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Slavery Exhibit, Climate Suits & Zuckerberg Testifies · Bloomberg Law

0:03
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Grosseo from Bloomberg Radio.
0:09
Speaker 2: A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration must
0:12
Speaker 2: restore thirty four educational panels about slavery at a site
0:17
Speaker 2: in Philadelphia where George Washington lived as president. Judge Cynthia
0:22
Speaker 2: Ruff compared the display's removal last month by the National
0:25
Speaker 2: Park Service to the government mind control employed in George
0:30
Speaker 2: Orwell's novel nineteen eighty four. The judge found that the
0:34
Speaker 2: federal government does not have the power it claims quote
0:38
Speaker 2: to dissemble and disassemble historical truths when it has some
0:42
Speaker 2: domain over historical facts. Joining me is Eryl Cashen, a
0:46
Speaker 2: professor at Georgetown Law. What's your reaction to this forty
0:50
Speaker 2: page opinion by Judge Rufe oh Well.
0:53
Speaker 3: I think it's a beautiful piece of Americana now, because yeah,
1:00
Speaker 3: first of all, she's a George w. Bush appointee and
1:03
Speaker 3: she issues a preliminary injunction basically saying to a sitting president,
1:10
Speaker 3: you don't get to be Orwellian, you don't get to
1:13
Speaker 3: be like the Ministry of Truth in this science fiction
1:17
Speaker 3: novel and impose your view on objective facts. We have
1:23
Speaker 3: a complicated history. That history includes slavery. Yes, our greatest
1:28
Speaker 3: founder was a slave owner. We're not gonna hide that,
1:31
Speaker 3: and we're gonna learn from that history. I actually found
1:34
Speaker 3: that there were passages in the opinion there were quite
1:38
Speaker 3: patriotic and soaring. So I'm very appreciative of what she
1:42
Speaker 3: did in this Black History Month and on President's Day.
1:46
Speaker 2: You can't get pass the symbolism.
1:48
Speaker 3: There no no.
1:50
Speaker 2: When she criticized the Trump administration, she said, truth is
1:54
Speaker 2: no longer self evident, but rather the property of the
1:56
Speaker 2: elected chief magistrate at his whim, to be scraped clean, hidden,
2:01
Speaker 2: or overwritten. Why solely because of defendant state it has
2:05
Speaker 2: the power. What was the Trump administration's defense to taking
2:10
Speaker 2: these panels down?
2:11
Speaker 3: It's only defense. And first of all, it was the
2:14
Speaker 3: National Park Service that was sued. They're the ones who
2:17
Speaker 3: took them down. But they're only defense. And the judge
2:21
Speaker 3: points to this seemed to be that Donald Trump issued
2:25
Speaker 3: an executive order requiring things like this. That was it.
2:29
Speaker 3: They didn't offer any reasons for it. And I think
2:33
Speaker 3: it's important to bring out to your listeners exactly what
2:37
Speaker 3: these thirty four panels covered, the stories they covered, and
2:41
Speaker 3: I greatly appreciated the judges doing this. They covered the
2:44
Speaker 3: fact that the Washingtons in the President's house brought nine
2:50
Speaker 3: enslaved people there, and she named them in the opinion,
2:54
Speaker 3: and I think it's worth us taking a quick moment
2:58
Speaker 3: to name them them all. Onny Judge, Martha Washington's maid, Austin,
3:04
Speaker 3: her brother Christopher Shields, the president's valet, Giles, the carriage driver,
3:10
Speaker 3: Hercules Posey, a supremely talented chef to the Washingtons, Joe Richardson,
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Speaker 3: the coachman Mall Martha Washington's nanny for the grandchildren, Paris,
3:21
Speaker 3: a stable worker, and Richmond, who was the son of Hercules,
3:24
Speaker 3: and his chimney sweep. The complicated history that these thirty
3:28
Speaker 3: four panels told was that George Washington, our first founder,
3:33
Speaker 3: would rotate these nine people out every six months to
3:37
Speaker 3: evade a law that Quaker abolitionists agitated for and one
3:44
Speaker 3: that would allow them after six months to petition for freedom.
3:48
Speaker 3: He didn't want them to be free. Okay, that's complicated,
3:52
Speaker 3: but it's true. The other story that I think that
3:55
Speaker 3: the White House was probably uncomfortable with was the story
3:59
Speaker 3: of one Jeff Judge, a freckle faced bushy haired teenager
4:04
Speaker 3: who escaped, probably with the help of a free black community.
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Speaker 3: Overwhelmingly the black people in the city at that time
4:14
Speaker 3: were free, hundreds and hundreds of black people. In fact,
4:18
Speaker 3: the black community was blocks away from the President's house,
4:24
Speaker 3: and this young teenager escapes. It's beyond Martha's imagination that
4:30
Speaker 3: the person who catered to her every need would want
4:33
Speaker 3: to leave her, and she, basically, I think, more than anyone,
4:38
Speaker 3: put pressure on George Washington to find her. George Washington
4:41
Speaker 3: as president, spends two years trying to recapture her and
4:45
Speaker 3: does not succeed. So they are outwitted by this young
4:49
Speaker 3: black teenager who desperately wanted to be free and lived
4:53
Speaker 3: free for the next fifty years. And that's the story
4:57
Speaker 3: that the Trump administration suppressed. And the judge, to her credit,
5:02
Speaker 3: talked about how the display recognize ony judge and her
5:07
Speaker 3: fears struggle for freedom, and how it represented the country's
5:12
Speaker 3: progress away from the horrors of slavery, where everybody could
5:17
Speaker 3: live with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
5:20
Speaker 2: What was the legal basis for the judge's ruling?
5:23
Speaker 3: For years I taught administrative law. A basic tenet of
5:28
Speaker 3: administrative law is that government does not get to reverss
5:36
Speaker 3: itself on a whim without explanation, particularly when a policy
5:41
Speaker 3: has been in place. There were several pieces of congressional legislation.
5:45
Speaker 3: There was a legislation going back to nineteen forty eight
5:48
Speaker 3: creating this National Independence Park. There was a two thousand
5:54
Speaker 3: and six law in which Congress encouraged the telling of
5:59
Speaker 3: this complicated story. And as we discussed, they didn't offer
6:05
Speaker 3: any explanation for why you had this extreme reversal of
6:09
Speaker 3: taking down exhibits that told this complicated history. So that
6:16
Speaker 3: was arbitrary and capricious. That's one thing. The city of
6:20
Speaker 3: Philadelphia also had a statutory right to be consulted on
6:24
Speaker 3: any changes at the President's house. They paid for this project.
6:30
Speaker 3: They paid for these interpretations, these panels, the videos telling
6:35
Speaker 3: this this story. They invested five million dollars in the project. Right,
6:39
Speaker 3: so they had a statutory expectation and right to be
6:44
Speaker 3: consulted before any changes were made. That law was violated. Right,
6:50
Speaker 3: so arbitrary and capricious under administrative law. Also, it was
6:54
Speaker 3: a breach of separation of powers. The Court made it
6:57
Speaker 3: abundantly clear that the President of the United States does
7:02
Speaker 3: not get to by executive order. Frankly, executive fiat authorize
7:09
Speaker 3: an agency to violate a law Congress past right, So
7:14
Speaker 3: there's that. The court also alluded to federalism judicial conservatives.
7:20
Speaker 3: Conservatives generally tend to like the idea of federalism, of
7:25
Speaker 3: allowing local and state control. You know the Tenth Amendment values. Well,
7:31
Speaker 3: you know, the governor, Governor Shapiro filed an Amika's brief saying,
7:35
Speaker 3: you know, we supported telling our public this complicated history,
7:39
Speaker 3: and the city supported, and certainly, you know, the black
7:43
Speaker 3: cultural institutions that help shape the content. They were outraged that,
7:49
Speaker 3: you know, this interesting, complicated history where African Americans are
7:54
Speaker 3: present and featured, was ripped out with no explanation. So, oh,
8:00
Speaker 3: all of those reasons the judge brought to bear.
8:04
Speaker 2: So the judge issued an injunction ordering the government to
8:08
Speaker 2: restore the panels, but she didn't give them a date.
8:11
Speaker 2: Certain and the government is going to appeal the ruling.
8:15
Speaker 2: What do you think their chances are on appeal since
8:17
Speaker 2: we don't really know what their argument was in the
8:19
Speaker 2: first place.
8:20
Speaker 3: I think this is an air tight case. I want
8:24
Speaker 3: to say, hundreds of lawsuits have been filed to stop
8:29
Speaker 3: the Trump administration from violating law. Either's more than one
8:33
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty orders have been issued to the Trump
8:38
Speaker 3: administration blocking them from doing something that's unlawful. Right, and
8:45
Speaker 3: I want to applaud you know, the federal courts, particularly
8:49
Speaker 3: the trial courts, are checking this presidency and upholding the
8:53
Speaker 3: rule of law. I do not see how the Court
8:57
Speaker 3: of Appeals, even if they get lucky and get a
9:01
Speaker 3: panel that's all conservative judges. It's pretty airtight. There are
9:08
Speaker 3: two statutes that make it clear that the city. First
9:13
Speaker 3: of all, the city owns the land where this presidential
9:16
Speaker 3: site is. There's a federal law that sanctioned this cooperative arrangements,
9:23
Speaker 3: and the federal government had entered into a series of
9:27
Speaker 3: cooperative arrangements. They took and benefited from the five million
9:32
Speaker 3: dollars that Philadelphia put forth to put up this display,
9:38
Speaker 3: and by the statute, they were entitled to be consultant
9:43
Speaker 3: on any changes. So it's pretty airtight. I do not
9:47
Speaker 3: see how any judge that's operating with intellectual integrity to
9:54
Speaker 3: the rule of law would uphold this violate separation of
9:58
Speaker 3: powers Congresses and ten violates principles of federalism violates principles
10:05
Speaker 3: of vested interest and also, frankly, in a lot of
10:09
Speaker 3: these federal court opinions, there are allusions to what's morally right.
10:15
Speaker 3: You know, this judge used the literary reference of nineteen
10:21
Speaker 3: eighty four Georgia Orwell's nineteen eighty four right. She quoted
10:25
Speaker 3: explicitly from it. There's a law, and there's also what
10:29
Speaker 3: ordinary people would recognize as morally right. Let me underscore this,
10:37
Speaker 3: and it's part because I'm more familiar with this. I'm
10:40
Speaker 3: a Black American, and I'm a law professor, and I've
10:43
Speaker 3: written a lot of books in which I play an
10:47
Speaker 3: amateur historian. This effort, the removal of these panels here
10:53
Speaker 3: was part of a larger despotic erasure of black history
10:59
Speaker 3: by this administration. Right, he issues this executive order last
11:03
Speaker 3: March March of twenty twenty five, which basically tells every
11:08
Speaker 3: single agency in the government to scrub the government of
11:15
Speaker 3: references that put any American, including colonial Americans, in a
11:21
Speaker 3: bad light. They've purged any reference to Black Americans and
11:25
Speaker 3: their contributions from websites. They have threatened any school district
11:31
Speaker 3: that has black or ethnic studies in their curriculum with
11:35
Speaker 3: withholding of money. It's just clear that Black American history
11:40
Speaker 3: and the African Americans struggle for freedom. For some reason,
11:44
Speaker 3: they seem to feel that puts, particularly white leaders of
11:49
Speaker 3: the past, in a bad light. I actually happen to
11:53
Speaker 3: have a very patriotic view, like the judge did, like
11:56
Speaker 3: there's nothing more patriotic than people of all colors and
12:00
Speaker 3: genders claiming the words of the Declaration of Independence is theirs.
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Speaker 3: I'm a proud American. I believe in our self evident truth.
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Speaker 3: Let me tell my story of how you know, how
12:14
Speaker 3: I live as an American, and that's what it's at
12:16
Speaker 3: stake here, whether it's attacking black history or LGBTQ history
12:22
Speaker 3: or feminism. I think in twenty twenty six, two hundred
12:26
Speaker 3: and fiftieth anniversary of our country, we ought to be
12:29
Speaker 3: mature enough to hear complicated history and place it in
12:34
Speaker 3: the context of Yes, there are things that happen that
12:38
Speaker 3: are unpleasant, but it was part of a larger journey
12:42
Speaker 3: of us achieving our professed values and that's a legacy
12:47
Speaker 3: to be proud of.
12:48
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for joining me on the show. That's
12:51
Speaker 2: Professor Cheryl Cashion of Georgetown Law. It took less than
12:56
Speaker 2: a week for lawsuits to be filed over the ep
13:00
Speaker 2: elimination of the Bedrock scientific finding that greenhouse gases threaten
13:06
Speaker 2: public health. The so called endangerment finding forms the basis
13:11
Speaker 2: for regulations to fight climate change, and its revocation could
13:15
Speaker 2: unwind current air and climate rules. So a coalition of
13:19
Speaker 2: conservation and public health groups are challenging its repeal, saying
13:24
Speaker 2: the EPA violated federal law and legal precedent. More lawsuits
13:29
Speaker 2: are sure to follow on an issue that's likely to
13:32
Speaker 2: reach the Supreme Court. Joining me is an expert in
13:35
Speaker 2: environmental law, Pat Parento, a professor at the Vermont Law
13:39
Speaker 2: and Graduate School. Pat, just how critical is this revocation
13:45
Speaker 2: of the Endangerment Finding.
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Speaker 1: It's huge, and it's ugly, and people do not fully
13:52
Speaker 1: understand just how devastating this action is going to be,
13:57
Speaker 1: not just for climate, but for public health and safety generally.
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Speaker 2: And the endangerment finding came out of a landmark Supreme
14:06
Speaker 2: Court case in two thousand and seven.
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Speaker 1: Right, so it follows on the heels of course of
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Speaker 1: Massachusetts versus DPA, which is still the law of the land.
14:16
Speaker 1: Contrary to what mister Zelden thinks. And in that decision,
14:20
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court not only held that greenhouse gas pollution
14:25
Speaker 1: is regulated under the Clean Air Act. The George W.
14:28
Speaker 1: Bush administration had taken the position it wasn't regulated, and
14:32
Speaker 1: they made many of the same arguments that Trump and
14:35
Speaker 1: Zelden are making now. The Supreme Court rejected those. It
14:38
Speaker 1: was a five to four decision, and frankly, the majority
14:42
Speaker 1: in the Massachusetts case is no longer on the court,
14:46
Speaker 1: So that's what gives Trump some hope here. And then secondly,
14:49
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court said, since you have the authority to
14:52
Speaker 1: regulate greenhouse gas pollution, if you make a finding that
14:58
Speaker 1: such pollution and the emissions that cause it in danger
15:01
Speaker 1: public health and welfare, you must regulate. You don't have
15:05
Speaker 1: any discretion not to regulate once you make a finding.
15:10
Speaker 1: And the Supreme Court made it clear that was a
15:12
Speaker 1: scientific finding, wasn't policy, it wasn't even law necessarily, it
15:17
Speaker 1: was a scientific determination that this kind of pollution is
15:22
Speaker 1: endangering people's health and welfare.
15:25
Speaker 2: And since that point, has there been any contrary evidence
15:28
Speaker 2: to that scientific finding?
15:30
Speaker 1: No, quite the contrary. And of course, I think we've
15:33
Speaker 1: talked before about how the Department of Energy cooked up
15:37
Speaker 1: this phony report based on five climate denialists. They're scientists,
15:43
Speaker 1: but they deny the consensus around climate change. And EPA
15:48
Speaker 1: was going to use that report, but then the federal
15:52
Speaker 1: court in Massachusetts said the report was prepared illegally because
15:57
Speaker 1: it was done in violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act,
16:01
Speaker 1: and Judge Young issued a decision just recently saying, can't
16:06
Speaker 1: use this report. So now EPA has abandoned the argument
16:11
Speaker 1: attacking the science underlying the endangerment finding. There's no basis
16:15
Speaker 1: to do that. The National Academy of Sciences weighed in
16:19
Speaker 1: with a special report rebutting this so called Department of
16:24
Speaker 1: Energy report. So the science is absolutely crystal clear and
16:29
Speaker 1: the danger is absolutely clear. You can repeal the finding,
16:33
Speaker 1: you can't repeal the danger.
16:35
Speaker 2: There are two lawsuits in counting, one by a group
16:38
Speaker 2: of youth plaintiffs and another by a coalition of health
16:42
Speaker 2: and environmental groups. Tell us about their claims that the
16:46
Speaker 2: EPA's actions are illegal.
16:49
Speaker 1: Well, they're first of all saying that Massachusetts versus EPA
16:53
Speaker 1: is the law, and as I said, it states very
16:56
Speaker 1: clearly that EPA has the authority to rate. So now
17:00
Speaker 1: Zelden is coming along and saying, well, no, we've looked
17:04
Speaker 1: at it again through the lens that we use, and
17:08
Speaker 1: our conclusion is that the best reading of the Clean
17:11
Speaker 1: Air Act is not the reading that the Supreme Court
17:14
Speaker 1: issued in Maths versus CPA, but our reading, which is,
17:18
Speaker 1: we don't have any authority to regulate greenhouse gases. They're
17:22
Speaker 1: using kind of an originalist argument here. They're trying to
17:26
Speaker 1: say that because the Clean Air Act of nineteen seventy
17:30
Speaker 1: was focused on initially localized pollution, the smog that people
17:35
Speaker 1: were breathing and so forth. But it's not true that
17:38
Speaker 1: the Clean Air Act was limited geographically. We have multiple
17:43
Speaker 1: instances of where the Clean Air Act has been used
17:46
Speaker 1: to tackle long range pollution, not just acid rain, but
17:51
Speaker 1: ozone pollution, small pollution, fine particulate pollution that floats across
17:57
Speaker 1: the United States from upwind states to downwind states. So
18:01
Speaker 1: this notion that the Cleaner Act was never intended to
18:05
Speaker 1: regulate anything in your immediate area of the area you're
18:08
Speaker 1: breathing is simply flatly wrong. That's never been the law.
18:13
Speaker 1: No case has ever said that. The Supreme Court has
18:16
Speaker 1: never said that. Only Zelden is saying that. So the
18:20
Speaker 1: first argument is there really is no legal basis whatsoever
18:25
Speaker 1: for repealing the endangerment finding. And of course they also
18:29
Speaker 1: repealed immediately what we call the tailpipe standards, the mobile
18:34
Speaker 1: source standards, cars and trucks and so forth. They are
18:37
Speaker 1: the largest source of this kind of pollution and a
18:40
Speaker 1: lot of other pollution as well. So the notion that
18:44
Speaker 1: this isn't a significant category, that's another requirement of the
18:49
Speaker 1: Clean Air Act. You have to make a finding that
18:51
Speaker 1: there's a danger from these pollutants. But then you have
18:54
Speaker 1: to look at the sources of the pollutants and say
18:57
Speaker 1: those sources contribute to the danger. But if this is
19:02
Speaker 1: the largest source of greenhouse gases and these other pollutants,
19:05
Speaker 1: they surely contribute to the danger. So there's no legal basis,
19:11
Speaker 1: no scientific basis, And there are lots of other arguments
19:15
Speaker 1: for why this finding is not based.
19:18
Speaker 2: On the law, particularly in light of Massachusetts versus EPA.
19:24
Speaker 2: Why do you think the EPA administrator Lee Zelden took
19:28
Speaker 2: this route.
19:29
Speaker 1: Zelden is counting on the current composition of the court.
19:33
Speaker 1: As I said, the majority that was in place in
19:37
Speaker 1: Massachusetts versus EPA is no longer there. It's much more conservative.
19:41
Speaker 1: There are three Trump appointees on the court, so you
19:44
Speaker 1: have to look at can Selden get the Court to
19:48
Speaker 1: take review of this issue and reverse Massachusetts versus EPA.
19:55
Speaker 1: So this requires basically a head count. Where do you
19:59
Speaker 1: get five on this court to overturn mass versus EPA.
20:04
Speaker 1: You don't have the liberal wing of the court. You
20:07
Speaker 1: don't have Chief Justice Roberts, who wrote the dissent in Massachusetts,
20:11
Speaker 1: because he has stated publicly, even though I dissented, I
20:15
Speaker 1: think mass versus EPA at this point is settled law.
20:19
Speaker 1: It's been on the books for nineteen years, right, Lots
20:23
Speaker 1: of reliance on that decision, lots of regulatory actions based
20:28
Speaker 1: on that decision, lots of industry actions in response to
20:32
Speaker 1: that decision, including automakers building more electric vehicles and hybrid
20:38
Speaker 1: vehicles and so forth. So lots has happened, and there's
20:41
Speaker 1: no way I don't think. Of course, it could always
20:44
Speaker 1: surprise me. But you're not going to get Chief Justice
20:48
Speaker 1: Roberts vote. So where do you get the fifth vote.
20:51
Speaker 1: You've got the three or four perhaps ultra conservatives on
20:56
Speaker 1: the court. That would be Justice Thomas, Justice Alito, Justice Corsition,
21:01
Speaker 1: probably Justice Kavanaugh, although even that's not sure. So where
21:05
Speaker 1: does the fifth vote come from? It almost has to
21:08
Speaker 1: be Justice Barrett, and my view is that she's not
21:13
Speaker 1: going to go along with overturning Mass versus CPA because
21:16
Speaker 1: of a doctrine that we call statutory starry decisive. So
21:21
Speaker 1: once the Court has interpreted a statue, as opposed to say,
21:25
Speaker 1: interpreting the Constitution, which can change over time as we've seen,
21:30
Speaker 1: but what comes to interpreting a statue like the Clean
21:34
Speaker 1: Air Act. The doctrine that that kind of precedent should
21:39
Speaker 1: not be overruled or at least lightly overruled is very
21:44
Speaker 1: very strong, and I think Justice Barrett has the kind
21:47
Speaker 1: of sort of institutional integrity on the Supreme Court to
21:51
Speaker 1: respect that. So I don't see how they get Justice
21:55
Speaker 1: Barrett's vote. If they manage to get her vote and
22:00
Speaker 1: or other votes on the Court, then yeah, Trump might
22:04
Speaker 1: win his argument that Mas versus CPA should be reversed
22:09
Speaker 1: and the decision to repeal the endangerment finding upheld, And
22:13
Speaker 1: that would have really devastating consequences because it would mean
22:16
Speaker 1: that a future president could not reinstate the endangerment finding
22:21
Speaker 1: once the Court has determined there is no authority to
22:24
Speaker 1: regulate greenhouse gases unless Congress steps in, and that doesn't
22:29
Speaker 1: look very likely. That's the end of the ballgame. That's
22:32
Speaker 1: the end of federal regulation of climate polluting emissions, devastating
22:38
Speaker 1: pat Is there.
22:39
Speaker 2: A danger in escalating this fight to the Supreme Court
22:44
Speaker 2: at this point?
22:46
Speaker 1: Oh? I think so. I mean, it's the old adage
22:49
Speaker 1: be careful what you wish for. If Trump is successful
22:52
Speaker 1: in getting the Court to agree with him, then what
22:55
Speaker 1: happens is the Clean Air Act no longer regulates these pollutants.
22:59
Speaker 1: But that means states like California are free to do so,
23:03
Speaker 1: and you can be sure they will. California has already
23:07
Speaker 1: adopted the most stringent tailpipe standards fuel efficiency standards in
23:12
Speaker 1: the country, and thirteen other states have gone along with California.
23:18
Speaker 1: That got overturned by Congress. That's another story, But the
23:21
Speaker 1: point is, once the Clean Air Act is no longer
23:24
Speaker 1: an obstacle to state regulation, it is no longer preempting
23:28
Speaker 1: California and other Blue states from regulating these pollutants, not
23:32
Speaker 1: just from cars, but from lots of other you know
23:36
Speaker 1: sources as well, power plants, oil refineries, et cetera. You know,
23:40
Speaker 1: that creates a patchwork of regulation across the country, chaos
23:45
Speaker 1: because there'll be litigation over that as well. The one
23:48
Speaker 1: thing that industry hates is that kind of chaos, that
23:51
Speaker 1: kind of unpredictability. How do you make investment decisions in
23:55
Speaker 1: a regulatory environment like that? You know, the one thing
23:58
Speaker 1: about federal regulation is once it's in place, that's the baseline.
24:03
Speaker 1: That's what everybody can plan against, and particularly for automakers.
24:08
Speaker 1: So that's number one. If Trump wins, industry loses. Number
24:12
Speaker 1: two is the oil companies also lose. Because the oil
24:17
Speaker 1: companies have been somewhat successful getting state and city and
24:21
Speaker 1: county lawsuits against them for climate damage. These are the
24:25
Speaker 1: so called deception cases, public nuisance cases, more recently climate
24:31
Speaker 1: super fun cases, and so forth. There are over forty
24:34
Speaker 1: of these lawsuits right and the oil companies are making
24:37
Speaker 1: the argument the Clean Air Act preempts all of them.
24:41
Speaker 1: In fact, they're hoping that the Supreme Court takes review
24:44
Speaker 1: of the Boulder case. They're going to be in conference
24:47
Speaker 1: tomorrow on the question of whether they should take review
24:50
Speaker 1: of that case. And once again, the leading argument the
24:54
Speaker 1: oil companies are making to the Supreme Court is the
24:57
Speaker 1: Clean Air Act preempts all these laws suits for damages.
25:01
Speaker 1: So when Trump wins the repeal of the endangerment finding
25:05
Speaker 1: on the basis that the Clean Air Act doesn't regulate
25:08
Speaker 1: these pollutants, their pre emsine argument goes out the window.
25:12
Speaker 1: So you know, there are two really bad consequences from
25:16
Speaker 1: upholding what Zelden has done, neither of which benefits industry.
25:21
Speaker 1: Doesn't benefit automakers, doesn't benefit utilities. It just creates the
25:27
Speaker 1: kind of chaos that obviously Trump thrives on, right, but
25:31
Speaker 1: the rest of the world doesn't so much.
25:34
Speaker 2: Thanks Pat. That's Pat, PARENTO of their Mount Law and
25:37
Speaker 2: Graduate School. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg testify this week at
25:42
Speaker 2: the first Social media Addiction Trial, where two of the
25:46
Speaker 2: world's largest social media platforms are facing a jury trial
25:50
Speaker 2: over allegations that they intentionally design their products metas Instagram
25:56
Speaker 2: and Google's YouTube to be addictive to young people. Over
26:00
Speaker 2: six hours, Zuckerberg faced a barrage of questions about his
26:03
Speaker 2: company's effort or lack of effort to protect young users
26:08
Speaker 2: on Instagram and Facebook, about internal communications in which employees
26:13
Speaker 2: pleaded to shore up safety measures, and about choices he
26:17
Speaker 2: made the trial, which is expected to run through the
26:21
Speaker 2: end of March, will serve as a critical test for
26:24
Speaker 2: thousands of other lawsuits that target not only Meta and Google,
26:29
Speaker 2: but also TikTok and Snap. Joining me is Bloomberg Legal
26:32
Speaker 2: reporter Madelein Mecklberg Madlin on the whole How did Zuckerberg
26:37
Speaker 2: do with his testimony?
26:39
Speaker 4: So, I think that Zuckerberg really stuck to the line
26:42
Speaker 4: that we've heard from Meta, from their attorneys and from
26:45
Speaker 4: the company about the fact that they don't think that
26:49
Speaker 4: scientific evidence supports this idea that social media is harmful
26:54
Speaker 4: to young kids and can be addictive. We heard him
26:57
Speaker 4: talk about the benefits of social media and how they've
27:00
Speaker 4: tried to design their platforms to create an enjoyable experience
27:04
Speaker 4: for users and not one that's causing harm. And we
27:08
Speaker 4: heard him feel difficult questions from the plaintiff's lawyer about
27:12
Speaker 4: internal emails, internal research, talking about their youth strategy.
27:16
Speaker 5: At Meta and Instagram.
27:18
Speaker 4: So I think, all in all, he'll probably be happy
27:21
Speaker 4: to be done with testimonies.
27:23
Speaker 5: Definitely, like we heard.
27:25
Speaker 4: A lot of the Meta bottom line that we've heard
27:27
Speaker 4: from them from us of this case.
27:28
Speaker 2: From him questioning Zuckerberg was Mark Lanier who's an experienced
27:33
Speaker 2: trial attorney and has won a number of high profile
27:37
Speaker 2: product litigation suits against major companies. He questioned Zuckerberg about
27:43
Speaker 2: internal documents, for example, a twenty fifteen memo where Zuckerberg
27:48
Speaker 2: said he wanted to reverse the teen trend and increase
27:53
Speaker 2: time spent by twelve percent, and another document that said,
27:57
Speaker 2: if we want to win big with teens, we must
28:00
Speaker 2: them in as tweens.
28:02
Speaker 4: Right, So those are some key pieces of evidence for
28:05
Speaker 4: the plaintiff' lawyers in this case. Who you say is
28:08
Speaker 4: Mark Lanier is the trial attorney here representing the young
28:11
Speaker 4: woman in the suit, and he is quite a character
28:14
Speaker 4: up on the stand. He uses this overhead document camera
28:18
Speaker 4: and writes live notes as the plaintiff is speaking, often.
28:22
Speaker 5: With a little photo of them on a piece of paper.
28:24
Speaker 4: But he showed Zuckerberg some of these documents, asked him
28:28
Speaker 4: to answer to them, and Zuckerberg was talking about how
28:32
Speaker 4: some of these metrics he doesn't think they're valuable anymore.
28:35
Speaker 4: Time spent, for example, that used to be something that
28:38
Speaker 4: he said the company was very concerned about, but they've
28:41
Speaker 4: kind of moved away from giving teams goals on that front.
28:44
Speaker 4: And he says you know quote, I don't think that's
28:47
Speaker 4: the best way to.
28:48
Speaker 5: Run a company based on time spent. When he was
28:51
Speaker 5: talking about some of the documents to do.
28:53
Speaker 4: With teens, I think we've seen that quote quite a bit,
28:55
Speaker 4: this idea that if we want to win big with teens,
28:57
Speaker 4: we must bring them in as tweens. He says that
29:00
Speaker 4: he is being mischaracterized when it comes to that remark,
29:04
Speaker 4: and that the company has really tried.
29:06
Speaker 5: To consider launching products specifically.
29:09
Speaker 4: You're toward teens, they're not necessarily targeting them specifically. He
29:14
Speaker 4: stressed this idea that teens aren't really bringing in revenue
29:18
Speaker 4: to Instagram, to the companies because they don't have disposable income.
29:22
Speaker 4: They're not clicking on ads the same way that older
29:24
Speaker 4: people do. So we heard a lot from him about
29:27
Speaker 4: how those remarks maybe represented something that was a point
29:31
Speaker 4: of discussion at one point in time, but the company
29:33
Speaker 4: has moved away from.
29:35
Speaker 2: I understand that Zuckerberg repeated several times the phrase you're
29:39
Speaker 2: mischaracterizing this or something along those lines.
29:43
Speaker 4: That's right, and so he was trying to kind of
29:46
Speaker 4: use this moment on the stand, even he didn't have
29:49
Speaker 4: a choice. He has to answer questions that are being asked,
29:51
Speaker 4: but he was trying to kind of use this moment
29:53
Speaker 4: to clarify his position or explain maybe how things have
29:58
Speaker 4: shifted over time. And I understand that the questioning at
30:01
Speaker 4: some point got quite heated, a little bit of back
30:03
Speaker 4: and forth. That's kind of something you can expect when
30:06
Speaker 4: you have an adverse witness on the stand like this
30:09
Speaker 4: being questioned, where the judge maybe has to step in
30:12
Speaker 4: and say, let them finish their answer.
30:14
Speaker 5: Let them finish their answer.
30:16
Speaker 4: So definitely saw some of that from Zuckerberk's testimony.
30:20
Speaker 2: What would you say was the biggest concession he made,
30:23
Speaker 2: if he made any concessions at all.
30:25
Speaker 4: I don't know that I would characterize any of his
30:28
Speaker 4: testimony as a concession necessarily. I think he had some
30:31
Speaker 4: interesting comments when it came to Instagram's attempts to keep
30:36
Speaker 4: kids under thirteen off the platform. That's an age requirement
30:40
Speaker 4: that they impose for people who want to create an account.
30:43
Speaker 4: But he did acknowledge, you know, this is a really
30:45
Speaker 4: challenging problem. This is a very difficult thing to combat.
30:49
Speaker 4: There's this desire to balance kind of privacy concerns with
30:54
Speaker 4: you know, actually enforcing this requirement. So I thought some
30:57
Speaker 4: of that comment Terry was interesting from him. That's something
31:00
Speaker 4: that we've seen Meta discussing in other context of the course,
31:04
Speaker 4: and there's this ongoing debate about whether the platforms themselves
31:08
Speaker 4: should be responsible for enforcing age requirements or that's something
31:11
Speaker 4: that could be done by Apple or Google in the
31:14
Speaker 4: app stores on phones before he download it. And so
31:17
Speaker 4: it's interesting to see kind of that real world conversation
31:20
Speaker 4: happening brought into the context of this litigation while he
31:23
Speaker 4: was on the stand.
31:25
Speaker 2: So I'm interested in the questions. Lanier asked him about
31:29
Speaker 2: what he characterized as extensive media training, and there was
31:35
Speaker 2: an internal document about feedback on his tone of voice,
31:40
Speaker 2: imploring him to come off as authentic, direct, human, insightful
31:44
Speaker 2: and real, not fake or robotic.
31:47
Speaker 4: Right, That was an interesting line of questioning, and Zuckerberg
31:51
Speaker 4: was kind of restarctive to it. Honestly, he says, I'm
31:55
Speaker 4: well known to be very bad at this at public speaking.
31:58
Speaker 4: He kind of acknowledged it, and so, yes, that was
32:01
Speaker 4: definitely something that we saw Laniar flip to and Zuckerberg said,
32:05
Speaker 4: you know, I don't enjoy talking to the media.
32:06
Speaker 5: It's part of the job. It's important part.
32:08
Speaker 1: Of the job.
32:09
Speaker 4: But yeah, definitely a very personal toned that line of questioning.
32:15
Speaker 2: So basically, no big surprises in his testimony.
32:19
Speaker 5: I don't think so. I mean, this issue itself is
32:22
Speaker 5: not a new one.
32:23
Speaker 4: I think it's something we've been talking about as kind
32:26
Speaker 4: of a culture, as a country for a while, as
32:28
Speaker 4: a world, honestly, and we've heard Zuckerberg give testimony to
32:33
Speaker 4: Congress before. We've heard him and other executives that made
32:36
Speaker 4: us speak publicly on this. So I don't think that
32:39
Speaker 4: there was an expectation that there would be a lot
32:41
Speaker 4: of fresh information or insights provided. You know, it's significant
32:46
Speaker 4: because he's being called to the stand in this really
32:49
Speaker 4: unique case. This is the first time these no legal
32:52
Speaker 4: claims are being tried out, because this is you know.
32:55
Speaker 5: One of thousands of cases.
32:56
Speaker 4: So I think there wasn't necessarily new tread but there
33:01
Speaker 4: was new ground for probably many members.
33:03
Speaker 5: Of the jury. You know, you have to think like they're.
33:06
Speaker 4: An average person who's not like us, and the listeners
33:09
Speaker 4: is maybe not as plugged into some of this discourse,
33:12
Speaker 4: and so they might have been hearing some of this
33:14
Speaker 4: information for the first time, and obviously like having a
33:17
Speaker 4: witness on the stand is a great opportunity for these.
33:19
Speaker 5: Lawyers to kind of help put important documents into context.
33:24
Speaker 4: Because we saw Mark Lanier talk about a lot of
33:26
Speaker 4: these like the teams into tweens and talking about youth strategy.
33:30
Speaker 5: He referenced some of them during his opening statements.
33:32
Speaker 4: But I think it's a lot different to hear that
33:35
Speaker 4: and see the paper versus see this guy that you
33:38
Speaker 4: know from TV and from the news talking about them
33:42
Speaker 4: and kind of explaining a little bit more about his thinking.
33:44
Speaker 2: So something unusual that happened. The judge scolded some of
33:50
Speaker 2: the people who came with Zuckerberg for wearing metaglasses.
33:56
Speaker 5: So I'm not.
33:56
Speaker 4: Sure that you exactly in the courtroom was the object
34:00
Speaker 4: of that, if they were with him or not, But yes,
34:03
Speaker 4: at one point the judge did instruct anyone, any member
34:06
Speaker 4: of the public who's there in the room to remove
34:09
Speaker 4: any meta glasses that they may have. The courthouse, like
34:12
Speaker 4: you might expect, is pretty strict about photos and recording
34:16
Speaker 4: during the proceedings.
34:17
Speaker 5: That is not allowed.
34:18
Speaker 4: You can't even have your phone in the room. So
34:21
Speaker 4: that that was an interesting reminder from the judge and
34:23
Speaker 4: one we haven't heard yet.
34:25
Speaker 2: During the proceedings the pointiff is going to take the
34:29
Speaker 2: stand at some point, Do you have any idea when
34:32
Speaker 2: that might be?
34:33
Speaker 4: So both parties in this case, this young woman who's
34:37
Speaker 4: being identified in court as Kaylee, she's going to have
34:40
Speaker 4: forty hours to present her case, and then the defendants
34:43
Speaker 4: are going to have forty hours to present theirs. So
34:46
Speaker 4: we're hardly kind of getting into that at this point
34:49
Speaker 4: after about a week of testimony so far. For her,
34:53
Speaker 4: I don't know exactly when she's going to be called
34:55
Speaker 4: to take the stand. I know that we're expecting to
34:58
Speaker 4: hear from some other employees little lower down the food
35:01
Speaker 4: chain at Meta, some former employees executives at YouTube, likely
35:06
Speaker 4: will be called. Kaylee actually was in the courtroom for
35:09
Speaker 4: a portion of Zuckerberg's testimony. We heard from Mark Lanier
35:13
Speaker 4: that she was not going to be making an appearance
35:15
Speaker 4: in court until she was called to testify because he
35:18
Speaker 4: didn't want to subject her to hearing lawyers and witnesses
35:21
Speaker 4: talk about these really intimate details of her life, and
35:25
Speaker 4: he kind of alluded to her fragile mental state as
35:28
Speaker 4: a result of this alleged addiction to social media that's the.
35:31
Speaker 5: Root of this litigation. But he had her there.
35:35
Speaker 4: He was asking Zuckerberg questions about her, whether he'd had
35:39
Speaker 4: a chance to.
35:40
Speaker 5: Review her social media feed.
35:41
Speaker 4: I think a particularly powerful moment during the testimony was
35:45
Speaker 4: he was allowed to bring out a demonstrative showing it
35:48
Speaker 4: was a large banner that stretched across most of the
35:51
Speaker 4: courtroom and it was a collage of like thousands of
35:55
Speaker 4: selfies that Kaylee had taken and posted to Instagram.
35:59
Speaker 5: And so I think centering.
36:01
Speaker 4: This case on her and or reminding jurors that it
36:03
Speaker 4: is about one individual, I think that's definitely what they
36:06
Speaker 4: were trying to do with that strategy, and that's what
36:09
Speaker 4: they'll be doing when they call her to the stand
36:11
Speaker 4: and have her kind of talk about her experiences.
36:14
Speaker 2: I know you'll be watching this case closely, so we'll
36:16
Speaker 2: talk again. Thanks so much, Madeline. That's Bloomberg Legal reporter
36:20
Speaker 2: Madelein Mecklberg, and that's it for this edition of The
36:23
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36:26
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