Latest / The Agora / September 21, 2026 — Barricades, Ballistics, and Ballot Boxes

Transcript

September 21, 2026 — Barricades, Ballistics, and Ballot Boxes · The Agora

• 0:22
  Arthur Kline: Good evening.
• 0:23
  Welcome to THE AGORA.
• 0:24
  Tonight — credentials pulled at the White House gate,
• 0:28
  a Houthi missile lands on Riyadh, and the NAACP sues to keep ICE from the polls.
• 0:35
  Plus two lightning rounds.
• 0:37
  I'm Arthur Kline.
• 0:38
  It's Monday, September 21st, 2026.
• 0:41
  Let's go.
• 0:49
  Arthur Kline: ISSUE ONE — the White House press ban.
• 0:52
  Friday, September eighteenth, Trump announced CNN,
• 0:56
  MS NOW and Politico banned from the White House "effective immediately," accusing
• 1:02
  them of "FAKE NEWS."
• 1:04
  Saturday, three reporters were turned away at the gate,
• 1:08
  credentials confiscated or deactivated.
• 1:11
  *Sherrill v.
• 1:12
  Knight*, 1977, D.C.
• 1:14
  Circuit: press access cannot be denied arbitrarily or without a compelling reason.
• 1:21
  Grant, does a president get to pick his own press corps, or did *Sherrill v.
• 1:27
  Knight* settle that half a century ago?
• 1:30
  Grant Mercer: Arthur, the president gets to pick who he *talks* to.
• 1:33
  He doesn't get to pick who gets to *watch*.
• 1:36
  That's the line Sherrill v.
• 1:37
  Knight drew, and it's a conservative line —
• 1:39
  the briefing room isn't the president's living room,
• 1:42
  it's public property with a public function.
• 1:45
  I'm going to get yelled at by my own side for this, but "fake news" is a slogan,
• 1:49
  not a compelling reason,
• 1:50
  and if a Democratic president had yanked Fox's credentials on Friday,
• 1:54
  half my party would be quoting the D.C.
• 1:56
  Circuit from memory by Saturday.
• 1:58
  The Wizard of Oz fits here — "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain" —
• 2:02
  except this president isn't asking nicely.
• 2:05
  He's confiscating the badges of the people *paid* to pull the curtain.
• 2:09
  Sloane Barrett: Grant, sure, but you're underselling it.
• 2:12
  *Sherrill v.
• 2:13
  Knight* wasn't a courtesy rule — it was Fifth Amendment due process.
• 2:19
  Notice, a stated reason, a chance to answer.
• 2:22
  Deactivating badges at the gate is the textbook definition of arbitrary.
• 2:29
  Arthur Kline: Due process for a press badge — the D.C.
• 2:32
  Circuit said so, and no one's overruled it.
• 2:35
  Eli — is Sloane right, or is this a press pass, not a property right?
• 2:41
  Eli Navarro: Sloane's right, Arthur, and she's understating it — due process is the floor,
• 2:45
  not the ceiling.
• 2:46
  *Sherrill v.
• 2:47
  Knight* was Robert Sherrill of The Nation,
• 2:49
  and the court's real worry was that "security" becomes a fig leaf for punishing
• 2:54
  coverage.
• 2:54
  "Fake news" isn't a fig leaf.
• 2:56
  It's the president announcing, out loud, that the criterion is *content* —
• 3:00
  which is the one thing the First Amendment forbids the government to do.
• 3:04
  And notice the standard doesn't even apply to itself: asked which outlets were next,
• 3:09
  he named The New York Times and The Washington Post as "fake news," then banned
• 3:13
  neither.
• 3:14
  Channeling my inner Yogi — they're already banned, he just hasn't gotten to it yet.
• 3:18
  That's not a policy.
• 3:19
  That's a mood with a badge reader.
• 3:21
  Nora Kessler: Right, but Eli— "a mood with a badge reader" lets him off easy.
• 3:26
  Moods are random.
• 3:28
  This is targeted: three outlets, three named reporters, one criterion, coverage.
• 3:34
  *Sherrill v.
• 3:35
  Knight* demands a written reason.
• 3:38
  He's already put his in writing: "fake news."
• 3:42
  Arthur Kline: Targeted beats random — moods don't confiscate credentials.
• 3:47
  Nora's right, and that's the problem.
• 3:50
  Sloane — rebut.
• 3:52
  Sloane Barrett: Arthur, half a rebuttal,
• 3:53
  because Nora's right about the targeting and wrong about what it proves.
• 3:58
  A written reason isn't a compelling reason.
• 4:01
  *Sherrill v.
• 4:02
  Knight* didn't ask the White House to fill out a form;
• 4:05
  it asked for a justification a court could actually weigh,
• 4:09
  and "fake news" is the government grading journalism,
• 4:13
  which is the one job Article II never gave it.
• 4:16
  The targeting matters for a different reason: it's evidence.
• 4:20
  The Beastie Boys had the plaintiffs' brief written thirty years ago: Oh my God,
• 4:25
  it's a mirage / I'm tellin' y'all, it's a sabotage.
• 4:29
  Deliberate, coordinated, content-based.
• 4:31
  That's not a due-process defect you cure with a hearing —
• 4:35
  it's a criterion no hearing can launder.
• 4:38
  The remedy isn't better paperwork.
• 4:40
  It's a judge telling the executive that the briefing room isn't his to curate.
• 4:46
  Arthur Kline: "Fake news" isn't a compelling reason — it's a mood.
• 4:51
  Sloane's point stands.
• 4:53
  Nora, knock it down.
• 4:55
  Nora Kessler: Arthur, I can't knock down Sloane's premise, because it's correct.
• 4:59
  I can knock down her remedy.
• 5:01
  "A judge telling the executive the briefing room isn't his to curate" is exactly
• 5:06
  what happened the last time this president pulled a CNN pass,
• 5:09
  the Jim Acosta case: a judge ordered it restored, the badge came back,
• 5:14
  and the White House responded by writing new conduct rules so it could try again
• 5:19
  with better lawyering.
• 5:20
  Content-based bans don't get thrown out;
• 5:23
  they get relabeled "security" and "decorum," and courts historically defer to both.
• 5:28
  A court order here is a first down, not a touchdown.
• 5:31
  The durable check is the rest of the press corps:
• 5:34
  credentialed outlets refusing to fill the room until the three empty chairs are
• 5:39
  refilled.
• 5:39
  That's the one remedy the executive can't appeal.
• 5:43
  Grant Mercer: Arthur, Nora's remedy is the most inspiring plan I've heard all week,
• 5:47
  and it has one flaw —
• 5:48
  it requires the White House press corps to behave like a labor union,
• 5:52
  but I know the White House press corps.
• 5:54
  Solidarity walkouts fail for the same reason cartels fail: somebody always sells.
• 5:59
  There'll be an outlet in that room Tuesday delighted by the extra elbow room.
• 6:04
  Nora's fair on the Acosta case —
• 6:05
  an order the White House relabels "decorum" is a leaky remedy.
• 6:09
  But leaky beats voluntary.
• 6:11
  That badge came back because a judge said so, not because Fox walked out in protest.
• 6:15
  So the court is the floor and the press corps is the pressure.
• 6:19
  Take the imperfect order *first*.
• 6:21
  Eli Navarro: Hold on, Grant—
• 6:22
  "somebody always sells" is the argument against every union since the 1892 Homestead
• 6:27
  strike,
• 6:28
  and the answer was never "skip the strike."
• 6:30
  It was make scabbing expensive.
• 6:32
  Court order first, sure — but Acosta proved an order alone buys the next relabeling.
• 6:38
  Arthur Kline: Homestead, Professor?
• 6:39
  The Pinkertons had rifles; the press pool has a Slack channel.
• 6:44
  Nora — is solidarity even plausible here?
• 6:48
  Nora Kessler: Arthur, Eli picked Homestead,
• 6:50
  where the union got crushed and the mill ran non-union for a generation,
• 6:54
  so I'd retire that analogy before Grant notices.
• 6:57
  But the question is plausibility, and the answer is: it's already happened,
• 7:02
  just not as a walkout.
• 7:03
  In the Acosta fight, Fox News filed a brief supporting CNN.
• 7:07
  Rupert Murdoch's network went to court for Jim Acosta,
• 7:10
  which tells you the press corps understands a credential is a pool,
• 7:15
  not a possession.
• 7:16
  And the mechanism isn't a strike; it's the pool itself.
• 7:19
  The Correspondents' Association controls the rotation that shares footage and quotes
• 7:25
  among outlets.
• 7:25
  If the pool keeps feeding the three banned newsrooms,
• 7:29
  the ban confiscates a badge and accomplishes nothing.
• 7:32
  Grant's cartel needs a defector with product to sell.
• 7:35
  The pool makes the product public.
• 7:38
  Sloane Barrett: Nora, sure, but— the pool is a workaround, not a remedy.
• 7:42
  A right that survives only because CNN's competitors keep forwarding the footage
• 7:47
  isn't a right,
• 7:48
  it's charity.
• 7:49
  *Sherrill v.
• 7:50
  Knight* guaranteed access, not hand-me-downs.
• 7:54
  Nora Kessler: Right, but Sloane— nobody's skipping the judge.
• 7:57
  I said the order's a first down, not a touchdown.
• 8:00
  The pool isn't charity, it's leverage:
• 8:02
  it makes the ban worthless while the litigation crawls.
• 8:06
  Paper rights need enforcers.
• 8:08
  Arthur Kline: Enough.
• 8:09
  The credentials are deactivated; the precedent isn't.
• 8:13
  Sherrill v.
• 8:13
  Knight finally gets its close-up.
• 8:17
  Arthur Kline: ISSUE TWO — a Houthi missile over Riyadh.
• 8:21
  September 10: the Crown Prince called Trump twice requesting American strikes;
• 8:27
  Trump declined, offering intelligence and targeting help instead.
• 8:32
  In Omani-arranged talks, Houthi representatives pledged not to attack American,
• 8:39
  Israeli, or commercial vessels — Saudi vessels excluded.
• 8:43
  September 19: air defenses intercepted a Houthi ballistic missile over Riyadh;
• 8:50
  an Aramco fuel tank burned at the airport.
• 8:53
  Eli, when the Crown Prince calls twice for American strikes and gets a no,
• 8:59
  is that restraint or abandonment?
• 9:02
  Eli Navarro: Arthur, "restraint or abandonment" is a textbook false dichotomy.
• 9:06
  Abandonment presumes an obligation,
• 9:08
  and there is no mutual-defense treaty with Riyadh —
• 9:11
  there's an arms customer with a phone.
• 9:13
  Article I gives Congress the war power, not the Crown Prince on the second call.
• 9:18
  The last time Congress tried to pull us out of Yemen, this same president vetoed it,
• 9:23
  so forgive me if I don't hand him a medal for a "no" he could reverse by Tuesday.
• 9:27
  And read the Houthi pledge: everyone gets a pass except Saudi vessels.
• 9:31
  That's the Houthis telling us exactly whose war this is.
• 9:35
  Channeling my inner Yogi — the best time to stay out of a war is before it starts,
• 9:39
  and the second-best time is *also* before it starts.
• 9:42
  Sloane Barrett: Hold on, Eli— you're grading the "no" as a win for Article I.
• 9:46
  Targeting assistance IS hostilities without a vote.
• 9:50
  The Framers didn't distinguish pulling the trigger from aiming the gun.
• 9:55
  The war power gets bypassed either way.
• 9:58
  Arthur Kline: Aiming the gun IS pulling the trigger — Sloane's right,
• 10:02
  and Congress is asleep either way.
• 10:05
  Grant — rebut.
• 10:06
  Grant Mercer: Arthur, Sloane's right that aiming the gun is a step toward war,
• 10:10
  and the Framers didn't hand that step to the executive.
• 10:13
  But her argument has a Congress problem:
• 10:15
  American targeting help for the Saudis is not new,
• 10:18
  and the branch that owns the war power has never mustered the votes to stop it.
• 10:22
  Article I hasn't been bypassed;
• 10:24
  Congress sublet it to the executive and stopped collecting rent.
• 10:27
  What bothers me is the deal under the "no."
• 10:30
  The Houthis promised to spare everyone except Saudi ships, and Washington took it.
• 10:34
  That's Rick Blaine in *Casablanca* — "I stick my neck out for nobody" —
• 10:38
  except Rick picked a side.
• 10:40
  We're pocketing a separate peace and calling it restraint while a partner's fuel
• 10:44
  tank burns.
• 10:45
  Arthur Kline: Grant's half-right: Congress won't sue over a targeting packet.
• 10:51
  Abdication isn't consent, though.
• 10:53
  Eli — rebut.
• 10:55
  Eli Navarro: Arthur, you've got it exactly right, and Grant's rent metaphor gives the game away.
• 10:59
  If Congress is a landlord who stopped collecting rent, the tenant doesn't get title
• 11:04
  — there's no adverse-possession clause in Article I.
• 11:07
  A power unused is a power unused, not a power transferred;
• 11:11
  Congress passed a Yemen resolution and got vetoed, which is abdication *imposed*,
• 11:15
  not abdication chosen.
• 11:17
  As for Grant's separate peace — Rick picked a side against the Wehrmacht,
• 11:21
  not for the guy who kept buying him planes.
• 11:23
  The Houthis exempted everyone but Saudi ships, and Grant reads that as our betrayal.
• 11:28
  I read it as the Houthis doing Congress's homework: identifying the belligerent.
• 11:33
  Restraint isn't when the president says no.
• 11:35
  It's when Congress makes him *ask*.
• 11:37
  Sloane Barrett: No, but Eli— a veto isn't abdication "imposed."
• 11:41
  Article I, Section 7 hands Congress the override; it couldn't find two-thirds.
• 11:47
  That's abdication chosen, with a receipt.
• 11:50
  And "making him ask" means nothing while targeting packets ship without a vote.
• 11:56
  Arthur Kline: Counselor, a failed override isn't consent.
• 12:00
  Answer the war power.
• 12:01
  Sloane Barrett: Arthur, correct — a failed override isn't consent, and I never said it was.
• 12:07
  It's dereliction, which is worse, because consent at least leaves fingerprints.
• 12:13
  Article I, Section 8 gives Congress the decision to begin hostilities,
• 12:19
  and American targeting packets aimed at Houthi positions are hostilities.
• 12:24
  Aiming the gun is participating in the shooting.
• 12:28
  Eli's right that a power unused doesn't transfer,
• 12:32
  there's no adverse possession in the Constitution, but that cuts both ways.
• 12:38
  Congress can't bequeath the war power to the executive by napping,
• 12:43
  and the executive can't collect it by default.
• 12:46
  Remedy: the purse.
• 12:48
  Article I, Section 9 — no money leaves the Treasury without an appropriation.
• 12:54
  Targeting assistance costs money.
• 12:56
  Defund it, or vote to authorize it.
• 12:59
  Silence isn't a third option.
• 13:02
  Arthur Kline: Dereliction with fingerprints wiped clean —
• 13:05
  that's the whole Congress in one sentence.
• 13:08
  Nora, your move.
• 13:10
  Nora Kessler: Arthur, the fingerprints are the problem with Sloane's remedy,
• 13:14
  because the purse only works on spending you can see.
• 13:17
  Targeting assistance isn't a line item;
• 13:19
  it's a classified annex inside an intelligence budget Congress votes on in bulk,
• 13:24
  blindfolded.
• 13:25
  Defunding it is refereeing the 1988 Fog Bowl, Eagles and Bears at Soldier Field,
• 13:30
  where the officials called a playoff game they couldn't watch.
• 13:34
  Congress would be voting against a packet nobody outside a secure room has read.
• 13:39
  So the honest tally: Sloane's Article I diagnosis is right,
• 13:43
  her remedy is unenforceable, and the outcome here is the best one on the menu.
• 13:48
  No American strikes, commercial shipping covered, one fuel tank burned,
• 13:52
  no casualties.
• 13:53
  Restraint with a paperwork problem beats a war with a vote.
• 13:57
  Grant Mercer: Arthur, Nora's blindfold is real, but Congress tied it on itself.
• 14:01
  The intelligence committees can read that annex any afternoon they choose;
• 14:05
  they decline because knowing creates accountability, and ignorance polls better.
• 14:09
  So "unenforceable" really means "unenforced."
• 14:11
  Where Nora loses me is "best outcome on the menu."
• 14:14
  Commercial shipping isn't covered — it's covered by a Houthi *promise*,
• 14:18
  delivered through Oman, from people who then put a ballistic missile over Riyadh.
• 14:22
  That's a check written by someone who just torched the bank.
• 14:26
  And a partner's fuel tank burning near the airport isn't restraint paying off;
• 14:30
  it's the bill arriving in installments.
• 14:32
  I'd rather Congress vote on this and lose than call not-voting a strategy.
• 14:36
  Sloane Barrett: Right, but Grant— "vote and lose" undersells your own point.
• 14:40
  A recorded loss is a constitutional act; it puts names next to the packet.
• 14:46
  What we have now is a forfeit, and forfeits only ever go one direction:
• 14:51
  to the executive.
• 14:54
  Arthur Kline: ISSUE THREE — the NAACP sues over ICE at the polls.
• 14:58
  The NAACP sued DHS, ICE, DOJ,
• 15:00
  and the FBI on September 18 under Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act.
• 15:07
  Three days earlier, FBI Director Kash Patel told Senate Judiciary,
• 15:12
  "I don't know that we can't legally do it."
• 15:16
  A UC San Diego poll finds 40 percent of voters expect immigration agents at their
• 15:23
  polls.
• 15:23
  Grant,
• 15:24
  is this a real intimidation threat or a fundraising letter with a docket number?
• 15:31
  Grant Mercer: Arthur, every civil-rights lawsuit is also a fundraising letter —
• 15:34
  that tells you about the direct-mail budget, not the merits.
• 15:38
  The merits are that Section 11(b) bans *threats*, not just agents,
• 15:41
  and the FBI director supplied the threat under oath.
• 15:44
  "I don't know that we can't legally do it" is how a man talks right before he puts a
• 15:48
  couch in a hot tub
• 15:49
  — it's not a legal position, it's a dare.
• 15:51
  The intimidation has already landed:
• 15:53
  when nearly half of Hispanic voters expect immigration agents at their polling
• 15:58
  place,
• 15:58
  the deterrent works whether a single agent shows up or not.
• 16:01
  Look, I want clean voter rolls as much as anyone on my side.
• 16:04
  A uniformed ICE officer at a school gymnasium isn't election integrity —
• 16:08
  it's turnout suppression with a badge.
• 16:10
  Arthur Kline: Forget the mail budget.
• 16:12
  Is Patel's answer a threat?
• 16:14
  Grant Mercer: Yes, Arthur — and it's a threat because it wasn't phrased as one.
• 16:18
  Section 11(b) doesn't ask what the speaker meant;
• 16:20
  it asks what a reasonable voter heard.
• 16:22
  What they heard was the FBI director, under oath,
• 16:25
  telling the Senate he hasn't checked whether he can send agents to polling places
• 16:30
  and isn't inclined to promise he won't.
• 16:32
  That's not a legal position.
• 16:33
  That's a man leaving the door open so you'll keep watching it.
• 16:37
  The UC San Diego numbers are the receipt —
• 16:39
  the intimidation is already in the electorate before a single agent is scheduled.
• 16:43
  If Patel meant lawyerly caution, the cure was one sentence:
• 16:47
  "The FBI will not be at polling places in November."
• 16:49
  He had the microphone.
• 16:51
  He chose the shrug.
• 16:52
  Sloane Barrett: Arthur, Grant's right on the threat, but he's starting in the wrong place.
• 16:57
  Before Section 11(b), before the NAACP's brief, there's a structural problem:
• 17:02
  the Constitution hands the administration of elections to the STATES,
• 17:07
  and there's been a statute on the books since Reconstruction making it a crime to
• 17:12
  station armed federal officers at the polls.
• 17:15
  So when the FBI director tells the Senate "I don't know that we can't legally do
• 17:21
  it," that's not caution,
• 17:23
  that's a man confessing he hasn't read his own job description.
• 17:27
  The UC San Diego numbers say the voters figured out his answer before he did.
• 17:32
  Chamillionaire had the voter's-eye view: They see me rollin',
• 17:36
  they hatin' / Patrolling, and tryna catch me ridin' dirty.
• 17:40
  A polling place where the citizen is the suspect isn't a polling place.
• 17:45
  It's a checkpoint.
• 17:47
  Arthur Kline: Federalism's a fine argument until the agents are already in the parking lot.
• 17:53
  Eli — is Sloane's structure a shield or a stall?
• 17:57
  Eli Navarro: Arthur, it's a shield — and Sloane's holding it upside down.
• 18:01
  That Reconstruction-era statute wasn't born to protect Black voters;
• 18:04
  its whole lineage is the fight to pull federal troops out of Southern polling
• 18:09
  places.
• 18:09
  The irony that it now guards the grandchildren of the people it left exposed is the
• 18:14
  most American thing on this docket.
• 18:16
  But structure alone is a stall — a statute nobody enforces is a plaque.
• 18:20
  Section 11(b) is the arm that raises the shield:
• 18:22
  it doesn't wait for agents in the gymnasium, it reaches the threat itself.
• 18:26
  Patel told the Senate he doesn't know whether he can.
• 18:29
  He can find out by reading.
• 18:31
  The law's answer is no, and it's a crime — which is more than his research produced.
• 18:36
  Nora Kessler: Arthur, the merits are the easy part.
• 18:38
  Eli's right that the statute's answer is no,
• 18:41
  and Sloane's right that the states run the polls.
• 18:44
  The hard part is that Section 11(b) litigates a threat,
• 18:48
  and this threat has already done its work.
• 18:50
  That UC San Diego expectation is Wilt Chamberlain's hundred points in Hershey in
• 18:55
  1962:
• 18:56
  nobody filmed it, and it counted anyway.
• 18:58
  The suppression doesn't need a single agent in a gymnasium;
• 19:02
  it needs the expectation, and Patel manufactured it under oath in one sentence.
• 19:07
  So a November injunction is necessary and insufficient,
• 19:11
  because a court order doesn't move a poll number.
• 19:14
  What moves it is the defendants saying, plainly, "we will not be there."
• 19:18
  Grant drafted the sentence.
• 19:20
  Patel still has the microphone.
• 19:22
  Sloane Barrett: Hold on, Nora— you're asking the arsonist to announce the fire's out.
• 19:27
  Patel's promise is worth exactly his oath answer.
• 19:31
  An injunction carries contempt; a press-conference sentence carries nothing.
• 19:37
  Voters trust orders judges can enforce, not shrugs he can retract.
• 19:42
  Arthur Kline: Counselor, contempt of what order?
• 19:44
  Name the relief.
• 19:45
  Sloane Barrett: Arthur, the relief is sitting in the caption.
• 19:49
  A preliminary injunction under Section 11(b) barring DHS, ICE, the FBI,
• 19:54
  and DOJ from deploying agents at or around polling places,
• 19:58
  plus a declaratory judgment that doing so is unlawful.
• 20:02
  The order names Mullin, Venturella, Blanche, Patel, and Homan PERSONALLY,
• 20:08
  so if an agent shows up in November, the question isn't policy,
• 20:13
  it's which named defendant reports to the judge's courtroom.
• 20:17
  That's the difference between an order and a promise:
• 20:21
  an order comes with a return address.
• 20:24
  And Nora's objection answers itself.
• 20:27
  If she wants the defendants to say "we won't be there," the court can have them say
• 20:33
  it as a consent decree.
• 20:35
  Then the sentence carries contempt, and Patel learns what he can't legally do.
• 20:41
  Arthur Kline: And now, The Herald — with Simone Hargrove.
• 20:46
  Simone Hargrove: This is The Herald — the week beyond the table.
• 20:49
  President Trump on September 18 signed a sanctions bill named for Senator Lindsey
• 20:55
  Graham,
• 20:56
  expanding penalties on Russia and Iran over security and election-interference
• 21:02
  concerns.
• 21:02
  The law broadens the administration's authority to target entities and individuals
• 21:08
  in both countries.
• 21:10
  The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel has concluded that the federal ban
• 21:16
  on licensed dealers selling handguns to adults eighteen to twenty violates the
• 21:22
  Second Amendment and cannot be criminally enforced.
• 21:26
  Federal policy changes immediately; litigation and state responses are expected.
• 21:32
  In business, Volkswagen is recalling about two hundred ten thousand U.S.
• 21:37
  vehicles after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration warned a faulty
• 21:43
  steering rack bolt could break and leave drivers without control.
• 21:48
  Dealerships nationwide are making repairs.
• 21:51
  Samir Ousman Alsheikh, a former Syrian warden and governor,
• 21:56
  was sentenced to sixty years in the U.S.
• 21:59
  District Court for the Central District of California for torturing prisoners and
• 22:05
  lying to immigration officials to enter the country.
• 22:09
  The Justice Department calls it among the stiffest sentences for foreign
• 22:14
  human-rights abuses.
• 22:16
  And the Justice Department has charged sixteen people in several states with illegal
• 22:22
  voting,
• 22:22
  unlawful registration, and related schemes.
• 22:26
  Prosecutors describe coordinated efforts to cast ballots unlawfully or alter
• 22:31
  registration records,
• 22:33
  brought under federal election-crime statutes.
• 22:36
  From beyond the table — I'm Simone Hargrove.
• 22:40
  The Agora continues.
• 22:43
  Arthur Kline: ISSUE FOUR — LIGHTNING ROUND — the triumphal arch goes tactical.
• 22:48
  Trump now wants drones and snipers on his monument near Arlington.
• 22:54
  September twentieth,
• 22:55
  Trump calls the 250-foot arch a "top grade Military Complex/Triumphal Arch," citing
• 23:02
  a military request.
• 23:04
  Three Vietnam veterans sued in February; their attorney, Nicolas Sansone,
• 23:10
  says the new justification doesn't cure the project's "fundamental illegality."
• 23:17
  Eli, is this national security or a Napoleon complex with a hardware budget?
• 23:23
  Eli Navarro: Arthur, it's a Napoleon complex with a procurement code.
• 23:26
  Napoleon at least commissioned the Arc de Triomphe *after* he'd won something.
• 23:30
  This one's being retrofitted into a fortress — sniper nests on the roof,
• 23:34
  drone bays in the base —
• 23:35
  because a monument can't dodge a lawsuit but a "military complex" might.
• 23:39
  The Constitution has no triumphal-arch exception to the Appropriations Clause:
• 23:43
  Congress builds the forts, Congress dedicates the land.
• 23:46
  Sansone's right — you can't launder an illegal monument by bolting rifles to it.
• 23:50
  Getting scarier isn't the same as getting legal.
• 23:53
  Nora Kessler: Eli, sure, but— "scarier isn't legal" undersells it.
• 23:57
  Scarier is *less* legal.
• 23:59
  A monument needs one congressional sign-off;
• 24:02
  a military installation needs Congress to authorize the construction on top of that.
• 24:08
  He just doubled his own paperwork.
• 24:10
  Eli Navarro: Exactly, Nora— and he picked the worst plot to double it on.
• 24:14
  Memorial Circle sits between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington's graves.
• 24:18
  A fort there needs Congress twice over: once for the land, once for the guns.
• 24:22
  Nora Kessler: Arthur, it's a litigation strategy dressed as a fortress,
• 24:26
  and it fails on its own terms.
• 24:28
  The complaint was filed in February;
• 24:30
  the national-security justification appeared on September twentieth.
• 24:34
  Judges notice when the rationale postdates the lawsuit by seven months.
• 24:39
  Lawyers call that pretext, which is why Sansone sounded so relaxed.
• 24:43
  And read what he promised:
• 24:45
  an arch that houses and rapidly deploys large numbers of drones and stores sniper
• 24:50
  ammunition,
• 24:51
  next door to Arlington's headstones.
• 24:53
  That isn't a monument to veterans.
• 24:55
  It's an arms depot beside their graves.
• 24:58
  Arthur Kline: Nora, skip the calendar.
• 24:59
  Does the sniper roof survive judicial review?
• 25:03
  Nora Kessler: No, Arthur, and not because judges hate arches.
• 25:07
  It fails because relabeling doesn't change the question.
• 25:11
  Courts ask who authorized the land and who appropriated the money,
• 25:16
  and the answer is nobody, whether the roof holds statues or snipers.
• 25:21
  He's hunting for a Tuck Rule,
• 25:24
  that obscure 1999 provision that turned Tom Brady's fumble into an incompletion and
• 25:30
  saved the Patriots' season.
• 25:32
  There's no Tuck Rule in the Appropriations Clause.
• 25:36
  Sansone's brief writes itself: same plot, same missing vote, more hardware.
• 25:42
  Arthur Kline: Nobody authorized it, nobody paid for it, and it's still getting built.
• 25:49
  That's the whole story.
• 25:51
  Eli — rebut.
• 25:52
  Eli Navarro: Arthur, "still getting built" is the tell.
• 25:54
  Every dollar poured into that foundation without an appropriation is a dollar the
• 25:59
  executive spent on his own signature
• 26:01
  — the exact abuse the Appropriations Clause exists to stop.
• 26:04
  Nora's pretext point seals it:
• 26:05
  a "military request" that materializes seven months into a lawsuit isn't a request,
• 26:10
  it's a defense brief with epaulets.
• 26:12
  Build a fort between Lincoln's memorial and Arlington's dead,
• 26:15
  and the only thing it defends is the president from a judge.
• 26:20
  Arthur Kline: ISSUE FIVE — LIGHTNING ROUND — Salazar scolds Trump on camera.
• 26:25
  A bilingual ad outside the White House, then a "very good" phone call.
• 26:30
  On September 17,
• 26:32
  Salazar's 30-second bilingual ad told Trump directly that "some of your immigration
• 26:38
  enforcement efforts have gone too far."
• 26:41
  She claims roughly 50,000 people detained by ICE in July had no criminal record.
• 26:48
  On Sunday she called their phone conversation "very good" and Trump "very
• 26:54
  receptive."
• 26:55
  Sloane, is this a revolt or a photo op?
• 26:58
  Sloane Barrett: Arthur, it's a photo op,
• 27:00
  and I say that as someone who agrees with every word of the ad.
• 27:05
  Salazar sits in the branch that WRITES immigration law and FUNDS ICE.
• 27:10
  Her remedy for fifty thousand detainees with no record was a thirty-second spot and
• 27:16
  a courteous phone call.
• 27:18
  Article I isn't a suggestion box.
• 27:20
  And the tell is Friday: Trump said he still supports her but disagrees.
• 27:26
  The president grading the congresswoman is exactly backwards.
• 27:30
  Oversight has a tool.
• 27:32
  It's called an appropriations rider, not a camera.
• 27:35
  Grant Mercer: Wait, Sloane— an appropriations rider needs a majority she doesn't have.
• 27:40
  A Miami Republican telling Trump on camera he went too far, in Spanish,
• 27:44
  is the only oversight tool a backbencher owns.
• 27:47
  Photo ops move presidents; riders die in committee.
• 27:50
  Sloane Barrett: No, but Grant— a backbencher owns exactly one tool that isn't a camera: her
• 27:56
  vote.
• 27:57
  In a House this narrow, one Miami Republican's "no" on the DHS bill is leverage.
• 28:04
  The ad bought her a courteous phone call — that's it.
• 28:09
  Grant Mercer: Arthur, Sloane's vote is a hostage you can only shoot once,
• 28:12
  and every whip in the House knows it.
• 28:14
  The ad's real audience wasn't Trump —
• 28:16
  it was the Hispanic voters Salazar says "feel betrayed," the ones who put him back
• 28:21
  in the White House in 2024.
• 28:22
  She's telling the president his coalition is leaking and warning him to watch what
• 28:27
  his advisers whisper.
• 28:28
  He called her back within three days, "very receptive."
• 28:31
  Appropriations riders don't get return calls that fast.
• 28:34
  That's not a photo op.
• 28:35
  That's a Miami Republican reading Trump his own coalition math.
• 28:38
  Arthur Kline: Grant, a hostage you can shoot once is still leverage.
• 28:43
  Grant Mercer: Arthur, it's leverage exactly once,
• 28:45
  and only if the other side believes you'd pull it.
• 28:48
  That's Sloane's problem — a "no" vote nobody advertises deters nothing. Dr.
• 28:52
  Strangelove got this right:
• 28:54
  the whole point of a doomsday machine is lost if you keep it a secret.
• 28:58
  Salazar's ad *is* the announcement.
• 29:00
  She put the threat on camera, in Spanish, outside the White House,
• 29:04
  and the president called within three days.
• 29:06
  The vote is the weapon.
• 29:08
  The ad is what made him take it seriously.
• 29:11
  Eli Navarro: Arthur, Grant's doomsday-machine point cuts against him.
• 29:14
  A deterrent announced Thursday and disarmed by Sunday —
• 29:17
  "very courteous," "very receptive" — isn't a threat, it's a courtesy call.
• 29:21
  Trump's Friday line was the real verdict: still supports her, still disagrees.
• 29:25
  Those fifty thousand detainees don't need a congresswoman with a camera;
• 29:29
  they need Sloane's rider, and Salazar is the one vote that could force it.
• 29:33
  Instead she declared a fire and then thanked the arsonist for taking her call.
• 29:37
  Revolt?
• 29:38
  He hasn't lost a single detainee.
• 29:39
  Nora Kessler: But Eli, "disarmed by Sunday" assumes she retracted something.
• 29:43
  She didn't.
• 29:44
  The ad's still airing; the call just confirmed it landed.
• 29:48
  Sloane's rider needs a public record first.
• 29:50
  Thursday built it.
• 29:51
  Sunday didn't erase it.
• 29:53
  Eli Navarro: No, but Nora— "still airing" isn't leverage, it's inventory.
• 29:56
  A public record that never reaches a roll call is a press clipping.
• 29:59
  "Very receptive" is what a president says when he's concluded you won't withhold
• 30:03
  your vote.
• 30:05
  Arthur Kline: Enough.
• 30:05
  We've argued the arch, the badges, and the ballots.
• 30:09
  Now each of you commits to being wrong in writing.
• 30:14
  Arthur Kline: Predictions.
• 30:15
  One apiece — specific, falsifiable, dated.
• 30:18
  Spare me the "possibly" and "perhaps" — if no outcome could prove you wrong,
• 30:25
  you haven't predicted anything, you've filed an alibi. Go.
• 30:30
  Arthur Kline: Nora Kessler.
• 30:31
  Nora Kessler: Here's mine, Arthur, on the badges.
• 30:33
  Before October 16th, a federal judge in D.C.
• 30:36
  orders all three confiscated credentials restored.
• 30:39
  Within seven days of that order,
• 30:41
  the White House publishes new written "conduct standards" for the briefing room.
• 30:46
  Same play as the Acosta case, and the same relabeling, on schedule.
• 30:51
  Arthur Kline: Grant Mercer.
• 30:53
  Grant Mercer: Sticking with Salazar, Arthur.
• 30:54
  When the House votes on DHS funding before the end of the year, she votes yes,
• 30:59
  with no rider limiting ICE detentions attached.
• 31:01
  Sloane's hostage walks out without a scratch.
• 31:04
  The ad got the phone call; the appropriations bill gets her vote anyway.
• 31:08
  Arthur Kline: Sloane Barrett.
• 31:10
  Sloane Barrett: Arthur, I'll take the polls.
• 31:12
  Before November 3rd,
• 31:13
  a federal judge grants the NAACP a preliminary injunction under Section 11(b);
• 31:19
  within a week,
• 31:20
  the government files a sworn declaration that no agents will be at polling places.
• 31:26
  The sentence Patel wouldn't give the Senate, he'll give a judge.
• 31:31
  Arthur Kline: Eli Navarro.
• 31:33
  Eli Navarro: The arch is unclaimed, so it's mine.
• 31:35
  By December 31st,
• 31:36
  Congress passes zero legislation authorizing either the Memorial Circle land or the
• 31:42
  arch's military hardware,
• 31:43
  and the veterans' lawsuit survives a motion to dismiss.
• 31:47
  That "military request" dies the day a judge asks who signed it.
• 31:52
  Arthur Kline: Three of four predictions hinge on a federal judge in D.C.;
• 31:56
  Grant's hinges on Salazar's spine, which is a longer shot.
• 32:01
  I'm Arthur Kline.
• 32:02
  THE AGORA IS ADJOURNED.