Speaker 1: Well, whiskey coming thing, my pain, the moneys a ray.
Speaker 2: Why think alone when you can drink it all? In
Speaker 2: with Ricochet's Three Whiskey Happy Hour, join your bartenders, Steve Hayward,
Speaker 2: John You, and the International Woman of Mystery Lucretia where.
Speaker 3: They lapped it up and David Hain't you busy? On
Speaker 3: the show? Happy?
Speaker 1: Got to give it? Let me welcome everybody to another
Speaker 1: episode of the Three Whiskey Happy Hour where I believe
Speaker 1: it or not, I think President Trump has only been
Speaker 1: president for what eighteen days? Nineteen days? When nineteen days
Speaker 1: it seems like it's already year seven. So this is
Speaker 1: John You and I'm joined by my co hosts Steve Hayward.
Speaker 2: Hey, Steve, Hey, John, are you fully awake from your
Speaker 2: afternoon nap? You don't sound like the you know, the
Speaker 2: energetic person you are when you're on the Outnumbered on Fox.
Speaker 2: What's the Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm surrounded by two white bald men and Kusha because
Speaker 1: we have a lurker with us. Steve, do you want
Speaker 1: to introduce your a lurker friend or no?
Speaker 2: Well I could. It's the it's the person who hosts
Speaker 2: me frequently in Seattle, Northern command with three whiskey happy hour,
Speaker 2: who attentive readers or power line will know by his
Speaker 2: handle hound Dog. That's a name I gave him forty
Speaker 2: five years ago, a nickname. So I'll just say that I.
Speaker 1: Don't even want to know how you came, what that means.
Speaker 4: The way I mean, it's such a great You never
Speaker 4: caught a rabbit, and you ain't no friend of mine.
Speaker 1: So there, Elvis. Is that like music from when the
Speaker 1: phonograph had to be turned by hand? Or what?
Speaker 2: Almost?
Speaker 1: And then the International Woman Mystery Lucretia, How are you, Lucretia.
Speaker 4: I'm well, John, It's very good to see you. Thanks.
Speaker 1: Well, we're just passing the time until the Eagles win
Speaker 1: the Super Bowl. Here, Oh, Steve, so I assume this
Speaker 1: we'll have to retape with the Philadelphia celebration and all
Speaker 1: the mayhem that will occur then.
Speaker 4: But you're not in Philadelphia, are you don't have to
Speaker 4: worry about your safety?
Speaker 1: Oh? Come on, people, Oh you gotta have Philly street smarts.
Speaker 1: Come on, give me a break. All these people keep
Speaker 1: getting attacked and shot in Philadelphia. They just don't know
Speaker 1: what they're doing. So today, the theme of our episode
Speaker 1: is the five noisy fights. Trump has started, and so
Speaker 1: we have five different issues that we're talking about, all
Speaker 1: just came up in the last week and a half,
Speaker 1: and we're going to start with Lucretia on the first issue,
Speaker 1: birthright citizenship. Although you know, the hosts of the Free
Speaker 1: three Whiskey Happen are so prescient, we actually had a
Speaker 1: full episode about birthright citizenship. But there have been recent
Speaker 1: developments Lucretia.
Speaker 4: I don't think anybody expected him to do it on
Speaker 4: the first day, and so John and I both written
Speaker 4: articles on this. My argument is that Trump is, you know,
Speaker 4: pressing the point. He took a bit of what you
Speaker 4: might call a middle ground on his executive order. Instead
Speaker 4: of saying anybody who claims birthright citizenship ever automatically has
Speaker 4: their citizenship revoked or at least can no longer get
Speaker 4: a passport from the State Department, he made it prospective.
Speaker 4: So only those people going forward trying to sneak into
Speaker 4: the United States to have their baby and thereby claim
Speaker 4: citizenship for their child and themselves, of all the welfare
Speaker 4: benefits of America has to offer, it can only we're only
Speaker 4: stopping it going forward. And of course, you know a
Speaker 4: stupid ass judge excuse me, sorry, stupid judge has put
Speaker 4: some sort of injunction on it, as you might might expect.
Speaker 4: But the other question is could there be enough of
Speaker 4: a enough of a movement in that regard that Congress
Speaker 4: would actually just pass legislation defining what citizenship is under
Speaker 4: the fourteenth Amendment, something that they've never done host fourteenth Amendment.
Speaker 4: They did pre fourteenth Amendment. And I think under the
Speaker 4: enforcement clause Congress could in fact say what exactly they
Speaker 4: mean by subject to the jurisdiction thereof, and say, yeah,
Speaker 4: whatever it might be that your father, the way Trump
Speaker 4: has done it, the father has to be a citizen,
Speaker 4: whatever all of those different things are. Congress could do that,
Speaker 4: and I don't think the would have much to say
Speaker 4: about it. One kim ark relies on really bad president
Speaker 4: and it's a dumb decision and it should be overturned
Speaker 4: if it gets back to the court. There you go
Speaker 4: everything you want, you know.
Speaker 1: So I'm good turn to Steve because two interesting points
Speaker 1: have risen. One is John Eastman, the notorious John Eastman,
Speaker 1: took a triumphant, triumphant extra lap around the track. Upon
Speaker 1: this there was a story I don't know if you
Speaker 1: caught it. You guys don't read the Washington Post, but
Speaker 1: I do. And John granted the Washington Post an interview
Speaker 1: saying that he felt like a coach that had gatorade
Speaker 1: poured all over himself when President Trump issued the executive
Speaker 1: order on birthright citizenship. Wow, what an image John Eastman
Speaker 1: covered in gatorade. There'd have to be a boycott of gatorade,
Speaker 1: I suppose after that. But the reason I bring it
Speaker 1: up with Steve is because Steve was the roommate of
Speaker 1: one that John Eastman in graduate school. So I have
Speaker 1: a question for you, Steve that I actually post when
Speaker 1: I did a debate about birthright citizenship this week. Is
Speaker 1: if Eastman is right, if Trump is right, if Lucretia
Speaker 1: is right, then isn't wasn't Kamala Harris illegally vice president?
Speaker 1: Oh and illegally presidential Kennedy because both of her parents
Speaker 1: were here on student visas, if I remember he is?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, okay, So by the way you mentioned, you
Speaker 2: gave a way that we were roommates for a couple
Speaker 2: of years and the house he rented from the great
Speaker 2: late Peter Drucker, you know, pretty famous person.
Speaker 1: Oh, the business management guru.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's right.
Speaker 1: I hope he overcharged you on the rents? Capitalist would
Speaker 1: he undercharged us? He was way below the market rate.
Speaker 1: And the funny thing was is we would often be
Speaker 1: deliberately late with our rent, so he would call us
Speaker 1: up in his great vine actresses.
Speaker 2: You are late with your rent. Oh, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2: Professor Trucker will drive it right over. So you go
Speaker 2: over and talk to him a little bit, because he's
Speaker 2: a very friendly guy. And then some of her time,
Speaker 2: I'll tell you about John's van catching fire in the
Speaker 2: back of yourd and burning to the ground. That was
Speaker 2: a fun moment in nineteen eighty two or so. Oh
Speaker 2: but Lucretia and I both have lots of paper on John. Look,
Speaker 2: all I want to say is they are.
Speaker 1: You mean more indictments than the ones we already know about?
Speaker 2: Oh? God, sorry, I've got lots, although I do remember John.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry. This is fun, you know, John, Both you
Speaker 2: and I talked to the Los Angeles Times reporter who
Speaker 2: we both with reluctance talk to because she said the
Speaker 2: story was what was John Eastman like before January sixth?
Speaker 2: And I thought, okay, if you want to know serious background.
Speaker 2: I'll give it a try. And she said, you guys
Speaker 2: sound like a bunch of nerds. What did you do
Speaker 2: for fun? And I hesitate and I said, we went
Speaker 2: to grateful dead concerts, which is true. There's this long
Speaker 2: pause on the phone and you could hear her head
Speaker 2: exploding because this did not work right. I mean, this
Speaker 2: is impossible. But there was a whole bunch of US
Speaker 2: right wing dead heads at Claremont those days. Look, all
Speaker 2: I want to say, very briefly, is because I can
Speaker 2: tell I'm frustrating Lucretia already with this trivia. Is you
Speaker 2: know Richard Epstein and Elizabeth Foley both came out on
Speaker 2: our side against you, John so Ha, And you know
Speaker 2: I'll leave the exact arguments for later, but I think
Speaker 2: that's interesting. And the broader point is is Trump likes
Speaker 2: to pick a fight. It's by the way, I said
Speaker 2: five things, there's more than five, but these are related
Speaker 2: at the highest level. The birthright citizenship connects with the
Speaker 2: question of these nationwide injunctions by district court judges. We
Speaker 2: may want to talk about that an hour later, but
Speaker 2: both of these things are up in the air, and
Speaker 2: I think good for Trump. Look the bushes, the bushwazi
Speaker 2: as I forever said, they always shrunk from these challenges,
Speaker 2: and Trump it's like, oh, really there's a challenge.
Speaker 4: I yes, I will just say this much, John, that
Speaker 4: I probably received twenty or twenty five emails from listeners
Speaker 4: who wanted to know what the heck was wrong with
Speaker 4: you on your views on birthright citizenship, many of them
Speaker 4: speculating that your opposition to it is because you yourself
Speaker 4: are an immigrant.
Speaker 1: I am, yeah, and.
Speaker 4: Of removing your personal feelings from the issue, and therefore
Speaker 4: we don't have to pay attention to what you say.
Speaker 1: Way, I'm actually I'm unaffected by whatever the rule is
Speaker 1: because I'm a naturalized citizen no matter what the rules.
Speaker 2: Well, and to me, well also, I mean here I
Speaker 2: have to invoke the Peter Shram slogan. Peter Shram, also
Speaker 2: an immigrant from Hungary, said I was born American but
Speaker 2: in the wrong country, and that that kind of fits you. John.
Speaker 2: I hate to give you that high compliment because it
Speaker 2: kills me, but it's true.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I'm a citizen of the world. Wherever
Speaker 1: there's a MCI, I can I can go. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: at home anywhere I can go to McDonald's. I'm at home.
Speaker 4: Do they have McGriff's in Israel?
Speaker 1: Actually not going to McDonald's in Israel. I have been
Speaker 1: in Israel for a whole summer and I didn't go
Speaker 1: to McDonald's. I didn't see one, actually now that I
Speaker 1: remember it. But let me address the universal injunction question
Speaker 1: real quick. We could fit in here because, as Lucretia mentioned,
Speaker 1: a judge in Washington State has issued nationwide injunction and
Speaker 1: this is actually something that judges have done against both parties, right,
Speaker 1: Obama and Biden suffered from these as well as Trump.
Speaker 1: There's actually a hard legal question here, and there have
Speaker 1: been Justice Thomas at least has called for this question
Speaker 1: to make it up to the Supreme Court. Whether a
Speaker 1: district judge can actually enjoin the entire federal government. I
Speaker 1: don't think he can or she can, because the way
Speaker 1: it works is a district judge is a judge over
Speaker 1: certain territory, like in there's a Southern District of New
Speaker 1: York which includes New York City. Of them, yeah, there's
Speaker 1: ninety four of them. I think Washington d C. Has
Speaker 1: Some states are entire districts themselves, and so the way
Speaker 1: I understand it is the district judge can issue an
Speaker 1: order to whoever's in their territory, but not outside their territory.
Speaker 1: But the question is what if the order is one
Speaker 1: where it would cause excessive disruption for having the government
Speaker 1: operate under two different rules, that would be impossible, you
Speaker 1: know that, So they could you know, the could Trump,
Speaker 1: for example, deny passports to people in Texas because the
Speaker 1: judges they agree with them. But then he can't give
Speaker 1: out he can't give out the passports. He can give
Speaker 1: out the passports and other parts of it, doesn't that's
Speaker 1: the claim. I think that's a misreading of the powers
Speaker 1: of the judge. I think a judge only has the
Speaker 1: power within their territory. And that's the question Justice Thomas
Speaker 1: identified as requiring Supreme Court resolution because there's no clear
Speaker 1: answer in the cases.
Speaker 4: So John, couldn't that question a be answered by Congress
Speaker 4: because the district courts were created by Congress, so Congress
Speaker 4: could in fact define what their jurisdiction is, yes or no.
Speaker 4: And the second thing is, I'll just bring it up
Speaker 4: because Steve put it in the chat too. We were
Speaker 4: both curious, how is it accepted practice that a district
Speaker 4: court judge's injunction et cetera can apply to the whole nation,
Speaker 4: but a circuit court ruling, the appellate court ruling applies
Speaker 4: only to that circuit. And unless you know that the
Speaker 4: Supreme Court gets involved, you do have in fact different
Speaker 4: interpretations of laws and constitutional provisions depending on the circuit
Speaker 4: if the Supreme Court hasn't spoken on the issue.
Speaker 1: Oh no, that's another reason why I think judges aren't
Speaker 1: allowed to do these universal injunctions. But what people on
Speaker 1: the other side would say is, well, there's universal nationwide injunction.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean somewhere else, in another court or another circuit,
Speaker 1: the government can't go and litigate there and try to
Speaker 1: get a different outcome. That's still possible. But I think no,
Speaker 1: But I agree with that. I think that that's I mean,
Speaker 1: we have circuits that have their own territories too, and
Speaker 1: they can't affect I don't think effectively bind a government
Speaker 1: for this actually came up in the Reagan years, and
Speaker 1: Reagan actually did try for about two years to try
Speaker 1: to deny that circuit courts and district courts could do
Speaker 1: this kind of nationwide injunction. Uh, And they got so
Speaker 1: much crap from Congress that they kind of caved. It
Speaker 1: was towards it was in the second half in the
Speaker 1: second term, Reagan second term. But look, we have to
Speaker 1: take a break. You believe this is like gosh, this
Speaker 1: is just like Trump's time in office. The time is
Speaker 1: passing so fast. We've already hit the first ad break.
Speaker 1: So we'll be back after these messages. We're back, and
Speaker 1: Lucretia has yet another question about these.
Speaker 4: Nation promise I promised, John, because you're the expert on this,
Speaker 4: and I really have been asking many many people, and
Speaker 4: I don't know the answers to any of this. What
Speaker 4: you said makes sense. But my last question is a
Speaker 4: little bit more fun. What if you just mentioned that
Speaker 4: Reagan tried to sort of push back on it. What
Speaker 4: if Trump just said, screw you, excuse my language, Family show,
Speaker 4: and to any of those judges the ones you know,
Speaker 4: there's been quite a few of them now, even one
Speaker 4: that he appointed, I believe, said you can't lay off
Speaker 4: all of those despicable USAID employees until at least Monday.
Speaker 4: You know, the whole thing's crazy. But what if Trump
Speaker 4: just caused a constitutional crisis here?
Speaker 1: Then?
Speaker 4: What what if he did the Andrew Jackson thing.
Speaker 1: I mean he could do that. I mean it would
Speaker 1: not be a good way to win at the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court ultimately, but you can effectively get the same outcome
Speaker 1: I think by just going to like we were talking about,
Speaker 1: going to another district court or another circuit and litigating
Speaker 1: for a different outcome. So you know, if you're if
Speaker 1: one judge you know holds the birthright citizenship clause, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: EO un constitutional, go to another judge somewhere else in
Speaker 1: the country and get them to uphold it, and then
Speaker 1: go to the Supreme Court. That way, I think defying
Speaker 1: the Court. I mean yes, I mean you could follow
Speaker 1: in Jackson or Lincoln's footsteps, or even FDR's footsteps, but
Speaker 1: you're not gonna win any friends at the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: with the people you need to win a case from,
Speaker 1: which is Chief Justice John Roberts and Breck Cavanaugh, who
Speaker 1: are big believers in judicial supremacy. But anyway, let's turn
Speaker 1: to more fun stuff. Unfortunately, this is another Supreme Court issue.
Speaker 1: I'm afraid and actually this is I can see how
Speaker 1: Lucretia's mind works, devilish as it is, which is she's
Speaker 1: already thinking about how to get Humphrey's Executor overturned. Because
Speaker 1: the second thing that Trump did is not only has
Speaker 1: he been removing people within the executive branch agencies, but
Speaker 1: this week he also fired a member of the National
Speaker 1: Labor Whereations Board. He's been he's fired people on these
Speaker 1: what they think of what we call independent agencies, these commissions.
Speaker 1: They're a whole bunch of them. They're not run by
Speaker 1: a single person. They're run by a usually a panel
Speaker 1: of three to five people. Congress usually requires therapy partisan
Speaker 1: balance on them. The President, excuse me, does nominate with
Speaker 1: the Vice and the Consentate of the Senate appoint them.
Speaker 1: But usually these commissioners, like the FEC, the sec, SEC,
Speaker 1: all the alphabet agencies, usually cannot be removed unless they've
Speaker 1: done something illegal. So Trump went ahead and fired a few,
Speaker 1: I think two of these types of people. There's a
Speaker 1: case called Humphrey's Executor from FDR Days, much loved by
Speaker 1: our listener one Hadley ark.
Speaker 2: Is by the way, he thinks it's wrong, does doesn't?
Speaker 1: Oh no, No, I think Hadley's a big fan of
Speaker 1: Humphrey's Executor. But we're we're going to invite him to
Speaker 1: send an email to let us know what he thinks.
Speaker 1: But Humphrey's executor might now be on the chopping block.
Speaker 1: By the way, I should point out that under the
Speaker 1: Roberts Court, in a case to called seal a law
Speaker 1: a few years ago about the Consumer Finance Protection Board,
Speaker 1: Chief Justice Roberts and the majority of the Court held
Speaker 1: that for executive branch officers in the agencies like Defense
Speaker 1: or State or Justice, the president can fire them at will.
Speaker 1: They Congress can't protect them, even when Congress passes a
Speaker 1: law saying you can't fire, say, the head of the
Speaker 1: CFPB except for cause, except for doing something legal. The
Speaker 1: Court struck that down and said no, the president must
Speaker 1: have free will to fire members of those agencies for
Speaker 1: any reason or no reason. But then the court said,
Speaker 1: we're not touching yet the case of commissions, Humphrey's executors
Speaker 1: not overruled. So that's where that's the state of things.
Speaker 1: Trump is directly contravening Humphrey's executor.
Speaker 4: Well, so you know what I would do if I
Speaker 4: was on the court. I had to take up a
Speaker 4: case challenging Humphrey's executor. I wouldn't even reach the question
Speaker 4: of whether or not the President could fire officials on
Speaker 4: these quasi legislative and quasi judicial administrative bodies. I would
Speaker 4: strike down the entire apparatus from the get go. I
Speaker 4: would say, an fec an sec et cetera, et cetera,
Speaker 4: et cetera, is unconstitutional. We have a separation of powers.
Speaker 4: Where it's not separated, it's checks and balances. There's nothing
Speaker 4: in the Constitution about the stupid quasi whatever bodies. Knock
Speaker 4: them out and tell Congress figure out a better way
Speaker 4: consistent with the separation of powers to do what it
Speaker 4: is you're trying to do with those agencies. That's what
Speaker 4: I would do if I were on the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2: Oh dear, oh see, I was gonna go. I was
Speaker 2: gonna talk on the point about how independent agency is
Speaker 2: an oxymoron, and not just in National Labor Relations Board person.
Speaker 2: But the firing I celebrated most was Ellen Wintromp from
Speaker 2: the Federal Election Commission, who was appointed to what is
Speaker 2: the six or seven year terms. That's the weird commission
Speaker 2: because it's three and three unlike most of the commissions.
Speaker 2: But she was appointed to a six or seven year
Speaker 2: term and has been there for twenty two years. Without
Speaker 2: without a successive appointment. Right, that's because the FEC is dysfunctional.
Speaker 2: But the NLRI so, and by the way, I'll just
Speaker 2: say this, I have a lot of inside knowledge about
Speaker 2: the FBC and Ellen Wine Trump. She's not well liked
Speaker 2: by anybody. Let's just leave that aside.
Speaker 4: Okay, take a really important point and trivialize it for me. Thanks, Steve.
Speaker 2: No, it's fow No. I'm going to come back to
Speaker 2: your point actually and invoke sorry, you're baiting me, is
Speaker 2: the problem. So the NLRIB lady, so a week ago,
Speaker 2: I think we mentioned this or two weeks ago, or
Speaker 2: maybe he was on Ricochet, but nobody had yet challenged
Speaker 2: the firings because they thought, oh my god, it's going
Speaker 2: to open up Humphreys executors and to be struck down
Speaker 2: and then Trump's off to the races. But the NLRB
Speaker 2: lady has sued. So now the case is teed up. Now,
Speaker 2: Lucretia your point. You know, look, the Supreme Court ruled,
Speaker 2: i mean way back in the late nineteenth century about
Speaker 2: the Interstate Commerce Commission. It is an important political science
Speaker 2: point that it was constitutional. Now I think it's weak.
Speaker 2: I think i'd be on your side. However, our late
Speaker 2: friend John Weddergreen made the point that those old commissions,
Speaker 2: the ICC, the Federal Trade Commission, the Food and certain
Speaker 2: other ones you can name the Securities Exchange Commission. They
Speaker 2: always had the five members, but they had to be,
Speaker 2: you know, three from the majority party, two for the
Speaker 2: minority party. What those commissions did was replicate on the
Speaker 2: administrative level the partisan split in Congress in between the
Speaker 2: two parties, so they would fight about things. Then you
Speaker 2: get to the sixties and you get now the EPA
Speaker 2: with the administrator and and and the Consumer product, the
Speaker 2: Consumer Protection and Financial whatever the hell thing the thing
Speaker 2: is right CFPB. The CFPB, the new model was much
Speaker 2: more centralized, did not replicate albeit defective but still deliberative
Speaker 2: body h whose actions and regulations could be appealed through
Speaker 2: the defective Administrator Procedure Act. And so anyway, I think
Speaker 2: you can start unraveling these I don't think you're geting
Speaker 2: a Supreme Court to appoint you to the court, because
Speaker 2: that would terrify the whole universe lucretia if you were
Speaker 2: on the court. But I think you might work back the.
Speaker 4: Kid whose name I won't mention, the savantin do.
Speaker 1: I won't.
Speaker 2: Well, that's not the guy who got rehired. We'll come
Speaker 2: back to that later. I hope.
Speaker 4: Well he never got fired, but he's getting a lot
Speaker 4: of bad press because you know, Okayonis, I'll say it
Speaker 4: like that, that's his handle.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's that way.
Speaker 4: So yeah, come on, this is a whole new era, Steve.
Speaker 4: We're not pussy footing around at the margins anymore.
Speaker 2: Well, I agree, I agree, and.
Speaker 4: I think that this is that the court oughtite say.
Speaker 4: It doesn't matter that you you said it yourself. Independent
Speaker 4: agencies and oxymoron, but not more than that. We don't
Speaker 4: want an independent agency. We have to get over that
Speaker 4: stupid progressive idea that because someone has some expertise in
Speaker 4: some discipline, some area of policy, that they somehow can
Speaker 4: be totally public spirited and never self interested or partisan.
Speaker 4: That's why we have Congress. We don't want independent agencies,
Speaker 4: quasi agency, judicial agencies, et cetera, et cetera. Get rid
Speaker 4: of them all.
Speaker 2: Can I just add that for the street fighting that
Speaker 2: you need for this battle. Look, it was near dear
Speaker 2: to me because of my past life. Trump has fired
Speaker 2: the science advisory boards, all of them at the EPA.
Speaker 2: That's something that during the Bush years we were yelling
Speaker 2: about and they didn't do it. Okay, so that's not
Speaker 2: getting a lot of press except for you know, wonky
Speaker 2: nerds like me.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you also saw this, but just
Speaker 1: just a few hours ago, Trump said he's going to
Speaker 1: fire the entire board of the Kennedy Center, and to
Speaker 1: point himself is the chair of the board.
Speaker 4: And by the way, Christopher Scalia came out and said,
Speaker 4: why is it that presidents always want to take things
Speaker 4: too far? Something along those lines. He got racial so bad.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure. I know, Christopher, you do too, John,
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if he meant that literally. I think
Speaker 2: he might have been making a joke there. I mean,
Speaker 2: he might have been being I wrong.
Speaker 4: It was not written in any way that looked like sarcasm.
Speaker 2: And again, yeah, okay, I'm.
Speaker 1: Just trying to imagine the kind of Atlantic City esque
Speaker 1: acts are going to be in the Kenny Center. Now,
Speaker 1: I'll just.
Speaker 2: Mention that Christopher is a frequent listener of this podcast,
Speaker 2: I know, and.
Speaker 4: I like him very much, but he's wrong on this one.
Speaker 4: If he was being sarcastic, he was a little too subtle.
Speaker 2: About it.
Speaker 1: I will say that I didn't read Chris's tweet, but
Speaker 1: what I would read him to say is why does
Speaker 1: a president give a ratsass about the Kennedy Center. It's
Speaker 1: a lot more important things, well the same reason.
Speaker 4: It's the same reason that he's doing things. Like I
Speaker 4: talked to you guys beforehand, all the forms across the
Speaker 4: DoD are going to be changed, the forms that you
Speaker 4: fill out, and you know, whatever information you're giving. But
Speaker 4: when it asks, the usual question these days is gender,
Speaker 4: and for the most part, DOOD forms at least until
Speaker 4: very recently, just gave you male and female now. But
Speaker 4: not only did they change it to simply male and female,
Speaker 4: but they changed the word gender and replaced it back
Speaker 4: with sex. And that means they understand the importance of
Speaker 4: stopping this manipulation of language that always benefits the left.
Speaker 4: And Trump understands that the Kennedy Center gets federal money,
Speaker 4: et cetera, et cetera. And what do they do they
Speaker 4: should they have, you know, drag shows and on and on.
Speaker 4: So I'm all in favor of it.
Speaker 2: Well, actually I went when I lived in Washington, I
Speaker 2: used to go to some of the operas at Kennedy Center,
Speaker 2: and too many of these more.
Speaker 4: Lived in Washington two decades ago, Steve.
Speaker 2: I know, but I would go to the Kennedy Center
Speaker 2: and they would have these modernist operas like that awful
Speaker 2: one we saw in Milan a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2: But here's the broader point, John, is our team has
Speaker 2: been fighting the culture wars for decades with one hand
Speaker 2: tied behind our back. And so Trump now is saying,
Speaker 2: you know what, We're going to fight a culture war.
Speaker 2: It's going to be total war. And I love the
Speaker 2: idea that you're going to fire the Kennedy Center board
Speaker 2: because that's really going to upset some people more than
Speaker 2: I don't know, putting in Jason Schubau at a National
Speaker 2: Dawmage for the arts, and I think, I look, I'm
Speaker 2: quite certain that Christopher Scillia understands this, because remember his
Speaker 2: dad's great comments on culture in some of his descents,
Speaker 2: in so many of those great culture war cases of
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court. And if not, then will beat him
Speaker 2: up any lunch.
Speaker 1: But I think Lucretia is just happy about it, because
Speaker 1: apparently President Biden had to point to Carene Jean Pierre
Speaker 1: to the board members as well, as the wife of
Speaker 1: former Secretary State Anthony Blincoln. So I think this is
Speaker 1: just Lucretia being vengeful. No, she's never avengeful. And we
Speaker 1: have to take we have to take another before we
Speaker 1: have to take another break in the moment, and then
Speaker 1: when we come back, we will return to Lucretia after
Speaker 1: these messages. Lucretia had a heartwarming message for us before
Speaker 1: I went to the break, but I cut her off.
Speaker 4: Lucretia, Yeah, and you were right to cut me off.
Speaker 4: I talk too much. But a heart attribution for all
Speaker 4: of our enemies. I have a simple Bible verse for
Speaker 4: all everyone tonight, for you to memorize forever. Vengeance is
Speaker 4: mine saith the Lord, and I'm just here to do
Speaker 4: the Lord's work.
Speaker 1: See, you missed the best the better line, which is
Speaker 1: from Star Trek, which Steve knows, which is Star Trek,
Speaker 1: which is vengeance is a dish best served, which sounds
Speaker 1: even better. No, yeah, well no, you killed this again,
Speaker 1: you say, But it sounds so much better in the
Speaker 1: original Klingon then, but then there's a need. There's an
Speaker 1: even better one, which is from the Sopranos, which is
Speaker 1: where one of the dumber you know, mafia guys goes hey,
Speaker 1: isn't there some story like vengeance is like a cold
Speaker 1: meat plate?
Speaker 2: You were mixing up two different stars Star Trek movies.
Speaker 1: But that's okay, all right there, It's all one big
Speaker 1: movie in my mind. Okay, Let's go to issue number three,
Speaker 1: which actually something I wrote about today in National Review
Speaker 1: but people are much talking about it, which is, can
Speaker 1: the present cident freeze all spending? President Trump basically ordered
Speaker 1: all non mandatory spending, which by which I believe he
Speaker 1: meant spending that's not Social security, spending that's not medicare medicated,
Speaker 1: that's not entitlement based, but all discretionary spending to be
Speaker 1: halted frozen temporarily. After being attacked, the memo ordering the
Speaker 1: freeze was repealed, but then the White House pre secretary said, nevertheless,
Speaker 1: the freeze is in place, where upon a federal district
Speaker 1: judge used that as the grounds to try to enjoin
Speaker 1: the White House and force it to spend money, but
Speaker 1: raise a whole question does a president have what's used
Speaker 1: to be called the impowment authority, which presidents had exercised
Speaker 1: up through until President Nixon. President Nixon tried to reduce
Speaker 1: spending across the federal budget for inflation reason to reduce
Speaker 1: federal spanning to get inflation down, Congress passed thing called
Speaker 1: the Budget Empowerment Control Act forbidding presidents from doing this.
Speaker 1: Presidents generally have obeyed until now, until Donald Trump showed
Speaker 1: up and said, I do have an impoundment authority if
Speaker 1: some kind Steve, why don't we go to you first,
Speaker 1: since you are a lover of all things Nixon and
Speaker 1: Carter and Ford?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: What do you think about Trump's claim that there is
Speaker 1: indeed an impowerment authority and the suggestion of his aide
Speaker 1: like the head of omb Russ vote vote I think
Speaker 1: is pronounced. He was just void last night. Who thinks
Speaker 1: that the Budget and Empowerment Control Act is actually unconstitutional? Yeah?
Speaker 2: So, so, first of all, I do want to correct
Speaker 2: you on a small point. It's not that small. Nixon
Speaker 2: wasn't impounding money for inflation purposes. He was impounding money
Speaker 2: because he was serious about getting control of the bureaucracy. Uh,
Speaker 2: and finding inflation was just a gravy. Now look, uh,
Speaker 2: look impalment as you know, I mean, you've written about this.
Speaker 2: It goes back to Jefferson, I pounding money appropriated for
Speaker 2: Navy ships that he said we didn't need because the
Speaker 2: French weren't going to go to war with us after all. Right,
Speaker 2: Now here's the thing. There's a whole it's sort of
Speaker 2: John Marine is so brilliant. What's going on with the
Speaker 2: AID money. What happens is Congress appropriates a bunch of money,
Speaker 2: it gives us to AID and other government agencies and said,
Speaker 2: you guys decide how to spend it for these general purposes.
Speaker 2: And it seems to me it's entirely within the president's
Speaker 2: constitutional preocative to say, no, we're going to stop those. Now.
Speaker 2: In the Reagan years, I know this happened a lot. Oh,
Speaker 2: and these things all the way, by the way, they
Speaker 2: had these advisory boards and all these review processes, and
Speaker 2: that grant applications. It's an insider game, and these things
Speaker 2: take two three years sometimes in their grant cycles. And
Speaker 2: it often happened where Reagan would read in human Events,
Speaker 2: the Department of Education had given money for what was
Speaker 2: the version the eighties equivalent of some transgender play in Ireland,
Speaker 2: which was, you know, a real thing happened right under aid.
Speaker 2: And he'd say, are we really doing this? And he'd
Speaker 2: call up Bill Bennett, and Bill Bennet said, oh my god,
Speaker 2: we really are doing this. It's too late to stop it.
Speaker 2: The money's committed as a legal problem all the rest
Speaker 2: of this, and Trump, with his total district art of convention,
Speaker 2: said the hell with that, and I'm all for it.
Speaker 2: The broader question you raised is was the budget impoundment
Speaker 2: and control that unconstitutional? I think it will depend on
Speaker 2: whether it is sort of mandated spending like defense, Although
Speaker 2: even defense, I think you have lots of discretion to say,
Speaker 2: if lockeat or Bowling is ripping us off on a plane,
Speaker 2: we can withhold the money and so forth. So I
Speaker 2: think there's a lot more room for presidents to exert
Speaker 2: their executive authority on spending. And you know, good for
Speaker 2: Trump to whether he thinks of it as a constitutional
Speaker 2: challenge or just this is common sense. I'm all for it,
Speaker 2: and I'm not sure what the outcome will be.
Speaker 4: You have credit, John, because going after usaid we even
Speaker 4: talked about this briefly before, and it actually all happened
Speaker 4: last week. I said he was going to keep it
Speaker 4: up no matter what. On USA. I d because of
Speaker 4: course it's so egregious. The expenditures in recent years. And
Speaker 4: you know, to some extent. I heard somebody talking today
Speaker 4: that the you know, it was in fact, at some
Speaker 4: point used for more what we might call right wing causes,
Speaker 4: and USI aid, was smart enough to figure out, you know,
Speaker 4: supposedly helping dictators and things like that, and that you know,
Speaker 4: bringing in all this transgender stuff got the left to
Speaker 4: go along with that. I actually think it's more like
Speaker 4: the money laundering part. But I'll leave that brilliant to
Speaker 4: go after them, right because other than Maxine Waters, as
Speaker 4: Trump called her today, a real low life, I love it. God,
Speaker 4: I love that true. Who else is going to get
Speaker 4: up there and scream that somehow Elon musk Is is
Speaker 4: you know, a dictator because he's stopping payments for turning
Speaker 4: Guatemalans into transgenders. And you know, god, I didn't even
Speaker 4: know repeat it. Everybody's heard it, But how brilliant because
Speaker 4: it set it. I mean, it actually changed the conversation
Speaker 4: entirely and forced the idiot Democrats who are already reeling
Speaker 4: and you know, chasing every little thing they can. They
Speaker 4: don't even know what to do about it. So there
Speaker 4: they are out there screaming, we have to keep spending
Speaker 4: money on all these great things that you Samantha Powers.
Speaker 1: Oh, we're gonna you.
Speaker 4: Know, dictators are going to take over the world now
Speaker 4: because we're no longer giving money to African countries to
Speaker 4: advance their pronoun usage.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Look, look, if AID had they said it was used
Speaker 2: for some right wing causes. John and if I if
Speaker 2: I learned an AID had supplied helicopters to Pinechet, then
Speaker 2: I warm up to them a little more off to that.
Speaker 2: But I don't think so. Look, but here's the point,
Speaker 2: by the way, is the defense of the Democrats right
Speaker 2: now was well, really, it's such a tiny amount of money,
Speaker 2: and it's not about the money. And it put it
Speaker 2: this way.
Speaker 4: If you don't call brit Hume said the same thing.
Speaker 2: What's not it's not a lot of money.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's Forney.
Speaker 2: Well but but but these things are singling out is
Speaker 2: not much money. It's not about the money, about the money.
Speaker 2: The point is if you took these as a list
Speaker 2: of all these crazy grants and put them to the
Speaker 2: vote of the American people, they would lose seventy five
Speaker 2: to twenty five. How democratic is that? Threats to democracy?
Speaker 2: These crazy people say, these systems are set up precisely
Speaker 2: to avoid public knowledge and public scrutiny, and it's laundering
Speaker 2: money to leftist groups. This has been known for a
Speaker 2: long time. I mean, Grover Northquest thirty years ago is saying,
Speaker 2: we've got to figure out a way to stop the
Speaker 2: government from funding the left. And you know, you're you're
Speaker 2: conventional the boushoisi as I used to call them. They
Speaker 2: never figured this out and never took it seriously.
Speaker 4: I'm much more radical about that than you are. Let's
Speaker 4: just take I know it's hard to believe Bill Crystal
Speaker 4: as an example. It came out because Bill Crystal came
Speaker 4: out and said, ah, I prefer the deep state to Trump,
Speaker 4: and immediately some clever reporter or investigator points out that
Speaker 4: through a whole series of basically shell companies, starting with
Speaker 4: some philanthropy that got a bunch of money, millions of
Speaker 4: dollars from usai D, Bill Crystal's what is it again,
Speaker 4: defending democracy now or us that we did whatever the
Speaker 4: stupid thing is, which has done nothing, but millions have
Speaker 4: been channeled into Bill Crystal's pocket through usai D through
Speaker 4: this and you can see it on the internet everywhere.
Speaker 4: Through the different shell companies and so on where he
Speaker 4: got his money, and so you know they don't get
Speaker 4: more Bushwazi than Bill.
Speaker 1: Crall I have, I have. I have no idea whether
Speaker 1: that's true. But when Bill Crystal files his first amendment
Speaker 1: his defamation lawsuit, make sure you only put down Lucretia
Speaker 1: as a defendant. And that means because I don't actually
Speaker 1: know what you're talking about. But well, I want to
Speaker 1: ask you the harder question which is raised by what
Speaker 1: you're talking about, which is, let's keep it on USA
Speaker 1: I D. Can Trump not only say I'm not going
Speaker 1: to spend the money, but I'm going to close the
Speaker 1: agency on my own right? The USA i D originally
Speaker 1: was created by an executive order under John F. Kennedy,
Speaker 1: but then in Congress passed the statute creating it or
Speaker 1: establishing it. So it's a it's an agency created by Congress.
Speaker 1: Congress sets out the number of employees, gives it a budget,
Speaker 1: tells it what to do. Can a president actually just
Speaker 1: say as appears Trump has said, or is it in
Speaker 1: the process doing it? I have the power to close
Speaker 1: an agency without Congress's approval.
Speaker 4: One would think that if you take seriously article two
Speaker 4: that absolutely, yes, absolutely.
Speaker 1: Oh so, well, because the law says that agency, the
Speaker 1: president executes the law. The agency is created by Congress,
Speaker 1: it's told to have a mission, and there's personnel, and
Speaker 1: so we could have argument about well, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to spend money that's wasteful, or but can the president
Speaker 1: say I'm going to spend zero.
Speaker 2: So you know, John, you're punking us again like you
Speaker 2: do on natural law and positivism. I can't believe that you,
Speaker 2: the defender of executive power, is raising this question. I
Speaker 2: mean I can but look forget the sort of you know,
Speaker 2: the sort of transgender play san gender opera in Ireland.
Speaker 2: It ought to be. Well, I'm calling for a separation
Speaker 2: of media and state. Remember when Rush Limbaugh used to
Speaker 2: talk about the state run media. Turned out it was
Speaker 2: literally right. So here's from the Columbia Journalism Review this week,
Speaker 2: which is, you know, the Columbia School of Journalism is
Speaker 2: a very left wing uh.
Speaker 1: The trade publication for journalists.
Speaker 2: Yeah right. The Columbia Journalism Review has looked through this
Speaker 2: and they their numbers are unbelievable. AID grants have supported
Speaker 2: over six thousand journalists seven hundred news outlets and then
Speaker 2: two hundred and seventy nine of what they describe as
Speaker 2: media sector civil society organizations, which means leftists in thirty countries.
Speaker 2: If that, if the fact that there's so much The
Speaker 2: BBC admitted this week they got eight percent of the
Speaker 2: revenue the last two years from US AID the freaking BBC.
Speaker 1: Really we'rezing the BBC.
Speaker 2: We are subsidizing the BBC after making the British taxpayers
Speaker 2: do it by compulsion. If that to the of millions, yeah,
Speaker 2: but oh yes, correct, I mean, but but but look,
Speaker 2: if that John does not fall under the president's authority
Speaker 2: to be the sole organ let's go back to uh,
Speaker 2: you know, the new deal case as I'm blanking on
Speaker 2: that doesn't fall in the.
Speaker 1: Presidence, right, Curtis right? In case Curtis right, it's Curtis right,
Speaker 1: is blanking on it.
Speaker 2: If that wasn't If this isn't under the president's authority
Speaker 2: on foreign policy, I don't know what it is.
Speaker 1: You see. I'm with you guys on there on this one.
Speaker 1: Because it does try to force a certain foreign policy
Speaker 1: and national security on the president. What if it was
Speaker 1: something solely domestic without any foreign policy. Suppose it was
Speaker 1: the EPA ste Steve's favorite agency because it administers those
Speaker 1: unnamed all powerful statutes. But suppose President Trump said, you know,
Speaker 1: this environmentalism is out of control, This climate change is
Speaker 1: out of control, global warming is out of control. So
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna tell the EPA to stop doing anything
Speaker 1: and just to close. You're farming the country.
Speaker 4: The executive power, the executive not some of the executive power,
Speaker 4: not a little bit, not domestic versus foreign. The executive
Speaker 4: power show invested in a president of the United States. Why,
Speaker 4: because that's the person you can hold accountable. How do
Speaker 4: you hold the EPA accountable right now?
Speaker 1: You don't.
Speaker 4: I mean you don't. How do you hold the sec accountable?
Speaker 4: You don't, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, until and
Speaker 4: remember Obama, Oh abominable, gets up there and says, oh,
Speaker 4: I really didn't have anything to do with that. That
Speaker 4: was just the irs. Oh I didn't really know anything
Speaker 4: about it till I read it in the newspaper. The
Speaker 4: idea that we even accept such a ridiculous, ridiculous, ludicrous
Speaker 4: concept from that idiot. We need to re educate people.
Speaker 4: I'm okay with the president doing all of these things,
Speaker 4: hold him accountable. You know, hold Trump accountable for what
Speaker 4: he's doing. Make his case to the American people that
Speaker 4: the American people judge. Right now, the American people are
Speaker 4: pretty damn happy with what Trump is doing.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: The biggest thing trending on X that you are not
Speaker 4: a part of, John and should be is, Yes, this
Speaker 4: is what I voted for. This is exactly what I
Speaker 4: voted for. This is exactly what I voted for. Elon
Speaker 4: Musk is exactly what I voted for. On and on
Speaker 4: and No, that's how it's supposed to work. It's not
Speaker 4: supposed to be some nambypmb SEC making this decision and
Speaker 4: blah blah blah. We can't figure out who to blame.
Speaker 4: That's the whole point. You hold him accountable for those decisions.
Speaker 2: Well, so, John, I will not talk about the problems
Speaker 2: of the EPA because it would evolve those statutes we
Speaker 2: can't name. But I'll just say this briefly about it
Speaker 2: was ten years ago now, I had an article on
Speaker 2: the Wall Street Journal where I said the EPA should
Speaker 2: be changed into a commission like the old ICC or FTC,
Speaker 2: with five commissioners, so it operated like the original model
Speaker 2: of Regula okay, now had no way. You know, Wedergreen
Speaker 2: used to forget the argument about that model the point
Speaker 2: as they were flooded with letters and I got a
Speaker 2: million tweets and stuff saying that would cripple the EPA,
Speaker 2: And of course my answer was precisely good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, good, well, thank you. See we have believe it
Speaker 1: or not. One more ad break and so we'll be
Speaker 1: right back after these messages. As you can all tell.
Speaker 1: Being an immigrant, as Lucretia pointed out, we get things done.
Speaker 1: And so we're way ahead of game plan. We've run
Speaker 1: out of all the issues that I wanted to talk about,
Speaker 1: and we still have fifteen minutes left in this show.
Speaker 1: This is why, you know, as watching Asian comedian there
Speaker 1: are some on Netflix. I have to say he wasn't
Speaker 1: very funny, but one thing he did say was we
Speaker 1: could solve all the government's problems just by letting Asians
Speaker 1: run the government, and then everything would be like the
Speaker 1: podcast episode today, we'd be fifteen.
Speaker 4: Minutes early, so and a lot by the way, and so.
Speaker 1: And and and everybody got to vent. So the last
Speaker 1: issue I've come up with is not really an issue
Speaker 1: at all. But I wanted to ask Lucretia and Steve,
Speaker 1: what to you was the story of the week that
Speaker 1: we haven't talked about yet? What is a big thing
Speaker 1: that caught your attention this week? It has been a
Speaker 1: delusive issues from Trump these last two weeks. Actually, I
Speaker 1: think we've done a really good job in the last
Speaker 1: two episodes covering the important a lot of the important changes.
Speaker 1: So Steve, why don't you tell us what is the
Speaker 1: big issue for you of the week? Well, okay then,
Speaker 1: and then Lucretia will mock you for yeah, but ahead.
Speaker 2: Of course, well that's your job. Look, I think there's
Speaker 2: a story here late in the week. There's a story
Speaker 2: late in the week, and then an important subtext to it.
Speaker 2: The story was that there was one of these young
Speaker 2: guys that mus Get brought in as part of his
Speaker 2: doge team, and lo and behold in his past. A
Speaker 2: few years ago he put some really you know, edgy
Speaker 2: provocative twet by the way, very much in line with
Speaker 2: what a lot of young men are saying. And he
Speaker 2: said I was a racist before it was cool, and
Speaker 2: some other stuff. Now, he had taken them down quite
Speaker 2: a while ago, but of course, everything on the internet
Speaker 2: lasts forever. In the way back machine, and some reporter
Speaker 2: who's a left winger at the Wall Street Journal news
Speaker 2: pages found this, and so they fired him. But in
Speaker 2: less than twenty four hours J. D. Vancenothers said, hey,
Speaker 2: wait a minute, I thought we were done with this,
Speaker 2: and he has been rehired as of the end of
Speaker 2: the week. And so, in other words, it's sort of over.
Speaker 2: And of course my coda to this is, and I
Speaker 2: actually I'm serious about this. We will know that wokeism
Speaker 2: is over when blazing saddles can be shown on a
Speaker 2: college campus, which you know you couldn't do. Right now,
Speaker 2: there's a subtext here, and I was telling Lucretia this
Speaker 2: before we got on. I noticed this week, and I've
Speaker 2: been seeing this for a while, but today there was
Speaker 2: one particular person. There's now a community of sort of
Speaker 2: eminent conservative thinkers friends of ours who have been intransitently
Speaker 2: anti Trump for ten years, and by degrees some of
Speaker 2: them have come around to defending him and then acknowledging,
Speaker 2: you know what, only Trump could do this, only next
Speaker 2: to go to China. Only Trump could defeat wokism by,
Speaker 2: as I said earlier, fighting the culture war for real.
Speaker 2: And there's one person in particular, and I'm not going
Speaker 2: to name his name because he's actually hasn't been very
Speaker 2: public about his dislike of Trump, but I knew privately
Speaker 2: he was, and he said on social media for the
Speaker 2: first time in decades, I'm optimistic about the future of
Speaker 2: the country and rooting for Trump. And so now all
Speaker 2: the only people who left are people like Bill Crystal
Speaker 2: and you know, these crazy people who are.
Speaker 1: Forty nine percent of the country well against the country.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I'm thinking, but I'm thinking of people in
Speaker 2: our camp. I mean, I'm thinking for the names that
Speaker 2: if I mentioned your people, you know that our listeners
Speaker 2: would know, and I don't, you know, I don't want
Speaker 2: to be embarrassing them for because I look, I look,
Speaker 2: I was an anti Trumper ten years ago, right, and
Speaker 2: I think I came around quicker than most.
Speaker 1: But now when I actually Steve Can, I ask you,
Speaker 1: did you contribute a peace to the infamous Trump issue
Speaker 1: of the National Review?
Speaker 4: I did.
Speaker 2: And the funny thing was is they asked me for
Speaker 2: three They asked me for three hundred words, and I
Speaker 2: only turned down one hundred and fifty and every one
Speaker 2: of them was wrong, including including and and the But.
Speaker 1: But Okay, I'm gonna those who don't get that, isn't
Speaker 1: that what Dorothy Parker Parker, Yes, yes, that's Hellman.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, he did shortly thereafter. So that was what
Speaker 4: July maybe that National.
Speaker 2: It was it was February of twenty sixteen, so it
Speaker 2: was very early in the.
Speaker 1: Problem, very early.
Speaker 4: I didn't realize it was that early. But in October
Speaker 4: of twenty sixteen, Steve wrote what I think was probably
Speaker 4: the most prescient, uh piece for the Weekly Standard of
Speaker 4: all places, about Trump and one of the things, and
Speaker 4: what he said about Trump has turned out to be
Speaker 4: truer in twenty twenty what are we twenty twenty five?
Speaker 4: Then it was even in twenty sixteen, and that is
Speaker 4: that Trump was successful because he refused to play by
Speaker 4: the left's rules. And as I recall, Steve, you even
Speaker 4: quoted Ted Cruse saying we have to use the language
Speaker 4: of the left, and Trump refuses to do it. And
Speaker 4: so so that being said, my story of the weed.
Speaker 2: Well, I can I just sorry, Well, I know, but
Speaker 2: I want to add a footnote to your comment about
Speaker 2: the Weekly Standard article which was middle of October of
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen, and of course the mynsterpiece.
Speaker 4: I still have that edition.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, good for you, because it doesn't exist anymore
Speaker 2: excepted never mind, but I wrote that before John Marini
Speaker 2: and Michael Antonas and the other people said hey, wait
Speaker 2: a minute, look at this Trump guy. There's something going
Speaker 2: on here. But the funny thing was I sent that
Speaker 2: article in and you know, Bill, look at that. I
Speaker 2: got on with Bill. You know, it's been a Palati
Speaker 2: agreed to run the article. Many of the editors wanted
Speaker 2: it to be the cover story, and he said no.
Speaker 2: They ran a cover story on NFL referees that week,
Speaker 2: So there you go.
Speaker 1: I have to say I still live on I hope,
Speaker 1: in Claremont history because I remember back in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: I was shocked, actually that my fete, you know, highly
Speaker 1: educated Claremont friends who kind of ignore politics and want
Speaker 1: to talk about Aristotle all the time, we're supporting Trump.
Speaker 4: I quickly it's a whole episode by itself.
Speaker 1: I will have to have that because I don't understand that.
Speaker 4: But yeah, we can do that.
Speaker 1: Though. One of my Claremont vnders reminding me that I
Speaker 1: the New York Times did a story about this, like,
Speaker 1: why are these people supporting Trump, and they quoted me,
Speaker 1: quoting me when I found out because I took a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of Claremont people to a famous Philadelphia Italian
Speaker 1: restaurant when I learned, because we were in Philadelphia for
Speaker 1: a political science meeting, and I said something like, when
Speaker 1: I learned this, I spat my fine Sicilian food all
Speaker 1: over my shoes because I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 2: Right, right, right, Yeah, what.
Speaker 1: Is your story of the week.
Speaker 4: My story of the week is the the full on attack,
Speaker 4: full frontal attack on DEI and the the terror that
Speaker 4: it is putting into university officials. I think I sent
Speaker 4: you guys from a university in my neighborhood, the confidential
Speaker 4: from the lawyers. I've got to be careful here about
Speaker 4: how we are supposed to dig through our entire college.
Speaker 4: I am supposed to provide a list of every position
Speaker 4: that has DEI in its title, in its not partially
Speaker 4: in its job description, every at activity, every student group,
Speaker 4: every course, every bit of curriculum, every accrediting body that
Speaker 4: demands any kind of sorry, it's DEIA. So it's also accessibility,
Speaker 4: which is interesting to add that to the mix, because
Speaker 4: that almost puts the entire you know, what do we
Speaker 4: call it at my university, the Disabilities Resource Center where
Speaker 4: they force us to do jump through all these hoops
Speaker 4: for students who have you know, neurodivergencees and so on.
Speaker 4: So accessibility brings in something else. But they told us
Speaker 4: to think about it broadly. They're trying to figure out
Speaker 4: what they have to get rid of and what they don't,
Speaker 4: And go ahead, please that.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to follow up on Lucretia's point without
Speaker 1: naming any universities, departments or friends or teachers. I shared
Speaker 1: with Steven Lucretian email that I received from a faculty
Speaker 1: somewhere in the country saying we have to have an
Speaker 1: emergency faculty meeting so that we can discuss the slide
Speaker 1: into autocracy and what we can do about it. I mean,
Speaker 1: and so I wondered how many of these faculty meetings
Speaker 1: on this subject they're going on this week all around
Speaker 1: the country. You know what Trump panic, that's that's been triggered.
Speaker 2: You know what Trump want to do? If what he
Speaker 2: wants to blow up the campuses to say, you know,
Speaker 2: I think it's time for us to go back to Vietnam.
Speaker 2: That would be so much fun.
Speaker 1: In the South China Sea. I mean we could go
Speaker 1: back and develop it, find it cam make for great conduct.
Speaker 4: Vietnam free Gaza I I. I will say that there
Speaker 4: are lots of different avenues because Trump is willing to
Speaker 4: use them that he can use against it. The last
Speaker 4: thing I got just an hour or so ago was
Speaker 4: a panicky email from a fellow dean who said, who
Speaker 4: sent me a story about ni H reducing their indirect
Speaker 4: costs to no more than fifteen percent. Now, for just
Speaker 4: in case there's people out there, if you get a
Speaker 4: grant from the National Institute for Health, you have something
Speaker 4: called indirect costs that is overhead overhead overhead basically that
Speaker 4: goes directly to the university because you're doing this business,
Speaker 4: so you know, they got to pay for the lights
Speaker 4: and things like that. Most recently a university near me
Speaker 4: who which we won't name, their indirect cost rate was
Speaker 4: fifty three percent, which means that every grant that you
Speaker 4: do just to get what you need done or pay
Speaker 4: the salaries or so on, you just had forty seven
Speaker 4: percent to spend and the rest of it went to
Speaker 4: the university. That's why all of these woke progressive administrators
Speaker 4: at universities are panicking because if Trump makes good on
Speaker 4: his promise to stop all of these grants that have
Speaker 4: anything to do with DEI, they're going to go broke.
Speaker 1: They're going to go Actually, Trump could probably go farther
Speaker 1: and say he will just cut off all federal funding
Speaker 1: to any university that uses race in any way, and
Speaker 1: so it'll go well beyond the feet, it'll just go
Speaker 1: to a.
Speaker 4: Federal funding those grants, you know.
Speaker 1: But I'm just gonna get everything student loans, any kind
Speaker 1: of federal dollar that could end up that the university
Speaker 1: could be cut off completely. I mean, that's I think
Speaker 1: the next executive order he's going to issue after a
Speaker 1: few weeks.
Speaker 4: And I'm sorry, go ahead, keep ahead.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean our pal Jay Batacharia, I'm not sure
Speaker 2: if he's installed, get it in an age. I'm not
Speaker 2: clearing all that night.
Speaker 1: I think he has to still have confirmation hearing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, Well, if he will, he will sail through
Speaker 2: those I think. Look, he's been saying he's going to
Speaker 2: condition grants possibly on you know, free speech policies and
Speaker 2: diversity and some other things. But the overhead question is
Speaker 2: separate from that. I mean, yeah, nih grants have always
Speaker 2: been They've always taken a big hair cut for adminuted
Speaker 2: overhead administration, right, and I think everyone's understood that was
Speaker 2: part of the game, and those grants were probably padded
Speaker 2: for that. That's why universities, of course, you have.
Speaker 4: To write them that way or you can't do it.
Speaker 1: Okay, I fear that if we're talking about university oversight charges. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we really lost the audience and they were only down
Speaker 1: to the last few Straussian PhD candidates who have yet
Speaker 1: to get their degree are now left listening. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: so let me bring it to a conclusion.
Speaker 4: Lucretia, I just wanted to say, I was just driving home.
Speaker 4: I was listening to some news. I was driving long
Speaker 4: ways today and Trump was taking questions as always I
Speaker 4: think with the Japanese Prime minister, h is what it was.
Speaker 4: And some Afghan reporter uh asked him a question, and
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm driving in the cars coming over the radio.
Speaker 4: I couldn't understand what he said. But she he says,
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, I didn't understand a word you just said.
Speaker 4: And he says, where are you from? And she said Afghan.
Speaker 4: He says, well, he says, that's a beautiful place. He says,
Speaker 4: I can't understand a word you're saying. You have a
Speaker 4: lovely voice, and I wish you peace. And then he
Speaker 4: moved on, and I thought maybe that should pierce.
Speaker 2: That's good.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, Babylon b. Uh, there's so many I'm gonna
Speaker 4: since we talked to I'm gonna do a few USAID
Speaker 4: ones World Sorry, World Health Organization, Warrens. Trump funding cuts
Speaker 4: made these delay release of new pandemic. Sorry, that wasn't
Speaker 4: the USA. I get the point, same difference, Uh, in
Speaker 4: keeping with the money that was going to journalists, journalism,
Speaker 4: Babylon B. There was a big thing all week long
Speaker 4: about they were really disappointed. If they'd have known that
Speaker 4: they could have gotten million millions of dollars from the
Speaker 4: federal government, the Babylon B. If they'd have just told
Speaker 4: the government, line would have been happy to do it.
Speaker 4: Babylon B announces thirty six thousand dollars a month pro
Speaker 4: subscription for USAID funded government agencies. I guess you since
Speaker 4: you didn't know about it, John, you probably don't think
Speaker 4: that's funny.
Speaker 2: But I do.
Speaker 4: Democrats delay cash PTEL vote as FBI hasn't finished shredding
Speaker 4: all their documents. One of my personal favorites. All Senate
Speaker 4: confirmation votes delayed until Mitch McConnell unfreezes again.
Speaker 1: Ooh that's nice, love it. That's yeah, it's true.
Speaker 4: What a stumback Democrats are sure Americans the millions in
Speaker 4: usaid they gave Hamas was just for gay stuff. Sorry,
Speaker 4: this will be my last one, I promise, UH country
Speaker 4: with record illiteracy, worried what will happen if education system reformed?
Speaker 4: And it's a picture of that low life Maxine Waters
Speaker 4: screaming at the poor security guard that wasn't going to
Speaker 4: let her into the Department of Education today. So that's
Speaker 4: the end. There's many more, and the Babylon B must
Speaker 4: just be having the time of their lives.
Speaker 1: I actually, if one thing people may not have caught
Speaker 1: in all the many changes is that Trump is going
Speaker 1: to start allowing non conventional journalists into the White House
Speaker 1: Press briefing room. And I believe the Babylon B has
Speaker 1: filed for credentials to be I mean, imagine if they
Speaker 1: get a reporter in there and they get to ask
Speaker 1: questions that would be unbelievable. So our sign off always
Speaker 1: drink your whiskey. Meet and Steve.
Speaker 2: You know, I'll just mention that in twenty twenty, Trump
Speaker 2: gave a shout out to power Line and had Scott
Speaker 2: Johnson up on the stage with him. Said, power Line
Speaker 2: does always great job on iilhan omer and stuff, so
Speaker 2: we might want to apply for it. Yeah he did.
Speaker 2: And the other problem is, you know, I had a
Speaker 2: sign off last week. I don't remember, and I got nothing.
Speaker 2: I got, I got five years.
Speaker 1: I don't care something. Margaret, Oh, that's right, it was
Speaker 1: the agent fans.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, frankly, Margaret.
Speaker 2: Frankly, Margaret, I don't give a damn Bye bye everybody.
Speaker 2: We'll see you next week.
Speaker 3: Bye.
Speaker 2: Ricochet. Join the conversation.