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DOJ Complains About Judge & Can Trump Buy Greenland? · Bloomberg Law

0:02
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Grossel from Bloomberg Radio.
0:08
Speaker 2: The Justice Department has filed a complaint accusing of federal
0:12
Speaker 2: judge in DC of misconduct during hearings over President Donald
0:17
Speaker 2: Trump's executive order calling for banning transgender troops from serving
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Speaker 2: in the military. The Trump administration has been ramping up
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Speaker 2: its criticism of judges over rulings blocking parts of his
0:30
Speaker 2: aggressive agenda. Here's the White House Press Secretary.
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Speaker 3: District court judges and liberal districts across the country are
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Speaker 3: abusing their power to unilaterally block President Trump's basic executive authority.
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Speaker 3: We believe these judges are acting as judicial activists rather
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Speaker 3: than honest arbiters of the law.
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Speaker 2: The complaint to the d C Circuit's chief judge accuses
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Speaker 2: federal Judge An Arrayes of repeatedly violating the official code
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Speaker 2: of con for district court judges by inappropriately questioning a
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Speaker 2: government lawyer about his religious beliefs and trying to embarrass
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Speaker 2: him with a rhetorical exercise during an exchange about discrimination.
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Speaker 2: Judge Rayes, who's only been on the bench two years,
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Speaker 2: is currently weighing a request by six transgender service members
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Speaker 2: for a preliminary injunction that would put Trump's executive order
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Speaker 2: banning transgender troops on hold while their case challenging it proceeds.
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Speaker 2: Joining me is an expert in legal ethics, Stephen Geller
1:35
Speaker 2: is a professor at and YU Law School. So the
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Speaker 2: AG's chief of staff, Chad Mazel, wrote this letter of
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Speaker 2: complaint to the chief judge of the DC's circuit. The
1:45
Speaker 2: hearing has been described as heated at times, and reportedly
1:50
Speaker 2: the judge repeatedly raised her voice. I mean, how far
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Speaker 2: can a judge go? Where's the line?
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Speaker 4: Well, there is no single line. Every incident to be
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Speaker 4: evaluated based on the facts in the incident. One of
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Speaker 4: the problems is what we don't have, and what Mizell
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Speaker 4: doesn't have, is an audio recording, because the audio recording
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Speaker 4: may reveal a context somewhat different from what we see
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Speaker 4: on a page. If we're talking about raising voices and
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Speaker 4: fiery language, an audio recording will help understand what exactly
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Speaker 4: is meant, and it will help us understand whether conducts
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Speaker 4: or speech that is allegedly a violation of the Code
2:35
Speaker 4: of Judicial Conduct of federal judges was provoked by a lawyer.
2:39
Speaker 4: That happens not so much now, but at one point
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Speaker 4: lawyers were much more willing to provoke female judges than
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Speaker 4: male judges. That's declined obviously in light of what's gone
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Speaker 4: on in the profession of the last twenty five years.
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Speaker 4: So the bottom line is there is no line. It
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Speaker 4: depends very much on context.
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Speaker 2: So it appeared as if she wasn't getting the answers
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Speaker 2: that she needed, perhaps from the Justice Department's lawyer. For example,
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Speaker 2: she was asking him about what radical gender ideology means,
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Speaker 2: and he said he was loathed to speculate, and she says,
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Speaker 2: it's not like I randomly picked you off the street.
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Speaker 2: You're the government's representative here. So it seems like in
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Speaker 2: different ways she was asking questions that he either didn't
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Speaker 2: want to answer or couldn't answer right.
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Speaker 4: Well. It is on that topic that Mizelle is on
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Speaker 4: the weakest ground, because earlier this led it to the
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Speaker 4: Chief Judge. He says an issue he had during the
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Speaker 4: hearing was simply rightness and success on the merits close quote.
3:49
Speaker 4: Those are not simple concepts, and looking into each of
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Speaker 4: those issues can warrant a judge asking for a lot
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Speaker 4: of information. Mizelle seems to think that the information she
4:01
Speaker 4: asked about when outside the boundaries of the purpose of
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Speaker 4: the hearing. But the topics he describes, ripeness and success
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Speaker 4: on the merits are almost boundary less. They have very
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Speaker 4: few boundaries that where a judge might be inquisitive and
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Speaker 4: wish to note the lawyer's response. That's number one. Number two.
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Speaker 4: Even if the judge asks questions which to the lawyers
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Speaker 4: seem to be far afield of minor or no relevance,
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Speaker 4: that's not a disciplinary or ethical issues. The question of
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Speaker 4: the relationship between the judges question and the issues as
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Speaker 4: the argument is ultimately a question that the judge has
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Speaker 4: to answer for herself. It does not entail a rule
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Speaker 4: violation how the judge chooses to ask or answer those questions.
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Speaker 2: Some of the headlines and news articles about the hearing
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Speaker 2: were like judge bless Justice Department attorney. Judge which grills
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Speaker 2: Justice Department attorney? And we know some judges sometimes yell,
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Speaker 2: So let's say she did yell at him. Is that
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Speaker 2: an ethical violation?
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Speaker 4: No, no, it's not. I mean, you don't want to
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Speaker 4: yell at lawyers. You don't want lawyers yelling at the judge.
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Speaker 4: It doesn't help public confidence in the administration of justice.
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Speaker 4: On the other hand, we're dealing with human beings who
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Speaker 4: gets frustrated and angry. Both lawyers and judges may raise
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Speaker 4: their voice, they use language they later regret, and so
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Speaker 4: you have to create allowances for that. That's universally recognized
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Speaker 4: as something that will happen when you're dealing with a
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Speaker 4: human institution. So behavior along those lines standing alone will
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Speaker 4: not warrant any kind of response from the disciplinary mechanism.
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Speaker 4: It could be such that this judge routinely jack guises
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Speaker 4: or shows anger towards lawyers, is impolite, dis courteous overall
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Speaker 4: rate of time, and at some point they might be
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Speaker 4: need for the Chief Judge to step in in and
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Speaker 4: have a conversation, but that doesn't come through in one
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Speaker 4: appearance before the judge well.
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Speaker 2: In fact, this judge is known for her stern rebukes
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Speaker 2: of lawyers on both sides. Earlier this month, she rebuked
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Speaker 2: former Solicitor General Seth Waxman, who's representing the eight government
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Speaker 2: inspector generals who were fired, and she went so far
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Speaker 2: as to threaten the plaintiffs with court sanctions if they
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Speaker 2: didn't immediately withdraw their emergency request, which I thought was
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Speaker 2: odd because former solicitor generals usually garner a level of
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Speaker 2: respect from judges.
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Speaker 4: Judges have to realize that they have all the power
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Speaker 4: in the courtroom, so they can be quiet, they could
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Speaker 4: be reticent. They don't have to raise their voices. They've
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Speaker 4: got the power. They also have to realize that the
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Speaker 4: lawyers who are talking to them are representing the client.
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Speaker 4: They are not the using party. The lawyers are simply
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Speaker 4: making an argument, maybe an argument they disagree with, but
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Speaker 4: they're making an argument. And it's unfortunate when judges treat
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Speaker 4: the lawyer personally as an adversary of the judge, and unfortunately,
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Speaker 4: again that happens. One hopes that doesn't happen too often.
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Speaker 4: It's tolerable if it's rare, because again, it's a human institution,
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Speaker 4: but judges have to keep that in mind.
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Speaker 2: One of the things that Justice Department took issue with
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Speaker 2: was Reyes using an analogy during the hearing about what
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Speaker 2: Jesus would say if transgender people were banned from homeless shelters. Quote,
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Speaker 2: what do you think Jesus would say to telling a
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Speaker 2: group of people that they are so worthless, so worthless,
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Speaker 2: that we're not going to allow them into homeless shelters over.
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Speaker 4: The line that was extremely odd. Jesus should not come
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Speaker 4: up in an argument in court. Let it's about religion
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Speaker 4: or the religion clauses of the Constitution. On the other hand,
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Speaker 4: Trump said when he issued the executive order that he's
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Speaker 4: protecting quote Christians against affirming radical transgender ideology against their faith.
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Speaker 4: I mean Trump raised the issue of religion, in particular
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Speaker 4: Christianity and explaining his justifications for the executive order, and
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Speaker 4: so you could see where a judge would be concerned
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Speaker 4: that the impetus for the executive order was religiously based,
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Speaker 4: which would create constitutional problems, and choose to ask the
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Speaker 4: question of the DOJ lawyer that she did. Even then
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Speaker 4: she would have been better off not asking that question.
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Speaker 4: But in the mix of events, you could see where
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Speaker 4: a judge might have the religion dimension of the episode
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Speaker 4: in her mind. We should also recognize, I think it
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Speaker 4: is really important to say, as we look at this
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Speaker 4: letter and eventually perhaps read the transcript, we should recognize
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Speaker 4: that there are some reason not fully to credit the
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Speaker 4: alarm and complaint of the Justice Department. There is obviously
9:22
Speaker 4: a foot an effort by the administration by Trump by
9:27
Speaker 4: musk by vance to go after the courts. I mean,
9:32
Speaker 4: it's quite clear that the administration sees other power centers
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Speaker 4: as inhibitory of its long range political goals, and one
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Speaker 4: such power center is the Jdiary. In addition, Republicans and
9:47
Speaker 4: Congress have now introduced I think two articles of impeachment
9:51
Speaker 4: is two different district judges based on their ruling, which
9:55
Speaker 4: should not be a basis for impeachment. Their solutions to
9:58
Speaker 4: a ruling that it is pleases is to appeal. But
10:02
Speaker 4: the fact that the administration and its spokespeople and its
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Speaker 4: adjunct groups are going after the judges puts this letter
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Speaker 4: from Mazelle in a less charitable light then we might
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Speaker 4: otherwise read it. And I think that has to be understood.
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Speaker 2: She said we're dealing with unadulterated animis because of Trump's
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Speaker 2: two genders executive or and she said there aren't just
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Speaker 2: two genders. Is it unusual for a judge to come
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Speaker 2: out and make statements like that.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it is unusual, especially since that issue
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Speaker 4: may become part of the litigation. Whatever it means, whatever
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Speaker 4: it means to say there are two genders or there
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Speaker 4: are not just two genders, that may become part of
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Speaker 4: the ultimate legal reasoning, So it was inadvisable to stay
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Speaker 4: flat out if the transcript reveals that that's what she did,
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Speaker 4: a proposition that may turn out to be in dispute
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Speaker 4: in the course of the litigation.
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Speaker 2: If you take this in isolation forgetting about the attacks
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Speaker 2: on judges and all that, how odd is it to
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Speaker 2: file a misconduct complaint after a two day hearing when
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Speaker 2: the judge hasn't even ruled yet.
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Speaker 4: Extremely odd. It's a knowing's interest, not the court's interest,
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Speaker 4: not the client's interest, not the lawyer's interest. To have
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Speaker 4: courtroom colloquy this way.
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Speaker 2: Is there something like a list of criteria that the
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Speaker 2: judge will use or a grading scale to determine if
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Speaker 2: she's guilty of misconduct or not.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, well, first of all, she's a new judge. That
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Speaker 4: has to be acknowledged. I think that a judge with
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Speaker 4: more years on the bench might have behaved differently, So
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Speaker 4: we have to consider that. But what will happen here
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Speaker 4: is maybe e streeen of us and we'll have a
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Speaker 4: conversation with her. That is what the judicial conduct rules envision.
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Speaker 4: That's what the discipline rules in vision. As an appropriate
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Speaker 4: resolution for this complaint. So at most, and maybe not
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Speaker 4: even that Shrinahasen will sit down with Judge Reyes have
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Speaker 4: a conversation about what may have gone wrong, what she
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Speaker 4: should be conscious of. Maybe that will happen, but that
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Speaker 4: will be the most significant reaction by the Circuit to
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Speaker 4: this event.
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Speaker 2: So there's no chance that he would take her off
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Speaker 2: the case.
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Speaker 4: Oh no, no, there's no chance he would take her
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Speaker 4: off the case. He himself cannot take her off the case.
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Speaker 4: You have to go through a hearing, and the judicial counsel,
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Speaker 4: which is a group larger than than him, might be
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Speaker 4: able to persuade her to leave the case. She's not
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Speaker 4: leaving the case unless she decides she wants to, or
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Speaker 4: unless the government now chooses to make a motion to
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Speaker 4: disqualify her based on actual bias or some other provision
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Speaker 4: of the disqualification rule. This complaint is not a motion
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Speaker 4: to disqualify. That may happen, and then she'll have to
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Speaker 4: address that. But her decision not to accuse herself would
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Speaker 4: be final unless the government can persuade the DC Circuit
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Speaker 4: to mandain this her or to take an interlocatory appeal
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Speaker 4: to get her off the case. I see that as
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Speaker 4: a real, cow fetched possibility. I don't think it will happen.
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Speaker 2: Do you think the fact that she's the first openly
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Speaker 2: LGBTQ judge in the DC circuit will play in.
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Speaker 4: Anywhere not overtly. No one's going to say that. I
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Speaker 4: won't say that. It's an obvious fact that people will
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Speaker 4: think about. Some people might speculate that she was seemingly
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Speaker 4: hostile to the government's position because of her own sexual orientation.
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Speaker 4: That may be true, it may be false, but it's
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Speaker 4: not going to be litigated. Well, maybe I should say
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Speaker 4: it could be litigated if there's a motion to accuse
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Speaker 4: based on her conduct at this hearing. The government, in
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Speaker 4: its motion has an add on argument that her inability
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Speaker 4: to rule without bias has been shown at the hearing
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Speaker 4: so far and is aggravated by her own position as
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Speaker 4: a lesbian. Then this government, certainly this administration, may choose
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Speaker 4: to make that point. I think it would be inadvisable
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Speaker 4: from a pure least strategic point of view, but I
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Speaker 4: don't put it past them, and I just want to.
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Speaker 2: Point out that, no matter what else she said during
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Speaker 2: the hearing, at the end, she complimented the Justice Department
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Speaker 2: attorney on his defense, and she declined to act quickly
14:48
Speaker 2: on the injunction requested by the transgender military. She's going
14:53
Speaker 2: to wait until the Defense Secretary issues his formal guidance
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Speaker 2: on how he'll implement Trump's ban. Another hearing on the
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Speaker 2: request has been set for March third. We'll see if
15:07
Speaker 2: there are any fireworks at that time. Thanks so much
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Speaker 2: for being on the show. That's Professor Steven Gillers of
15:13
Speaker 2: NYU Law School. President Tromp has long pushed the idea
15:17
Speaker 2: that the United States will buy Greenland from Denmark. He
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Speaker 2: talked about it during his first term in twenty nineteen.
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Speaker 5: Essentially, it's a large real estate deal. A lot of
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Speaker 5: things could be done. It's hurting Denmark very badly because
15:31
Speaker 5: they're losing almost seven hundred million dollars a year carrying it,
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Speaker 5: so they carry it at a great loss.
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Speaker 2: And reiterated it last month.
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Speaker 6: People really don't even know if Denmark has an illegal
15:44
Speaker 6: right to it, but if they do, they should give
15:47
Speaker 6: it up because we needed financial security. That's for the
15:50
Speaker 6: free world. I'm talking about protecting the free world.
15:52
Speaker 2: Tromp has also been threatening to reassert US control over
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Speaker 2: the Panama Canal accusing Panama of charge high rates to
16:01
Speaker 2: use the ship passage.
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Speaker 7: If the principles, both moral and legal, of this magnanimous
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Speaker 7: gesture of giving are not followed, then we will demand
16:11
Speaker 7: that the Panama Canal be returned to the United States
16:14
Speaker 7: of America in full, quickly and without question.
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Speaker 2: And he now says that the US will not own Gaza,
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Speaker 2: but rather we'll take it.
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Speaker 1: We're not going to buy anything.
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Speaker 8: We're going to have it, and we're going to keep it,
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Speaker 8: and we're going to make sure that there's going to
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Speaker 8: be peace, and there's not going to be any problem,
16:33
Speaker 8: and nobody's going to question it, and we're going to
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Speaker 8: run it very properly.
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Speaker 2: Of course, Trump has also said he'll make Canada the
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Speaker 2: fifty first state. The leaders of Denmark, Panama, and Canada
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Speaker 2: have all shot down Trump's annexation notions. Joining me is
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Speaker 2: an expert in international law. Monica Hakimi, a professor at
16:54
Speaker 2: Columbia Law School, start by telling us what the international
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Speaker 2: law is regarding annexation of another country.
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Speaker 1: Well, international law establishes pretty absolute prohibition against annexations, which
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Speaker 1: can be defined as the forcible taking of the territory
17:13
Speaker 1: assigned to another state or similar such entity.
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Speaker 2: And how long has that concept been part of international law.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good question. There's some debate about it.
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Speaker 1: It was a long time coming. International law used to
17:27
Speaker 1: actually permit or at least condone annexations, So it used
17:31
Speaker 1: to provide that a state that established control over a
17:34
Speaker 1: territory was entitled to sovereign title over that territory. But
17:39
Speaker 1: through a process of normative development that took basically over
17:42
Speaker 1: one hundred years, and that solidified I would say in
17:48
Speaker 1: really nineteen seventy, after World War Two, and after the
17:52
Speaker 1: wave of decolonization that followed it, with what's known as
17:57
Speaker 1: the UN General Assembly Declaration of Friendly Relations. And that
18:00
Speaker 1: is when I would say the prohibition in its most
18:03
Speaker 1: absolute and clearest form finally really solidified. Others would date
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Speaker 1: it back to the un Charter itself, because the un
18:11
Speaker 1: Charter did, of course make significant moves in this respect
18:14
Speaker 1: as well. I just think that the un Charter left
18:17
Speaker 1: some questions open, and in fact, I demonstrate in some
18:19
Speaker 1: research that I've recently done with Ingrid Bronk at Vanderbilt
18:23
Speaker 1: that the un Charter did leave a few questions open
18:25
Speaker 1: that then tended to get sorted out in the process
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Speaker 1: of decolonization and with the nineteen seventy Friendly Relations Declaration, when.
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Speaker 2: Was the last time that the US annexed another country
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Speaker 2: or a territory.
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Speaker 1: No permanent member of the Security Council, and that of
18:40
Speaker 1: course includes the United States ever used force to forcibly
18:45
Speaker 1: ennect the territory of another state until Russia did in
18:48
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen against Korea in Ukraine.
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Speaker 2: Let's talk about the areas or countries that Trump is
18:53
Speaker 2: interested in individually, since they all present different circumstances. So
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Speaker 2: he's pushed the idea that the United States will buy
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Speaker 2: Greenland from Denmark, talked about it first in twenty nineteen,
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Speaker 2: and he's talking about it recently. And Greenland is self governing,
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Speaker 2: but Denmark handles its foreign policy and national defense. Right now,
19:17
Speaker 2: Greenland and Denmark are opposed to that notion, But for
19:21
Speaker 2: argument's sake, let's say they did. Is that doable a purchase?
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Speaker 1: Well, international law actually permits transfers of territory with the
19:29
Speaker 1: consent of both parties. So if Greenland or Denmark, which
19:35
Speaker 1: conducts its foreign policy, decided to consent to the transfer
19:41
Speaker 1: of territory, then there arguably would be an argument that
19:45
Speaker 1: that would be permissible through some exchange of cash. But
19:50
Speaker 1: it's clear that neither Greenland nor Denmark is interested in
19:53
Speaker 1: that deal. And so to the extense that the President
19:56
Speaker 1: continues to make threats that he will, you know, get
20:00
Speaker 1: Greenland in one way or another, then that is clearly
20:04
Speaker 1: an exercise of coercion and an effort to circumvent these
20:08
Speaker 1: really settles and fundamental norms of international law that provide
20:13
Speaker 1: for the sanctity of territorial borders.
20:15
Speaker 2: Trump has also been threatening to reassert control over the
20:19
Speaker 2: Panama Canal, and the President of Panama has said every
20:23
Speaker 2: square meter of the Panama Canal is Panama's and will
20:27
Speaker 2: remain so. So tell us a little about the history
20:30
Speaker 2: of the Panama Canal.
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Speaker 1: Basically, you know, we continue to hold on to the
20:33
Speaker 1: Panama Canal and then through a series of treaties, handed
20:37
Speaker 1: it back over to Panama and provided that the canal
20:39
Speaker 1: should be used for you know, there should be a
20:42
Speaker 1: certain non discrimination use of the canal. But it is
20:45
Speaker 1: no longer sort of subject to US authority or sovereignty.
20:50
Speaker 1: It is instead subject to Panamas. And if Trump were
20:54
Speaker 1: to seed the canal and take it as again sort
20:59
Speaker 1: of like a US property that would again be in
21:02
Speaker 1: violation of the prohibition of annexations.
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Speaker 2: You would have to send troops there, which would involve
21:09
Speaker 2: a congressional resolution.
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Speaker 1: There's been some debate for the past couple decades, i
21:14
Speaker 1: would say, about the exact allocation of authority between the
21:18
Speaker 1: President and the Congress on decisions to deploy military forces abroad.
21:24
Speaker 1: The Executive Branch has long, and I would say, with
21:29
Speaker 1: increasing insistence, taken the position that it may deploy troops
21:35
Speaker 1: abroad without a congressional declaration of war in many circumstances
21:41
Speaker 1: that don't amount to what sort of by common parlance,
21:44
Speaker 1: might be thought of as like a full throated troops
21:48
Speaker 1: on the ground, long in duration war. And so if
21:52
Speaker 1: the United States were to conduct a sort of some
21:55
Speaker 1: kind of surgical operation, it would be within what the
21:58
Speaker 1: executive branch has aimed as being within his authority for
22:02
Speaker 1: some time now. To say that the executive branch has
22:04
Speaker 1: claimed it does not mean to say that it is
22:06
Speaker 1: actually the lot, just that the Supreme Court has not
22:09
Speaker 1: weighed in on the question of exactly how to define
22:12
Speaker 1: the scope of the presidents versus the Congress's authorities in
22:16
Speaker 1: this space.
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Speaker 2: What about Trump's plans for Gaza, that.
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Speaker 1: Too, would be a clear violation of the prohibition of annexations.
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Speaker 1: In fact, the International Court of Justice just issued an
22:27
Speaker 1: opinion in June asserting that Israel's conduct in relation to
22:35
Speaker 1: the West Bank and to a lesser extent, but still
22:38
Speaker 1: the Gaza Strip, amounted to an annexation and violation of
22:43
Speaker 1: international law. And Israel at least has a historical claim
22:48
Speaker 1: in a way that the United States, of course does not.
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Speaker 1: But the same principle would apply to the United States.
22:54
Speaker 1: Just as Israel may not take that land as its own,
22:55
Speaker 1: neither may the United States.
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Speaker 2: Coming up, we'll talk about what these annexations plans could
23:01
Speaker 2: mean for the stability of international relations. I'm June Grosso
23:06
Speaker 2: and you're listening to Bloomberg. I've been talking to Columbia
23:10
Speaker 2: Law School professor Monica Hakimi about President Donald Trump's talk
23:14
Speaker 2: about annex Saint Greenland, the Panama Canal, and Gaza, for example. Recently,
23:21
Speaker 2: Trump said that the United States will not own Gaza,
23:24
Speaker 2: but will take it and take care of it.
23:27
Speaker 6: With the United States being in control of that piece
23:30
Speaker 6: of land, a fairly large piece of land, you're gonna
23:33
Speaker 6: have stability in the middle East for the first time,
23:36
Speaker 6: and the Palestinians or the people that live now in
23:40
Speaker 6: Gaza will be living beautifully in another location.
23:43
Speaker 8: They're going to be living safely.
23:44
Speaker 6: They're not going to be killed, murdered and having to
23:47
Speaker 6: leave every ten years.
23:49
Speaker 2: The talks about Gaza in the White House between Trump
23:53
Speaker 2: and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Nettan Yahoo didn't seem to
23:58
Speaker 2: include the notion of other country objecting.
24:01
Speaker 1: One of the things that I think is really worth
24:04
Speaker 1: underscoring here is that the United States is now not
24:09
Speaker 1: only threatening to act a violation of international law, and
24:12
Speaker 1: not just of any international law. But again, the prohibition
24:15
Speaker 1: of annexations is really foundation to the contemporary legal system.
24:19
Speaker 1: And I would say to you the way many people
24:22
Speaker 1: understand the world, which is organized around a set of states,
24:26
Speaker 1: each of which has authority to make most decisions in
24:29
Speaker 1: its own orders and then to enter into agreements with
24:31
Speaker 1: other states on their relations with one another. The prohibition
24:35
Speaker 1: of venexations undergrads that entire legal and political structure. Because,
24:40
Speaker 1: of course, if states may just take the territory of
24:43
Speaker 1: other states, then all of the pretenses of sort of
24:47
Speaker 1: having independent states, each which governments authority in its own
24:50
Speaker 1: territory becomes much much more fragile to the extent that
24:54
Speaker 1: it is realizable at all. So this is a really,
24:57
Speaker 1: really foundational norm of our current world order, and in
25:04
Speaker 1: making these claims that we are going to no longer
25:08
Speaker 1: abide by it, we are no longer asserting that we're
25:11
Speaker 1: going to violate this very very foundational norm. But we
25:15
Speaker 1: are also in at the same time, saying that we
25:18
Speaker 1: are no longer going to do what we historically have
25:22
Speaker 1: done the lion's share of doing, which is to put
25:26
Speaker 1: in place a security architecture that is going to ensure
25:29
Speaker 1: that others don't violate this norm. So at the same
25:32
Speaker 1: time that we are saying we are going to you know,
25:34
Speaker 1: we might take Canada, we might take Greenland, we might
25:38
Speaker 1: take Gaza, we are also saying and we're not going
25:41
Speaker 1: to protect you know, Europe or Ukraine from others who
25:46
Speaker 1: might want to take those that territory. And so we're
25:49
Speaker 1: sort of doing a one two punch simultaneously, which is
25:52
Speaker 1: what is so incredibly destabilizing about the way in which
25:58
Speaker 1: the United States is conducting itself.
26:00
Speaker 2: Else right now, as you've said, annexation or seizing other
26:04
Speaker 2: countries is not the world order that we're used to,
26:08
Speaker 2: but is there a danger that it could become more prevalent.
26:11
Speaker 1: I am on record as saying, you know, my view
26:14
Speaker 1: is I think it's very, very often when people think
26:16
Speaker 1: about law and international law to focus on the ways
26:20
Speaker 1: in which it is limited in its enforcement capabilities, especially
26:25
Speaker 1: in the face of powerful actors acting and violation of it.
26:29
Speaker 1: But a more fundamental aspect of the international legal system
26:34
Speaker 1: is the way in which it has been established and
26:37
Speaker 1: maintained disproportionately by and disproportionately for the benefit of but
26:44
Speaker 1: are clearly not exclusively for the benefit of the United States.
26:48
Speaker 1: So now the United States has both doing both simultaneously.
26:51
Speaker 1: It's not only acting and consistently with certain norms, which
26:54
Speaker 1: you know it has long done and been criticized as
26:57
Speaker 1: doing in discreete contexts at a time the two thousand
27:00
Speaker 1: and three Irack Wars probably the most obvious examples. But
27:04
Speaker 1: it is also taking lots of steps to no longer
27:08
Speaker 1: do the sort of support that it is historically done,
27:11
Speaker 1: and that support has been like critical to maintaining this
27:15
Speaker 1: basic world order in which again we have a bunch
27:18
Speaker 1: of states independent, you know, formally independent of one another,
27:21
Speaker 1: each with authority in its own territory, and I think
27:25
Speaker 1: the implications for the kind of world that we're going
27:27
Speaker 1: to see in the next sort of ten years are extraordinary,
27:32
Speaker 1: and that most Americans don't quite appreciate the extent of it,
27:35
Speaker 1: because most, I think, tend to assume that what happens
27:39
Speaker 1: outside our borders is very much shielded from what happens internally,
27:42
Speaker 1: and that what happens outside is more or less stable
27:46
Speaker 1: because it has been for a while.
27:48
Speaker 2: Give me the worst case scenario in the next ten years.
27:52
Speaker 1: Worst case scenario maybe World War three, maybe nuclear war.
27:57
Speaker 1: Other bad case scenarios include the return of constant just
28:05
Speaker 1: territorial and other conflicts without any sense of shared principles
28:12
Speaker 1: or norms or understandings of how states and other entities
28:16
Speaker 1: might work collaboratively together, and certainly not on issues that
28:20
Speaker 1: are like existential threats like climate change. Another possibility might
28:24
Speaker 1: be spheres of influence, in which the United States tries
28:27
Speaker 1: to dominate particular other actors. Russia tries to dominate Central
28:33
Speaker 1: and Eastern Europe, and China tries to dominate and ends
28:37
Speaker 1: up dominating much of Asia, including many who now have
28:40
Speaker 1: close ties to the United States. Massive bloodshed in the
28:43
Speaker 1: Middle East in an effort to redraw the map, many
28:45
Speaker 1: of whom in the region are quite unhappy with the
28:48
Speaker 1: current map. So there are lots of bad case scenarios
28:51
Speaker 1: that one really imagine. It seems to me this is
28:53
Speaker 1: not like science fiction.
28:54
Speaker 2: Now.
28:54
Speaker 1: These scenarios are all sort of within the realm of
28:59
Speaker 1: possibility of the t onlines that we're seeing continue.
29:02
Speaker 2: So sort of as an indication of what can happen.
29:04
Speaker 2: Let's talk about Ukraine. And we saw Trump and the
29:09
Speaker 2: Russians meeting and Ukraine wasn't even in the room at
29:13
Speaker 2: that time.
29:14
Speaker 1: And that's you know, that's problematic if you take seriously
29:16
Speaker 1: these like basic tendents of statehood to which I referred earlier,
29:20
Speaker 1: which are like, this is Ukraine's business, Ukraine ought to
29:23
Speaker 1: have a say, and what happens internally. It's also problematic
29:28
Speaker 1: just for reasons of you know, basic transparency and governance.
29:32
Speaker 1: It's really hard to know as an American what it
29:35
Speaker 1: is the government is trying to accomplish or why. It
29:40
Speaker 1: seems clear that it is fundamentally changing its disposition towards
29:44
Speaker 1: the world without explaining what its endgame is exactly, but
29:49
Speaker 1: instead trading and information. So there are certainly sort of
29:52
Speaker 1: like also problems as Americans for what is happening. And
29:56
Speaker 1: of course Europe is extremely concerned that with the realliance,
30:04
Speaker 1: what the US seems to be doing with some kind
30:06
Speaker 1: of realliance with Russia, that Europe's own security will seriously
30:10
Speaker 1: be at risk. And you know, jud and I say
30:12
Speaker 1: all of this cognizant of the very real concerns that
30:15
Speaker 1: many Americans have about the extent of our security commitments
30:20
Speaker 1: around the world. And I myself think, you know, like,
30:23
Speaker 1: these security commitments are over extensive, and we need to
30:26
Speaker 1: find ways to shift the burden sharing balance for sort
30:30
Speaker 1: of like the collective defense of states with whom we
30:33
Speaker 1: have close relationships and in cultural, economics, political and other ties.
30:39
Speaker 1: It's just that this is being done extraordinarily dramatically and
30:43
Speaker 1: in ways that are likely to leave many with whom
30:47
Speaker 1: we do have those close relationships very very seriously at risk,
30:51
Speaker 1: include in the Ukraine.
30:53
Speaker 2: Well, it's the same philosophy that's being used in the
30:56
Speaker 2: United States sort of do everything quickly and break things
31:01
Speaker 2: if you have to, and then see what the consequences are.
31:04
Speaker 2: Are the courts going to hold you back? It seems
31:07
Speaker 2: like the same kind of philosophy, only you're dealing with
31:09
Speaker 2: other countries and international order.
31:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, I completely agree, and I think actually the two
31:16
Speaker 1: are deeply, deeply connected because so much of our domestic, legal, political,
31:22
Speaker 1: economic systems are in fact and twined with an international
31:27
Speaker 1: system in which the United States played a particular role
31:30
Speaker 1: and did particular things, and so breaking the international is
31:34
Speaker 1: also a useful way of breaking the domestic and vice versa,
31:37
Speaker 1: those two things. You know, the breaking of one facilitates
31:40
Speaker 1: the breaking of the other.
31:41
Speaker 2: So let's say after four years a president is elected
31:46
Speaker 2: who wants to go back to NATO and the old
31:50
Speaker 2: world order. Can what Trump's done in these four years
31:55
Speaker 2: be reversed?
31:56
Speaker 1: My view is that it will be extraordinary only difficult,
32:00
Speaker 1: is not impossible to try to recreate what has been
32:03
Speaker 1: broken in four years, both domestically and internationally. I think
32:08
Speaker 1: it's very, very unlikely that, for example, Europe is going
32:13
Speaker 1: to trust the United States or be in a position
32:16
Speaker 1: to continue working as closely with or even dependence on
32:20
Speaker 1: the United States in the same way that it has been,
32:23
Speaker 1: and so we're going to have to figure out how
32:26
Speaker 1: to create something different at that point and move in
32:29
Speaker 1: a different direction. Already, we're saying Europe distancing itself from
32:32
Speaker 1: the United States, trying to figure out how it's going
32:36
Speaker 1: to reorient itself in light of what it increasingly sees
32:39
Speaker 1: as an adversary in the United States as opposed to
32:41
Speaker 1: an ally.
32:42
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for coming on the show, Monica. That's
32:45
Speaker 2: Monica Hakimi, a professor at Columbia Law School. And that's
32:49
Speaker 2: it for this edition of The Bloomberg Law Show. Remember
32:51
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33:09
Speaker 2: June Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg