Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Elie Mystal Talks 'Bad Law: Ten Popular Laws That Are Ruining America' Trump, Voter 'Fraud' + More

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INTERVIEW: Elie Mystal Talks 'Bad Law: Ten Popular Laws That Are Ruining America' Trump, Voter 'Fraud' + More · The Breakfast Club

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning Club.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Morning Everybody. It's DJ en Vy, Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne, the
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: guy we are the Breakfast Club. He got a special
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: guest in the building.
• 0:12
  Speaker 3: They call him Big Ellie.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: The reason I don't want to messing your last name
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: is my style.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: It's miss Stall rhymes with Chris Stall and made that up.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Your kids used to say Ellie rhymes with jelly. I
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: didn't like that at all.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: So welcome new book out, Bad law Man.
• 0:30
  Speaker 4: First of all, Ellie, you know you're one of my
• 0:31
  Speaker 4: favorite people to listen to.
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: I love reading your work in the nation.
• 0:34
  Speaker 4: I started reading a lot more of your stuff a
• 0:36
  Speaker 4: few years ago when I realized the Constitution didn't mean
• 0:39
  Speaker 4: much okay anymore? Right, So so the people, I'm glad
• 0:44
  Speaker 4: you're here. What got you into studying constitutional law?
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Well, I went to law school and I hated it.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: I went to Harvard Law School, and you know, part
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: of the legal training is like they say that they're
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: going to make you think like a lawyer. Right, So
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: what that means is that they take the way you think,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: which was fine to me, and they break you and
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: then they try to build you back up. In this
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: new like legal way of understanding the world. And I
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: just never accepted the training. I like, at every point
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: when you're telling me that, like, oh, well, this is
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: how it's always been done, I'm always like by the
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: slavers and I should care about that? Why? And just
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: so was a constant while I was in law school,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: like back and forth in terms of my professors trying
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: to kind of push me in a certain box and
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: me resisting that box and not you know, not all
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: of my professors. One of my professors was current Supreme
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Court Justice Elena Kagan. She was great, right, but I
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: would go to her office hours and be like, why
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: is this like this? And she would say Thurgod Marshall
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: once said, It's like, I don't give a damn what
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Thurgood said. He was talking for a different time, what
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: about our time? And so these are the conversations I
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: had all the time, and that led to my first
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: book and certainly my career in general.
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: And that's why you feel like all laws before in
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: nineteen sixty five should be deemed unconstitution.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: I said, presumptively on constitutional, which is a legal dodge
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: on I'm trying to lawyer my way around that. But
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: my fundamental premise is that before the nineteen sixty five
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Voting Rights Act, which I think is the most important
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: piece of legislation ever passed in American history, this was
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: functionally apartheid country. Not everybody who lived here could vote here,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Not everybody who lived here could participate in the government. Here.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: The majority of people who lived here, if you think
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: about not just black people, but also Latinos and also women,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: couldn't actually participate in the government. What do you call that.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: We have a word for that. It's that word is apartheid.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: And so if you're now going to say that we
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: pass some law before everybody had a say, before everybody
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: had a vote, and that law it should still be
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: controlling today, I say, hell no, Right, it's like Roy
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Breaker from Lockstock, Right, if the milk sour, I ain't
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: the type of pussy to drink it. Right, So, if
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: you're going to go all the way back before everybody
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: had a vote, I'm saying that, presumptively speaking, that law
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: should mean nothing. Now, I'm not saying that you get
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: rid of every single law passed before nineteen sixty five.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Some of them I quite like, like the nineteen sixty
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: four Civil Rights Act, and that was a good law.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: I also like the Sherman Anti Trust Act. I like
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: a lot of laws that were passed before nineteen sixty five.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: But my argument is that if we liked the law,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: we could pass it again. We could pass it again,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: this time asking everybody. And for that example, I didn't
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: make that up myself. Right. The example that I'm using
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: here is what they did in South Africa. Right when
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: South Africa got over apartheid. Did they just go back
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: to their africaner racist constitution and be like, Oh, we
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: just need a couple of amendments, we just need a
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: couple of changes here to make a work. No, they
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  Speaker 1: threw the whole thing out and started again, this time
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: asking everybody, this time having a completely new delegation of
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: all of the people of South Africa, not just the
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: white folks, but not no white folks, and they came
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: up with a new constitutions. One of the reasons why
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: the South African constitution is generally thought of as one
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: of the best constitutions in the world and ours continues
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: to be a piece of crap.
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  Speaker 2: So what laws would you kick out immediately? What laws
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: are you saying it needs to get the fuck out
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: of you.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. So the first one I have in my book
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: is that I want to eliminate every single voter registration law.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: All of them, all of them in every state, are bad. Right.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: That's different from voter eligibility. Right, We, I think, can
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: all agree that there should be eligibility requirements, like an
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: age requirement. Right, you have to be eighteen to vote. Ye,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: I might say sixteen, but I'm not going to say eight. Right,
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: I got an eight year old. We don't want. No,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: they're not ready for that. Right, That's a voter eligibility requirement.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: But once, once you're eligible, there's no reason for you
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: to have to pre register in order to execute your franchise.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: If you're eligible to vote, you should just be able
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: to rock up to the polls and vote. Again. I
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: didn't make that up. That's what they do in nearly
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: every other democracy, and nearly every other democracy either has
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: mandatory registration, automatic registration, or same day registration. What we
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: do with this bull crap of like having to show
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: up ten days before, a month before in some places,
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  Speaker 1: in order to pre register before you're allot, we're alone
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: basically in the modern world in terms of people who
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: do that, So we could just get rid of all
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: of them. We could just get rid of all of them.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: And the people will say like, oh, well, we can't
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: do that because of voter fraud. Right. Well, first of all,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: and I know this is going to be hard for
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: some listeners who spend a lot of time listening to
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Republican lies. But voter fraud does not exist.
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: I love how you broke that down in the book. Found.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: Please, voter fraud just doesn't exist. It's not a real thing.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: We shouldn't make laws based on protecting us from things
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: that don't exist.
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: An analogy I've made is like, if let's say I
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: want to go fishing. I want to go fishing that
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: leg the government says, nah, you can't fish there, And
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: I say why They say, because the next months that
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: might get you get on my face with that. Shut up,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: that's stupid. We're not going to restrict my right to
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: fish because of a thing that doesn't exist. So that's
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: number one. But number two. Republicans keep saying we need
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: voter ID. The voter ID is the thing that secures
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: our election, that protects us from voter fraud. And I
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: call their bluff. I'm like, all right, you want voter ID. Fine,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: let's make a deal. Remember how this country used to
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: actually make deals in order to move forward. Let's make
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: a deal. I'll give you your voter ID. It's got
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: to be national, it's got to be free, because if
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: it's not free, it violates the twenty fourth Amendments prohibition
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: on poll taxes. But you give me a free national
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: I'll give you a free national voter ID, and you
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: give me automatic registration of every eligible voter that is
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: also portable between either in the states or between the states.
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  Speaker 1: Portable means if I move, I don't have to reregister,
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: my registration follows me. I don't have to follow my registration.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: You give me that deal, I will give you your ID card.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: Who says no, and I promise you the people who
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: say no are the Republicans, are the ones who claim
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: that voter ID is necessary to secure our election because
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: their goal is not to secure elections, because again, voter
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: fraud doesn't exist. Their goal is to restrict people from voting.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: So if I say, hey, we're gonna fix your fake
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: fraud problem, but we're gonna let a lot more people
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  Speaker 1: have a lot easier access to voting. Republicans are the
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: ones that are like, oh no, that's not yes, but
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: not like that right, it's so so again, if they
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: were serious about voter I d there is a deal
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: on the table that we could make, and they're the
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: ones who don't want to make it. And that goes through,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: as I'm sure you guys know, through so many issues
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: in this country where Republicans claim that there's a problem
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: and Democrats and I got a lot of smoke in
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: the book for Democrats, but generally Democrats are like, Okay,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: let's make a deal, and Republicans like, we don't want
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: the deal. We want the issue. We don't want to
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: fix it. We want people to be pissed that it
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: isn't fixed. And that's what Republicans keep doing, as opposed
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: to actually making a deal with Democrats who are always
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: willing to fold and trade and whatever, and so we
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: don't even fix any things. We just keep being pissed
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: about things that aren't fixed.
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: Well, question, do you feel like all elections have been
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: free and fair? Because people will say Democrats will say
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: the twenty sixteen election was stolen, and then some will
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: say they feel like this one was stolen.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Big picture, we haven't had a single free, fair election
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: in this country ever ever, because we've never had an
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: election in this country. This goes back to my point.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: We've never had an election in this country where everybody
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: who was eligible to vote or should be eligible to vote,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: could easily go and vote. So I would say it's
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: never actually been free and fair in terms of the
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: particulars and the current What was rigged, what wasn't rigged, whatever. Look,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: Trump lost in twenty twenty and he won in twenty
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: twenty four. I don't like that he won in twenty
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: twenty four, but he both got the most popular votes.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: Ninety million people stayed home, but he got the most
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: popular votes of the people who bothered to show up.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: And I believe the election happened as fairly as we
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: do in this country.
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: What do you think about his executive Orders on elections
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: that he just recently signed.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Oh, this is all his National ID crap. And if
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: you look at his version of National ID, think about
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: the things that he won't do that I just said
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: that we could do for National ID. He won't make
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: it free. He literally is talking about IDs that people
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: have to pay for. And while that might not be
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: a lot of money to people like you and me,
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: that's a lot of money to somebody. And it's a
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: regressive tax that means, like it's a heart, it's a
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: larger percentage of your funds the lower the less money
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: you have. Right, So, first of all, he's not making
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: it For a second of all, he's not making it national.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: So he's putting in a system where like Alabama or
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Mississippi can have one kind of ID requirement, but Wisconsin
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: and New York can have another kind of idea requirement.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: And we can imagine just how worse it'll be, how
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: much harder it will be for certain kinds of people
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: to get IDs in Alabama or Mississippi versus New York
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: or California. Right, So he's not making a national fixed
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: the problem, and he's trying to give the specter that
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: this is somehow tied to making sure that people are citizens.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: Citizens already non citizens already can't vote. And there has
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: again not been any evidence produced by any of these
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: people that we have a significant or even a minor
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: portion of non citizens actually trying to vote. Again, it
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: just doesn't happen, and certainly doesn't happen to the numbers
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: that would be necessary to like flip an election. Right,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: but that, But he's not again, he's not interested in
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: fixing the problem. He's interested in keeping people angry and
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: pissed off about the problem.
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: We're talking to Elimus Style, a new book out now,
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: Bad Law tend popular laws that are ruining America. And
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: you talk about chapter three, Ah, who gave away the
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: skies to the airline?
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: Now, I just want you to know, Jess and myself,
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: we're reading some of your chapter titles. Yes, we love him.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: We got to go through a lot of them. There's
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: a couple that debt me and know we're talking. We
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: would like these would be good if we won.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: But go Do you all life flying?
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: Yes?
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: You love flying? You like flying? I hate flying. It
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: is like the worst. It is always the worst day
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: of my life. Well, I'm fat, so I gotta I
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: gotta squeeze myself into a small ass. They ain't built
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: for me. I got somebody's you know, seat back right
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: into my lap. I can't eat nothing right. I gotta
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: get the most embarrassing moment of my life every time
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: I have to do it. Man, I'm gonna have a
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: seat bullocks, I'm a fatty please, and then right, and
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: then I like cry on the inside. Right, the food's expensive,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: the liquor sucks, the service sucks. I'm always delayed, my
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: bags get lost. It is miserable. Jesus Right, I'm gonna
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: fly ascard. Whenever I can, I drive. I'm not even
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: I'm not whatever. Whenever I can I drive, And I
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: know that's bad for the environment, but like whenever I
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: if I'm doing East Coast. That's why my agent's like,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: you know, if you want Ellie kind of of the Hudson,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: it's like one price, and if you want me to
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: get on a plane, it's a whole different price. Right,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: yesterday's price is not today's price. If I got across
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: by gotta got on a plane. But anyway, it didn't
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: always used to be this way. Flying used to be awesome,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: spacious seats, good service, kind people, and they weren't nickel
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: and diming you at every point. And what the reason
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: why it used to be great and now it's not
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: is this thing called deregulation, the idea The airline industry
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: used to be one of the most heavily regulated industries
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: in the country. That makes a lot of sense because
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: we're putting metal in the sky and hoping it comes
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: down at a survivable rate. That's crazy. So it used
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: to be one of the most heavily regulated industries in
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: the country with literal price fixing. Literally they could the
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: government set the maximum price that you could charge for
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: certain routes. And I know Conservatives, Republicans, even a lot
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: of Democrats like price fixing. That's terrible. That stops innovation.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Oh it doesn't. It makes flying a public service, and
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: it makes it easy for people to get around the country.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: FDR thought it was a war plan. Thought it was
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: part of our mobilization plan for war to have reliable,
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: cheap and accessible commercial airflight. Right, Democrats and Republicans gave
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: this guise away literally two corporate raiders in the nineteen seventies. Now,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: when I started researching this book, I actually assumed that
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: this was a Ronald Reagan program because most you know,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: I don't know about your process. My process is usually like,
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: if I see something bad, show me the Republicans, right,
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: show me what Reagan did, because I'm sure it's as
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: fucked me And there's always a mustache trailing Republican You
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: know behind every curtain, but for this particular issue, this
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: Republican plan to deregulate the airlines and let corporate, let
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: the market decide how we fly as opposed to the
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: government that was spearheaded by the Democrats. And as I
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: did the research, Democrats that we all know kept coming up,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden, Ted Kennedy huge in this deregulation, Stephen Bryer,
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: one of the Democratic appointees to the Supreme Court. For
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: a long time, there were all of these Democrats that
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: like sucked, got sucked in. Ralph Nader right, got sucked
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: into the gospel of deregulation. And once they did it,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: once the Republicans, I would say, snowjob the Democrats into
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: this thing. The first thing that happened when they give
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: away the airlines is the thing that that has killed
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party. From my entire lifetime, the Airline Deregulation
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Act came out in nineteen seventy eight. I was born
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: in nineteen six seventy eight. From my entire lifeline labor
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: got gut it. Airline jobs used to be good jobs.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Baggage handlers and flight attendants and pilots. Pilots used to
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: be one of the best jobs you could get, and
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: with market forces, with deregulation, those good jobs got slashed, right,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: And then you go into the Reagan era where Reagan's
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: like social safety net, here's a big ol' hole. I'm
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: cutting in your social safety neck. And people fell from
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: good middle class jobs straight through down to the bottom.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: And they've never forgiven the Democrats for it. See that's
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: the that's the thing that that I think the Democratic
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Party didn't kind of realize when you cut labor. Labor
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: used to vote for Democrats consistently, right, not just black labor,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: white labor, this white working class laborers used to vote
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: for Democrats. But once the market controlled everything, Democrats weren't
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: helping them. And that's how they became I believe it's
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: part of the reason why they became obsessed with their
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: cultural issues as opposed to their economic issues, because they
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: felt like they weren't gonna get ahead economically anyway. Right.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: If you tell people like you're not gonna get head economically,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: you're gonna be poor, you're gonna be struggling, but you're
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: gonna be better off than that black person over there,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: they're gonna be like, Okay, sign me up Trump Like,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: that's that's how it happens. You get you tell white
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: folks that they're gonna have nothing, but they're gonna have
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: a little a little bit more than black folks, and
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: white folks will sign up for.
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: Yet a rich white man is convinced the poor white
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: man that the liberal white man has taking all this
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: shit and giving it the niggas.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: And that's not true, and it's just straight up not true.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: But this act, this particular law that I write about,
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: is one of the first times where the Democrats, where
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party played ball with the Republicans. And I
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: say that it's one of the biggest mistakes of the
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Democrats for the past fifty years. And if you understand
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: how they make that mistake, you can understand how they've
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: made pretty much every mistake they've made since right, because
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: the same problem. It's the same giving to the market
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: what should be a government service. I understand that people
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: don't like the government. I understand that people think the
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: government is inefficient. I don't like the government. I don't
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: like interacting with government forces. But as opposed to the market. See,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: people say you can vote with your wallet. Nah, the
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: person with the biggest wallet can vote the most when
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: you're in the market. If you're in the government, then
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: my vote technically counts just as much as yours, right,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: And that's the huge difference. So when you give away
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: government services to the market, what you are doing, Democrats
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: is giving away my power to affect change in my
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: own life, right, And that's that's the problem. It's like
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: the difference between going sending your kids to a school
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: and sending your kids to a factory. Right. If you
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: send them to school, I have a vote, I have
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: a say and how that school is running, what my
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: kids should be taught, and how they should be treated.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: If you send if I send my kids to the factory,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: all I gotta say is in their paycheck? Right, And
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: I'm using child labor because Trump wants to do.
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: That now too.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: You had, of course chapter nine, No, it's ten no, okay,
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: chapter nine?
• 17:40
  Speaker 5: Well, actually, why can't we say gay? What are we
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: supposed to say?
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: So? You know, as I'm sure most of your listeners
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: are aware of, I could have written the whole book
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: just bad law in Florida, like you can't. It is
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: going gone through the Florida like this is terrible? Is
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: there This is just racist, This is stupid. Right. I
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: focused on the Florida don't Say Gay law because it
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: is so particularly oppressive and stupid. The law says that
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: you cannot teach about gender difference, sexuality differences, transgender issues.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: You can't say any of those words to school children. Right.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: And if you talk to certain kinds of conservatives, they
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: are like, what's fine is why does a third grader
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: need to learn about gay people? Why can't they just
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: learn about reading writing? Right? And I'm like, do y'all
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: have third graders? Like I got a twelve year old
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: and a nine year old? Right, they talk about all
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: this stuff. They're they're not in a kind of lascivious
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: sexual way, but they're interested in who in how these
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: things were? Right?
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: How did it would they be if they weren't taught
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: about it in school showing it on television? Yea?
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: Because they just see it in their daily lives.
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: And so I use the example if I if I'm
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: a school teacher and i'm you know, I've got my
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: wife and I have a picture or me and my
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: wife on my desk at school. The kids see that
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: it's me and my wife, that it's a man and
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: a woman. Right, If I'm a gay school teacher and
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: I have a picture of me and my husband on
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: the desk, they see that that's different. They see that
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: it's a man and a man, and they might have
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: a question about that. And in Florida, I'm not allowed
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: to say why. And so you act like it. People
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: act like it's neutral, but it's not. It is what's
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: the scholars call heteronormative. It's pushing the man and the woman.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: That's the normal way of doing it. And the man
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: and the man or the woman and woman. That's just
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: crazy and weird when you could just say, like, oh,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: that's my husband. Anyway, back to math.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: So what do you think about you know, Trump's transgender
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: of Bill Ware. It's just two genders this Dandieva. What
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: is your thoughts on that?
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: It's again biologically, it's not true. There are people who
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: are different. That's just a biological fact. We can pretend
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: people think that.
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: The biological or neurological man.
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: I don't know, because I said, because you can think
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: you're in the wrong body. But I'm not going if
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: that's not biologically defect man biologically as men and women.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: I know, I don't think that's right. I think that
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: there are I again.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: Is something other than a man and women.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: As I see now, you're you're pushing me into you're
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: getting me away from the law.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: But I'm just asking, as.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: I understand it, there are people who are born with
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: female hormones in male bodies, right or vice versa, and
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: they want to express how they feel inside as opposed
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: to how they look on the outside. But I think
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: the larger point is not just that I don't know.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: The larger point is I don't care. It's not me.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: I'm the way that I am, right, I don't care
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: how it doesn't affect me just somebody else being in
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: trans doesn't make me think, hum man, maybe I should
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: maybe I should be trands. I always wanted to wear
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: nice hats like that's not like, that's not how my whatever.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: I tell a story in the in the book about
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: in my kids class, one of one of the kids
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: in my younger kids class came out as a boy
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: after being a girl I want to say, eight, okay,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: And you know, the parents were just like, how does
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: one really how is that? The kids were just like, yeah, whatever,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: it's Ramsey's now. It used to be Cleopatra. It's Ramseys now,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: but he's cool.
• 21:35
  Speaker 5: And then if I'm your mom, I'm like, no, I
• 21:37
  Speaker 5: named you fucking Corey. How are you just gonna come
• 21:40
  Speaker 5: up and be Shakira today?
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: But about that, but that's between that's between Ramseys and
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: and his mom and the mom. That's not between me
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: and that's not that's not between the school and the kids.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: I don't have a say the school call them or her.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean? Because if your MoMA named
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: you Corey, and now you say, and I don't want
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: to be called Corey. I want to be called Shamik. Now,
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: the school is supposed to call you man.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: I go to My kids go to a progressive school,
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: where like if my kid came in and said I
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: want to be called ketch Up today, they would call
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: him ketch up for like they would just they would
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: call him what the kid wants to be called. And
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: I think that's just the natural thing to do. If
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: somebody comes and tells you their name, you say their
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: name right. You don't say, actually you're cash is Clay. No,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: you say you want to be Muhammad Ali today, guess
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: what you get to be Mohamad al.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: That kid go to school and say I'm Batman, they
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: gonna call you kid batman.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: They're gonna call my kid back.
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: But see, I think that's a little different. We're talking
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: about his name. Yeah, because if I say, yes, this
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: is my name, you call me my name. But if
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: I say I am ketchup and I just stand still
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: when dogs.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Come around.
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: Coming on my head, that's just a little different.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: I don't see. I disagree. I don't think Ramsey's does
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: anything different in school now that he's Ramsey than he
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: did when he was Cleopatra. I don't think that there's
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: any doesn't learn differently, doesn't go to.
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: Doesn't go in a different bathroom, might start going to
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: other women, which make women uncomfortable.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: The kids a.
• 23:00
  Speaker 5: Uncomfortable yeah, the other eight year old girls, all right,
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: they're only eight.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Do you do you know how uncomfortable kids are in
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: bathrooms as they hit puberty generally.
• 23:10
  Speaker 5: So now you sing a little boy, yeah, but now
• 23:13
  Speaker 5: private stall until you got to walk past the sink. Dudes,
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: you get and it's like.
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: What you're doing.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: You have daughters and sons, sons, all right, so your
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: sons will not get naked in front of your wife
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: and other women. But he will do it in front
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: of you, correct if you have to change or if
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: it's something like that. Now, imagine a girl going into
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: a boy's bathroom where urinal. He's gonna feel uncomfortable, gonna
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: make him feel awko, don't you think.
• 23:39
  Speaker 5: And even more uncomfortable than he would then you know.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: So we were at city Field and my boy going
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: to the urinal and my boy just drops trout, doesn't
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: use the fly, doesn't like, just drops, just drops, trow
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: to his ankles and just takes a peed. Now I
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: was uncomfortable. I was like, that's that? How was you raised?
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: Oh wait, that was me right, And like maybe you
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: should pull you know when you do go? Why it's
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: my butt? Why I was peeing?
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: And I was like, he sounds like your son.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: That's a fair point, right, Like people will get over it,
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: people will learn. And again we're all we're talking about
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: this from the perspective of making things more comfortable for
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: the heteronormative kids in the school, we also should be
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: talking about this in terms of making things more comfortable
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: for the trans kids in the school. Because as much
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: as we might say it might be uncomfortable for the
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: trans girl in the girl's bathroom for the other girls,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: imagine how uncomfortable it is for the trans girl in
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: the boys bathroom as they hit people. And we know,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: and again this is not me making up. We know
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: statistically speaking, that trans women are the most likely people
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: to be brutalized, to be murdered, to be beaten up,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: to be victims of domestic violence in this country. So
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: if you're telling me that we can potentially save some
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: trans kids from that fate, and the cost is that
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: some girls have to be a little bit uncomfortable in
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: a bathroom out of high school, that is a trade
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: that I am willing to make them. That is a
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: trade that I think society should be wing them.
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: I respect everybody's right to live, but I don't want
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: to have this conversation no more like what you said
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: earlier is true.
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: I don't care I lost the last election.
• 25:26
  Speaker 5: It's nice one of your favorite people you like to
• 25:27
  Speaker 5: listen to them.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: Only can just get back to the lodges really quickly, Please,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: just very closely on the law of this. The idea
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: that we can discriminate against trans people but nobody else
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: doesn't make sense legally, right If we're going to have
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: a law that treats everybody equal under the law, then
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: we have to treat trans people with the same kind
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: of respect and decency that we treat everybody else. And
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: once you start trying to poke holes in that, you
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: see they're not stopping at trans. They're going right togay,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: they're going right to all these other things. Right the
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: chapter it says the chapter we can't now, we can't
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: say trans. Now, we can't say say all these other things. Right.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: So again, from a legal standpoint, a quality.
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: To drop your trousers, just be right here. We're not
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: uncomfortable at all.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: That's what we gotta be revolved. Right. So yeah, so
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: just legally speaking, the easiest thing in the law is
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: just to treat everybody.
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: Gotcha, Why are people so nonchalantly, nonchalantly discussing Trump getting
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: a third term?
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: M well, here's the thing. He can't constitutionally. But what
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: he can't do and what he can do are two
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: very different thing. That's right, right, If you understand that
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: we live in a fascist dictatorship and we do, this
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: is what it feels like. I know that the New
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: York Times hasn't said today fascism started, but like it started, right,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: this is we are now living in a fascist dictatorship.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: And so when you tell the fascist dictator, hey, you
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: can't do this legally, ah, I might be right, but
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: he might not care. So if you're asking me about
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: the law, no, there is at the twenty second Amendment
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: is ironclad on this issue. There is no wiggle room.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: You cannot serve. You cannot be elected president more than twice,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: doesn't matter if your terms were consecutive or non consecutive.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: They were very clear at what they wanted to do
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: when they wrote that amendment. It's one of the most
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: clear amendments in the entire Constitution that said Trump is
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: a fascist dictator and if he look, bro my man
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: lost the twenty twenty election and attacked the capital and
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: came this close to overturning that election. Right, so, who's
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: to say that he can't do it again? Who's to
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: say that he can't be successful in doing it the
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: next time? Right? Like, So we can't blithely say that
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: he can't do something just because he's legally prevented from
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: doing something. He's already shown he doesn't actually give a
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: damn about what he's legally prevented. From doing so. Can
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: I make a case for how he'll do it? Sure?
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: I can make. I I like to say one of
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: the things that makes me a little bit of a
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: different legal commentator than a lot of others is that
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: I understand what white people are capable of. I've never
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: forgotten love white people are capable of in this country.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: And if you want to tell me that Trump is
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: going to run for a third term and has a
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: way to win it, I can tell you how he
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: does it. He gets himself because remember, we don't have
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: one federal election system in this country. We have fifty.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: So all he has to do is get himself on
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: the ballot in red states that are already capitulating to
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: him enough red states to get to two hundred and
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: seventy votes. The ballot process is controlled by the states,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: not by the federal government. You can say, well, he
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: shouldn't be kicked off the ballot, but he should have
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: been kicked off the ballot last time because he was
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Whether the Supreme Court do,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: oh no, we shouldn't decide such things, it should be
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: up to this Fourteenth Amendment. He should have been kicked
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: off last time, but the Supreme Court didn't step in.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: Will they step in next time? I don't know.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: So what Al Shopton and everybody's saying is BS that
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: that can't happen.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: That's true, it can No, it's not byes. It can't
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: happen legally. But let's not fool ourselves to think that
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: Trump is not willing to act illegally. Right, he can
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: illegally get himself on the ballot, he can illegally get
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: himself to some version of two hundred and seventy votes,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: and he can illegally declare that he is still the president.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: And who's gonna check him? Boo? Who's going to actually
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: stop him from doing that?
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: It won't be the Supreme Court.
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: I love the article you wrote for The Nation call
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: it's impossible to overstate the damnage done by the Supreme Court.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: Do you think the Supreme Court would back him in
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: something like that?
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: Not only do I not know that they would back him.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: If they don't, I don't know that he would follow
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: their order. There's been no evidence that Trump is going
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: to follow a Supreme Court order that he doesn't like.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: And more to the point, there's been absolutely no evidence
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: that he's going to enforce a Supreme Court order on
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: the co President Elon Musk that he doesn't want. So,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: even if the Supreme Court stands up to him, and
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: I'm putting that in air quotes, there's no evidence that
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: he'll actually listen to them. Because he control anything that
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: he controls the physical power of. And I think people
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: really have to understand this in a kind of chest
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: thumping way, like if he physically controls it, because he
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: physically controls the army, he physically controls the power military,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: he physically controls the secret police. If he physically can
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: control something, he doesn't have to listen to nobody. The
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: legal illegal doesn't actually matter to him if he has
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: physical control. Now, if he only has control because he's
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: got to get other people to do his bidding in
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: the states, in the localities, that's a place where the
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court can kind of step in and maybe show
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: some spine.
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: So if you think about these lawsuits that he has
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: in New York against like Kathy Hochel, if is a
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: situation where like he has to force Kathy Hockel to
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: do something, and Kafy Hochel says no, and the Supreme
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: Court says no, Well, then I don't think Trump can't
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: force her to do it unless he's literally willing to
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: put you boots on the g which he might, but
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: you know, then we'd have some real traffic problems in forty.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: But if it's something that he has complete physical control over,
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: I see no evidence of him actually following the Supreme
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: Court order.
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: What do you say to people who say, is it
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: really a fascist dictatorship? If this is what people voted for,
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: the people will say this, that was democracy working.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: People voted for Hitler, Yeah, people voted for Franco, people
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: voted for Pinochet. Fascist dictators are always popular. That's how
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: they get to be fascist, right, And it never has
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: to happen to a lot of people. That's not how
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: they stay in power. It just has to happen to
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: enough people to make everybody else fear it could happen
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: to them. That's how fascism has always worked. It's never
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: been the I read a book. Adam Surer from the
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Atlantic made me read a book recently called They Thought
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: They Were Free? And it's about it's like written about
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: Germans in the nineteen fifties, and it kind of goes
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: back to how all the free Germans who we call
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: Nazis now didn't think they were part of a Nazi
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: fascist US. They thought they were just normal citizens in
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: their country. They didn't know they were under a dictatorship
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: in real time. Because for most people, their lives don't
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: have to change. Most people can keep doing whatever they
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: were Most people, whatever they were doing on November fourth,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: they could still do on November sixth. The election didn't
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: change their lives because it never changes most people's lives,
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: because then they would get pissed off. It only has
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: to happen to a few people. It only happens to
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: a smaller sect, especially a sect that this country that
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: people think are deserving of cruelty and shame and a
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: lack of dignity. You know, whether it's trans people or
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: new immigrants or whatever, people who think deserve black people
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: deserve to get the boot up the ass. That's who
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: it happens to. I'm a good person. Doesn't have to
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: happen to me. That's how fascism always work. Look, guys,
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: we live in a country where you can get snatched
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: up off the street for writing an article in the
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: newspaper and as a person who writes articles and newspapers.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: This is something that has really worried me and really
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: changed and affected how I think about my job and
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: my life. And we can say, wha, we happened to
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: greenaw card holders? Yet now so far? How long before
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: it happens to me? I'm an American, So I was
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: born in Queen's Right, but how long Flushing? I was
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: close enough to Shay that you could hear the stadium
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: like Well, then I moved to Long Island and I
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: went to Friends Academy, which is like a private Quaker
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: school England Cove kind of. As my parents made more money,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: we moved further and further at on the island. Right,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: So as I think about my career when I when
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: I'm doing book events, now I have security, right, which
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: is not something I did for my first book. Right,
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: when I write, I think about, like, how you know,
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: I'm very when I write about Musk, especially because he's
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: the one with so much power. I write very truthfully
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: about him, but carefully. I use all of my legal
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: skills when I'm writing about must to be very careful
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: about what I'm saying, because I know that he will
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: sue people and he will go after people.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: Is anything that you feel like this presidency has done
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: good at all? Was everything bad? If we can take
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: it carefully.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Now I'm trying to think carefully how to say it
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: without cursing. It's okay, sure, yeah, not one fucking thing,
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: because there is not one fucking thing that fascism does well.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: And if I give them that credit, I legitimize all
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: of It's one of the reasons why I was so
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: angry at Schumer's capitulation on the budget deal. If you
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: say that you can work with these people here there
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: and whatever, what you're fundamentally saying is that you just
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: have a little bit of a disagreement on this, that
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: and the other thing. You're not actually fighting fascism. You're
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: just playing normal bullshit partisan politics. Right from my perspective,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: Trump is a fascist threat to the country. Nothing he
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: do can be it can be okay. And I wanted
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: to say that about other Republicans. I want to said
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: that about Mett Romney or John McCain or even w
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: Dick Cheney different, but even w Right. You could find
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: some things that you could work together with those people
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: on because they were fundamentally democratic presidents. I mean democratic
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: with a small D. Right, Presidents who believed in democracy.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: Don't get gay.
• 35:19
  Speaker 5: Oh we can't say Gage, New York don't get gay
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: because you say a small D.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: And he was just thinking of small penisness.
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: I've got a couple.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: I said small D and I said bush like in
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: the same But you know what was.
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: The significance of Corey book. Corey book is philibus.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: It's got it. One of the things that democrats can
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: do since they have no political power is start building narratives,
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: start start building movements, and start building momentum towards change right.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: One of the reasons why I wrote my book is
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: that I look, I wrote this in before the election,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: before Joe Biden's first debate. I knew we were in trouble,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: but it's you know, while I was writing it, I
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: was under no illusions. But I kept writing it, and
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: I kept thinking that this would be a good time
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: to release it, because from my perspective, if we lost,
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: this book then becomes my first attempt to write Project
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty nine. Ooh right, it these people are out
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: here writing Project twenty twenty five. When did they start
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: writing that? In twenty twenty one when they had no power,
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: when they had no political power whatsoever. That's when they
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: started their plans for this current maggot revolution. So from
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: my perspective, this is the time when we have no
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: power that we need to actually start thinking bigger and
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: start thinking more actively. Right, when Republicans come into office,
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: they come in with a sledgehammer and they smash things,
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: Smash things that I hold dear, smash things that I
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: care about. Right when Democrats come into office, we come
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: in with like super glue and tape and we're going
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: to like put the base back together to make We
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: got to smash them things. My book is about what
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: we can smash. What Corey was doing is that same
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: kind of idea of building momentum to something bigger. And
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: that is the best use of democratic power at this point,
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: because it's the only power that they have. Right, you
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: can't actually stand up to them legally because you have
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: no authority. You can't send them to them in Congress
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: because you have no authority. Now, I think they should
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: be doing more than placards at the State of the Union.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: That was pathetic doing what Corey Booker did, breaking racist
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: strom Thurman's record on the Senate floor, Like, these are
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: the narratives and stories that we can be building now
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: so that by the time we get to twenty twenty six.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: I'm not even talking about twenty twenty eight. To me
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: get to twenty twenty six primary season, that's the fight.
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: But is it too late if we're already in a
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: fascist dictatorship?
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: Fascist dictatorships don't historically last very long, okay, because they
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: overplay their hands. They're terrible, and they overplay their hands.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: And while they that small group of people that they
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: want to hurt at the outset that everybody's like, yeah,
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: let's hurt, then that always expands. It always expands. That's
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: the nature of fascism. The in group gets smaller and
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: the group gets bigger, and there's a tipping point when
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: the out group is so big they can overthrow the
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: in group. That's how every fascist dictatorship has ended, except
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: for Rome, when you needed actual work.
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: Have there ever been and you noticed, I've known. Have
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: there ever been a time in history when fascism has
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: been voted out?
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: Though?
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: Is what the question I'm asking.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Franco was voted out. Okay, ran he didn't.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: We didn't have to bomb his country, right, you can
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: you can vote these people out again. I'm not sure
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: that we're gonna have a free and fair election anytime soon,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: but but yeah, you can vote these people. And and
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: and if you you know, my wife's from Zimbabwe. If
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: you look at the African continent, happens all the time.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: You get like a terrible warlord, and they're terrible things,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: and usually they have to die. But you know, when
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: they die of like natural causes, you have a new election,
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: and sometimes you get much better leaders the second time around.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: I would hope that we're not in the situation where
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: we're in this until this man chokes on a big
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: mac like. I would hope that we could be a
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: little bit more proactive than that. But no, I don't.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: We're in a fascist period. Whether it lasts two years
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: or five years, or ten years or twenty five years
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: is entirely up to us.
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: Well, Ellie Mistelle is new book Bad Law, Ten popular
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: laws that are ruining America. I learn a lot from you, Ellie.
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: I like reading your stuff. Man, you are very good
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: at what you do.
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much. Interview.
• 39:23
  Speaker 5: I learned a lot in this interview, so I appreciate you.
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you so much.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: Alrighty ladies and gentlemen pick up the new book bad Law.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: It's the Breakfast Club.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: Good morning, wake that ass up in the morning. The
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: Breakfast Club