct
Speaker 6: anachronistic industries that I think it's good have left the
Speaker 6: country and are being done by poor countries. Now.
Speaker 4: All right, So at this point, because it may be
Speaker 4: a whole new scene a week from now, I'm going
Speaker 4: to impose a five hundred percent tariff on further discussion
Speaker 4: of this issue today and move on.
Speaker 5: You're going to suspend it the next day.
Speaker 2: Well, but we won't be taping tomorrow.
Speaker 4: So all right, Look, the legal scene continues to be
Speaker 4: hugely interesting.
Speaker 2: So what do we want to take up? First?
Speaker 4: We had a Supreme Court following up on their ruling
Speaker 4: a week ago on the use of the Alien Enemies Act.
Speaker 4: I guess there's been a ruling by an immigration judge
Speaker 4: just here today Friday, that the Trump administration can proceed
Speaker 4: with deporting that Mohammed Khalili guy, whatever his name is,
Speaker 4: the Columbia graduate student who's you know, pro Homas and
Speaker 4: all the rest of that. The other one thing, this
Speaker 4: is a story I didn't even learn about until today,
Speaker 4: even though it's been out for a few days, that
Speaker 4: Trump issued an executive order to all of his regulatory
Speaker 4: agencies saying, please review all your regulations for their constitutionality
Speaker 4: given the recent changes in constitutional doctrine at the Supreme
Speaker 4: Court about regulation, the Chevron doctrine, the major question doctrines,
Speaker 4: and so forth. And if you and I'm sure the wording,
Speaker 4: but the point is, if you think it fails the
Speaker 4: test of constitutionality under these new doctrines, you should repeal
Speaker 4: those regulations.
Speaker 2: Now, maybe we should start with that one. Do you
Speaker 2: want to do that one? Lucretia and John?
Speaker 4: And start with you John, I mean, I have some
Speaker 4: thoughts on this, but can they do this side?
Speaker 2: Is this really pushing the envelope? What's what's going on here?
Speaker 6: Uh? This is a potentially And I said this when
Speaker 6: it came out. It came in this you know this
Speaker 6: this some EO came out in the huge batch from
Speaker 6: at the beginning and when it's completely unnoticed. And I
Speaker 6: remember telling people in the press, the really revolutionary EO
Speaker 6: is the one buried in there that says we're going
Speaker 6: to start uh withdrawing or ending the enforcement of regulations
Speaker 6: that don't meet these principles. And some of the principles
Speaker 6: are you know. I people got obsessed with some of
Speaker 6: the tiny details. But two of the principles are a
Speaker 6: regulations that exceed the proper scope of the Commerce Clause
Speaker 6: and right that violate federalism. And then another one says
Speaker 6: cases where they believe Congress has excessively delegated power to
Speaker 6: the executive branch. If you apply those two, you could
Speaker 6: strike down a whole lot of what the administrative state
Speaker 6: does these days. Notice that the executive or doesn't say
Speaker 6: what the Supreme Court thinks is the proper scope of
Speaker 6: the Commerce Clause. It doesn't say what the Supreme Court
Speaker 6: says about non delegation because the Supreme Court has still
Speaker 6: yet to strike down a law on non delegation grounds,
Speaker 6: which I think they should, but they haven't since nineteen
Speaker 6: thirty seven. So this means if you read it that say,
Speaker 6: the EPA is going to say, we think the Endangered
Speaker 6: Species Act violates the Commerce Clause when it addresses animals
Speaker 6: that can't even move across a state boundary AH, or
Speaker 6: we think the Steve's favorite statute that won't be named
Speaker 6: but has to do with is an excessive delegation from
Speaker 6: because it gives too much legislative power to the agencies
Speaker 6: that could really got a lot of the regulatory state
Speaker 6: if they apply it the way the.
Speaker 5: Executive Order is written.
Speaker 6: Now, the problem they have is usually when you pull
Speaker 6: out a regulation, you have to follow something called the
Speaker 6: Administrative Procedure Act. So the Mystery Procedure Act requires when
Speaker 6: you create a regulation or you withdraw one, you have
Speaker 6: to go through this arduous process. It takes about a
Speaker 6: year and a half before the court challenges start. So
Speaker 6: they're trying to evade that by saying that there's a
Speaker 6: basically a public interest.
Speaker 5: Exception to having to go through this process.
Speaker 6: It's not used in the way they want to. Yeah,
Speaker 6: it's in the law, but it hasn't been used this
Speaker 6: way ever before. Not saying that the courts that you
Speaker 6: can't do it's just like no one ever thought you
Speaker 6: could do it this way.
Speaker 5: So there's going to be.
Speaker 6: A legal challenge to every single one they do, saying no,
Speaker 6: you have to go through this year and a half process.
Speaker 5: You just can't do it right away.
Speaker 6: But I think this could really be a sweeping change
Speaker 6: in the regulatory state that liberals are only now hearing about.
Speaker 1: So, John, you covered so much. It's not fair, but
Speaker 1: I mean, and not much that I disagreed with quite frankly,
Speaker 1: but he wanted to bring back up your delegata potestas
Speaker 1: non potest delagare principle, which, as you say, has not
Speaker 1: been The delegated power cannot be delegated. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: just a simple principled interpretation of delegated power. If we
Speaker 1: the people have delegated our power to Congress, Congress cannot
Speaker 1: delegate that power to someone else. That's the whole principle
Speaker 1: behind it. And I agree with you they absolutely shouldn't,
Speaker 1: and I would push that point. The Supreme Court when
Speaker 1: it decided to abandon that was absolutely erroneous, wrong and
Speaker 1: has destroyed the country in many ways because of it. Okay,
Speaker 1: that statement being done, I actually have a question for you.
Speaker 1: That is, you mentioned that you didn't think that that
Speaker 1: the Trump's admit Trump's interpretation of the Act. What's it
Speaker 1: called again? Three A's seed your Act? That was the word?
Speaker 1: I couldn't remember. The Some of that is actually dependent
Speaker 1: upon how the Court ultimately decides this universal universal junction stuff.
Speaker 1: Don't injunction stuff, don't you think because if the Left
Speaker 1: challenges every single uh abolishment of every single regulation that
Speaker 1: the Trump administration argues is a violation of of Loper
Speaker 1: or it's a violation of Harvard or you know, all
Speaker 1: of these different cases that you're right, have come down
Speaker 1: in favor of the executive for the most part. If
Speaker 1: they don't rein in these out of control on both sides,
Speaker 1: but mostly of course on the left. You know, that's
Speaker 1: just those are just the numbers. If the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: is not willing to say that a district court judge
Speaker 1: cannot issue remedies for plaintiffs not before the court. You know,
Speaker 1: one of the rules it's supposed to apply. Lots of
Speaker 1: different reasons. Why all of these injunctions, whether they benefit
Speaker 1: or hurt my cause they're wrong. And the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: if it stepped in on that, I think that the
Speaker 1: Trump's the Trump administration would be much more successful in
Speaker 1: the stuff that's already out there, but also on getting
Speaker 1: rid of these regulations. What do you think or do
Speaker 1: you think that's not it? You think they'll be successful
Speaker 1: challenging this, and they won't do it with universal injunctions
Speaker 1: or national junction.
Speaker 6: I don't think this is going to raise a nationwide
Speaker 6: injunction issue, but it could generally when you challenge these regulations.
Speaker 5: Under the APA process.
Speaker 6: You are, you're you're supposed to bring the cases in
Speaker 6: Washington d C courts. You know, the d C Circuit
Speaker 6: is the administrative law court in the country almost because
Speaker 6: they hear almost every major APA rulemaking there.
Speaker 5: There's like all you describe it.
Speaker 6: There's a process that allows you to go right to
Speaker 6: the d C Circuit immediately if you're challenging a regulation,
Speaker 6: so you don't have to go through a longer process.
Speaker 6: Some statutes even require you to go to the d
Speaker 6: C Circuit. So and the liberals should want to do
Speaker 6: that because the d C Circuit is quite strongly filled
Speaker 6: with Biden and Obama appointees. So I don't think it's
Speaker 6: going to have to raise a nationwide injunction issue because
Speaker 6: the Democrats right have. You know, liberals have a very
Speaker 6: favorable form where they're supposed to bring these cases.
Speaker 1: Anyway, Well, let me follow on with that because that
Speaker 1: was another case that happened this week where the UH
Speaker 1: and by the way, the dread coward Roberts was the
Speaker 1: only dissenter, but no no reason given whereby they determined
Speaker 1: that that that scumbag gang banger that got sent to
Speaker 1: the l. Salvador prison did have due process rights, but
Speaker 1: he had to exercise them in louis was it Louisiana, Texas? Texas, Texas,
Speaker 1: and not in what was it d C?
Speaker 2: Washing? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so so maybe the Supreme Court is getting
Speaker 1: more serious about this idea of jurisdiction. And I just
Speaker 1: wondered what you thought about that.
Speaker 6: Actually, you could read all of these recent cases involving immigration,
Speaker 6: involving I mean, there's a case out here in San
Speaker 6: Francisco involving the effort to stop the Garment from firing anybody.
Speaker 6: The there's another case about trying the Feller Garment, trying
Speaker 6: to stop the Trump administration from blocking grants. And in
Speaker 6: all these cases where the Supreme Court has intervened extremely early,
Speaker 6: that's effectively what they've been telling the lower courts. They've
Speaker 6: been saying to them, stop this rush to judgment against Trump.
Speaker 6: You have been overriding standard procedure. For example, the judge
Speaker 6: here turned out didn't have a single plaintiff in his
Speaker 6: courtroom actually worked for the federal government and had lost
Speaker 6: their job.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 6: I was like, that's such a basic rule to have
Speaker 6: standing that you need someone's actually been harmed. These guys
Speaker 6: came into court. They're basically public employee unions. They came
Speaker 6: into court in public interest groups and they said, while
Speaker 6: the country's going to be harmed if these people get fired,
Speaker 6: because then the parks will be closed, so we can sue.
Speaker 6: And the courts of lung said, you can't sue on
Speaker 6: behalf of the public quote unquote, you have to actually
Speaker 6: be affected directly by the government's actions. So that's really
Speaker 6: what's been going on. The court has not decided really
Speaker 6: much of anything on the merit. For example, the case
Speaker 6: of the Venezuelan as you mentioned, Uh, the district judge
Speaker 6: in the Circuit court I think went way beyond their
Speaker 6: remit and said, oh, there's no invasion here, right, we're
Speaker 6: in peacetime, there's no invasion. We're going to find as
Speaker 6: a matter of fact that the Venezuelan government has no
Speaker 6: ties to this gang Triina de la Ragua. And the
Speaker 6: Supreme Court wiped that all out because it said, you
Speaker 6: never had jurisdiction over this case in the first place.
Speaker 5: It has to go back to has to go to Texas.
Speaker 2: But that for.
Speaker 1: Sure Roberts dissented on but again we don't know why.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we don't know why.
Speaker 5: He didn't. He didn't write an opinion.
Speaker 6: But the point is that we also don't know for
Speaker 6: sure what the court's going to say when that eventually
Speaker 6: comes back. The courts really kicked the can down the
Speaker 6: road on all these issues. On the merits. All they're
Speaker 6: doing is sending it back and saying, restart the cases
Speaker 6: and the right procedure in the right place. Stop this sloppiness.
Speaker 6: Because these judges have been so eager to rule get Trump,
Speaker 6: they aren't following normal procedures.
Speaker 1: I could go on, Steve, but I'm deferring.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't well, I don't know.
Speaker 4: I'm I'm confused as to actually which cases we are talking
Speaker 4: about because there's now three or four and I can't
Speaker 4: untangle them.
Speaker 2: I do wonder about the APA, but in.
Speaker 4: A stative procedure act. So while there is some talk
Speaker 4: of Congress rewriting its statute or repeating a statute that
Speaker 4: gave emergency broad tariff setting power to the president back
Speaker 4: in the nineteen seventies, because you know, remember Tear, I mean,
Speaker 4: I do think that regulating commerce with foreign nations is
Speaker 4: an Article one power under the Commerce Clause, right, And
Speaker 4: I think that regardless of what you think about the
Speaker 4: tariff policy. I think that is too broad a power
Speaker 4: to give the president to do. Similarly, is it time
Speaker 4: to think about rewriting of the Administrative Procedure Act?
Speaker 2: Last time I talked to Jeremy Rapkin.
Speaker 4: About this, and I thought he wrote one of the
Speaker 4: best books about this subject thirty years ago, and it
Speaker 4: was a long time ago, more than ten years ago.
Speaker 2: I talked him about it.
Speaker 4: He very much thought we ought to rewrite the Administrative
Speaker 4: Procedure Act that would include in a more rigorous ways
Speaker 4: of challenging the basis of regulations in court. And actually
Speaker 4: it was really a preemptive shot to scaling back because
Speaker 4: Chevron deference.
Speaker 2: And those kinds of things.
Speaker 4: But I hear no talk about that from any of
Speaker 4: our friends who would like to revive Congressional prerogatives and
Speaker 4: get Congress doing its job again.
Speaker 6: No, I mean, I think Demonstrative Procedure Act has outlived
Speaker 6: its state.
Speaker 5: It's really a product of the forties, right, You know
Speaker 5: what it is if you look.
Speaker 6: Back at the history of it before the Administrative Procedure Act,
Speaker 6: you know Congress.
Speaker 5: Would and the New Deal period gave U huge.
Speaker 6: Amounts of powered agencies with like no guidance, right, and
Speaker 6: so you know, they came up with the idea that
Speaker 6: we could create a procedure for all regulations and it
Speaker 6: would be kind of democratic. We would have a period
Speaker 6: where anyone in the public can read a draft that
Speaker 6: will put out there the regulation, and then you'll have comments,
Speaker 6: and then you'll have the agency will have to respond
Speaker 6: to every comment, take them and rationally respond and then
Speaker 6: issue the regulation and it'll improve everything.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: I think there was one study done by the Wall
Speaker 6: Street Journal that showed that a lot of these comments
Speaker 6: or ai generated just repetitive or useless.
Speaker 5: The only people who.
Speaker 6: Really pay attention to these are the industries that are affected,
Speaker 6: are their opponents or the supporters, and they write thoughtful comments.
Speaker 6: But this process is so slow and really doesn't have
Speaker 6: anything to do with making the regulation really better that
Speaker 6: it's just, you know, it's a kabookie play, you know,
Speaker 6: sort of a fake democratic way to make regulations.
Speaker 4: Well, I think I mean as at a one level
Speaker 4: detail as I recall the history of it, and I
Speaker 4: like I say, I read it a long time ago.
Speaker 4: The problem with all the new de regulatory agencies is
Speaker 4: there was no consistency in the way they made their regulations.
Speaker 4: You know, one agency would say, well, here's a new
Speaker 4: regulation that starts in ten days. It's like what and
Speaker 4: and you know what standards they used and all the
Speaker 4: rest of that, and so that you know, that's what
Speaker 4: the APA was often called the constitution of the administrative State, right,
Speaker 4: and but look, it says that, you know, courts can
Speaker 4: only strike down regulations if they're arbitrary and capricious.
Speaker 2: Those are the key terms in it.
Speaker 4: And they have a couple of times struck down regulations
Speaker 4: on those grounds, but not very often, because good grief,
Speaker 4: it sure seems to me a lot of regulations would
Speaker 4: be vulnerable to being arbitrary and capricious on any number
Speaker 4: of grounds. The courts have always said, no, we're going
Speaker 4: to let the agencies do what they want, right, And
Speaker 4: so I don't know, I.
Speaker 2: Think that should be revisited. Maybe it wouldn't work a.
Speaker 6: You know, the APA is such a failure that the
Speaker 6: real reform and regulation making was President Reagan's decision to
Speaker 6: concentrate review of regulations under Chris Tamuth that you know,
Speaker 6: not a AI then in the Office of Management Budget
Speaker 6: or they subject all major regulations to cost benefit analysis.
Speaker 5: Which is not even in the APA.
Speaker 6: That's how useless it is that the APA doesn't even
Speaker 6: require that the costs not exceed the benefits of a regulation. Instead,
Speaker 6: President Reagan basically said, well, we're just as president, I'm
Speaker 6: going to use my executive authority and block any regulation
Speaker 6: from any agency that can't prove that the benefits that
Speaker 6: way the costs, and people.
Speaker 5: Attack them for them. So that's not in the APA.
Speaker 6: You can't as president just come in and make up
Speaker 6: your own criteria for every regulation.
Speaker 5: But thank god he did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I was just going to say, in what
Speaker 1: world of separation of powers and executive power can the
Speaker 1: president not do that? Except the world that's been screwed
Speaker 1: up over judicially regulated, over administrative rate. I mean, of
Speaker 1: course the president can decide, because who else do we
Speaker 1: hold accountable if not the president? That's the whole argument.
Speaker 1: I get frustrated. I know all of these kind of
Speaker 1: secondary legal issues and legal theories we discussed, but when
Speaker 1: it comes down to it, the president gets to decide
Speaker 1: because he's the one accountable. That's Hamilton, It doesn't matter, right,
Speaker 1: And if he wants to have a rule that says
Speaker 1: there's got to be a cost benefit analysis. More power
Speaker 1: to him.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but I think John, isn't it right that the
Speaker 4: cost benefit test that the Reagan people imposed did not
Speaker 4: apply to the independent regulatory agencies. It only applied to
Speaker 4: the ones that the president.
Speaker 2: Has to rect control of, like the cabin offices, right,
Speaker 2: I think?
Speaker 6: No, that's actually but after Humphrey's executor gets overturned, right right?
Speaker 4: Well, of course you know the idea that I mean,
Speaker 4: I remember Chris, you know you and I know Chris.
Speaker 4: I remember Chris is talking about how, ah, we had
Speaker 4: this great uh you know that sort of understated way
Speaker 4: he does things. He would say, oh, we had this
Speaker 4: great cost benefit analysis standard and it led to and
Speaker 4: then he pauses and said, marginal improvement.
Speaker 2: In some regulations.
Speaker 4: I mean, even he thought that this hadn't worked very well,
Speaker 4: right you? No, I see John has disappeared off the screen,
Speaker 4: so who knows, you know, But even.
Speaker 1: How do I say this? Even distinguishing between independent regulatory
Speaker 1: agencies and other administrative agencies misses the point.
Speaker 2: No, I understand that, you know.
Speaker 5: I just think that it's.
Speaker 1: Probably necessary to repeat that often and loudly, because otherwise
Speaker 1: you get lost in the weeds on these things, and
Speaker 1: you miss the point.
Speaker 4: Well, except if the weeds grew up big, well, and
Speaker 4: I'll do it this way. That's trying to do annalg it.
Speaker 2: It's not right. One reason why it'd be good to
Speaker 2: have more tools, such as a cost benefits.
Speaker 4: Standard in the law that allowed you and me or
Speaker 4: an interest group to challenge it effectively in court. That
Speaker 4: becomes an adjunct of presidents who want to control it
Speaker 4: because there's too much for them to chase after. That's
Speaker 4: part of the point, right, and it allows more pressure
Speaker 4: points against the administrative state for citizens. And then, by
Speaker 4: the way, you don't just depend on the president. It
Speaker 4: means that you and I or our friends can challenge
Speaker 4: what agencies are doing when there's a Democrat in the
Speaker 4: White House. That's why these things are useful. Now I
Speaker 4: know they're wonky, and wonkiness bores you, and so let's
Speaker 4: then move on to that.
Speaker 1: It's not that at all, and I am in favor
Speaker 1: of incremental changes wherever they can be made. But I
Speaker 1: think the point is that we need to restore the
Speaker 1: fundamental notion of what executive power means, and we need
Speaker 1: to be able, unlike our friends on the other side
Speaker 1: of the aisle to recognize that the same powers that
Speaker 1: can be exercised by Trump, by Reagan can be exercised
Speaker 1: by a Biden or an Obama. And what's the what's
Speaker 1: the check on that? A dependence on the people is
Speaker 1: the primary control on government?
Speaker 4: All right, well, then let's do our last topic, I think,
Speaker 4: because we're coming toward the end of our time. So you, uh,
Speaker 4: you managed to slip in your favorite epithet about our
Speaker 4: sainted Chief Justice.
Speaker 2: That was sarcasm, just in case the dread counter for me,
Speaker 2: I know, that's why. That's why I was making sure
Speaker 2: we were all clear on this.
Speaker 4: So right now you are not alone in being exercised,
Speaker 4: I'll put it that way, with the way uh Justice
Speaker 4: Barrett has come out on some of these recent cases.
Speaker 1: So let me begin by saying that two of the
Speaker 1: most extraordinary judges, federal judges in the United States, are women,
Speaker 1: two women for whom I have the utmost respect for
Speaker 1: their their legal acuity, for their soundness, I mean everything
Speaker 1: about them. Jonas Rogers Brown and Edith Edith Jones. Now
Speaker 1: both of them, by the way.
Speaker 2: You've got you've got a total fangirl crush.
Speaker 1: That's I love both of them. But they're solid, you know,
Speaker 1: they're absolutely solid, I argued to these guys, and you know,
Speaker 1: we have text messages. I'm in the gym, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm writing text messages. It's ridiculous. But so you always
Speaker 1: have to take that with a little great as salt.
Speaker 1: But my point was that I don't think we should
Speaker 1: allow women on the Supreme Court. Why because the women
Speaker 1: that actually can get on the Supreme Court have been
Speaker 1: profound disappointments, even those who were appointed by Republican presidents
Speaker 1: and were, you know, the great Savior. Sure, Amy Conie
Speaker 1: Barrett's been on the right side of a few things,
Speaker 1: even some really important few things, but she is really
Speaker 1: really unreliable. And that's that's tough. Now. I said that
Speaker 1: the explanation for why Edith Jones and Janice Rogers Brown
Speaker 1: are not on the Supreme Court is the Clarence Thomas explanation.
Speaker 1: They're going to be willing to tolerate a woman who's
Speaker 1: mushy and you know, okay, and as long as she's empathetic,
Speaker 1: you know, willing to bring an M thirteen gang as
Speaker 1: a gang member as a foster child into her home,
Speaker 1: like Amy Cony Barrett or cry over with her whole
Speaker 1: family over George Floyd. Oh I hate women like that.
Speaker 1: I hate them, and she's bragging about it. Okay, Okay,
Speaker 1: I just I'm almost in. My point is this that
Speaker 1: they don't want strong, solidly conservative women on the court
Speaker 1: because there is much of a threat to the whole feminist,
Speaker 1: transgender LGBTQ regime, as Clarence Thomas was to the Affirmative
Speaker 1: Action regime. And that's why. I mean, you could not
Speaker 1: have found a better person for the Supreme Court than
Speaker 1: either Janice Rogers Brown or Edith Jones. That is my right, yes,
Speaker 1: although as Clarence Thomas.
Speaker 4: I just want to add for the record, for listeners benefit,
Speaker 4: some of whom will know the person you should add
Speaker 4: Alice Batchelter Batch Shelter to your list of women who
Speaker 4: meet the Lucretia litmus test.
Speaker 1: I believe you, but I don't know her well.
Speaker 2: She was at she was at the Philadelphia Society meeting
Speaker 2: a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1: I should have had you, I was, but I guess
Speaker 1: I don't know anything about her. I know a great
Speaker 1: deal about Janice, I know a great deal about Edith.
Speaker 1: I don't know anything about it. I trust you on that.
Speaker 2: But she's fabulous. So that's all I need to know.
Speaker 1: You know, the whole thing about Amy Cony Barrett's uh
Speaker 1: nomination process in the confirmation process, to excuse me, was
Speaker 1: you know what focused on her catholic supposed this and that,
Speaker 1: and none of it really got down. You know, do
Speaker 1: you did? What was it? The idiot Diane Feinstein said,
Speaker 1: you're I forget it was a really instant thing about
Speaker 1: her Catholicism.
Speaker 4: Yeah, in court that actually that guaranteed your confirmation though,
Speaker 4: by the way, that was a huge blunder on Feinstein's part.
Speaker 2: It backfired badly.
Speaker 1: But the fact that those things are even relevant and
Speaker 1: allowed to be relevant just shows it's not serious.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, you know, if.
Speaker 1: She had some really strident pro constitution fully understanding every
Speaker 1: aspect of the constitution opinions, DAYDA never let her on
Speaker 1: the court. That's my point. You have opinion she ever gave,
Speaker 1: but they didn't bring any up.
Speaker 6: I think you're being totally unfair to Justice Barrett.
Speaker 5: I really do.
Speaker 6: I mean, I think that she is voted the right
Speaker 6: way on any major issue that we care about, right,
Speaker 6: she hasn't She had a Roe versus Wade.
Speaker 1: Texas versus Pennsylvania.
Speaker 6: If she great, So you're not going to get someone
Speaker 6: who votes exactly the In fact, I don't think the
Speaker 6: court was ever going to get.
Speaker 5: A oft in Texas Pennsylvania.
Speaker 6: But look, you're not going to get a justice who
Speaker 6: votes exactly the way you want every single time, right right.
Speaker 1: Thomas doesn't.
Speaker 5: Look, Look, I don't agree with everything.
Speaker 6: Justice Thomas vote the way he votes in every single case.
Speaker 6: Rovers's way would still be the law if she were
Speaker 6: not on the court.
Speaker 1: The look of the sixty three, it wasn't five to.
Speaker 2: Four, Well it's five to four. Actually, well just because Roberts, well,
Speaker 2: Roberts Roberts, it was. But he had a stupid no. Yes, well,
Speaker 2: his opinion did.
Speaker 5: Not want to overturn Row. Right in that case.
Speaker 6: He said, we can decide this case a certain way
Speaker 6: and keep Roe as precedent. But he thought he dissented
Speaker 6: from overturning Row.
Speaker 4: But he did say that the law could stand though
Speaker 4: he in other words, he blessed the law. So they
Speaker 4: they you know, the play, They won the case, and
Speaker 4: his reasoning just made a mess of it.
Speaker 2: I thought, I mean that that, I think, but still would.
Speaker 5: Have gone the other way. Harvard case would have gone
Speaker 5: the other way. And she has voted the right way
Speaker 5: on every major issue.
Speaker 1: That every major issue, not everyone.
Speaker 6: Well, you're talking about these cases against Trump where she
Speaker 6: hasn't voted exactly on all these emergency appeals. These are
Speaker 6: such small, unimportant cases compared to abortion, guns, an affirmative actionsvatives.
Speaker 1: An indictment of her than than ever because you're just
Speaker 1: an ideologue on the court. I want a constitution.
Speaker 6: You want someone who's going to vote the right way
Speaker 6: that Trump wins every case every time.
Speaker 1: No, No, not at all, not at all.
Speaker 5: I want these cases. I don't want to have lost.
Speaker 1: I want someone who cares about the Constitution.
Speaker 6: More than I and any What What is Trump done
Speaker 6: that you disagree with on any of these constitutional legal issues?
Speaker 2: What Trump? You said? John?
Speaker 5: You mean bar Trump? Trump is no Trump.
Speaker 6: Because you're criticizing her for voting against Trump, I'm not.
Speaker 1: I'm critical. And give you an example.
Speaker 6: Give me example of the case where you agree with
Speaker 6: her or you disagree with Trump?
Speaker 5: Where where do where?
Speaker 6: Give me a single example of anything Trump is done
Speaker 6: in the legal constitution area. But they're not all legal
Speaker 6: or constitutional. That legal or constitutional that you disagree with.
Speaker 1: Well, no, there's policy issues. I don't know of any
Speaker 1: legal or constitutional things I disagree with.
Speaker 6: He's been right on the constitutional law every single one
Speaker 6: of these issues. I mean, that's that's that's that's being
Speaker 6: an ideologue.
Speaker 2: Can I we we were up against our hour?
Speaker 4: Can I suggest this as the question to be thought
Speaker 4: about because we're not going to.
Speaker 2: Sort it out here.
Speaker 4: I think Lucretia's point that bears weight is that even
Speaker 4: when Bart votes right, she'll often do a concurrence that
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 2: Can be construed mischievously. And those are important.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's important that the vote comes out the
Speaker 4: right way, of course, but sometimes I mean, of course,
Speaker 4: your concurrences of the sense are often important for future cases.
Speaker 2: Uh. And I'll just say that there. I think she
Speaker 2: bears a close scrutiny and good analysis by somebody to say,
Speaker 2: what's her what's her real core, what's her line of
Speaker 2: reasoning here?
Speaker 4: Where does it point? What are the vulnerabilities and strengths
Speaker 4: from our point of view? And that I you know,
Speaker 4: I have to say that I scratched my head once
Speaker 4: in a while saying why I don't remember specific examples
Speaker 4: right now I'm sorry, but I say, that's interesting.
Speaker 2: Why would she do that? That's okay, Uh, to be.
Speaker 4: Continued, is what I want to say, because I think
Speaker 4: we should actually prepare for that discussion sometime and not
Speaker 4: tru We skipped our foreign policy argument John that we've
Speaker 4: been having.
Speaker 6: On Live, I know, twice for two episodes. Yeah, I know, Okay, No,
Speaker 6: we were the host today.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 4: I just said I'm tired from five weeks on the road. Lucretian,
Speaker 4: you have some babylon Bees for us.
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 1: Democrats worried Trump may not have China's best interest at heart.
Speaker 1: That was good, this one we didn't talk about. But Trump,
Speaker 1: here's something I do agree with. Trump says, you know what,
Speaker 1: the federal government shouldn't be telling you how much water
Speaker 1: can come out of your shower. You pay for your water.
Speaker 1: That's up to you. Actually, I've had several friends from
Speaker 1: California have their high flow shower head send to my house,
Speaker 1: and then I send it to them because the California
Speaker 1: laws are even worse anyway. Protesters and it's of course
Speaker 1: all these scumbag leftists you know that look like they
Speaker 1: haven't showered in six weeks at least protesters remain unaffected
Speaker 1: by Trump's shower head deregulation. So this one you you
Speaker 1: had to be paying attention to the news this past week. Uh,
Speaker 1: the ex execrable Jasmine Crockett. People elected that thing to Congress?
Speaker 1: How is that possible? But anyway, so you in case
Speaker 1: you didn't hear remarks, basically it was we need illegal
Speaker 1: aliens because we ain't we done picking cotton.
Speaker 7: Yeah right, and so this is the Babylonbee Jasmine Crockett
Speaker 7: Floatstone Mighty, Mississippi to purchase fresh shipment of Mexican slaves.
Speaker 1: Okay, for you sports fans out there, I don't get
Speaker 1: this one because I don't pay any attention, but I'll
Speaker 1: read it for sports fans. White Sox introduced new premium
Speaker 1: indoor suites with no windows so you don't have to
Speaker 1: watch the White Sox play.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, yeah, oh right? Is it?
Speaker 1: Is it true?
Speaker 2: I think so? I'm not saying so bad. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: not paying attention to baseball at all yet.
Speaker 4: It's way too early, but yeah, I think the White
Speaker 4: Socks are, you know, pretty bad.
Speaker 1: Okay, just a couple of really quick ones. Texas fans
Speaker 1: sale of assault rifles with capacity of less than thirty pounds.
Speaker 1: China trade war update, Trump classifies Panda Express as domestic
Speaker 1: terror organization. I promise you there is nothing about China
Speaker 1: that is in that our Chinese food that's at Panda Express. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: it doesn't really work. But Republicans vow to get really
Speaker 1: serious about cutting spending in like thirty or forty years.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's unfortunately sadly true. Right right, all right, John,
Speaker 4: you're working on a new one.
Speaker 6: Always drink your whiskey, meat and Steve.
Speaker 2: So, I'm trying to change up our ending.
Speaker 4: And so today in honor of our great warriors a doge,
Speaker 4: I am giving you a musical exit starting right now.
Speaker 3: Well, we got a lot, a lot of hard work today.
Speaker 2: We gotta rock.
Speaker 3: At the Government center to make the secretaries feel better
Speaker 3: when they put the stamps on the letter.
Speaker 2: They got a lot, a.
Speaker 3: Lot of great desks and chairs now at the Government
Speaker 3: Center where they put the stamps on the letter, and
Speaker 3: then they write it down in the letter.
Speaker 4: Two.
Speaker 2: We gotta rock the log a rock and don't stop
Speaker 2: to night about at the Government center where they put
Speaker 2: the stamps on the letter, write it down in the ledger.
Speaker 3: We won't up until we see Secretary smile and see
Speaker 3: some office.
Speaker 2: Boys jump up for joice.
Speaker 3: We'll tell oh, mister a Hearn, calm down, wild sir,
Speaker 3: that's the only way the center is ever gone and
Speaker 3: get better. So we gotta rock a rock, a rock
Speaker 3: an not stop tonight at the Government's center. They put
Speaker 3: the stamps on the letter, write it down in the ledger.
Speaker 3: Oh tonight, we'll make them feel all right.
Speaker 2: Oh to night. What you say, man, Oh yes, tonight,
Speaker 2: we'll go there tonight. We'll take the an thing we got.
Speaker 2: We'll take the air ricochet. Join the conversation.