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Trial Over Trump Targeting Pro-Palestinian Student Activists · Bloomberg Law

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Grosso from Bloomberg Radio.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Columbia graduate student and pro Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil has
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: become a symbol of the Trump administrations cracked down on
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: international students at several American universities. Khalil was the first
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: target of Trump's effort to deport non citizen students with
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: pro Palestinian or anti Israeli views. He spent one hundred
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: and four days in federal immigration detention before being released
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: last month.
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  Speaker 3: They tried to portray me as a violent person. They
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: tried to portray me as a terrorist, as some lunatic,
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  Speaker 3: but not presenting any evidence, not presenting any shred of
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  Speaker 3: credibility to their claims.
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  Speaker 2: Until this week, legal proceedings have focused on the detentions
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: of individual students, but now a federal judge in Boston
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  Speaker 2: is holding the first trial challenging the Trump administration's policy
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  Speaker 2: of revoking visas, arresting, detaining, and deporting non citizen students
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  Speaker 2: and faculty who engage in pro Palestinian advocacy. Groups representing
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  Speaker 2: university professors say the policy is chilling free speech on
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  Speaker 2: campuses in violation of the First Amendment, but lawyers for
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: the government argue that no such policy exists. My guest
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: is immigration law expertly on Fresco, a partner at Holland
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: and Knight Leah, and there have been lots of orders
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: by judges over these arrests of non citizen students, but
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  Speaker 2: this is the first trial. Explain how we got to
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  Speaker 2: this point.
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  Speaker 4: The Trump administration has been trying to crack down on
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  Speaker 4: what it believes is excessive protests on university campuses by
• 1:53
  Speaker 4: foreign students. And it thinks that there are some number
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: of students that are coming to the United States that
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: are not coming for legitimate academic reasons, but are instead
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: coming to rabl rouse or cause trouble or otherwise create
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: anti Semitic activities in schools. And so what it's been
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: doing is it's been revoking visas, and it's been revoking
• 2:15
  Speaker 4: them in a number of matters. It's been actually either
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: just saying to students they can't re enter if they leave.
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: Sometimes it's been actually terminating them from the student visa database,
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: and in other times for people who are actually lawful
• 2:29
  Speaker 4: permanent residents, it's actually revoked their lawful permanent residence status,
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: and all under a provision in the Immigration Code which
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: says that the Secretary of State can revoke either lawful
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: permanent residency or a student visa, either one any immigration
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: status that's not citizenship. The Secretary of State can revoke
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: that status if the Secretary of State believes that doing
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  Speaker 4: so is necessary because the foreign national is acting contrary
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  Speaker 4: to the interests of the foreign policy of the United States,
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  Speaker 4: And so in other cases involving specific individuals like Mahmoud
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  Speaker 4: Khalil or other individuals, the judges have just taken these
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: claims at face value and said, Okay, I'm going to
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: rule on the legality of the question of whether what
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: Secretary of Rubio is doing violates the First Amendment or not.
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: And that statute is unconstitutional either on its face or
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: in the way it's being applied, such that these foreign
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: students are not being allowed to express themselves under the
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  Speaker 4: First Amendment. But in this case, this particular judge, who's
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: known for basically not taking any claims at face value,
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  Speaker 4: has decided that he would actually bring this to a trial.
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  Speaker 2: So what's the main issue in the trial.
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  Speaker 4: So what he's having a trial on is whether the
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  Speaker 4: Secretary of State Marco Rubio is actually revoking these visas
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  Speaker 4: in good faith because he's concerned about the foreign policy
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: of the United States, or whether it's being done as
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  Speaker 4: a pretext to violate the First Amendment rights of these
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: foreign national students. Now, the problem is, there are a
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  Speaker 4: lot of precursor issues in this case, like whether this
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  Speaker 4: judge even has jurisdiction to be doing any of this,
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  Speaker 4: whether this should be done in a removal process, whether
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: this statute doesn't even permit any judicial review of any kind.
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  Speaker 4: And so the judge is sort of skipping all of
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: those steps, and it is saying, yes, I have jurisdiction, I
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: can review all of this, and it is just basically trying
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: to get to the end of the book first and
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  Speaker 4: say I'm going to actually just get to the merits
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  Speaker 4: of this. What is the administration doing? Is it illegal?
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  Speaker 4: And then leading to the courts all of these questions
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  Speaker 4: later the threshold questions about whether he even had jurisdiction
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  Speaker 4: to do any of this in the first place, where
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  Speaker 4: these cases are supposed to be brought, et cetera.
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  Speaker 2: So Leon, the judge said that the trial's likely to
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  Speaker 2: center on the question of whether non citizens lawfully present
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  Speaker 2: in the country have the same free speech rights as citizen.
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  Speaker 2: Is there case law on that?
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  Speaker 4: Well, there actually is case law on that, and that
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  Speaker 4: case law is pretty bad. There's a case called Haresiatis
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  Speaker 4: versus Shaughnessy from the nineteen fifties, and it dealt with
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  Speaker 4: actual lawful permanent residents of the United States, so not
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  Speaker 4: non immigrant visa holders like student visa or visitor visa holders.
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  Speaker 4: These were actual lawful permanent residents. And many of them
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  Speaker 4: in that case had US citizens spouses and US citizen children.
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  Speaker 4: Some had US citizen grandchildren. And the issue was there
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: was a statute that said not just current communists, but
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: even former members of the Communist Party could be deported
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: if they were just identified for deportation. And this was
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: in the height of the Cold War, and these folks argued,
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  Speaker 4: wait a second, I'm not even in the Communist Party anymore.
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  Speaker 4: I've renounced my affiliation with the Communist Party. And they
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  Speaker 4: said the courts shouldn't be able to deport me, because
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  Speaker 4: even if I was a Communist, what differ what it
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  Speaker 4: make if I wasn't actually violently seeking to overthrow the government,
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  Speaker 4: if I was just some sort of communists who just
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  Speaker 4: was an economic person not trying to overthrow the government.
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  Speaker 4: Why would I be deported for my First Amendment values?
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  Speaker 4: And that court in nineteen fifty two said no, in
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  Speaker 4: these statutes involving non citizens, the First Amendment does not
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  Speaker 4: overcome the security concerns, the legitimate security concerns of the government,
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  Speaker 4: even if the person is a lawful, permanent residence. So
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  Speaker 4: if the Supreme Court actually upholds that doctrine here again
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  Speaker 4: in twenty twenty five or twenty twenty six, whenever it
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  Speaker 4: gets this case, then it will remain the same, which
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  Speaker 4: is that when you're not a citizen of the United States,
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  Speaker 4: your First Amendment right are not superior to the rights
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  Speaker 4: of the government to be able to deport you for
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  Speaker 4: conduct that they feel is deportable conduct. We shall see,
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  Speaker 4: and the judge.
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  Speaker 2: Is also going to consider whether the Secretary of State
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  Speaker 2: is revoking these visas in good faith.
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  Speaker 4: The other issue that they're trying to get at in
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  Speaker 4: this trial is, yes, first, what First Amendment rights do
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  Speaker 4: the non citizens have? But then number two, the judge
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  Speaker 4: may say, well, fine, that's all fined in dandy. But
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: if the adjudications here are pretextual and I can find
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  Speaker 4: that they're completely pretextual, meaning there actually is no threat
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  Speaker 4: to foreign policy of any kind. I can still halt
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: these deportations because fine, maybe the statute does allow a
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: deportation when there's conduct that's a threat to the US
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  Speaker 4: foreign policy. So, for instance, the number one version of
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: this would be that sub dictator gets a visitor visa
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  Speaker 4: and comes to the United States, and nobody likes that
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  Speaker 4: this dictator is being given safe haven to visit the
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  Speaker 4: United States, So that would be the number one version
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  Speaker 4: of this. But at the end of the day, that
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  Speaker 4: might also be something that's not subject to judicial review.
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  Speaker 4: And that's what the Court of Appeals, the District Court,
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  Speaker 4: and the Supreme Court are going to need to decide,
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: is is this issue about whether the Secretary of State
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  Speaker 4: is actually acting in good faith in a particular case
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  Speaker 4: something that a judge actually can review in the first place.
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  Speaker 4: And none of this is settled law, none of this
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: is established. All of this is being made up at
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  Speaker 4: the beginning now as issues of first impression. I think
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  Speaker 4: this judge is going to say he has jurisdiction, which
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: is why he's going through a trial. But we're going
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: to have to see where the First Circuit ultimately goes
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  Speaker 4: down on this, and also where the Supreme Court actually
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  Speaker 4: says at the end of the day, what actually happens.
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  Speaker 4: What is the procedure that needs to be followed when
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  Speaker 4: the Secretary of State decides that someone is acting contrary
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  Speaker 4: to the foreign policy interests of the United States. Can
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  Speaker 4: it be challenged in the district court? Does it have
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  Speaker 4: to be challenged in the administrative removal proceeding? And then,
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  Speaker 4: depending on which court, what is the nature of the challenge.
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  Speaker 4: Can you actually prove this is pretextual or does the
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  Speaker 4: administration get enough deference that you really can't even challenge
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  Speaker 4: it at all? And so those are going to be
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  Speaker 4: the questions we're going to be deciding in the next
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: year or so.
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  Speaker 2: Let's move from the First Circuit to the Fifth Circuit,
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  Speaker 2: the most conservative circuit in the country, and it upheld
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  Speaker 2: an injunction that that stops a Texas anti immigration law
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  Speaker 2: from being enforced in a victory for immigrants rights. Is
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  Speaker 2: that a surprise coming from the Fifth Circuit?
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  Speaker 1: Well, it is a surprise.
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  Speaker 4: In the center was a two to one decision, with
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  Speaker 4: one of the Republican judges taking the side that the
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: statute from Texas was unconstitutional. If you recall what happened
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  Speaker 4: in this This was during the Biden administration when the
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  Speaker 4: State of Texas was saying that there was an inundation
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: of people coming into the United States. The Biden administration
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: didn't want to do anything about it, so it needed
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  Speaker 4: to act, and the State of Texas passed the law
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  Speaker 4: basically saying we can do three things that have never
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  Speaker 4: been done before. Number One, we can actually deport people
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  Speaker 4: ourselves to the border of Texas and Mexico. Maybe we
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  Speaker 4: can't bring them into Mexico, but what we can do
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  Speaker 4: is take them to the US side of the actual
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  Speaker 4: physical border. And what we can say to them is
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  Speaker 4: if you try to come back into the interior, if
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  Speaker 4: you don't actually then take the next step yourself and
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  Speaker 4: go into Mexico, then we're going to prosecute you for
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  Speaker 4: a crime. And if we do it a second time,
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  Speaker 4: it'll be an even worse crime. And so from that perspective,
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  Speaker 4: the question was is that violate federal law. There was
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  Speaker 4: a district court injunction that said that yes, this violate
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  Speaker 4: federal law under the Arizona versus the United States case
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  Speaker 4: that came during the Omama administration in twenty twelve. That
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: was the Arizona Law, where Arizona said, We're going to
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: basically take matters into our own hands and enforce immigration
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  Speaker 4: law and ask people for their papers, and if they're
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: not here legally, we will arrest them and prosecute them
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  Speaker 4: for a misdemeanor. That was rule to be unconstitutional. So
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: this is further than that. And in a two to
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  Speaker 4: one decision, the Court of Appeals upheld in a permanent
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: way the stay that it had issued that had prevented
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  Speaker 4: this Texas Statute from going into effect in the first place. Now,
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: what's interesting about this is the factual backdrop, and we're
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: going to be talking about factual backdrops a lot today,
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: but the sexual backdrop of this case is completely different
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  Speaker 4: now than it was back when the Biden administration was
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: in office and there were these concerns about the amount
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: of people streaming in to the state of Texas. Now
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: pretty much everyone would admit I would think that there
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: are anybody streaming into the state of Texas anymore. That
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: this traffic has stopped in its entirety. And so the
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: question is, what is this emergency that Texas is claiming
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: is necessary now in order to have a law like this,
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: and I think that's going to be its biggest problem
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: if it tries to move forward to the Supreme Court
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: coming up next.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: A judge blocks the administration from denying all asylum claims
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: at the southern border. You're listening to Bloomberg. A DC
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: federal judge has barred the Trump administration from expelling asylum seekers,
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: saying President Trump overstepped his legal and constitutional authority. Judge
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: Randolph Mass said portions of Trump's January twentieth executive order
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: violate the Immigration and Nationality Act and the US constitutions
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: separation of powers. The US Constitution can't be read to
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: grant the President or his delegees authority to adopt an
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: alternative immigration system which supplants the statutes that Congress has enacted.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: I've been talking to immigration attorney Leon Fresco of Holland
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: and Knight. Has the Trump administration been denying asylum claims?
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  Speaker 4: Correct? What has happened since the Trump administration has taken
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: power in January of twenty twenty five is they tightened
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: a regulation that was already being challenged through the Biden administration.
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: What the Biden administration was saying was you can't come
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: across the border illegal and ask for asylum. You have
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: to make an appointment using the CBP one app and
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: go to a port of entry and ask for asylum
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: at the port of entry. But if you try to
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: go in between the ports of entry, you are not
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: going to be allowed asylum. You're going to be pushed
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: back into Mexico because you're going to be banned. So
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: that was a provision that the Biden administration has. When
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: Trump comes into power, he then says, not only will
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: you be pushed back, not only will there be this band,
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: but there's not going to be a legal way to
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: come into the port of entries. We're closing the CDP
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: one app, We're closing the parole programs that allow you
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: to apply to come in legally. And so there's no
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: way in period. There's no asylum, there's no requesting it
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: at the ports of entry, there's no requesting paroles, nothing,
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: there's no way to ask for refugee status. If you're
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: just basically trying to arrive to the United States to
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: ask for a refugee status aka asylum, there's no way
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: to do that. And so when that happened. There literally
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: is a provision in the law that you can challenge
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: that in the District Court for the District of Columbia,
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: and that's what people did. They first challenged the Biden administration.
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: That case never got to a decision, so it got
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: converted into a challenge to the Trump administration's policies. And
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: now after a lot of excessive briefing back and forth,
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: because the Supreme Court had issued doctrines earlier in the
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: Biden administration saying you can't get preliminary injunctive relief like this.
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: You can only basically get summary judgment, and then that
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: has to go all the way up to the Supreme
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: Court before something like this can be stopped. So they
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: were saying that district courts and circuit courts, on their
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: various statutory regimes, don't have the jurisdiction to enjoin these
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: kinds of asylum programs. They can only enter a final
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: judgment saying that they think it's illegal, and then that
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: has to work its way up to the Supreme Court,
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: who then has to decide whether it's illegal or not.
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: So that's what's happened here. A district judge from the
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: District of Columbia has said this is illegal. You have
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: to provide some way for people who are outside of
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: the United States who when they arrive at the United
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: States are able to apply for asylum. You can't just
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: have a wholesale ban on people applying for asylum. And
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: that that's what's basically happened here, and so that the
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: executive orders and regulations that have been issued by the
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: Trump administration banning asylum are declared illegal. Now that declaration
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: won't go into effects again unless and until the Supreme
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: Court allows it to go into effect. But nevertheless, if
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: the Supreme Court agrees that there has to be some
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: way for people to apply for asylum, then the numbers
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: will eventually change from the zero numbers that we have now.
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: I mean they may not change immediately because there will
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: be this game of sort of you know, touching the
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: stove and seeing what happens when you touch the stove, etc.
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: But once people touch the stove enough to see that no,
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: the government does indeed have to let them in and
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: then let them apply for asylum, then you will see
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: people doing this again.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, asylum is a pretty basic concept in this
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: country through our history. What do you think the Supreme
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: Court will do well.
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: It's difficult because if you're actually going to look at this,
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: and I always try to use the either AI judge
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: or the robot judge, or the judge that has no
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: political sentiment of any kind, it's hard to read the
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: statutory framework which says that regardless of how you enter
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: the United States, if you're in the territory of the
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: United States, you're permitted to apply for asylum, which is
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: what the statute literally says, and then say, well, there's
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: no way to apply for the asylum because what's happening
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: is the administration is using a second statute which says
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: that they can pick places or reasons, discretionary reasons why
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: people cannot get asylums. So, for instance, let's say there's
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: some new AI crime that nobody thought of when they
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: read the statute. They can say, anybody who's committed this
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: AI crime can't get asylum. Okay, fine, nobody thought of
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: that when there was a statute, fair enough, But people
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: did think of the fact that if you came illegally
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: you could apply for asylum, because that's literally what it
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: says in the statute. So can that be a reason?
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: Is that really a permissible reason that you can use
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: your discretion for to not allow people to get asylum,
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: because that's literally one that's covered in the statute. It's
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: not like AI where it would be a brand new
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: thing nobody thought about, which was the whole point of
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: Congress giving this authority to add new discretionary reasons why
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: somebody couldn't get asylum. This is one that was already contemplated.
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: So I do think if you have a disinterested, non political,
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: computerized judge, it would seem to me that that judge
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: would say, yeah, there has to be some way you
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: can apply for asylum if you enter the United States.
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: But we're going to see what the Supreme Court does.
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: Because the Supreme Court may just say I get all that,
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: and that's fine and dandy, but I don't want to
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: return to the state of affairs in the Biden administration
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: where there were hundreds of thousands of people coming each
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: month across the border, and so they may just say
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: too bad. We'll really just have to see where the
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: Supreme Court will go down. As I sit here now,
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: I cannot make a good faith prediction because of other
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: cases we'll talk about in a second, where I would
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: never have guessed the Supreme Court would have ruled the
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: way it did. And I think the Supreme Court is
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: just tired of interventions that don't allow the Trump administration
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: to enforce immigration laws. And so they may just say, look,
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: if the Congress wants to do something, that's great, But
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: if the Congress isn't going to do anything, we're not
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: going to recap the president's ability to enforce immigration law.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean on the emergency docket. The Supreme Court
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: has basically given Trump everything he asks for regarding immigration,
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: including last Friday where they said he can deport people
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: to third countries.
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: Correct. So in this case, here's what happened. You had
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: eight individuals from all over the world, the notorious sort
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: of countries. We can't deport people to Cuba, Allos, Cambodia,
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: et cetera. And so what the Trump administration is basically
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: trying to accomplish as it's basically saying, look, I think
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: these countries are acting in a pretextual manner not allowing
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: us to deport their citizens back to their countries. If
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: we actually make things onerous enough and difficult enough, they'll
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: eventually start taking their people back. Whether it's directly or
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: if we deport them to very strange places, then those
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: individuals will starve to death unless those countries accept them back.
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: So they will eventually give them a travel permit to
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: go back to Cambodia or Loos or Cuba or something,
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: because they're that's just going to let people start to
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: death in the middle of some strange country. So it
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: tried to test out this theory in South Sudan. It
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: tried to deport people from Cuba and Laos and Cambodia
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: and other places, eight people to South Sudan. But in
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: the process of trying to do that, it didn't allow
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: these individuals to raise a claim that they would be
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: subject to torture if they were deported to South Sudan.
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: And so there was a district judge who said stop that,
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: you can't continue this process. And the problem was by
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: the time that order was entered, the individuals were already
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: in Djibouti. And I think this is another issue of
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: bad facts make bad laws, because now there was eight
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: people in Djibouti where the US basically was stuck. What
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: was it supposed to do with these people? You know,
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: do you do trials for whether they're going to be
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: torture or not. Who are these Americans having to take
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: care of these people in Djibouti? You know they can't
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: go home now. It was a big mess, and so
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: I think the Supreme Court was worried about just this
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: logistical nightmare of having at least a month or two
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: or maybe more of hearings and trials for these eight
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: individuals to may claims about whether they would face torture
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: in South Sudan, and so basically threw its hands up
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: and said, you know what, we're done with this. Allow
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: these people to be sent to South Sudan. But in
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: the meantime, that's created a president now where the Trump
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: administration will be able to send anybody to South Sudan
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: or Libya or any other country it wants to. You
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: won't have an opportunity to be able to raise a
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: claim that you would be tortured in that country. You
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: can only raise a claim that you will be tortured
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: in your country a citizenship. But they'll say, fine, okay,
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: so you'll be tortured in your country a citizenship, whatever
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: that may be. But who cares, We're now going to
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: send you to Libya or South Sudan or some other country,
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: and so I did not expect the Supreme Court to
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: not allow for some due process to be able to
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: make these claims. But that is where we are, and
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: so at the moment, unless the Supreme Court comes back
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: and revisits this later, which by the way, it has
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: done in other issues. There were some times during the
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: Biden administration where it lets certain things go into effect
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: that then it later said, this makes no sense, why
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: did that happen, and then it actually enjoined them. And
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: so this could and maybe even probably would happen later
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: moving on in the future, especially depending on if the
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: news starts getting really stark and people start actually dying,
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: you know, if they get deported to certain places, then
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: the facts may get bad enough that the Court does
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: revisit this, and maybe more quickly than not. But at
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: the moment, the current state of affairs is the Trump
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: administration can deport any foreign national to any country it
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: wants to, as long as it's not their country of
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: citizenship where they fear persecution or torture.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: So in the past month, the Trump administration has ramped
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: up raids on home holmes, workplaces, courthouses, some more than
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty lawsuits across the US have been
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: filed alleging that federal agents are using excessive force and
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: warrantless arrests while engaging in illegal racial profiling to target
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: non white people. I see why they're suing. Do these
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: suits have a chance.
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: Well, the problem is these are very fact intensive suits
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: that don't really lend themselves to class action. What they
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: lend themselves really, if you're looking at this again from
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: the dispassionate computerized judge, issue is, in a specific case,
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: was a specific person apprehended by ICE because of an
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: enforcement action that violated the need to go get a warrant. So,
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: for instance, as an example, suppose that ICE was in
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: an apartment building and had a warrant to get one person,
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: Joe Smith at apartment one oh one, and then ICE
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: just started knocking on all the doors. Than anytime someone
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: opened a door who look you of a certain ethnic group,
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: that I just apprehended that person and been asked questions later,
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: that would be a situation where that person's apprehension would
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: violate the Fourth Amendment. And then they could say, within
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: the context of their removal proceedings, you need to dismiss
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: my removal proceedings because they started on the basis of
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: this violation of my Fourth Amendment right, So that would
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: be the way to handle that. As a class, it
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: becomes more complicated because there unfortunately does need to be
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: This is sort of one of the oddest debates. And
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: this debate I saw it a lot when I was
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: a staffer in the Congress, and I'd have this debate
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: with many of my fellow Democratic colleagues. I'd say, look,
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: the whole point of these alienage statutes, whether you like
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: it or not, is there does need to be a
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: certain racial profiling component to it, because the whole point
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: is we need to profile are you a citizen or
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: are you not? And so we need to get to
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: the bottom of that, and so we do need to
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: treat people differently on this. This isn't like another law
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: where you know it's burglary and that we don't care
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: about the human being who's doing the burglary. We just
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: ask are you in the house? We find, we arrestue.
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: If you're not in the house, you're not the burglar.
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: We don't arrestue. Okay, those are easy, but the whole
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: purpose of these crimes. Unfortunately is these are status based crimes.
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: This is not like other crimes. So you do have
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: to treat certain people differently just based on their status.
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: And so because of that, this becomes very complicated because
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: the government does have to arrest people on the basis
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: of these sort of immutable factors which are their status.
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: And so that's why I don't think as these cases
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: percolate up the courts. They may be successful at the
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: beginning in certain individual district courts, but as these cases
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: percolate up the courts, I think that the Supreme which
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: has been very very adverse to any kind of facial
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: challenges of any kind and has always really been trying
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: to push litigants towards these as applied challenges in their
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: particular case, especially in this type of framework, is really
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: going to say to individuals, look, if I did something
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: to you in your particular case, challenge it either within
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: the context of your removal proceeding, or sue them. You know,
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: let's say you're a US citizen and you got placed
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: in nice custody for ten days, to them and say
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: why was I placed a nice custody for ten days?
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: And you know, get civil damages or something like that.
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: But to actually have injunctive relief that sort of creates
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: new procedures that ICE has to follow. I don't think
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: that the Supreme Court is going to allow that to
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: be put in place.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: Class actions are not easy. Thanks so much, Leon. That's
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: Leon Fresco of Hound and Knight. Coming up. Who wins
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: Who loses? In Trump's Tax Bill? This is Bloomberg and
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: nearly nine hundred pages. President Trump's new tax bill is
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: a sprawling collection of tax breaks, spending cuts, and other
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: Republican priorities, including new money for national defense and deportations.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: So who wins and who loses? My guest is an
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: expert in tax law, Alex Raskolnikov, a professor at Columbia
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: Law School. Alex, what are your biggest takeaways from the bill?
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: Well, the two biggest takeaways is one, it's enormously expensive,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: and it just drings the moment of reckoning much closer.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: It's going to increase the deficit by trillions of dollars,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: and sooner or later the bond market is going to
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: make us pay. That's in terms of revenue and then
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: in terms of distribution. It is basically an extension of
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: twenty seventeen bill, which favored the better off, and this
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: one favors the better off even more because of the
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: pretty harsh measures having to do with health care and
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: food stems at the bottom of the distribution, So it's
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: pretty regressive.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: The Congressional Budget Office projected the bill would increase federal
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: deficits by nearly three point three trillion, But Senate Republicans
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: are proposing a different strategy of figuring that out.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Yes, okay, it's easier to understand with spending than with taxes.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: So I'll just give you an example of what Democrats
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: may do next time they're in power. So let's say
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: they want to help people who are struggling economically, and
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: they decide to enact the program that's going to guarantee
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: every American an annual income of let's say forty thousand
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: dollars a year. Okay, so if you make twenty, you're
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: going to get extra twenty, and if you make ten,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: you're going to get extra thirty. And if you make nothing,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: you get forty thousand a year. So, you know, not lavish,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: but pretty good. Obviously, it's going to cost enormous amount
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: of money, right, so the Democrats are going to say, oh,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: but we're going to enact this program only for one month.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: So they pass a law that enacts is unbelievably generous
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: program for one month, and a week later they convene again.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Congress convenes again and say, well, we're now going to
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: extend this program permanently. How much is going to cost?
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: And so what Republicans are saying now equivalent to what
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Democrats are going to say, then it's going to cost nothing.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: It's going to cost nothing because there's already a forty
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars payment. And so we're just continuing with what
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Republicans call current policy. It's not the law. The law
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: is that the program expires, but the policy is that
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: the program is active now, and so it costs nothing.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: To extend something forever that costs enormous amount of money.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: So that's the trick.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: It's quite a trick. You mentioned the Medicaid and snap
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: how many people are going to be out of health insurance.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: So here too, they're varying forecasts, and of course Democrats
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: are saying more in Republicans are saying less. So I
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: think a pretty reasonable forecast is about ten million people
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: will lose insurance, will lose Medicaid. The big reason is
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: there's going to be work requirements, and so people who
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: can't meet them will lose coverage. Half of the ten
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: million roughly these are all estimates, but half of the
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: ten million is estimated to lose medicaid because they will
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: not comply with work requirements because you know, it's like
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: they may not have access to the internet, or they
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: may not just understand how to feel forms, or they
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: may not know that they need to feal forms. So
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: these people would not comply with requirements even though they
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: could comply, they just won't feel the right form in
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: the right place. Now you're talking about low income population
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: with you know, hard lives and a lot of worries about,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: you know, where the food is going to come from tomorrow.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: So it's not unreasonable to say that some people will
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: just not do what they should do and could in
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: principle do. But it's an estimate. But under any estimate,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: any estimate, I think it's safe to say that millions
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: of people are going to lose medicale And what about.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: The claim that you know, the very very rich billionaires, etc.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: Are going to benefit from the bill?
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: They're definitely going to benefit from the bill. I don't
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: understand where the claims are coming on the Democratic side,
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: but there's the greatest beneficiary or that this is the
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: bill that's like the biggest giveaway to billionaires. Official scoring
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: from the government does not show distributional consequences above two
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: million a year of income, so we're not definitely talking
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: about billionaires, and you know, these people are going to
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: be better off. The bill is fairly regressive, but it's
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: not specific to billionaires. When I'm thinking about what specific
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: provisions in the bill can disproportionately benefit billionaires, I don't
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: think them. So there are definitely provisions that benefit millionaires
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: and multimillionaires and billionaires, but in terms of the impact
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: in terms of how it's going to feel compared to
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: the taxes they pay. Now, it's going to be millionaires
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: and people making you know, somewhere from two to five
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: hundred thousand a year who are going to really feel
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: the biggest difference in terms of comparing to what they're paying.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: Now, what about the salt taxes? I mean they raise
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: those just for a time.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: That's why I said that, you know, it's millionaires and
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: people making two to hundred thousands a year, so two
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: to five hundred thousand a year reference was about soul,
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: So it's a pretty noticeable change. It's temporary, but noticeable
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: extra allowance of a deduction that will be felt by
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: people making about that amount, like two to five hundred
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: thousand something like that. So, of course, state taxes vary
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: by state and the thresholds vary by state, so it's
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: hard to be prec but roughly, like you know, the
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: affluent people who are not rich probably but doing well.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: Now you said it's temporary, Yeah, it's temporary. The entire
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: personal income tax side of twenty seventeen reform was temporary
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: and guess what, it just became permanent. So this is
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: the thing both parties tried to do. Democrats tried to
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: do it with build back better you know, if something
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: is expensive. They passed these changes in law that's temporary
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: changes fully hoping and planning to make them permanent, because
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: not making them permanent, you could argue, is a tax increase.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: And what about some of the promises that Trump made,
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: like no tax on tips.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: Yes, it's also temporary, but it's enacted. There will be
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: no tax on tips. How much money is going to
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: save is a question. You need to remember that about
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: forty percent of taxpayers they know federal income tax, and
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: that's what we're talking about here, we're talking about changes
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: in federal income tax law. So about forty percent being
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: no federal income tax at all, and so no tax
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: on tips means nothing to them. Then of course it
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: won't surprise you that the compliance rate on reporting kIPS
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: is not super high. So some people who are not
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: reporting any kIPS even though they get them, you know,
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: that doesn't matter for them that there's going to be
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: no tax on chips. But for some people it will
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: and it feels good, you know, if you're getting kIPS.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: But there's like this new rule that you don't have
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: to pay tax. It's also temporary. So just like this
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: state in local tax xtra reduction is going to expire,
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: I think by the end of twenty eight and then
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: those see it's going to be the same game again
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: and again that not extending, it will be a tax increase.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: And what about no taxes on Social Security? That didn't happen,
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: did it?
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: No, that did not happen. I'll tell you something happened.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: But whatever happened definitely is not no tax on Social Security.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: What happened is that seniors get an extra deduction six thousand,
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: double for married couples. Extra deduction. Now, what does it
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: mean in terms of Social Security? And seniors are people
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: who get Social Security most of them, So a lot
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: of people who already get Social Security now are part
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: of that forty percent that don't owe any federal income taxes.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: So a deduction is useless if you don't owe any tax.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: For some people who do pay some taxes, this deduction
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: will possibly reduce or possibly eliminate the tax, so for
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: them it's going to be a valuable deduction. But it's
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: not specifically tied to Social Security income. And for some
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: people who paid a lot of money into the system
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: and received pretty or maybe have some other sources of income,
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: they will take a deduction of extra six thousand and
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: will still low tax. So there's no rule that says
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: social secure the income is not subject.
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: I've been hearing from people who have heavy student loan debt,
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: usually medical school or graduate school debt, complaining about what
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: this bill does, what have they changed there?
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: So they definitely may changes to long repaining programs. They're complicated,
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: I mean it depends on what kind of loans these are,
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: It depends on the kinds of jobs people do, and
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: it also depends on how much money people learned. These
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: changes affect people whose loan payments were reduced because their
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: incomes were sufficiently low. So doctors are not the first
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: people who come to mind when you think about this,
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: But for people whose incomes are fairly low, you know,
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: for some of them, loan repayments under the old program
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: were just eliminated basically as long as the income is law,
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: and that has gone away, so as I understand that
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: there will be either many fewer or no people who
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: owe student loan payments who will be allowed to pay
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: nothing at all. But I think the minimum payment from
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: what I've seen, is something like ten dollars a month,
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: So it's more of an instrument for the government like
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: to know who owes something than a real payment. Ten dollars,
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: I think is a pretty phenomenal amount. That's one big
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: change in student loan repayment. I'm sure there are others,
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: but these are complex programs.
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: Is it still a boon to businesses?
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: So yes, there are new deductions very favorable basically allowing
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: businesses to subtract what they pay on equipment, and also
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: on R and B. You know, if a business buy
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: the machine that's going to last ten years or twenty years,
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: the economic depreciation lasts for twenty years. The value of
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: the machine gradually declines with where and care. But these
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: provisions allow subtraction immediately of whatever is spent the equipment
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: and also on R and B. The argument where this
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: is not terrible is that it's supposed to be promoting
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: economic growth. Right, so if businesses can invest in equipment
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: and this and that long lived asset and take deductions
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: right away, it makes it more profitable for the business
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: to do so, so they will do the investment, they
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: will invest in research and so on. So that's the
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: standard economic rationale for allowing this generous deduction. It's basically
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: a subsidy. It's not reflecting economic deterioration. The counter argument
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: is that this is a subsidy for equipment like long
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: lasting equipment, and long lasting equipment these days is robots,
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: and so this is a tax incentive. And you know,
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: the machines are replacing people increasingly, so maybe it's not
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: a good idea to facilitate them. And further replacements of
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: people by machine. So that's sort of a more recent
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: concern that this bill does not address and intact makes
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: more serious.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: The rise of AI. Can't get away from it. There
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: were a lot of promises made with the last tax
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: bill passed during Trump's first administration. What was the real
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: effect of the last bill?
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: There was nothing like, nothing like what Republicans were saying
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen. There was some economic growth in nominal terms,
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: meaning if you just look at dollars that was attributed
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: to the exchanges, and I think if you look at
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: the growth of the economy as percentage of growth domestic product,
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: they basically was not. So again, you know, there are
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: many ways to do this estimates and democratic economists and
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: Republican economists again come out with predictable differences. But it
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: was pretty clear then, I mean, there was really no significant,
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: serious doubts that the growth effects are not going to
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: be large, and they weren't, and so it's going to
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: be the same this time. Well, of course this comes
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: on top of massive threat of tariffs that are really
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: bad for growth. So you know, like this is hardly
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: a Congress and the president for super focused on economic growth.
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: And that may be an understatement, we'll see. Thanks so
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: much for joining me.
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: Alex.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: That's Professor Alex Raskolnikov of Columbia Law School. And that's
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: it for this edition of The Bloomberg Law Show. Remember
• 40:32
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• 40:34
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• 40:38
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• 40:46
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• 40:50
  Speaker 2: and you're listening to Bloomberg