Latest / The Oath and The Office / Report the News, Risk Deportation? Stanford Students Take On Trump

Transcript

Report the News, Risk Deportation? Stanford Students Take On Trump · The Oath and The Office

0:11
Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of The Oath and the Office,
0:13
Speaker 1: where the Constitution is supposed to be the rulebook and
0:16
Speaker 1: the president is supposed to follow it. And apparently America's
0:19
Speaker 1: government has decided the rule of law is more of
0:22
Speaker 1: a decorative throw pillow. Folks, let me introduce the star
0:25
Speaker 1: of our show, the author of The Oath and the
0:28
Speaker 1: Office and the presidents of the people, the pride of
0:30
Speaker 1: the Poli Sci Department at Brown University, Professor Corey Brettschneider.
0:33
Speaker 1: Good to see you, sir.
0:35
Speaker 2: Thanks so much, John. Yeah, decorative throat pillow. I love it.
0:38
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, I don't love what's happening to the rule of law.
0:41
Speaker 3: That's a good description that it really is being torn up.
0:44
Speaker 3: And the cases that we're going to talk about today
0:47
Speaker 3: illustrate that fact. They really are about the question of
0:50
Speaker 3: whether or not if you're not a citizen, you can
0:53
Speaker 3: have your basic rights, especially your right to free speech.
0:57
Speaker 2: Stripped away.
0:57
Speaker 3: We're also at the same time that we're covering the
1:01
Speaker 3: horrors of the Trump administration, covering those who are fighting back.
1:05
Speaker 3: We'll have with us in the second half the student
1:08
Speaker 3: editor of the Stanford newspaper that has brought a lawsuit
1:12
Speaker 3: that is succeeding against the Trump administration.
1:15
Speaker 2: Now, Trump is not giving up. They're going to appeal that.
1:19
Speaker 3: It's part of a fight about whether or not non-citizens
1:22
Speaker 3: have a right to free speech. What the newspaper is
1:25
Speaker 3: arguing is The First Amendment is not just a right
1:27
Speaker 3: of citizens.
1:28
Speaker 2: It's a right against the.
1:29
Speaker 3: Government that all people enjoy. And that's also, of course,
1:33
Speaker 3: true of the issues in the first case that we'll
1:36
Speaker 3: talk about today. That's also in the news really timely,
1:39
Speaker 3: the Khalil case. It's really the same issue there as well.
1:43
Speaker 1: Well, let's go there because these guys are treating constitutional
1:46
Speaker 1: limits like the terms and conditions. You know, Corey, they
1:48
Speaker 1: don't read them. They just said, I agree and do
1:50
Speaker 1: what they want. But the Trump administration is appealing a
1:53
Speaker 1: federal court ruling protecting the free speech rights of non-citizens
1:57
Speaker 1: who've been targeted because they said that Palestinian people are people.
2:01
Speaker 1: And nothing says confidence in your argument like taking another
2:04
Speaker 1: swing at the judge who told you no. This story
2:06
Speaker 1: is crazy. I know we're going to go deeper on
2:08
Speaker 1: this with our guest, but a federal judge ruled two
2:11
Speaker 1: months ago that statutes used to revoke visas and deport
2:15
Speaker 1: legal immigrants based on their free speech were totally unconstitutional.
2:19
Speaker 1: And this was the case brought by the Stanford Daily,
2:21
Speaker 1: which we'll be talking to later on. The administration appealed
2:24
Speaker 1: to the Ninth Circuit. Corey, let's talk about this. Does
2:28
Speaker 1: the First Amendment protect non-citizens who are lawfully present in
2:31
Speaker 1: the U.S. or anyone lawfully present in the U.S. when
2:35
Speaker 1: they express political views the government finds objectionable? I thought
2:39
Speaker 1: the First Amendment was there to put limitations on the government.
2:43
Speaker 2: Well, I think you're right. And when you read the Constitution,
2:46
Speaker 2: that is what it says.
2:47
Speaker 3: It talks about Congress shall make no law abridging the
2:49
Speaker 3: freedom of speech.
2:51
Speaker 2: It doesn't say as concerns citizens.
2:54
Speaker 3: And so it's a limit on government power. And the
2:56
Speaker 3: usual understanding of the First Amendment free speech clause has
3:00
Speaker 3: been that it's partly about the speaker, but it's also
3:02
Speaker 3: about the right of all of us to hear basic arguments.
3:06
Speaker 3: So let's take the Stanford case first. We're going to
3:08
Speaker 3: talk about it in more depth. And I'll also mention
3:10
Speaker 3: the Khalil case, which has been in the news. In
3:13
Speaker 3: the Stanford case, what this student newspaper is saying is
3:17
Speaker 3: our editors, our writers can't say what they think about
3:22
Speaker 3: issues if they're not citizens, and especially when it concerns
3:25
Speaker 3: the question of the conflict in.
3:27
Speaker 2: Israel and Palestine.
3:28
Speaker 3: And that alone is enough to get an injunction, a
3:32
Speaker 3: limit on what government can do.
3:34
Speaker 2: They have the newspaper as a whole.
3:36
Speaker 3: They also have an individual anonymous student reporter that is
3:40
Speaker 3: part of this suit. And what they're saying is, yeah,
3:43
Speaker 3: it's not a matter just of, and you really dramatize
3:45
Speaker 3: this too, because of course the First Amendment also has
3:47
Speaker 3: a right to free speech. And that's the same issue
3:50
Speaker 3: that's going on in this other case that's happening across
3:53
Speaker 3: the country, the Khalil case, where you also had a
3:57
Speaker 3: federal judge say, this is a right not just of citizens,
4:00
Speaker 3: but of non-citizens as well. And now Khalil having lost,
4:05
Speaker 3: actually having won at the lower level and then lost
4:08
Speaker 3: at the Court of Appeals is taking his case to
4:10
Speaker 3: the Supreme Court. So we have two cases, different sides
4:13
Speaker 3: of the country, same issue. Two litigants, one a former
4:17
Speaker 3: master's student at Columbia who was actually a negotiator in
4:20
Speaker 3: the Palestinian protests, Khalil. And then the other, our guest,
4:25
Speaker 3: a student editor making the same argument on the other
4:27
Speaker 3: side of the country.
4:29
Speaker 1: So, I mean, this is where I find it confusing, Corey.
4:31
Speaker 1: Is this a case about immigration law? Or is this
4:34
Speaker 1: fundamentally a case about whether the government can make constitutional
4:38
Speaker 1: rights conditional? based on your immigration status?
4:42
Speaker 3: Well, as usual, John, I mean, you're not confused. You're
4:45
Speaker 3: just laying it out in a way.
4:47
Speaker 1: I don't even know what I'm talking about, Corey. And
4:48
Speaker 1: that's why I need you to explain this every week.
4:51
Speaker 2: You're laying it out in a way that makes a mistake.
4:52
Speaker 3: So I'll just give this example that many people know
4:56
Speaker 3: of the duck rabbit, right? That you look at it
4:58
Speaker 3: on the page. In one way, you can see it
5:00
Speaker 3: as a duck. On the other side of the same picture,
5:02
Speaker 3: it looks like a rabbit. And that's what's going on here, too,
5:05
Speaker 3: that the administration is saying that if you view these
5:08
Speaker 3: cases through the lens of immigration law, that there specifically
5:12
Speaker 3: is a law, a statute, that gives the government the
5:15
Speaker 3: ability to essentially deport people who are acting contrary to
5:19
Speaker 3: the interests of U.S.
5:20
Speaker 2: Foreign policy.
5:22
Speaker 3: And here's the other side of that. You know, regardless
5:25
Speaker 3: of what the statute says, it hadn't been used that
5:27
Speaker 3: way to say, basically, get kicked out of the country
5:30
Speaker 3: if we don't like what you're saying. And so the
5:32
Speaker 3: other lens, the one that I think that the courts
5:34
Speaker 3: are rightly adopting and that the district courts have adopted
5:38
Speaker 3: in both of these cases, the Stanford case and the
5:40
Speaker 3: Khalil case, in the well, not overturned, that's complicated, but
5:47
Speaker 3: stripped away from the judge that decided it. But what
5:50
Speaker 3: those judges, the ones in the right are saying is,
5:53
Speaker 3: it doesn't matter what the statute says. We have something
5:56
Speaker 3: that's bigger than any statute or law passed by Congress.
6:00
Speaker 3: And that's the United States Constitution. And what that says
6:03
Speaker 3: is what we started with. Congress shall make no law
6:06
Speaker 3: abridging the freedom of speech, full stop. It's not just
6:08
Speaker 3: a right of citizens. It's one of non-citizens as well.
6:11
Speaker 3: And if you're going to try to kick somebody out
6:13
Speaker 3: of the country for their speech, as they are trying
6:16
Speaker 3: to do in the Khalil case, and as they might
6:18
Speaker 3: do in the Stanford case, you know, that's a violation
6:21
Speaker 3: of the basic rights of the Constitution. It's not any right,
6:24
Speaker 3: by the way, free speech. It's the fundamental right in democracy.
6:28
Speaker 1: Let's talk about trying to kick someone out of the
6:29
Speaker 1: country who's a naturalized citizen serving in Congress, because you
6:33
Speaker 1: don't like her speech, shall we? Ilhan Omar has been
6:36
Speaker 1: on my show before a I've enjoyed her. I'm a fan.
6:39
Speaker 1: She's been fearless against this administration, has called them out
6:43
Speaker 1: time and time again. She's very popular in her district
6:46
Speaker 1: in Minnesota. And we now know that federal agents have
6:50
Speaker 1: searched her home. The administration is trying to find out
6:53
Speaker 1: whether her U.S. citizenship can be challenged. And when they're
6:56
Speaker 1: not spreading birther-like racist lies that she married her brother,
7:01
Speaker 1: we can take that apart in a second. They're essentially
7:04
Speaker 1: saying that when her father came over here and brought
7:06
Speaker 1: her as a child 40 years ago, That there might
7:08
Speaker 1: have been something wrong in the paperwork. So that's where
7:12
Speaker 1: law and order, daddy's 40-year-old paperwork glitch is where we're at. Now,
7:16
Speaker 1: the journal says the Fed searched her house. They took
7:18
Speaker 1: her personal electronics and her documents to find out whether
7:22
Speaker 1: they can find a reason. to revoke her citizenship and
7:25
Speaker 1: deport a member of Congress. This is going to make
7:28
Speaker 1: life so much better for so many people, Corey. Gas
7:31
Speaker 1: prices are going down. Ukraine's free because of this. Again,
7:34
Speaker 1: a judge did grant a warrant in this case. And
7:37
Speaker 1: I do believe in investigating all members of Congress quite thoroughly.
7:41
Speaker 1: Barack Obama has condemned the administration's rhetoric. They're coming down
7:44
Speaker 1: a lot harder on this woman because of her immigration
7:47
Speaker 1: 40 years ago than, oh, I don't know, current congressmen
7:51
Speaker 1: who beat their wives. it's a crazy development. And it's
7:55
Speaker 1: like citizenship is not supposed to be something the government
7:58
Speaker 1: can put on a customer service hold while they check
8:00
Speaker 1: your paperwork, a sitting member of Congress. And they're trying
8:03
Speaker 1: to find out whether they can revoke her citizenship. Is
8:06
Speaker 1: there any precedent for this in government history? And what
8:11
Speaker 1: would the government have to do to denaturalize a citizen
8:15
Speaker 1: who serves in Congress?
8:17
Speaker 2: It is incredible.
8:18
Speaker 3: And let me just add to the injustice here and
8:21
Speaker 3: begin with that, which is that These aren't mistakes that
8:23
Speaker 3: they're claiming she made or that she had any kind
8:26
Speaker 3: of fraudulent dealings in her citizenship application. It was her parents, essentially,
8:30
Speaker 3: and they're blaming her, they're saying, for a mistake that
8:33
Speaker 3: allegedly was made by parents. Whether or not that's true
8:36
Speaker 3: or not, that's the deep injustice. The Constitution bans the
8:40
Speaker 3: so-called corruption of blood inheriting the crimes or mistakes of
8:43
Speaker 3: parents in the next generation, and that's what they're trying
8:46
Speaker 3: to do Here, of course, they're also targeting somebody who,
8:49
Speaker 3: you know, would be so far low on the list
8:52
Speaker 3: if you were to do this in any way that
8:53
Speaker 3: was fair, given that it wasn't her mistake or even
8:57
Speaker 3: her fraud. It was her parents. So that's outrageous from
9:00
Speaker 3: the beginning. Now, here's where it gets thorny. You know,
9:02
Speaker 3: in these cases, it's not clear how they're going to
9:04
Speaker 3: come out. I shouldn't say, too, in that first case,
9:07
Speaker 3: it's not that the government has no arguments on their side.
9:10
Speaker 3: In fact, There was, maybe it will come up in
9:12
Speaker 3: the interview, there was a case involving Stanford University and
9:15
Speaker 3: an invite to a Marxist professor. And in a case
9:18
Speaker 3: called Mandel, the Supreme Court said, yeah, you can exclude him.
9:21
Speaker 3: So as much as I want to say, in those cases,
9:24
Speaker 3: it's a First Amendment violation. The court, you know, there
9:27
Speaker 3: is precedent that this administration will draw in on the
9:29
Speaker 3: other side. And that's unfortunate.
9:31
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but precedent for denaturalizing a citizen and deporting him?
9:35
Speaker 2: Yeah.
9:35
Speaker 3: And so now let's get to the precedent here. That's
9:37
Speaker 3: in the Khalil case. I was giving the precedent of
9:40
Speaker 3: why the administration... Oh, they're going.
9:42
Speaker 1: To go way back to the Khalil case to justify this.
9:44
Speaker 1: I see. They're students of history.
9:46
Speaker 3: Go on. Let me say in this case that we're
9:48
Speaker 3: talking about now, to just go to the case of
9:51
Speaker 3: Representative Omar, there is a case that, to my mind,
9:55
Speaker 3: is one of the most important in American history, Trott v.
9:58
Speaker 1: Dulles.
9:59
Speaker 2: And what that case... says is that citizenship is.
10:02
Speaker 3: Not a status that expires on misbehavior, written by the
10:05
Speaker 3: great Earl Warren, who, of course, also wrote Brown v.
10:07
Speaker 2: Board of Education.
10:09
Speaker 3: And that's what I would hope any court would say
10:11
Speaker 3: in this case, because they are trying to use retaliation,
10:15
Speaker 3: a kind of political punishment.
10:16
Speaker 2: That's what's going on here.
10:18
Speaker 3: But at the same time that the court said that,
10:20
Speaker 3: they also have an exception, which is when it comes
10:23
Speaker 3: to fraud and administrative mistakes and misrepresentation, yes, they have
10:28
Speaker 3: allowed citizenship to be revoked under the theory that it
10:31
Speaker 3: was never lawfully granted in the first place. So that's
10:35
Speaker 3: my worry, that as much as there's an argument here
10:38
Speaker 3: for her rights and for why her constitutional right of
10:41
Speaker 3: citizenship has been abused, what the court, by the way,
10:44
Speaker 3: in Trout v. Dulles calls the right to have rights,
10:47
Speaker 3: that's what's at issue here. No, they might say that,
10:50
Speaker 3: you know, this court in particular, which is not a
10:52
Speaker 3: just court, not a lawful court, they might seek this
10:56
Speaker 3: other way of doing it, of saying, just as this
10:58
Speaker 3: administration is, the granting of the citizenship was never legal
11:02
Speaker 3: in the first place.
11:03
Speaker 2: And so it didn't pass on to her.
11:05
Speaker 3: That would be a horrific, I mean, let me just
11:07
Speaker 3: be clear, horrific thing to do. This administration is horrific
11:11
Speaker 3: and their horrors have often been backed up by this
11:13
Speaker 3: court and they might do so in just that way.
11:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, they protect rapists of children. I think they would
11:18
Speaker 1: do it. Again, there's a huge difference, Corey, between investigating
11:22
Speaker 1: a possible false statement in a 40-year-old naturalization proceeding and
11:27
Speaker 1: establishing grounds to revoke the citizenship of a sitting member
11:30
Speaker 1: of Congress. I don't think they can get away with this.
11:33
Speaker 1: Do you?
11:35
Speaker 2: I would hope not.
11:35
Speaker 3: It shocks the conscience, certainly, because it isn't just about
11:38
Speaker 3: an unjust and unfair way of trying to denaturalize somebody
11:43
Speaker 3: using a deep flaw, I think I would call it,
11:46
Speaker 3: in the law that allows for an exception of this
11:48
Speaker 3: right to citizenship. But, you know, it's another level of
11:52
Speaker 3: bad because what they're doing isn't just attacking any ordinary citizen,
11:56
Speaker 3: but a powerful opposition member, a critic of Donald Trump.
12:00
Speaker 3: And so as was the case in the Khalil case
12:03
Speaker 3: and as is the case in the Stanford.
12:04
Speaker 2: Case, they're really saying.
12:06
Speaker 3: Now here, you know, there they're saying no rights of
12:08
Speaker 3: non-citizens to free speech. Now it looks like they're saying, well,
12:11
Speaker 3: even if you're a citizen, especially if you're a naturalized citizen,
12:15
Speaker 3: you better watch out with what you say because we
12:17
Speaker 3: have ways of coming after you.
12:19
Speaker 1: This story is fascinating, Corey, because I'm not used to
12:21
Speaker 1: watching this Republican Party trying to fire a woman in
12:24
Speaker 1: government who's not part of this administration. I don't know
12:27
Speaker 1: if you've noticed, but there's been a revolving door. A
12:30
Speaker 1: lot of corruption in this administration, a lot of unpopular people.
12:33
Speaker 1: But every time they fire someone, it's always a gender
12:36
Speaker 1: reveal party. And except for Greg Bovino, I mean, Kimberly Guilfoyle,
12:41
Speaker 1: Katie Zachariah this week, Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi, Lori Chavez
12:45
Speaker 1: de Riemer, even Elise Stefanik, which I'm still totally giggling about.
12:50
Speaker 1: But they've all been part of these turbulent personnel moves
12:53
Speaker 1: and being pressured to leave. And it seems, Corey, that
12:56
Speaker 1: accountability is applied rather selectively. across this administration?
13:01
Speaker 3: Well, you know, we have a lot of incompetent people
13:04
Speaker 3: in this administration and a lot of people who have acted.
13:07
Speaker 2: In a way that, you know, is more than incompetent.
13:10
Speaker 3: It really is not just morally wrong, but in some cases,
13:14
Speaker 3: look at the actions of ICE.
13:16
Speaker 2: Evil. And some men have been removed. That includes Bonvino.
13:20
Speaker 2: But many men have not.
13:21
Speaker 1: And many men have not.
13:22
Speaker 3: One of the chieftains, I would think, is Pete Hegseth,
13:25
Speaker 3: who has done nothing less than, you know, attack what
13:28
Speaker 3: might be fishermen or migrants on boats.
13:30
Speaker 1: By attack, you mean murder. Murdering illegal, illegally murdering fishermen
13:35
Speaker 1: in foreign waters and lying about it.
13:37
Speaker 4: Yeah.
13:37
Speaker 1: Yeah.
13:37
Speaker 2: So, I mean, it's a mix.
13:38
Speaker 3: Look, let's not hide from the fact that the press secretary,
13:42
Speaker 3: was acting in a way that was embarrassing. It looked
13:45
Speaker 3: like she had trouble reading, and yet she's supposed to
13:47
Speaker 3: be the chief communication officer for the president. She didn't
13:50
Speaker 3: understand basic facts. She had no command of the material.
13:54
Speaker 3: She wasn't speaking in sentences. So it was pretty bad,
13:57
Speaker 3: but we've also seen pretty bad behavior also from the
14:01
Speaker 3: male members of this administration that still have their jobs.
14:05
Speaker 1: I mean, who do you think's getting sent to Tulsi
14:07
Speaker 1: Gabbard Island next? I think it'll be Susie Wiles before
14:10
Speaker 1: it's Pete Hegseth. They'll all be fired for enacting Trump policy.
14:15
Speaker 1: And when the policy he'll punish them for his own
14:17
Speaker 1: policy failing. But I mean, it does seem like the
14:20
Speaker 1: chief of staff will be next. And it makes me wonder, Corey,
14:24
Speaker 1: does loyalty buy men more time than confidence buys women?
14:31
Speaker 1: in this administration?
14:32
Speaker 3: It's hard to say that this press secretary wasn't loyal.
14:34
Speaker 3: I think if anything, you know, every other word out
14:37
Speaker 3: of her mouth, that was an attempt to convey loyalty
14:39
Speaker 3: to Donald Trump. But he certainly has less tolerance when
14:43
Speaker 3: things go wrong for women than he does for men. And,
14:47
Speaker 3: you know, that's seen by the fact that he just
14:49
Speaker 3: hangs on to so many of these, you know, the
14:52
Speaker 3: Pete Hegg said, it's not just that he did.
14:54
Speaker 2: These immoral or evil things.
14:56
Speaker 3: It's that he's totally incompetent and that the military has
14:59
Speaker 3: turned on him, that there is a sense of chaos
15:01
Speaker 3: in the Department of Defense. And yet, you know, that
15:04
Speaker 3: doesn't seem to strike him because he's not as embarrassed,
15:07
Speaker 3: I think, as he is of a woman who fails
15:10
Speaker 3: to meet, you know, his standards and is criticized in
15:12
Speaker 3: the press.
15:13
Speaker 1: I mean, Kim Guilfoyle was fired from Fox News, then
15:16
Speaker 1: fired from being Don Jr. 's fiance for six years
15:20
Speaker 1: and now fired from being ambassador to Greece, which is
15:22
Speaker 1: unfortunate because I have it on good authority that Greece
15:25
Speaker 1: is is her favorite Broadway musical. But I guess we
15:28
Speaker 1: shouldn't be surprised by any of this. I don't know
15:31
Speaker 1: if this administration professor has got a personnel problem, a
15:34
Speaker 1: management problem, or if it's just a president who treats
15:37
Speaker 1: everyone as disposable. It does seem that when they say loyalty,
15:41
Speaker 1: what they mean is obedience.
15:43
Speaker 3: Well, in the Guilfoyle case, you know, she's accused of
15:46
Speaker 3: basically trying to solicit a bribe to have her American
15:49
Speaker 3: Express bill paid off $ 100, 000 to, you know, curry favor
15:54
Speaker 3: with the Trump administration.
15:55
Speaker 1: But no, that was to curry favor with her hearing.
15:57
Speaker 1: That was before her confirmation hearing. So she wouldn't have $ 100, 000
15:59
Speaker 1: in credit card debt.
16:01
Speaker 2: Good correction in the Senate. But anyway.
16:03
Speaker 1: I want to defend her. I want to defend her
16:05
Speaker 1: on the issue, sir.
16:07
Speaker 3: Yes. You know, all of this is to say corruption
16:10
Speaker 3: is the way that business is done in this administration.
16:14
Speaker 2: Trump is, of course, selling pardons.
16:15
Speaker 3: He's using cryptocurrency as a way of adding to his
16:19
Speaker 3: more than $ 2 billion that he's essentially stolen by selling
16:22
Speaker 3: the office. So it's not the corruption that's offensive to him,
16:25
Speaker 3: but yet it's a way of projecting everything that's said
16:28
Speaker 3: about him, the criticism onto somebody who he believes he
16:32
Speaker 3: can pass it off on. And that, you know, I
16:34
Speaker 3: don't think it's a mistake. That's a woman. And then
16:37
Speaker 3: he rewrites history, of course, when he was asked, wasn't
16:40
Speaker 3: this woman basically.
16:41
Speaker 2: Engaged to marry your son? He's like, she's not in
16:44
Speaker 2: my family. I mean, he just sort of denied almost
16:47
Speaker 2: knowing her.
16:48
Speaker 3: Not to mention not just the relationship with Don Jr.,
16:50
Speaker 3: but that she gave two speeches for him in very
16:53
Speaker 3: public conventions.
16:54
Speaker 1: Oh, yes. Fans of comedy remember.
16:57
Speaker 3: You know, on the one hand, again, I'm happy to
17:00
Speaker 3: see both these people go. But there is an obvious
17:03
Speaker 3: double standard that's going on. Exactly. Misogyny is coming through
17:07
Speaker 3: as much as his ability to try to project all
17:10
Speaker 3: his own flaws and crimes onto other people.
17:13
Speaker 1: It appears that loyalty won't save you in this administration
17:16
Speaker 1: and competency won't save you in this administration. The only
17:19
Speaker 1: thing that will maybe is if you're someone who knows
17:22
Speaker 1: where the bodies are buried. But we'll find out when
17:24
Speaker 1: they all turn on each other. Let's take a quick break.
17:27
Speaker 1: Back in just a moment on The Oath.
17:28
Speaker 2: And the Office.
17:38
Speaker 1: Welcome back to The Oath and the Office. I'm John
17:40
Speaker 1: Fugelsang along with Professor Cory Breschneider. And then there's Russia. Cory,
17:45
Speaker 1: Trump has issued an executive order waiving sanctions under the
17:49
Speaker 1: law that Congress passed to pressure Moscow over its illegal
17:53
Speaker 1: war against our ally Ukraine. In 1994, Ukraine agreed to
17:57
Speaker 1: give up all their nukes, and in exchange, America, Russia,
18:01
Speaker 1: and Britain signed a Budapest memorandum saying that we would
18:03
Speaker 1: always protect them if they were ever invaded. Russia has
18:06
Speaker 1: violated it, and now Donald Trump is trying very hard
18:09
Speaker 1: to drop this peace treaty like it's some wedding vows.
18:12
Speaker 1: So in this case, this was Lindsey Graham's baby. Congress
18:16
Speaker 1: writes the law. The president gets the pen. And suddenly
18:19
Speaker 1: we're left asking whether the separation of powers is just
18:22
Speaker 1: a separation of opinions. I mean, Section 115 authorizes the
18:27
Speaker 1: president to waive specified sanctions and restrictions subject to a
18:31
Speaker 1: written certification to Congress. I get all that. But this
18:34
Speaker 1: makes it really complicated because Congress has delegated the waiver
18:38
Speaker 1: authority to But let's talk about why they passed this
18:41
Speaker 1: law in the same place. These guys are murdering and
18:46
Speaker 1: raping our allies. The war can only end when Vladimir
18:49
Speaker 1: Putin leaves. Vladimir Putin doesn't think Ukraine should be a
18:53
Speaker 1: real country. Now, this president signed the sanctions law and
18:56
Speaker 1: then put out another executive order saying, I didn't mean it.
18:59
Speaker 1: Can he legally do that?
19:02
Speaker 3: Well, unfortunately, I think if we're talking about the legal
19:05
Speaker 3: question rather than the question of how things should be
19:08
Speaker 3: and the question of what the court's going to say.
19:10
Speaker 3: As much as I would have thought, I mean, I'll
19:12
Speaker 3: say how I thought about it in the beginning, and
19:13
Speaker 3: then as I looked into it, I've changed my mind.
19:15
Speaker 3: My first thought when I started reading about this story was,
19:18
Speaker 3: no way. Congress passed a law imposing these sanctions. The
19:21
Speaker 3: president can't come along and just undo them. Now, here's
19:24
Speaker 3: why I've changed my mind, because as you look into
19:26
Speaker 3: it more clearly, Congress also mistakenly handed over a massive
19:31
Speaker 3: power to the president at the same time that it
19:33
Speaker 3: passed these sanctions, which was the power to create exceptions
19:37
Speaker 3: to the sanctions. Now, the exception is supposed to be
19:40
Speaker 3: in the national interest. So you see members of Congress
19:43
Speaker 3: like Senator Tom Tillis saying there is no national interest
19:46
Speaker 3: for making an exception for Russia. That was the whole
19:49
Speaker 3: point of the of the sanctions in the first place. But,
19:52
Speaker 3: you know, Trump is going to claim there is national
19:55
Speaker 3: interest in doing so, that it has to do with inflation.
19:58
Speaker 1: Well, he's saying that he's negotiating the end of the war.
20:00
Speaker 1: That's his argument. So forget the law I signed. I'm
20:03
Speaker 1: trying to end this war. And that's why we have
20:05
Speaker 1: to reward the guy who started this war. That's the
20:08
Speaker 1: morality we're working with.
20:09
Speaker 3: Yeah. And then I think he's also saying by opening
20:11
Speaker 3: up energy resources and buying from basically opening up Russia's
20:16
Speaker 3: resources to the market, that that will help with inflation. Now,
20:19
Speaker 3: neither of those strike me as remotely true. But yet
20:23
Speaker 3: the question for the court is going to be, did
20:25
Speaker 3: Congress hand over this power? And do we defer to
20:28
Speaker 3: the president's interpretation of what the national interest is here?
20:32
Speaker 3: And I think and this is a theme, John, that
20:33
Speaker 3: we've seen throughout all these cases. That if you see
20:36
Speaker 3: this through the lens of the massive foreign policy power
20:39
Speaker 3: of the president, then I think they're even more likely
20:43
Speaker 3: to say yes, that he can do it. Now, in
20:44
Speaker 3: those other cases, there really was a duck rabbit. There was,
20:48
Speaker 3: you know, on the one hand, the argument that this
20:50
Speaker 3: is a matter of immigration in the Khalil case, in
20:53
Speaker 3: the Stanford case, even in the Omar case. And on
20:56
Speaker 3: the other hand, there's the argument for constitutional rights, the
20:58
Speaker 3: free speech right in Khalil and Stanford. and the right
21:01
Speaker 3: to have rights in the Park case. This isn't really
21:05
Speaker 3: like that. It really looks like Congress handed him the
21:08
Speaker 3: tools to destroy the law that they passed.
21:11
Speaker 2: And what a disaster.
21:13
Speaker 1: Now, I'm sorry, Lindsey Graham can't be here to see
21:15
Speaker 1: Trump stabbing him in the back one last time. I
21:17
Speaker 1: want to briefly ask you about Ukraine's access to Starshield
21:20
Speaker 1: and other satellite services. We've heard that these restrictions were
21:24
Speaker 1: put on systems used by the Ukrainian forces and The
21:28
Speaker 1: administration and Elon Musk have all been pointing fingers saying
21:31
Speaker 1: they did it. They told me to do it. No
21:32
Speaker 1: one's saying the buck stops with me. What constitutional questions arise, Professor,
21:38
Speaker 1: when military relevant communications infrastructure is operated by and interfered
21:45
Speaker 1: with by a private company?
21:48
Speaker 3: Well, I talked a little bit about this last time,
21:50
Speaker 3: and I spent my time watching that four-hour Musk documentary.
21:55
Speaker 3: I do recommend it to people, but if you don't
21:57
Speaker 3: have the four hours to spare, I'll tell you one
21:59
Speaker 3: of the main points in it was about the way
22:02
Speaker 3: that foreign policy and military policy has really been usurped
22:06
Speaker 3: by one person, and that's Elon Musk and his company, Starlink,
22:10
Speaker 3: which is now part of SpaceX, which is launching the
22:13
Speaker 3: satellites that Starlink relies on. was given by Musk to
22:17
Speaker 3: the Ukrainian military with the understanding.
22:20
Speaker 2: That they could communicate.
22:22
Speaker 3: And at various points throughout the conflict, he's decided essentially
22:25
Speaker 3: to turn it off. So at one point he had intel,
22:28
Speaker 3: he claims that the escalation of Ukrainians battling Russians in
22:34
Speaker 3: Russia-occupied Ukraine was going to potentially result in a nuclear conflict.
22:38
Speaker 3: So he unilaterally turned off the Starlink satellite service.
22:43
Speaker 2: He just made that decision on his own.
22:46
Speaker 3: And it looks like this isn't just a one-time thing,
22:48
Speaker 3: that he's really using his power to become a kind
22:51
Speaker 3: of super state. He's not bound to Donald Trump or
22:55
Speaker 3: the United States, although he's certainly an ally of him.
22:58
Speaker 3: But he really has his own independent power that's akin
23:00
Speaker 3: to a kind of military power. And that is frightening.
23:04
Speaker 3: When one person has the capacity of a government, we
23:07
Speaker 3: should worry. And it's an unaccountable one person, of course,
23:11
Speaker 3: and one with instincts against rather than for democracy.
23:15
Speaker 1: This one person has spent $ 158 million to make Ken
23:20
Speaker 1: Paxton the next evil senator from Texas. Yeah, it's too
23:24
Speaker 1: bad Congress has no oversight over private businesses or the president.
23:28
Speaker 1: But I want to bring it back to DC because
23:30
Speaker 1: this is crazy. Trump is attacking federal judge Ana Reyes,
23:34
Speaker 1: who put limits on his plans to tear up and
23:36
Speaker 1: renovate a public golf course in Washington, D.C. We have
23:41
Speaker 1: reached the point, Corey, where a dispute over a golf
23:43
Speaker 1: course is a test of constitutional authority. And Trump has
23:47
Speaker 1: attacked Judge Reyes and said that she's got mental problems.
23:51
Speaker 1: Is this really about a golf course? I mean, this
23:54
Speaker 1: is hundreds of trees and a golf course in a
23:55
Speaker 1: dispute over redevelopment. Why should Americans who have absolutely no
23:59
Speaker 1: interest in golf care about this case? It's a bit
24:03
Speaker 1: bigger than the game, isn't it?
24:04
Speaker 3: Well, when I first started following it, you know, we're
24:07
Speaker 3: tracking all these cases, all these stories. By the way,
24:10
Speaker 3: my understanding, too, is Democracy Forward has been involved in this.
24:14
Speaker 3: We've had, of course, their CEO, Sky Perryman, on the
24:17
Speaker 3: show now twice. But, you know, they saw it for
24:20
Speaker 3: what it was, which is a clear attempt of the
24:22
Speaker 3: president to try to to usurp the law. Now, here's
24:26
Speaker 3: why it's gotten beyond any normal story about a golf
24:29
Speaker 3: course or even beyond Donald Trump violating the Constitution.
24:33
Speaker 2: It's because of his defiance.
24:35
Speaker 3: Even though a federal judge has said, no, you cannot
24:37
Speaker 3: move forward with the renovation of this course, he doesn't
24:41
Speaker 3: seem to care. And he seems to be outright defying
24:44
Speaker 3: a judicial order. It's not that we never saw this before,
24:47
Speaker 3: but they did.
24:47
Speaker 2: Back down before.
24:48
Speaker 3: So in the case of Obrego Garcia, who was deported
24:52
Speaker 3: to a gulag in El Salvador and other deportations, a
24:56
Speaker 3: federal judge said, turn the planes back. No, you can't
25:00
Speaker 3: do that. The administration did it anyway. Now they subsequently backtrack.
25:04
Speaker 3: They claim, well, that judge didn't put it in writing,
25:07
Speaker 3: so we weren't really defying the order. Here, there's no
25:10
Speaker 3: such argument. They are just outright defying a judge. And
25:13
Speaker 3: so in what sense do we still live in a democracy?
25:16
Speaker 2: We've used this language of a self-coup.
25:18
Speaker 3: Where the president of the United States destroys the other branches,
25:21
Speaker 3: destroys the judiciary, destroys the Congress by.
25:24
Speaker 2: Just ignoring them.
25:26
Speaker 3: And that is absolutely what's happening here. It's really a
25:30
Speaker 3: moment that at the one hand, I worry Americans won't
25:32
Speaker 3: catch it. They'll think it's dull, but it is deeply
25:35
Speaker 3: consequential for the future of our democracy.
25:36
Speaker 1: It's huge. This president is publicly announcing that a government
25:40
Speaker 1: project is going to go ahead after a federal judge
25:43
Speaker 1: has ordered him not to. Because this president knows that
25:47
Speaker 1: Todd Blanche and the DOJ will never go after him
25:51
Speaker 1: for breaking any laws whatsoever. So, Corey, at what point
25:54
Speaker 1: would proceeding with the work constitute contempt of court? Is
25:58
Speaker 1: that the next phase here?
26:00
Speaker 2: Well, you know, who's going to be brought into contempt?
26:02
Speaker 3: The president almost certainly has immunity from any contempt charges.
26:05
Speaker 3: So I don't think it'll be brought against him. I
26:07
Speaker 3: think there could be moves against the lawyers who are
26:12
Speaker 3: representing in court and have been representing. that this is
26:16
Speaker 3: not moving forward and are lying to the court. You're not,
26:18
Speaker 3: one thing about the rule of law, you're not supposed
26:20
Speaker 3: to lie to a judge. That's like lawyering 101. And
26:24
Speaker 3: yet that's what's going on. Now here's the first problem
26:27
Speaker 3: is the Department of Justice certainly isn't bringing, you know,
26:30
Speaker 3: any of these cases, but judges do have the ability
26:32
Speaker 3: to impose sanctions.
26:34
Speaker 2: And so it's time. That is exactly, I think, what
26:36
Speaker 2: should happen here.
26:37
Speaker 1: The administration is arguing the Interior Department has the authority
26:41
Speaker 1: to renovate the course and rip up all these permits
26:44
Speaker 1: and the project doesn't require the judicial approval that people seek.
26:47
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know. It just seems like once again,
26:50
Speaker 1: we're dealing with executive discretion over federal property and obeying
26:55
Speaker 1: a damn judge, right? Like Trump has attacked this woman,
26:59
Speaker 1: questioned her mental state, suggested that recordings would demonstrate misconduct.
27:05
Speaker 1: Are there constitutional implications when a president uses the public
27:08
Speaker 1: platform to discredit a judge? presiding over a case involving
27:12
Speaker 1: his administration. We saw him do this when he wasn't
27:15
Speaker 1: president for his criminal trials two years ago, but I mean,
27:17
Speaker 1: I don't know of this ever happening.
27:20
Speaker 3: Well, you know, at least when he was a private citizen,
27:22
Speaker 3: there was an argument to be made that he was, well,
27:25
Speaker 3: I don't think an argument, he was subject to possible sanctions.
27:28
Speaker 3: Now as president, he at least views himself under the
27:31
Speaker 3: immunity case, Trump versus the United States, as above the law,
27:34
Speaker 3: and that's incentivized this horrific behavior. So I think the
27:39
Speaker 3: best strategy going forward is not going to be to
27:42
Speaker 3: sanction him for his statements, or more importantly, actually, than
27:45
Speaker 3: the statements is the refusal to obey the law. That
27:48
Speaker 3: really is an undoing of the whole system of government.
27:51
Speaker 3: But is, you know, to sanction the lawyers. I think
27:53
Speaker 3: another realistic thing to happen here is that eventually the
27:58
Speaker 3: Supreme Court of the United States is going to have
28:00
Speaker 3: to step in here. And that, well, yeah, that seems
28:02
Speaker 3: to be what will appeal directly to them. Now, are
28:04
Speaker 3: they going to take the side of the lower court?
28:08
Speaker 3: or not if they take the side of Trump. And
28:10
Speaker 3: this isn't unheard of. This happened, for instance, in the
28:13
Speaker 3: most famous case in American history, Marbury versus Madison. They
28:16
Speaker 3: saw the confrontation with the president as something that they
28:19
Speaker 3: didn't want to have. So the court essentially backed down there.
28:23
Speaker 3: And you might see that here, too, that they don't
28:25
Speaker 3: want to test whether or not the president we know
28:27
Speaker 3: is willing to disobey a federal district court. Is he
28:30
Speaker 3: willing to disobey the Supreme Court of the United States?
28:33
Speaker 3: I'm not sure they're up to it. I'm not sure
28:35
Speaker 3: that they're up to challenging him. So you might just
28:36
Speaker 3: see them back down.
28:38
Speaker 1: One last question before the break at our guest. If
28:40
Speaker 1: we had a Congress, would Congress have a role to
28:44
Speaker 1: play when the president disobeys the authority of the judiciary?
28:48
Speaker 1: I mean, Congress doesn't have an oversight responsibility to investigate
28:52
Speaker 1: whether executive officials disobey judicial orders, right? And they wouldn't
28:57
Speaker 1: enforce it if they did.
28:58
Speaker 3: Well, you know, we've become used to this Congress, this
29:02
Speaker 3: Republican Congress, with its purely partisan way of seeing things.
29:06
Speaker 2: And they're not going to do anything. But could they? Absolutely.
29:09
Speaker 3: If Democrats win the House, we talked last week with
29:13
Speaker 3: Congressman Green about impeachment. And of course, he advocated for it.
29:17
Speaker 3: We talked to Ted Lieu about oversight. And is defiance
29:20
Speaker 3: of judicial order something that calls for massive oversight and
29:24
Speaker 3: even impeachment?
29:25
Speaker 2: Absolutely. It is an.
29:26
Speaker 3: Impeachable offense to add to the long list, but I
29:29
Speaker 3: might put it near the top.
29:31
Speaker 1: Okay, we got to take a quick break. When we return,
29:33
Speaker 1: let's go even deeper with George Porteus, who is the
29:36
Speaker 1: editor of the Stanford Daily. Man, this is exciting. These
29:40
Speaker 1: guys are so heroic, and we'll be right back on
29:42
Speaker 1: The Oath in the Office.
29:47
Speaker 3: On The Oath in the Office, we talk about defending democracy.
29:50
Speaker 3: That work begins in our own communities, including our public schools.
29:55
Speaker 3: School boards make decisions that shape what children learn and
29:58
Speaker 3: whether every student feels welcomed Those elections deserve our attention.
30:02
Speaker 3: The School Board Projects helps progressive school board candidates run
30:06
Speaker 3: and win, providing one-on-one coaching from experienced campaign professionals. Their
30:10
Speaker 3: mission is to elect leaders committed to equitable, inclusive public schools.
30:15
Speaker 3: If you're thinking about running, know someone who should, or
30:17
Speaker 3: want to learn how to get involved, visit act.link slash gi-schools.
30:24
Speaker 3: That's act.link slash gi-schools.
30:28
Speaker 2: You'll also find the link in our show notes.
30:35
Speaker 1: Welcome back to The Oath and the Office. I'm John Fugelsang.
30:38
Speaker 1: And Professor, we've got a very fascinating question to ponder.
30:41
Speaker 1: What happens to a free press when international student journalists
30:46
Speaker 1: fear that reporting the facts of a story and interviewing
30:50
Speaker 1: a source or even expressing a political opinion could jeopardize
30:53
Speaker 1: their ability to remain in the United States?
30:56
Speaker 2: Absolutely, John.
30:57
Speaker 3: And, you know, we've heard a lot of stories about
30:59
Speaker 3: universities caving to this administration, but there also are courageous
31:03
Speaker 3: stories of people standing up for the First Amendment, for
31:07
Speaker 3: free speech, for our rights. And one of those people,
31:10
Speaker 3: and I don't hesitate actually to call him.
31:12
Speaker 2: A hero, is George Porteus.
31:15
Speaker 3: He's the editor-in-chief and president of the Stanford Daily, the
31:18
Speaker 3: student newspaper at Stanford. He's an undergrad at Stanford studying history.
31:24
Speaker 3: And his newspaper, as you've heard us discuss in the introduction,
31:26
Speaker 3: is challenging the Trump administration's use of their supposed immigration
31:30
Speaker 3: power to punish speech.
31:33
Speaker 2: And what The Daily has.
31:34
Speaker 3: Done is brought a case against the administration, and they
31:37
Speaker 3: want a significant ruling in federal district court, which the
31:40
Speaker 3: administration is now appealing.
31:43
Speaker 4: So we're very eager to talk to him. George, welcome
31:45
Speaker 4: to The Oath in the Office. Thank you both for
31:47
Speaker 4: having me and for the kind words. It's great to
31:49
Speaker 4: be here.
31:50
Speaker 1: Thank you. Congratulations on infuriating Todd Blanch. Much respect. Good job.
31:55
Speaker 2: Tell us, George.
31:55
Speaker 3: I mean, this is, you know, a story when I
31:57
Speaker 3: first read about it, just grabbed my attention instantly because
32:01
Speaker 3: we're on the show. We're really always talking about, you know,
32:04
Speaker 3: the importance of telling the truth about how dangerous what's
32:07
Speaker 3: happening is, but also of fighting back. And you really
32:11
Speaker 3: took a stand on behalf of the newspaper, on behalf.
32:15
Speaker 2: Of Stanford students.
32:16
Speaker 3: Against this administration's stated policy, which is that non-citizens essentially
32:21
Speaker 3: can be deported based on what they say.
32:23
Speaker 2: So how did this get going?
32:26
Speaker 4: Well, this really began in the spring of 2025, not
32:31
Speaker 4: long after Donald Trump returned to office. And we saw
32:35
Speaker 4: immigration escalation ramp up very quickly. And we also saw
32:38
Speaker 4: specific incidents where non-citizens who had legally immigrated to the U.S.
32:43
Speaker 4: were being targeted for deportation because of protected political speech.
32:48
Speaker 4: So people are probably familiar with the Mahmoud Khalil case.
32:52
Speaker 4: and also Ramesa Ozturk's case, which pertains more directly to us.
32:55
Speaker 4: This was a Tufts graduate student, a Turkish student, here
33:00
Speaker 4: legally on a visa, who had written an op-ed in
33:03
Speaker 4: the Tufts daily newspaper, a pro-Palestinian op-ed.
33:07
Speaker 5: And we now know.
33:08
Speaker 4: From the documents, it was specifically because of that op-ed
33:11
Speaker 4: that the DHS seized her off of the sidewalk and
33:15
Speaker 4: sent her to a detention facility in Louisiana. So this
33:18
Speaker 4: is the context in which at The Daily on the
33:21
Speaker 4: other side of the country, on the West Coast, we
33:24
Speaker 4: had international students on our campus basically saying they couldn't
33:28
Speaker 4: participate in what we do here at The Daily in
33:31
Speaker 4: student journalism, saying that they didn't want to be sources.
33:35
Speaker 4: that they wanted their names taken down retroactively from articles
33:38
Speaker 4: from months or years ago, that the people on our staff,
33:42
Speaker 4: some of them didn't want to cover certain things, didn't
33:45
Speaker 4: want to edit certain stories. And we were kind of
33:48
Speaker 4: inundated with these requests. And it made it very difficult
33:52
Speaker 4: for us to really do our job of representing this
33:55
Speaker 4: campus and telling the full story about this community. Because
33:59
Speaker 4: international students are a large portion of the Stanford community.
34:03
Speaker 5: They're here.
34:04
Speaker 4: Some of them have been here for years. Some of
34:06
Speaker 4: them are my classmates. And if we can't include them,
34:10
Speaker 4: we can't really do our jobs.
34:12
Speaker 3: I mean, it's part of why the story is so
34:14
Speaker 3: compelling is that by the fact that you're a student
34:17
Speaker 3: newspaper and you're illustrating the idea that if people are
34:21
Speaker 3: under threat of deportation for what they're saying, how can
34:24
Speaker 3: you actually do the work of a paper that's supposed
34:27
Speaker 3: to get ideas out to people to give opinions? John,
34:31
Speaker 3: I know you wanted to jump in, but I was
34:32
Speaker 3: going to ask George, can you just give us the
34:34
Speaker 3: next step of how this happened? Like, how do you
34:37
Speaker 3: bring a suit? I mean, you know, one thing that
34:39
Speaker 3: I guess I understand as a college professor, but the
34:41
Speaker 3: listeners might not realize is you're not owned by Stanford University.
34:45
Speaker 3: So you had the independent ability to do that, right?
34:47
Speaker 3: And tell us about how it unfolded, how this went
34:50
Speaker 3: from an idea that you had of fighting back on
34:53
Speaker 3: behalf of your reporters and editors to a major case
34:58
Speaker 3: that eventually was one, at least at the district court level.
35:02
Speaker 1: Right.
35:03
Speaker 4: Well, a lot of credit goes to my predecessor as editor-in-chief,
35:07
Speaker 4: Greta Reich, who's a fantastic journalist now reporting for USA Today.
35:11
Speaker 4: And she, at the time I was a news managing editor,
35:14
Speaker 4: she was editor-in-chief and she publicly spoke about this issue.
35:18
Speaker 5: I think she had been quoted in.
35:20
Speaker 4: A Wall Street Journal article talking about this flood of
35:23
Speaker 4: takedown requests, which other student newspapers were also dealing with.
35:27
Speaker 4: which I was dealing with day to day with my staff,
35:31
Speaker 4: with sources. And right, because we're an independent nonprofit, we
35:37
Speaker 4: had full autonomy to make this decision ourselves.
35:39
Speaker 5: We didn't consult the university.
35:41
Speaker 4: Instead, we made the independent decision to partner with FIRE,
35:46
Speaker 4: the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, who had taken
35:49
Speaker 4: an interest in this and been reading about this. And
35:52
Speaker 4: they were kind enough to do this pro bono, and
35:54
Speaker 4: they still are. So, I mean, it felt to us,
35:58
Speaker 4: jumping into a lawsuit was not necessarily something we wanted
36:01
Speaker 4: to do, actually.
36:02
Speaker 2: Of course.
36:03
Speaker 4: But we were in a very practical predicament, and this
36:08
Speaker 4: seemed to us the most practical solution to it. And
36:11
Speaker 4: also given the fact that they were willing to do
36:13
Speaker 4: this pro bono made a big difference, and also willing
36:16
Speaker 4: to pursue this in a way that would not be
36:18
Speaker 4: disruptive to our newsroom.
36:20
Speaker 2: Yeah.
36:21
Speaker 1: I mean, when I hear you talking about how student
36:24
Speaker 1: journalists were terrified to speak to sources or asking to
36:27
Speaker 1: have their previous articles removed, this is the new form
36:31
Speaker 1: of censorship, not government censorship, but stochastic self-censorship, trying to
36:36
Speaker 1: scare people out of telling the truth. When did you
36:39
Speaker 1: realize that this wasn't just immigration policy, but that this
36:45
Speaker 1: was actually affecting the entire way the newspaper operated?
36:48
Speaker 3: Hmm.
36:50
Speaker 4: I realized it when I received a request from a
36:54
Speaker 4: Palestinian undergraduate who I'd spoken to before as a reporter,
37:00
Speaker 4: who reached out to us at The Daily saying, please,
37:04
Speaker 4: I'm begging you. And he said it in these terms,
37:06
Speaker 4: very emotionally urgent terms. Please, I'm begging you, take down
37:11
Speaker 4: these old quotes in which I'm talking as a you know,
37:19
Speaker 4: to my home and to my hometown.
37:21
Speaker 5: And I mean, it was just a shocking.
37:23
Speaker 4: Thing to hear and deeply disappointing to hear as a
37:27
Speaker 4: journalist that somebody doesn't feel that the words you publish
37:30
Speaker 4: could make them unsafe. And knowing that is really jarring
37:34
Speaker 4: as a journalist. And suddenly that was a decision we
37:36
Speaker 4: had to make. The ball was in our court. You know,
37:39
Speaker 4: do we honor this request and try and protect this
37:42
Speaker 4: source when he's saying he has these fears? But also,
37:45
Speaker 4: this is a slippery slope, right? We don't want to
37:47
Speaker 4: have to start taking down quotes left and right whenever
37:50
Speaker 4: people request it, because part of our job is to
37:53
Speaker 4: create a record.
37:54
Speaker 5: And that was, to me, extremely pernicious.
37:56
Speaker 4: Just the sense that the existing public record, a record
38:00
Speaker 4: of dissent and speech and spirited opinions, that all of
38:04
Speaker 4: that could be shut down this quietly and that it
38:07
Speaker 4: could just be erased this quietly. And so, you know,
38:11
Speaker 4: as that went on and as we got more and
38:13
Speaker 4: more requests like that, you know, we could feel the
38:15
Speaker 4: wall sort of closing in on us. And again, this
38:19
Speaker 4: legal action was our way of pushing back and saying, actually, no.
38:23
Speaker 4: We can't be put in this position. It's not our
38:25
Speaker 4: job to be in this position. You're making you're forcing
38:28
Speaker 4: us to into ethical dilemmas that we shouldn't have to make.
38:31
Speaker 2: Yeah. How are people feeling?
38:33
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, it's one thing to fight back
38:35
Speaker 3: and to stand up for your rights. You hear that
38:37
Speaker 3: language all the time. But what's unique about your case
38:40
Speaker 3: is that, you know, this is an ongoing issue. The
38:43
Speaker 3: administration is not done fighting you. They're going to dig
38:45
Speaker 3: in and you have an appeal pending from the Justice Department,
38:49
Speaker 3: from Trump. But you did win at the district court.
38:52
Speaker 3: So how did that feel? What was the reaction on campus?
38:54
Speaker 3: Did people feel like, wow, you really can stick up
38:58
Speaker 3: for your rights? Did people feel safer, including some of
39:01
Speaker 3: the sources that you're talking about? Yeah.
39:04
Speaker 1: Well, this happened before we got back to campus.
39:07
Speaker 4: So in late August, I was in Mississippi at the
39:11
Speaker 4: time doing some fieldwork for my thesis. And this came
39:14
Speaker 4: really out of the blue. I got an email from
39:16
Speaker 4: our lawyers about it. And I mean, the mood really
39:18
Speaker 4: was celebratory and vindicating because it had been about a
39:22
Speaker 4: full year of waiting after we had filed the initial suit.
39:26
Speaker 4: And Judge Wise's ruling, which was 90 pages, was, you know,
39:30
Speaker 4: very strongly in our favor. And also the rhetoric she invoked.
39:34
Speaker 4: She quoted James Madison and she said the right to
39:37
Speaker 4: free speech belongs to the people. It's not the governments
39:39
Speaker 4: to take. And so she very clearly laid out what
39:42
Speaker 4: the stakes of this case were. And that was, of course,
39:46
Speaker 4: vindicating for us to get that legal recognition.
39:50
Speaker 1: I will say that.
39:50
Speaker 4: Since we've returned to campus in late September, we've onboarded
39:55
Speaker 4: a new class of incoming writers and reporters, and that
39:58
Speaker 4: includes international students. And I do think and hope that
40:03
Speaker 4: this precedent creates more of a feeling of protection for them.
40:07
Speaker 4: I mean, these are ongoing conversations, right? But because of
40:11
Speaker 4: the terms in which she made this ruling. And the
40:13
Speaker 4: fact that we're in Northern California, it does seem like
40:16
Speaker 4: a pretty strong protection. Now with this appeal, this is
40:20
Speaker 4: going to the Ninth Circuit. So the DOJ just last
40:23
Speaker 4: week appealed this, as you know. And I should say,
40:26
Speaker 4: I'm not a legal expert. I will leave that to you, Corey.
40:29
Speaker 4: But as we see it, this could be an opportunity
40:33
Speaker 4: to expand the jurisdiction of this ruling. And obviously, we're
40:36
Speaker 4: fighting for ourselves. But I will just say as a journalist,
40:40
Speaker 4: I want to see this protection apply to other campus newspapers, too,
40:44
Speaker 4: because I think we should not be the only ones who.
40:46
Speaker 5: Get this protection. I think this should apply to the
40:50
Speaker 5: whole country.
40:51
Speaker 1: I'd like to see it apply to all media because
40:54
Speaker 1: a newspaper can only publish what reporters are willing to
40:57
Speaker 1: report and they can only tell the part of the
40:59
Speaker 1: story if the sources are willing to speak. I found
41:02
Speaker 1: this inspiring to see a court recognize harm to journalism
41:06
Speaker 1: itself rather than just harm to an individual speaker. That's
41:11
Speaker 1: something that was new for me. I'm curious, what did
41:14
Speaker 1: the judge conclude about the government's use of immigration powers
41:18
Speaker 1: here against people whose political expression they happen to disprove of?
41:22
Speaker 4: Right. Judge Wise ruled it unconstitutional the way that they
41:26
Speaker 4: had used this particular provision of immigration law. that the
41:30
Speaker 4: State Department basically was targeting people for deportation based strictly
41:36
Speaker 4: on their speech. She found that plainly unconstitutional, both under
41:40
Speaker 4: the First and the Fifth Amendment. The First, obviously, because
41:44
Speaker 4: we enjoy free speech protections under the Constitution. But the
41:48
Speaker 4: Fifth Amendment also because the enforcement of this policy was
41:52
Speaker 4: so arbitrary.
41:53
Speaker 5: And impossible to follow from the outside.
41:56
Speaker 4: Because if you're an international student and you're seeing what's
41:59
Speaker 4: happened to Ozturk and Khalil, it's actually not at all
42:02
Speaker 4: clear what the line is that you're not meant to cross.
42:06
Speaker 4: And so this is an arbitrary enforcement of a policy
42:09
Speaker 4: that people don't even know how to respond to. And
42:12
Speaker 4: that to me was the other pernicious part of this.
42:14
Speaker 4: The fear was rooted in so much ambiguity and uncertainty.
42:19
Speaker 4: People didn't even know what the limits were.
42:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it is an arbitrary policy, to say the least,
42:25
Speaker 3: that the administration can pick and choose what speech they like.
42:28
Speaker 3: And if you're not a citizen, they're not yet claiming
42:29
Speaker 3: this is true for citizens. They can not put you
42:33
Speaker 3: in prison, but they can kick you out of the country.
42:35
Speaker 3: That's their claim and why you are feeling it so strongly.
42:38
Speaker 3: And just to make it crystal clear for the listeners,
42:41
Speaker 3: I mean, as your exchange with John reveals, this isn't
42:44
Speaker 3: just a fight for Stanford or even for student newspapers.
42:48
Speaker 3: You really have taken up a mantle that if you win...
42:51
Speaker 3: And I just have to believe that this court, even
42:54
Speaker 3: this Supreme Court, sees that the First Amendment of the
42:57
Speaker 3: Constitution says nothing about citizenship, but says something about a
43:01
Speaker 3: limit on government. And by the way, there also is
43:03
Speaker 3: a right to a free press in the First Amendment,
43:06
Speaker 3: that this is a right of all citizens. newspapers, and
43:09
Speaker 3: I would hope, you know, there are differences with the
43:12
Speaker 3: Khalil case, but that you also in many ways are
43:15
Speaker 3: fighting for any non-citizen to have a right to free speech.
43:19
Speaker 3: Because as I understand it, your claim isn't just about newspapers,
43:23
Speaker 3: it's about free speech, period. So, you know, I really
43:26
Speaker 3: want to emphasize that's why this is so important. You're
43:28
Speaker 3: not just sticking up for student rights, you're sticking up
43:31
Speaker 3: for the First Amendment right.
43:32
Speaker 2: To free speech.
43:33
Speaker 3: I've got to ask you, given going back to the
43:36
Speaker 3: context that you're in, How has it been with the
43:39
Speaker 3: administration at Stanford? You know, I'm also a professor who's
43:42
Speaker 3: speaking out all the time against the Trump administration, and
43:45
Speaker 3: I certainly haven't had any pushback from colleagues to the contrary,
43:49
Speaker 3: but I am interested how it is at Stanford. Are
43:51
Speaker 3: people worried about what you're doing? Has the administration put
43:54
Speaker 3: any pressure or sent any negative messages, or have they
43:57
Speaker 3: just been quiet about it?
43:59
Speaker 4: The Stanford administration has remained entirely neutral. We've heard essentially
44:04
Speaker 4: nothing from them. And to my mind, I'm perfectly fine
44:09
Speaker 4: with that. Because again, we made this decision autonomously. And
44:14
Speaker 4: I think the university has its own dilemmas and choices
44:18
Speaker 4: it's making. I mean, we saw what happened with Harvard
44:21
Speaker 4: and this wider higher ed battle. This is different, the
44:23
Speaker 4: fight that we're waging. And it really is, as you said,
44:27
Speaker 4: about speech rights, not about some broader culture war or
44:31
Speaker 4: culture clash.
44:32
Speaker 5: So we've heard basically nothing from them.
44:34
Speaker 4: I will say on the campus, on the ground, what
44:37
Speaker 4: I hear from peers is a lot of encouragement. And
44:41
Speaker 4: that is really heartening to hear because I think this
44:44
Speaker 4: problem runs pretty deep. And again, international students are really
44:48
Speaker 4: embedded in this community. They're a part of every club,
44:52
Speaker 4: every class, every campus community. And so I think a
44:56
Speaker 4: lot of people recognize the potential importance of this for
45:00
Speaker 4: their own lives.
45:02
Speaker 1: I just love the thought of a student newspaper suing
45:04
Speaker 1: the president. I'm sorry.
45:05
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
45:05
Speaker 1: I look at your academic career, George, you're a history
45:09
Speaker 1: major at Stanford and editor-in-chief of The Daily. I'm just curious,
45:12
Speaker 1: how has your study of history shaped the way you
45:16
Speaker 1: understand this particular legal fight? Hmm.
45:20
Speaker 4: Well, at the moment, I'm writing a thesis that's history
45:24
Speaker 4: meets sociology about local journalism and civil rights in the
45:28
Speaker 4: Deep South. And I think studying something like the civil
45:31
Speaker 4: rights movement, for example, you could also point to McCarthyism,
45:35
Speaker 4: or you could point to the Civil War. I think
45:38
Speaker 4: studying that history does show you that in this country,
45:41
Speaker 4: there is a longer history of the government cracking down
45:45
Speaker 4: on dissent, of ordinary people, ordinary citizens, raising their voices
45:51
Speaker 4: to call for a more democratic country, a more democratic
45:55
Speaker 4: form of governance. And sometimes they're met with a great
45:58
Speaker 4: deal of resistance. And so I think I don't want
46:02
Speaker 4: to draw a straight line necessarily to the present, but
46:06
Speaker 4: I do think those stories can give you courage. And
46:09
Speaker 4: I also think they can give you a sense of
46:11
Speaker 4: what you're up against historically.
46:13
Speaker 3: It really fits with the theme of the podcast, which
46:15
Speaker 3: is that if you look at past instances of courage,
46:18
Speaker 3: it's contagious and that citizens now can gain from it.
46:21
Speaker 3: So I'm so glad to hear that from you as
46:23
Speaker 3: a history major. I did want to ask you one
46:25
Speaker 3: last question, which is, you know, you've had success so far.
46:29
Speaker 3: It's going to be a tough road ahead because the
46:31
Speaker 3: administration is fighting back. You'll be at the Ninth Circuit.
46:35
Speaker 3: The Court of Appeal is next. And are you willing
46:38
Speaker 3: and is the newspaper willing, I should say, because you
46:40
Speaker 3: might not be there to is there a plan to
46:42
Speaker 3: fight this all the way to the Supreme Court?
46:44
Speaker 2: Is there a commitment to keep this going? I certainly
46:47
Speaker 2: hope there is.
46:48
Speaker 4: Well, I will graduate in the spring of this coming
46:51
Speaker 4: year and I'm going to turn over. leadership in early
46:54
Speaker 4: February to my successor. We're going to have an election
46:58
Speaker 4: to determine who that will be. So I don't want
47:00
Speaker 4: to speak too soon because I will be moving on.
47:04
Speaker 4: But I would say that from everything I've heard in
47:06
Speaker 4: this newsroom, we are pretty united on this front in
47:11
Speaker 4: wanting to see this through.
47:12
Speaker 2: It's so great to hear. John, any last thoughts?
47:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just want to ask, I deeply respect that
47:17
Speaker 1: you didn't want the university to come in on the
47:19
Speaker 1: lawsuit with you. I think that's very wise. But I'm curious,
47:23
Speaker 1: what responsibility do you think Stanford University itself has when
47:29
Speaker 1: students on campus fear that participating in journalism could jeopardize
47:34
Speaker 1: their ability to stay in the country? Should Stanford get involved?
47:39
Speaker 4: You know, I think the truth is that the reason
47:42
Speaker 4: we're pursuing this through the courts is is that to
47:45
Speaker 4: put a restraint on the DHS, you really do need,
47:49
Speaker 4: I think, some intervention by the state or by the judiciary.
47:53
Speaker 4: That being said, I would just say in my capacity
47:56
Speaker 4: as a student that I want to look out for
47:59
Speaker 4: my peers. I think that they make important contributions and
48:03
Speaker 4: that they're here for a reason. And so just speaking
48:06
Speaker 4: as a student, yes, I want to see my university
48:09
Speaker 4: protect those people, do what it can, give them support,
48:12
Speaker 4: whether that's legal support, whether it's advice, guidance on how
48:16
Speaker 4: to navigate changing restrictions.
48:18
Speaker 5: All of this, I think, is important to our peers.
48:22
Speaker 4: And the last thing I should say is that while
48:24
Speaker 4: this lawsuit victory has been incredibly vindicating, as I said,
48:29
Speaker 4: it will take more work to undo some of the
48:32
Speaker 4: cultural damage that has been done and some of the
48:34
Speaker 4: fear that has been instilled. So I think that is
48:36
Speaker 4: a collective undertaking we all have to be a part of.
48:40
Speaker 1: How might our listeners keep up with you, George, and
48:42
Speaker 1: your work and the Stanford Daily if they want to
48:44
Speaker 1: support or just dig some good journalism?
48:47
Speaker 2: Sure.
48:48
Speaker 4: Well, I hope they'll read our work at StanfordDaily.com and
48:51
Speaker 4: subscribe to our email digest.
48:53
Speaker 5: We're in the strange position now of reporting on ourselves.
48:57
Speaker 4: Which we rarely do. But we are covering our own
49:01
Speaker 4: case so people can just read the Stanford Daily and
49:05
Speaker 4: keep up with what's happening.
49:06
Speaker 1: Brilliant.
49:07
Speaker 2: So great.
49:07
Speaker 3: I've got to say, George, I'm now a proud graduate
49:10
Speaker 3: of Stanford Law School.
49:11
Speaker 2: I was happy to go there.
49:12
Speaker 3: And now I'm especially happy that I went there where
49:14
Speaker 3: I studied the First Amendment, studied the Constitution. And what
49:17
Speaker 3: an amazing symbol to have the students. newspaper really taking
49:22
Speaker 3: a heroic stand without the support of the university, but
49:25
Speaker 3: in defense of Stanford, in defense of free.
49:28
Speaker 2: Speech, really of everyone, of all journalists.
49:30
Speaker 3: So congrats and kudos on that. And I don't want
49:34
Speaker 3: to lose track of your final thought, too, which is
49:36
Speaker 3: that you know, there's going to be a long period
49:38
Speaker 3: of recovery. This administration has really attacked non-citizens in a
49:42
Speaker 3: way that we haven't seen for decades. And it is
49:46
Speaker 3: an assault not just on these individual citizens, but on
49:49
Speaker 3: all of our rights. And so that'll be a period
49:51
Speaker 3: of recovery that we'll be talking about.
49:53
Speaker 2: For a long time.
49:54
Speaker 3: And I think as we write our own history of
49:57
Speaker 3: this period, and certainly we are living through a historic time,
50:00
Speaker 3: this fight will be part of it. So congrats again,
50:03
Speaker 3: on doing something that history will look back on with
50:06
Speaker 3: a lot of kindness in a way that it will
50:08
Speaker 3: not look on this.
50:09
Speaker 1: Do you mean the lawsuit or appearing on this podcast, Professor? Yeah,
50:13
Speaker 1: that's what I was going to say. It's so brave
50:16
Speaker 1: of you to come here, George. Wow.
50:19
Speaker 5: I made the right choice, I think.
50:21
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
50:22
Speaker 5: Thank you both so much.
50:23
Speaker 3: The newspaper and the notes as well. Thanks so much
50:25
Speaker 3: for joining us, George. I'm the oath in the office.
50:28
Speaker 5: Thanks so much.
50:30
Speaker 1: Our thanks to George Porteus for joining us on the show.
50:32
Speaker 1: What an inspiring interview, Professor. Thank you very much. And
50:35
Speaker 1: I mean, amidst all of this malfeasance and double talk
50:38
Speaker 1: and jive, it's great to see a young journalist who's
50:40
Speaker 1: so committed to telling the truth.
50:43
Speaker 4: Yeah.
50:43
Speaker 3: And so standing up for constitutional rights and for decency,
50:47
Speaker 3: as much as we're, you know, always talking about this
50:49
Speaker 3: assault on democracy, to see a kind of clear eyed
50:53
Speaker 3: purity when it comes to seeking justice and vindication, not
50:57
Speaker 3: just for fellow citizens, but for everyone. of the rights
51:00
Speaker 3: that we enjoy under this constitution. I found it totally inspiring.
51:04
Speaker 3: You could hear me getting a little emotional. You know,
51:06
Speaker 3: I have a daughter in college. I mean, I'm looking
51:09
Speaker 3: at these students and thinking this is really our hope
51:12
Speaker 3: for the future. The future is not Trump and Trumpism.
51:15
Speaker 2: It's them. So what a great discussion. Thanks so much
51:17
Speaker 2: for doing it with me.
51:18
Speaker 1: I agree. And what a great show. I want to
51:20
Speaker 1: thank you, Professor. I want to thank Wendy and Bea
51:22
Speaker 1: Wolf and all the brilliant people who put this monster
51:25
Speaker 1: together every week. And, you know, I just want to
51:27
Speaker 1: sign off by saying we talked last week about Pete
51:30
Speaker 1: Hegseth's plans to live stream the Pentagon killing a prisoner
51:35
Speaker 1: as a pay-per-view event. And of course, they backed down
51:38
Speaker 1: on that right away. But I want to let our
51:40
Speaker 1: listeners know, if you'd still like to see an actual
51:43
Speaker 1: snuff film, I recommend Susan Collins' debate performance last week
51:46
Speaker 1: in May. It's almost the same exact thing. But it's
51:49
Speaker 1: not going to slow down, Corey. I'm so grateful to
51:51
Speaker 1: you for keeping us abreast of all this. And it's
51:54
Speaker 1: going to be a crazy run up to the midterms.
51:56
Speaker 3: It sure is, and we'll continue to cover it. We
51:58
Speaker 3: have some amazing guests coming up that we'll announce soon.
52:01
Speaker 3: We'll continue to talk to people who are fighting back
52:04
Speaker 3: against injustice, members of Congress, journalists, and it's really been
52:09
Speaker 3: a terrific experience, John, doing this show with you. I
52:12
Speaker 3: would be remiss if I didn't tell our listeners and
52:15
Speaker 3: ask them if they haven't already or you're joining us
52:17
Speaker 3: for the first time to subscribe.
52:19
Speaker 2: Hit that button and find us every week.
52:22
Speaker 3: You could also find us on YouTube and Substack.
52:25
Speaker 2: This has been The Oath in the Office. Thanks for
52:26
Speaker 2: joining us.
52:27
Speaker 3: Peace.