Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Interview Only w/ David French - America’s AI Liability Crisis & Constitutional Breaking Points

Transcript

Interview Only w/ David French - America’s AI Liability Crisis & Constitutional Breaking Points · The Chuck ToddCast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Todcast is brought to you
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: by Wild Grain. Wild Grain is the first bake from
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: frozen subscription box for sour dough breads, artisonal pastries, and
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: fresh pastas, plus all the items conveniently baked in twenty
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: five minutes or less. Unlike many store brought options, Wild
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Grain uses some simple ingredients you can pronounce and a
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: slow fermentation process that can be a lot easier on
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: your belly, little gut health there right, and richer in
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: nutrients antioxidants. There's also no preservatives and no shortcuts. The
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Wild Grain boxes are fully customizable. In addition to their
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: variety box, they have a gluten free box, a vegan box,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: and a new protein box. I will tell you I
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: have done the gluten free box. I have done it
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: a second time. I have also used the code the
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: todcast code. You use the promo code toodcast at checkout
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: you get thirty dollars off. I've already used it as
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: a gift to somebody else who loves this bread. It
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: is hard to find good gluten free bread. It is fantastic.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: They give you step by step instructions.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: I really dig this.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: There is nothing like having an artesion bakery in your freezer.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Right now, Wildgrain is offering my listeners thirty dollars off
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: your first box plus free croissants for life. Come on
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: when you go to wildgrain dot com slash podcast to
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: start your subscription today. That's thirty dollars off your first
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: box and free croissants for life when you visit wildgrain
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: dot com slash podcast, or simply use the promo code
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: podcast at checkout. This is a sponsor I absolutely embrace,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: so use that code.
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: Well.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Joining me now is my friend David French of The
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: New York Times. He's also co host of the Dispatch
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: podcast Advisory Opinions with our friend Sarah Isker, who many
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: of my podcast listeners find her.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: She's a favorite a guest as well.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: She's yeah, my goodness, always so smart and entertaining.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Yes, she's great.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: The last time we saw each other in person, we
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: were in Chicago, and it was a debate that you
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: and Chris Christy had and I moderated it and I
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: shared a little bit of our of what that was
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: like with my audience at the time, and it was
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: about sports gambling and really the impact on young men
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: in particular. We're not saying there aren't young women out
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: there that are susceptible to this, but it's there's clearly
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: more of a frontal lobe issue here.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: With young with young men.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: And you know, I want to begin where we ended
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: in that conversation because it feels like as these prediction
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: markets have actually lowered the threshold now from twenty one
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: to eighteen.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: Right with prediction markets, it's pretty clear.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, I used the example of rental of basically
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: insurance companies and the rental car companies decided we're just
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: not going to ensure drivers under the age of twenty five.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: And magically there's no law that was passed that says, right,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: you can't rent a car until you're twenty five. It's
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: insurance companies made this decision, and one could argue that
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: they're onto something with twenty five maybe being the proper
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: age to introduce vices where you have to have self control.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: You know, it's interesting how the insurance companies financial incentives
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: are directly opposite aligned from the gambling financial incentives. So
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: insurance companies they implement the twenty five year old limit
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: because of documented actuarial risk. Then young guys just drive
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: more recklessly, and that's going to cost the insurance company money.
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: When it's young guys driving the gambling bus recklessly, that
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: is exactly what the companies love. I mean, yeah, we
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: want to poor marketing dollars towards the people least able
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: to control themselves.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: And you know, when.
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: We were taught, we had a really it was a
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: really interesting debate because on the one hand, you know,
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: Governor Christy was defaulting towards less government regulation. I was
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: defaulting towards in general, I was defaulting towards much more.
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: But we did at the end degree on a couple
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: of things that I think are really important. And this
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: is sort of an example of how you can reach
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: seventy thirty kinds of solutions that don't address everything, but
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: they at least address something. And as I recall, it
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: was three prongs. One was raise the age to twenty five.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: The other one was regulate prediction markets at least as
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: tightly as we regulate securities markets. And then number three
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: was some form of regulation on a certain kind of
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: bet called a prop bet. This is your live in
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: game betting where you're going to say this, the next
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: ball is the next pitch going to be a ball
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: or strike Chris, the next foul shot going to be
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: a hit or amiss, And those single individual can essentially
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: totally warp the warped the odds if they check exactly,
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: like they could tell their friends that the third batter
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: of the first inning, I'm going to walk them right.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: And by the way, we're not manufacturing something out of
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: thin air. That's what apparently what a manual class A
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: did as the closer for the Guardians, exactly not going
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: to throw up a strike on the first pitch, I
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: promise that. In fact, I'm so nervous about making sure
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: I don't throw I'm going.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: To bounce the ball so bad.
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: And it's one of these things, Chuck, where I think
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: what you're actually watching is sort of the laboratories of
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: democracy that's working in real time, maybe in the sense that, Okay,
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: we had a bunch of states that liberalize sports gambling,
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: and a lot of Americans now don't like what they see,
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: and there is a building response to it that is
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: I think it's it's arising and it's bubbling up, similar
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: to the way sort of like the say, the phone
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: free schools movement bubble up, bubbled up. First is a
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: notion as an idea, then it's an experiment, then is
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: a policy. And I think that where at the notion
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: or idea stage of gambling regulation where we're saying, wait, whoa,
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: this is not good, This is especially not good for
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: young men. What can we do about it that's reasonable
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: and we can get consensus on generally?
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: Do you think that is the best?
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: You know, it's It's funny because one of the things
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: that I think we're terrible at as human beings is
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: trying to anticipate what could happen based on a law
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: that's passed. In fact it sometimes you need to see
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: the unintended consequences that then to properly regulate something that
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: perhaps you wouldn't have thought of if you tried to
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: regulate from the start. Yeah, you're you're you're an interesting
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: cat ideologically, right, because on one hand, you're I think
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: you've got a lot of libertarian in you at this. Yeah,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: and at the same time you're also a bit of
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: an institutionalist.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: I think, yeah, fair.
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: You Yeah, you know Chesterton's fence kind of conservative, yes, right,
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: where I think a lot of libertarians there, you know,
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: the purest hormal libertarian is.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: Hey, you know you do you right like?
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: And that's it is that is it better to I mean,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: because that's essentially what we're.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: Doing with AI.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: I'm on, you know, the downside of letting something happen first,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: then figuring out what the unintended consequences are, and then
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: figuring out how to regulate is it Sometimes it's impossible
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: to quote put toothpaste back in the tube, and yet
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: there it is true that it is hard to anticipate
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: what the effects of a policy are going to be.
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I also think that a lot depends on
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: sort of how you came up in the world, sort
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: of from a legal political perspective. I came up in
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: the world as a lawyer where I'm doing a lot
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: of litigation, and litigation not all the time, but most
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: of the time it's backwards looking. This thing happened in
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: the past, and we're going to try to legal resolution
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: to it that involves compensation or punishment or whatever. And
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: then it's based in real world events, but it sets
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: a precedent that essentially regulates going forward. But unlike a
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: regulation that is anticipatory purely we think this is going
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: to be bad in this way or that way, so
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: we're going to sort of anticipatorily ban it. What the
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: common law typically does is, let's think, it lets things unfold.
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: It takes a sort of a much longer view. It
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: lets things unfold and then strikes at the elements where
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: people's rights are violated or people are harmed. And so
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: it's more of a backwards looking analysis. And I wrote
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: about this about AI recently because we're beginning to see
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: these common law concepts come into AI, where AI, whether
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: it likes it or not, is going to be quote
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: unquote regulated away by jury by jury verdicts, by judicial
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: decisions such as So, for example, there is the the
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: the Attorney General of Florida is undertaking a criminal investigation
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: of open AI because what they did is they looked
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: at chat logs around a mass shooting at Florida State
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: and they said, wait a minute, well, you.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: Know it's funny on that one.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: I let's dig into that because I, first of all,
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: he I I interpreted what the Attorney General of Florida
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: is doing is borrowing a page from what is happening
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: in the social against the social media companies in the
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: in the in the combined lawsuits that we're watching in
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: the southern Then in southern California, they've already had one
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: verdict where it's a fault it's a it's a faulty
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: product attack.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: Isn't that how that basically that the potential lawsuit is
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: it's a defective product.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's how they're going to try to go
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: at it. Yes, right, Wade that they are. That is
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: accurate description of the way they're going at meta.
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: And they're using product liability principles. And I've got some
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: beef with some of that, to be honest, because you know,
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: you are starting to intrude on protected speech for example.
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: But when it comes to open AI, it's a subtle difference.
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: So the subtle difference with open AI is unlike say,
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: your interactions with real live human beings on a social
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: media app, where a lot of the question is how
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: much should kids be able to interact with real life
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: human beings sort of how is that ordered? This interaction
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: with human beings actually sort of ordered, governed regulated. With
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: chat GBT, you're interacting with an entity that is designed
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: to be at least to some degree autonomous. That's its
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: design is to be to some degree. That's what part
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: of the whole point of AI is that does its
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: own thing. But how can that exist legally? Where you
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: cannot there's no such thing as machine liability. There always
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: has to be human liability in the chain. And so
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: here's the dilemma that I think that the that the
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: AI companies are facing and will continue to face, is
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: that they're ultimately going to be held liable for the
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: quote unquote autonomous actions of their AI. Well, if they're
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: going to be held liable for the autonomous actions of
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: the AI, how autonomous can they ultimately end up being?
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: Because do I want to delegate the possibility of criminal
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: sanction to a machine that I'm intentionally or you know,
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: software that I'm intentionally not Let's.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Let's take let's take this specific Florida case. This involves
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: the school shooting at Florida State. Uh huh, and correct
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: me if I'm wrong. I've been followed. My wife went
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: to Florida State. So we followed this pretty closely. Yeah,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: just you know, we we we keep up with it.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: And I guess because he used chat cheap to essentially
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: help him find the best way to the best places
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: to do the shooting. The best places to escape and
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: all this stuff. Why should open AI be held accountable
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: for doing something he could have done. He could have
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: done another way if he chose to. There just happened
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: to be a more efficient way to do it. I mean,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: you know, this is the case of technology is neither
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: good or bad. People are good or bad, and they
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: can use technology to do good or bad.
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a really good question and the answer lies
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: in a statement that I think that the Attorney General
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: of Florida made that I thought was very interesting. He said,
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: if you had seen that text exchange between two people,
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: we would have already charged the other person.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: On the as like a co conspiratory, essentially hating in
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: a bedding. So and if.
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: You look at some of the interesting prosecutions we've seen
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: over the last couple of years of parents of school shooters.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: Right there is we've gotten a few of those guilty
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: verdicts and sort of essentially neglect is that what it is.
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: It's also a criminal neglect at some at the edges
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: and aiding in a betting theory.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: But what you found in these cases really is.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: What you would call criminal neglect, Like they completely ignored
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: warning signs and in fact, and most of these parent
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: criminal charges criminal trials, you do not see anything as
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: overt as what you see in the chat open AI
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: chat logs here. So, for example, in the open AI
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: in this case, you have finding questions about, you know,
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: media coverage of school shooters, questions about criminal penalties for
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: school shooters. You have questions about when is the student
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: center the busiest, and the thing that's most chilling is
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: about three minutes before the shooting. You have questions with
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: open AI about how to disengage the safety. Right, So
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: imagine if the humans on the other end where you say,
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: you know, hey, mom, how do I disengage the safety
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: on my weapon? And mom knows the kids at school
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: and like that mom is going to get hold that
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: mom is getting prosecuted, and that mom's going to jail. Right,
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: So so there's a parallel here that is very troubling.
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: Although it is also the case, Chuck, that you could
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: maybe just do normal Google searches for some of this
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: information as well, that it's not and.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: When you have held Google accountable for it, and that's
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: circums given him the right answers, right, like as a
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Google search, I mean, I take your point and I've
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: been As you were talking, I was thinking, well, I
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: guess the AI companies could say, you know, could essentially
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: program the model to say, if somebody asks more than
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: one question about a school shooting, you need to at
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: least say, if you're what are you asking these questions for?
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: You know that you know or you know you shouldn't
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: be taking actions, don't do this or something like that?
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: Is it? Do you think they have a responsibility for that?
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: Would Google?
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: Now let me go further, and I'd like to know
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: when you think the First Amendment applies here, how many
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: Google searches on school shootings do you have to do
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: before you think Google should report it?
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's that's that's a really good question.
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: And we actually have cases currently pending that are related
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: to some of what you said. So again we're talking
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: about AI and a mass shooting that happened in Canada,
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: a school shooting that happened in Canada, and there the
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: interaction with a school shooter on chat GPT was so
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: overt that open AI considered contacting Canadian authorities and chose
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: not to. And then there was the attack on the school,
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: and so now the lawsuits are pouring into open AI, because.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: This is something that's they're almost admitting liabilit the amount one.
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: And so so basically I think it really does turn
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: on what is the nature of the technology. So, for example,
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: we would never say that if I want to know
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: how to disengage the soft of the safety on my weapon,
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: that if I go to a library and I look
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: up at a technical manual using the Dewey decimal system,
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: the library is no. And I feel like if you're
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: looking at a Google Search, that's a typical Google search
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: is very much more like I'm walking in I'm accessing
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: a pre existing database of information that is available on
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: a neutral basis. The whole premise of these chatbots and
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: these lms is something very different that you are communicating
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: with a with a an entity that is different from
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: although the Google Search and AI are now merging a
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: lot more, I mean that look, there is not much
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: to my frustration, but although there is.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: I just interview to Todd Ricketts who's got a an
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: app that he's promoting called free Spoke that is trying
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: to essentially be bring search back, essentially search without the
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: without you know, monetizing the user and all of that
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: business and et cetera.
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: Yea, So how much of this is autonomous operation of
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: the actual software? And if you're talking about these chat
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: bots and there is you know, we've also seen, for example,
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: evidence of chatbots because they're trained to be so sick
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: offican you know, they're trained to be or sycophant, right
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: that they will kind of encourage you in an effort
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: to commit suicide even you know. And so we are
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: seeing something that is different in kind from a Google search.
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: And if I am an a, but what we're seeing
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: from the AI companies on the one hand saying this
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: is completely revolutionary technology that is going to revolutionize the world.
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: It's going to transform the way we do everything. It
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: has a it has ability to sort of learn on
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: its own in a way that we've never seen before,
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: learn it at geometric rate, new new new, and then
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: I come around and go, okay, we need liability rules
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: around this new new new, And then they turn around
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: and go, well, it's.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: Just basically a Google search, right, what is it? Guys?
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Podcast is brought to you
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: by Soul. So if you love that end of the
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: day unwined but hate the hangover, Soul's out of office
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: is for you. These sparkling THCHC drinks and gummies give
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: you the same relaxed social feeling without the alcohol, without
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: the calories, and without the crash. Soul is a wellness
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: brand that believes feeling good should be fun and easy.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: Soul specializes in delicious hemp derived THCHC and CBD products
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: designed to boost your mood and help you unwind. They're
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: best selling out of office gummies were designed to provide
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: a mild, relaxing buzz, boost your mood and enhance creativity
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: and relaxation. With five different strengths, you can tailor the
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: dose to fit your vibe. So also has a variety
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: of products specifically designed to help you get a better
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: night's rest, including their top selling Sleepy Gummies, a fan
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: favorite for deep, restorous sleep. Look, I have made no secret.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: I am a believer in this stuff, in cannabis and
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: hemp derived. I do not partake in alcohol. For the
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: most part, I think this stuff is a lot safer
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: than alcohol, a lot less addictive than alcohol. And yes,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: I have to say I love these drinks. It is
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: the glass of wine and you know after work, that's
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: what this is. So no hangover and no excess calories
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: like this. I'm a big fan, so bring on the
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: good vibes and treat yourself to sold today. Right now,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Soul is offering my audience thirty percent off your entire order.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: Go to getsoul dot com and use the word podcast.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: That's getsol dot com promo code podcast for thirty percent off.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: And yes, I too, am a customer. Let me throw
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: another And maybe this is an awkward somebody reads a
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: Sivia Plath book and or a poem and decides to
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: kill themselves.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: Do we hold the publisher accountable? Oh? Absolutely absolutely not.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: You know, you know, but you.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: See where all right, it's like, I mean, I think, right,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: you get to these places you're like, well, definitely not this.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: If you read a book and you feel like that
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: book reinforces, or you read a poem and that reinforces
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: your decision to kill yourself, we're not holding the publisher accountable.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: You do a.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: Google search how to do it, and you find different
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: ways of how to kill yourself. Where I think we've
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: decided we're not holding the search engine responsible. If you're
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: asking a sentiment, if you're basically suddenly having a chatbot,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: which sort of where you're having this conversation, is this
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: a good idea or not?
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: Right, then you're right, I guess.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: So it's like, what is the line between Google search
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: and an actual relationship relationship with the search Because in
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: the real world, if a human being encourages another person
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: to commit suicide, depending on the extent to which they
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: do it, we've even seen criminal prosecutions in that context.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: So in that circumstance when a part of the theory
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: is that if you're in an actual relationship with the
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: human being, there's a degree of coercion, control, persuasion, et
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: cetera that doesn't exist if you're reading a book or
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: if you are making a reference search in a library
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: or a Google search online.
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: That there is this element that the relationship itself contains
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: an element of coercion slash persuasion. And the question is,
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: if you're talking to a chatbot, is it more like
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: the relationship or more like the Twoe decimal system. And
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: the whole emphasis of the chatbot is to be more
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: like the relationship. That's why it is so revolutionary, and
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: so that's why I don't think they're going to be
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: able to have it both ways. They're not going to
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: be able to sort of say, we are revolutionizing your
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: interaction with technology. How but the legal framework has to
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: treat us like a Google search. Do you think this
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: is only civil vulnerability, not criminal? Mostly civil? There are
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: circumstances in which I think criminal liability could attach. Now
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: you know if you had so, for example, if you
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: had internal safety protocols at flag.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: And section two thirty doesn't apply to this. You don't believe.
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: I don't believe section two thirty applies to this that
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: if you had because what you're doing is you're actually
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: holding the company responsible for its own speech, not for
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: the speech of others that's being hosted on the platform.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: Right, yeah, that's right. You guys manufactured the ability for
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: this speech.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: This is you.
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: When that chatbot is speaking, it is open Ai speaking,
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: And so I can imagine a criminal liability. Let's say
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: a conversation flags the safety protocols and open AI officials
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: watch the sort of plotting unfolding in real time and
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: then just deliberately.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: Choose as they see that this.
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: Person is okay, chat I'm at a stoplight, I'm five
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: minutes away.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: What should I be doing?
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: How should I what should my final prep be and
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: they're like, well, that's interesting. Let's see what Chat says
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: to him versus we got to do something. You know
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: that they're extreme circumstances where I could imagine criminal liability attaching,
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: but what you might end up seeing is civil liability,
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: and sometime in civil liability to at a large scale.
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: The question, though, is, given the economics of AI right
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: now and how much money is flowing into AI, how
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: affected would civil judgments be even in the millions of
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: dollars if we're dealing with companies with hundreds of billions
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: of revenue potentially trillions in market capitalization. So could civil
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: liability actually be a deterrent as opposed to just something
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: that compensates victims.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: I'm just trying to amount what I guess the solution
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: is these let's at the end of the day, these
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: large language model creators need to build in some of
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: these protections, build in alarm essentially alarm systems, right security
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: systems on stuff like this. What's the most effective way
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: to force this basically probably essentially pass a lot saying
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: you have to do this or or if you don't
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: do it, and I guess, or do you do it?
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: At carrot and stick. And it's like, if you pass
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: this law, we'll give you some indemnification, you know, some
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: liability shield up to a certain amount of money, like
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: you caret and stick this. What would you how would
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: you propose a solution? Yeah, so a couple things.
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: One anything I'm saying right now, I say with extreme
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: humility because this is Look, we're.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: Both doing what we do.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: As I joked with that in a great conversation with
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: them guests and the other day, and they were just
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: I'm not I said, we backseat drive for a living
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: in Go ahead, right, back seat driving.
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: And especially when we're talking about AI AI, it's such
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: an emerging technology that you know, you almost feel like,
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: well I have reached this definitive conclusion and then I.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: Know and it's like.
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, whatever, yeah, and so here here's what I would think.
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: Do the same one two step step one two process
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: that we saw in a lot of American law, which
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: is this common law. And when I say common law,
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: common law is the precedent based law that exists when
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: I do somebody over these ancient legal concepts like you know,
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: invasion of privacy or negligence, and so what's happened in
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: America is a process where court cases have yielded precedent,
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: and then legislators have come in and legislated the precedent.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: In other words, what I like about.
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: That process is that when you have something that's worked
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: through a court system, it's been pressure tested in an
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: adversarial environment, and hopefully by the time the case is
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: all done, ratified or upheld in some way by the
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: highest court and the jurisdiction, and so you have an
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: actual legal wrong remedied successfully within the legal system, and
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: then the legislative process can come in and say, Okay,
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: this has established a very important principle. We don't want
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: to have people to just file a million lawsuits to
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: deal with it. We're going to pass a law that
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: codifies this legal precedent and applies it in a blanket basis.
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: That I think is a very nice way of pressure
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: testing and legal reform and then implementing it. You pressure
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: test it in the adversarial process, you implement it in
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: the legislative process. Now, the disadvantage there, Chuck, is very obvious.
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: It's there's a lag time. There's a lag time where
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: there are a lot of a lot of harm can happen,
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: and a lot of harm can happen in that lag time. Now,
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: over time, I think you end up with a better
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: set of regulations down the line. But how much cost
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: are you willing to bear in the interim, And that's
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: where all these prudential judgments come in. But then also
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: you have to realize there's costs if you start to
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: preemptively regulate in ways that are ham fisted or uninformed
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: and could have their own, their own cascading secondary effects.
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: So there's either way you go. There's trade offs you
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: have to you have to think through.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: Well, it's a we're we're a long way away, and
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: we're probably going to have more harm.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: Before before we get somewhere.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: I want to shift slightly to but I want to
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: stay in your your sort of legal lane. Talk about
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: the weaponization fund, and I don't know how any part
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: of this is legal constitutional, and forget let's let's assume
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: we're going to the money's never happening. But it's clear
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: that there's an attempt to say, well, but the but
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: the agreement that essentially provides blanket immunity for tax audits
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: up through twenty twenty five for the entire Trump family
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: and Trump organization.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: How is it that.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: That's a that is something that is in the hands
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: of the government to be able to do without Congress
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: ratify it.
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's nut chuck. There is nothing about this that
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: is legal. And there's just nothing about it that's legal.
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: The only quirk here is and the only complicator is
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: who has standing to walk into court to challenge it
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: to get it struck down, Like who is the injured
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: party that can go into court? The natural entity for
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: addressing this is Congress. Congress should jump all over this
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: because this is us.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: John Corny and tweeted the other day that maybe Congress
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: ought to essentially codify the decision to kill this fund.
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: I totally think they should one hundred percent. I don't
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: know that they will, but they absolutely totally should. But
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: this is a really interesting case study and how you
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: just can't rely on the judiciary to do everything to
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: save this republic. The judiciary is an entity that.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: And Scott they basically got bamboozled on this one, as
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: the judges admitting and now wants to order them back.
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: Well, and I think the judge's right to order them back.
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: I don't necessarily love all the retired judges making the
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: argument for it. But I think the actual decision to
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: reopen because there was a fraud on the court right.
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: And let me let me sort of explain that to people.
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: Our legal system rests on an adversary adversarial relationship. So
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: if I am the CEO of a company, for example,
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: and I sue the company that i'm the CEO of,
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: it would not a court would never in a million
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: years permit me to then hire the lawyers for the
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: company that I am suing and direct the lawyers for
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: the company to settle with me in the amount that
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: I want. There would be, you know, there would have
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: to be a separation where, you know, the corporation.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: Has a council that represents its.
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: Interests and I, as the CEO, would have counsel that
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: represented my interests, and you'd have a real adversarial proceeding.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: Here, what you had was nothing of the sort.
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: You had the president, the chief of the executive branch,
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: suing the executive branch for conduct that occurred while he
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: was running the executive branch to be defended by an
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: agency that he directs and runs.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: And so where was the other matter?
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: Should it also matter that the person that's in charge
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: of that agency that he directs and runs was once
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: his own personal attorney.
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: Oh, it's like the cherry on the top. I mean,
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: it's not the Sunday, but it is the cherry on
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: the top. And so there's no adversarial proceeding. And the
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: judge was obviously very very concerned about that, and I
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: think the Trump administration was staring a dismissal of the
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: case it was, or holding it in abeyance until another administration,
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: and they thought, what can we do to what can
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: we do to accomplish our goal? And so they negotiated
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: with themselves to reach this sweetheart deal. And honestly, I
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: would I truly think that Trump cares much more about
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: the release of liability than he cares for the slush
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: fund for other.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: Hundred thousand percent. Yeah, and that's why they better not
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: let that go. It's exactly one hundred. He has been
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: fighting over these audits for decade, or over a decade.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: I believe this goes back.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: I think his tax returns from at least twenty eleven,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: twenty twelve.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: Oh, they we're in the middle of an audit. It's
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: been it's been a constant. He's been in this fight
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: since before he ran for president at the first.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: Oh.
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, And the potential liability, you know, again aliens one
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: hundreds of millions, so and another thing that's important for
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: people to realize. And you know, this is sort of
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: a deep cut in constitutional law. But the pardon power
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: only extends to federal crimes, so a president could only
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: theoretically parted himself for criminal liability. In other words, you know,
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: I'm going to preemptively pardon myself for any investigations regarding
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: to you know, regarding financial enrichment while in office or
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: something like that. That would apply only to crimes. The
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: pardon power does not extend to civil offenses. So even
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: if a president has pardoned his staff, pardoned himself, they
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: can all still be sued and maybe sued for a
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: giant amount of money if depending on the circumstances. And
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: so what is happening here is he's starting the process
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: of trying to use his power to relieve himself from
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: civil risk in addition to the power he already has
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: to relieve himself of criminal risk. And so what you're
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: looking at really is a full spectrum assault on the
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: rule of law. To try to take one man, the
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: President of the United States, and just remove him from
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: the operation of law every bit as thoroughly as King
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: George the Third was removed from the operation of law.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: You know. In seventeen seventy six.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: The President mewsed that there are other ways to compensate
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: people he believes were victimized by.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: Previous administrations in the Justice Department. Yeah, it's super easy.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: Let's just file individual lawsuits and then the.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: Government, then the Justice Department quickly settles before anybody. What
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: can be done about that? How could Congress stop?
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: Mean? Congress?
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: I was reading this Congress basically in order. There was
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: a time where Congress always had to have a say
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: before a settlement payout happened. And then for efficiency purposes,
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: it was like, all right, you've got a essentially a
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: petty cash fund that we will allocate blankly, you know whatever.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: It is a hundred million, two hundred million every every
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: fiscal year for you to settle lawsuits when you have
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: to settle them without having to come to Congress each time,
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: which in theory makes a lot of sense. But as always,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump has been I've always said, the gift of
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's two terms is that he's provided an MRI
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: for every loophole that exists that we've got to close.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: He is providing the roadmap for reform for the legal community,
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: for the political community. Probably that should keep us busy
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: for a couple of decades.
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: There's huge need for reform here because what Trump. There
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: is a prior to Trump, and there was a practice
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: that became known as sue and settle, where an allied
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: organization or friendly group would sue the administration. The administration
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: would then reach a settlement agreement on terms friendly to
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: the allied group without going through regulatory processes, without going
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: through congressional approval.
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: And there was already criticism.
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: And one of the things you got to everyone's got
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: to know about the Trump world is an enormous number
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: of their outrages are related to, adjacent to reminiscent of
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: previous scandals and previous administrations. And then the Trump administration
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: just kind of comes along and says, hold my beer,
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: you think that was bad, let me show you what
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: we can do next. So there was already a problematic
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: practice of these very sweetheart deals for ideological allies and settlement,
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: and so I think there's an obvious legislative remedy which
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: would inject the legislative branch into approving any settlement with
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: either a financial a direct financial payout above a certain
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: amount of money, or a settlement that has an economic
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: effect in other words, a regulatory effect above a certain
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: amount of money, and then that goes to Congress. I
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: think would be a extremely reasonable legislative reform.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: And yeah, it would require Congress to do some.
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: Work, but you know what, Chuck, they should they they've
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: got the opportunity to cancel a few cable news hits
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: and do their real job.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: They at some point, you know, it's funny.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: I've proposed a class for incoming freshmen. Working with USC.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: I've been teaching a class for them, a DC annex
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: class for visiting students that do a semester in d C.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: And they've asked me to come up with a class
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: for incoming freshmen that may be housed in DC for
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: the first semester. And I said, how about just an
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: introduction to the Constitution like a citizens you know. And
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: it turns out, because it is amazing, we just don't
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: teach it very well. Number one, I kind of think
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: members of Congress, I'd love to you know. To me,
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: you shouldn't be able to take the oath until you've
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: read the Federalist papers improved. To me, you've read the
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: Federalist paper if you're going to be a member of Congress.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: I'm not asking every American citizen, but I want every
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: gosh don member of Congress to read.
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: Every Federalist paper.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: I think that's a minimum requirement that doesn't seem too onerous.
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: I love that if you between the time of your
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: election and when you're scorn in, you have to be
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: able to certify you read the Federalist papers.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like some sort of certification you have to do. Look,
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: you got certification to be a real estate person. You
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: got to get pass the bar.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: Look, you won Congress, great, but in order for you
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: to get your keys to your office and get your
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: voting guard, you just have to get certified in the Constitution.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: You know. And because it turns out a lot of
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: these guys and gals are.
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: Not you know, here's here's a reform I don't know about.
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: If this is, this would have to be voluntary from
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: the political parties more so than imposed by legislation.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: Because of constitutional concerns.
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: But as we're awaiting the next shoe to drop on
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: old Graham Platner, which.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: I feels like it's I mean, right, it's one of
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: those you're like, you can't You're better off betting that
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: there will be another shoe than not.
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: I don't know of anything that's coming, but it is
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: like one of the most heavily rumored things happening right now.
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: And who knows if any there will be anything more
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: or not. I have no idea, but as we're watching
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: all this unfold, you know, here's here is one thing
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: that I think would be interesting is what are politics where?
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: What role do political parties or should they play? The
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: political party as the institution and candidate selection or eligibility.
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: And I think a very basic rule that a political
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: party could implement is to be on the ballot with
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: our d or r by you you have to pass
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: a comprehensive background check with the results to be published
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: in the public.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: And so in other words, you could probably do this
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: for federal law right for federal offices. At a minimum,
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: I would think.
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: I, well, it would be hard because we were political
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: party is a private entity and so they can do
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: their own sort of membership rules and candidate eligibility, but
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: I would love to see. Look, you don't get to
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: be on the ballot through this private entity called the
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: Democratic Party the Republican Party unless you have either a
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: passed a background check or be at the very minimum,
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: endured a background check for which we publish the results.
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: And in that circumstance, what is this? It's basic due diligence.
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: Can you in the private sector get a job of
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: serious meaning, with serious meaningful responsibility without going through some
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: form of a background check anymore?
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah? All right, you just triggered.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: Something that you've because I'm curious, would you represent me
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: in a case if I said to you, I think partisan,
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: state funded partisan primaries are a violation of equal protection.
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: That's my theory.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: Why isn't Why isn't that the case? And here's my argument.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: You're telling me that in order to participate in a
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: state funded not every state of state funded primaries, all
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: this stuff, But if you were going to if the
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: state is funding a partisan primary, how is it that
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: I have to join a private organization in order to
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: participate in this state funded event. How is that not
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: a violation of equal protection?
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: That's a very good question.
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: However, the reality is that so long as state funding
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: of private organizational opportunity, private organizational activities is undertaken on
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: a viewpoint neutral basis. In other words, we're going to
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: fund a primary system that any political party can join.
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: That's generally the way in which we deal with this
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: with the concept of state.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: How many states are funding party primaries? How many states
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: are funding libertarian party primaries?
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question. That's a great question.
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: Now the answer might be, well, we would, we would,
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: but we're going to ask that it would be undertaken
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: in the same day as the you know, one of
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: the major party primaries, for efficiency reasons or whatever. But
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: I think the general way in which we deal with
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: state funding of private activity, right is that we don't
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: if we put too many conditions on the state funding,
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: it stops being private activity. And so but at the
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: same time, there's a lot.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: Of elections private activity.
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: Though the election election private club's nominee is private activity.
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: So the Democratic Party is a private club.
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: Look at it this way, and the state is choosing
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: essentially to subsidize the election process of this private club,
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: and the decision to subsidize that election process doesn't make
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: it a public club.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: It's still a private club.
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: And so I would think the better argument is, let's
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: just not fund it. Don't fund it, right, That's the
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: simpler part.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: Let parties figure out either fund their own, you know,
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: do firehouse primaries, which literally were just that, you know,
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: you'd go to the firehouse to vote, and it would
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: be sometimes it would be you know, paid for by
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: the state. Part I mean, South Carolina famously in their
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: presidential primaries have actually only recently has the state giving
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: them some money. Basically, the state used to say, you
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: can use our system, but you have to pay for it, right,
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: And that's why the South Carolina presidential I think the
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: Republican presidential filing fee is an astronomical because the party
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: has to actually pay to implement implement the primary. But
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: so you think that's not a slam dunk the equal
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: protection argument, Hardison on.
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: You know here, I look, I didn't get away raises
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: a single eyebrow.
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: It raises a single you think you think, to paraphrase,
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: the rocket raises the people's eyebrow.
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: But you don't you think it is a if the
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: state defended it, they would win.
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, now here would be an interesting thing if
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: a state pas.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, here's where I'm going to get into. I mean,
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: which is we could look, partisan primaries are killing us. Okay,
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: they're killing the political system. We know this, it's killing
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: the political system. Yes, you can say, well, the public
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: needs to do a better job participating in primaries. Yeah,
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: well who wants to be a member of these two
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: clubs right now?
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: Okay, Like, so I'm not to lecture the public on
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: I don't want to be associated with one of those
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: two clubs. God Batch, you I get it. That's why
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: the fastest growing party in America is no party. So
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm just looking frankly for a backdoor way
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: to get rid of partisan primaries.
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: I would love to get rid of partisan primaries. And
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: you know what, here's a potential way. A state says
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: we'll fund a primary. We'll fund an open primary. Right
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: that is the only primary that we will fund. Maybe
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: you know, open primary with top two and the top
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: two go to runoff regardless of their party, et cetera.
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: And which which is a system I don't mind. Or
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: you could even have somebody say we're going to fund
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: an open primary that's ranked choice right, or you know,
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: and so you could fund a particular kind of primary,
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: and then if the parties want to do their own
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: little club thing, that'd have to come up with their
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: own dollars.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: And if they want to maybe put it put a denotion.
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: You know, it's up to the parties if they want
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: candidates to have their party label next to them.
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: But that's on that's the party. That's between the parties
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: and the candidate. Yeah, but I'm I'm with you.
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: You know, my our mutual friend Jonah Goldberg, he he
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: has written about like bring back the smoke filled room.
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: Well, no, he's not wrong about that.
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, now, in order to do that, we got
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: to bring money back out of the you know, it's
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: almost you got to ban outside money and let the
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: two political parties be be.
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: The financial engines. Right.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: When the parties were responsible for money to candidates, they
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: had a hell of a lot more say over which
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: candidates got money.
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And people don't realize the way in which campaign
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: finance reform by d by disempowering political parties.
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: Law of unintended consequences and epowering the super packs and
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: all that has really messed with the final was a
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: was well intentioned and absolutely catastrophic to catastrophic.
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: And then this romanticism.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: I get the Citizens United is bad, but you don't
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: get the Citizen United situation without the initial McCain fine
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: gold passage.
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: I think you Citizens United was completely rightly decided. But
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: I've heard that m Yeah, it's a rounding error in
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: importance in my mind compared to McCain fine gold parties.
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: I agree with that. I want to I want to.
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: I want to close with two topics. One is about
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: the founders.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: You are not just a man of faith, but you
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: you made an early living essentially defending religious freedom for
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: whether it was on campuses in private organizations. And but
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: it goes back, and I want to to me you
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: you're more scholarly on this than anybody when it comes
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: to religious freedom and the founding of this country. There's
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: a lot of very religious people who say, no, no, no, no.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: Our founders meant for us to be a religious nation,
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: meant for us to be a Christian nation, meant for
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: us to be And they say, you know, just look
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: at the background of all these founders. They were very
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: religious people. And I turn it and I say, well,
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: I actually have the reverse logic logic, which is, they
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: were incredibly religious people who decided not to allow for
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: the country to essentially choose a religion, And that to
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: me is proof that hey, you know, this is why
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: we're supposed to essentially be neutral on this, and that
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: the government is neutral on this. Where do you come
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: down on this? Yeah, that's you're understand what your forget
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: to come down? What's your understanding of what you think
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: the founders intent was. Here's here were very religious people
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: at the time who again chose not to insert it.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: You know, it's it's in the First Amendment for a reason.
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: So let's let's take this into parts.
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: Who were they?
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: What did they want to do? So the who were
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: they part? You said very religious, and for some of
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: them that's true. I would say that most of them
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: would be very religion curious or very religiously informed. But
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: they were also not the kind of people you would
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: see right beside you in the pew and first Baptist
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: church every Sunday.
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: They were.
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: Many of them were more say High Church Anglican, some
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: were often functionally Deist, but they were very biblically and
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: religiously literate, and some of them were.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: More literate on the Bible then than collectively we are today.
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: Then many pastors, but many of them were not particularly devout,
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: as we would categorize devout. So this was not a
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: religious revival. You know that when you're talking about the
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: American founding. It was a moment of extraordinary philosophical tumult,
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: a lot of religious argumentation, but this was absolutely not
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: the founding of a Christian nation, and intentionally so. And
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: one of the things you can do is you don't
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: you don't have to trust me on this. You can
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: go and read the key founders like Madison and Jefferson,
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: and I very much appreciate Madison in this very famous
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: memorial and remonstrance against religious assessments. This is a seventeen
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: eighty five document, so this is two years before the Constitution,
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: you know, the seventeen eighty seven constitution. It's a few
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: years before the Bill of Rights. But it really does
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: show what does Madison think this country is about?
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: And what was that issue?
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: Was going to be a money tax, money being used
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: to pay clergy, for example, and he calls this as
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: an establishment of religion.
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: And this is this is the language. And I'm going
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: to read.
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: It, because the proposed establishment is a departure from that
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: generous policy which offering an asylum to the persecuted and
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: oppressed of every nation and religion promised a luster to
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: our country and an accession to the number of its citizens.
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: So marinate with that for a minute and think about
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: its import on two huge debates in American life, immigration
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: and religion.
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: And here that's wrapped up in the right in one sentence.
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: And he says, and he says that this offering an
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: asylum to the persecute and oppressed of every nation and
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: religion promised a luster to the country. In other words,
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: it will increase our national greatness. And it says an
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: accession to the number of its citizens, it will increase
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: our numbers. And in that way, Madison is rebuking Christian
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: nationalism and sort of this hardcore immigration restrictionism at the
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: same moment at the same time. And I've become very
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: fond of that short passage because it's just perfect Twitter length.
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: There's not many like founding statements that are perfect Twitter length,
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: but you can just pop that up there, and the
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: reaction to it is really curious. Often a lot of
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: the more nationalists will just the kind of act as
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: if it never existed. It just of course it didn't exist.
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: And Jefferson has quotes that are even you know, more
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: explicit naming you know, Muslims and Hindus for example, as
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: people welcome in this country.
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: And so, yeah, anybody ever single out atheists or no.
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: That was that was a much more minority category back then,
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: much much more minority.
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: But the.
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: And so, you know, these are not hard questions to answer,
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: it's just that people don't like the answer when they
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: find it.
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: Out right, I want to close with and I've I've
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: sort of challenged Sarah Esk around this too, and so,
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: and which is I think that it's pretty clear that
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: the Department of Justice should not be an executive branch
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: and or we have you know that it has to
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: be something more akin to the Federal Reserve in some form.
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: So maybe it does technically stay in the branch or something.
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: But look, you know, we were able to we were
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: able to pass a law about nepotism after the Kennedy
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: Kennedy right Attorney general. As I said earlier, Donald Trump
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: has given us provided us an MRI for all the
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: different loopholes we had no idea like a personal attorney
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: can end up attorney general. Now, look, I do think
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: we're going to see a Republican Senate summarily reject Todd Blanche.
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: I just I you know, I don't see there's there's
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: not forty five votes for him, let alone fifty. But
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: we'll see, right, we'll see if at one point is
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: this the President trying to shove both Bill Poulti and
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: Todd Blanche and say, you know, like with Matt get
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: when he did Matt Gates and Pete hagg Seth and said, Okay,
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: we'll sacrifice Gates as long as you give us hegg
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: Seth type of business. But it seems to me, no
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: matter what, that we have unfortunately politicized the rule of law.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: And that isn't something that it's just going to somehow
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: go back. Everybody's going to say, oh, it's no longer
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: politicized now that Trump and Blanche are gone, right, just
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: like plenty of people on the right that think that
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: Biden and Garland were somehow weaponizing. But the point is,
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: the Department of Justice has lost credibility with a large
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: chunk of the country, and I think we're going to
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: have to figure out a way to it cannot be
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: this closely tied to a president.
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: What do we do? I mean, I'd like.
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: A federal reserve type of system, where it's different entities,
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: different term links. Maybe the Attorney General is always appointed
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: by the opposite party, you know, or something.
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: It seems to me we have to change this because
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: this will turn into a massive crisis if we just
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: don't believe the Justice Department anymore.
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: So I'm going to be a little radical, Chuck.
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: So I think that the actual issue here is that
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: the dependence and the sort of the the the ineffectiveness,
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: the corruption of the Department Justice is downstream from a
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: bigger issue, which is unitary executive theory. Now, unitary executive
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: theory is rooted in a problem that the anti federalists
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: identified with the seventeen eighty seven Constitution. And it's a
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: problem that see I now see what their argument was,
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: and I now see what the problem is, and it
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: is this George Clinton, who was the governor of New York,
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: was writing under the pen named Cato, and he was
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: an anti federalist, and he wrote a paper where he said,
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: the first sentence of Article two of the Constitution is
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: vague and inexplicit. And because it is vague and inexplicit,
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: those were his words. A corrupt, a partisan, a corrupt
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: president can pour his power and ambition into that ambiguity
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: is vague and explicit. Here's what the sentence is, that
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: the executive power shall be vested in a president of
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: the United States. Now that raises the next question, what
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: is the executive power? Okay, I think the best answer
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: to that question is that the founders and vision the
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: executive power is the is it is this and only this.
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: It is the power to execute laws passed by Congress.
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: That's the executive power. But nobody says that explicitly, and it's.
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: Not said explicitly, So then this becomes a question, Well,
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: wait a minute, the executive power because it is not
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: so limited to only executing the laws passed by Congress.
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: It's its own thing.
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: And what unitary executive says is that the executive power
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: is the power to control the executive branch. That core
• 55:53
  Speaker 3: to it is the power to control the executive branch.
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: That is, if the executive power means anything, that's what
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: it means. And I suggest that we should actually engage
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: once we get out of this miserable period of American life.
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: One of the things that we've seen is historically when
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: we get out of very dark periods, there's a period
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: of reform where we try to make sure enough.
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: That's sort of how I try to be optimistic. I'm like, look,
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: it's going to be we probably have We're probably going
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: to need one more bad partisan president period before we
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: get to the enough is enough, the Samuel L. Jackson
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: snakes on a plane moment where we're just like, you
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: get them off the goddamn plant, exactly. Yeah, we're probably so,
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: I'm hoping.
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: For mid thirties for this reform movement.
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: I would love to And here is one of my ideas,
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: change that sentence in the Constitution to be something much
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: more limiting of the president and much more magnifying of
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: the power of Congress, to say that the power to
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: execute the laws shall reside in a president of the
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: United States. So then all of a sudden, if Congress says,
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: let's let me make it concrete. The difference if Congress
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: right now said the Attorney General shall answer also to
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: or prosecution decisions by political of political entities shall be
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: approved by and overseen by a House Committee or what
• 57:18
  Speaker 3: you name it. I mean, I'm just making stuff up,
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: or sure may regulated by bipartisan Congressional Board or something
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: like that. That would be struck down instantly, because if
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: that sentence means anything, it means the president controls the
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: executive branch, not Congress. Congress doesn't have the power to
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: control the executive branch. But if the power of the
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: president is to execute the laws passed by Congress, then
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: that flips the dynamic on its head, and it says
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: that Congress can, in fact regulate the executive branch, and
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: it's the president's obligation to comply.
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: And ensure and guarantee the execution of that regulation. And
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: so what you do you as you see that that
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: sentence essentially puts Congress back in the driver's seat. And
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: one thing that I.
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: Think a lot and not enough Americans appreciate is this
• 58:12
  Speaker 3: was not supposed to be actually coequal branches of government,
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: much less the executive supreme as it is now. Really,
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: you've made a list of one, two, three, By the way, yeah,
• 58:23
  Speaker 3: have you ever made the most important thing to exactly? No,
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: that's a great way of saying it, But you think
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: about it for half a second Congress right now, under
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: the Article one, you can't spend a dime, and let's
• 58:36
  Speaker 3: been appropriate by Congress, and Congress has the power to
• 58:39
  Speaker 3: fire the president and to fire the Supreme Court. I
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: don't know about you, Chuck, but I call the person
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: who has the power to fire me boss, right.
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: Actually I used to say, who signs my expense report? Yeah? Exactly.
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: So we need the boss to be the boss again.
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: And how do you make the boss be the boss. Well,
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: one of the ways you do it is you remove
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: from the underboss the president the capacity, the power, the
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: ability to claw to claw to the top.
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: Short of that, though, I mean, would you change the
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: would you move the Department of Justice further away from
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: from the presidency in some form? Just when I say
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: further away, like the Federal Reserve? Like in theory, what
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: the you know? The well, an fbid doesn't count, but
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: federal reserve is probably the best example.
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I would be open to interesting two interesting ideas
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: on that front. Although it would be very hard to
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: make it like the Federal Reserve without actual constitutional reform
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: because the Federal Reserve is sort of a legacy institution
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: that you know, dates back to God gosh, was it
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: second banking the United States?
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: First banking United States and.
• 59:58
  Speaker 3: Has a very very unique history that you cannot replicate
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: just by a legislative reform. If you're going to do
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: if you're going to pull the DOJ essentially out of
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: the executive branch to some degree, I think that would
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: probably require some constitutional reform, although I'd be super interested
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: in your smart legal listeners.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, who you know had an alternative idea. You know,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: it's interesting.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: You know, Japan has something interesting in their parliament where
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: they where the opposition just has a lot more potential
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: oversight authority and it's sort of accepted it. Just you know,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: there's little things I'd like to see and in some
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: things you don't need a constitutional amendment. I mean, you know,
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: to me, the Oversight Committee in Congress, you know, I
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: could argue, shouldn't the Oversight Committee always be the opposite
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: party of whoever's got power like in some ways in
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: order to give it credibility? And if we always operated
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: that way, or you do it, or it's a that
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: or it's always equally bipartisan like the Ethics Committee, it
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: seems like there's certain things we could do that would
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: sort of at least attempt to restore the old you know,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: essentially use Reagan as your north star trust but verify.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know other things that would be clearly constitutional,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: such as funding only aspects of the DJs work and
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 3: defunding those aspects that you find corrupt until there's reform.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: So using that power of the purse.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 3: But the problem that we have right now, you know, Chuck,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: I mean, gosh, you know this is better than anybody.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 3: Congress is a font of like messaging legislation where you know,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: a Congressman will file a bill and like this is
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: my stand and everybody knows it has no chance.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, Congress, you know, we talk about looking for
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: a president that can sort of rise above partisans. We
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: really need a Speaker of the House that cares more
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: about reforming the institution than than exact, you know, than
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: essentially executing whatever partisan promises the party made in order
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: to grab power.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: But can you imagine tip O freaking Neil ever agreeing
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: to be so subordinate to anybody as a.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: Trump think I feel that way about Jim Wright. I
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: don't think he felt like he would have done that,
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: And I don't you know, we never had Newt with
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: a Republican president. So we don't know, but I don't
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: I mean the new you and I both know. I
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: don't think would have just felt like he had to
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: always count cow to the to the president of his
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: own So we.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: Don't know, but i'd like to think you're right about Newt.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: I think he would have.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 3: It would have required punishing him to get him to kowtow.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: I think he would write.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 3: He would have had to have suffered the consequences because
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: he wouldn't voluntary voluntarily as seed power.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: You know. And I think Pelosi, you know, she's probably
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: a little more pliant than Tip of her was, but
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: she was you know, she wasn't easily pushed around by
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: Obama or Biden. But still it does feel as if
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: at the end of the day, she still chose to
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: be a speaker for the Democratic Party, not a speaker
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: to say, hey, how do we for the House of Representatives?
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: And we really we really haven't had one of those,
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: probably arguably since Tip.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say Tip would be the last one.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 3: And the interesting thing about Tip is he was overseeing
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: a house which he always had a majority with the
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: d by his name, but not always a working majority
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 3: and not iologically right, Yeah, Reagan could command a majority
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: all the time.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: And in fact, it gets to actually burst one of
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: those myths that I always like to say. I said,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: you know, Reagan and Tip weren't you know, it didn't
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: work together because they loved hanging out with each other
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: and telling bs stories. They both it was necessary the congression.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: Conservative Congressional Democrats were part of Reagan's base, and the
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: Conservative Congressional Democrats kept Tip in the speakership, and so
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: Tip had to make sure to keep those guys happy.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: Reagan had to work with, you know, because Tip was
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: keeping those guys happy. Right, It was sort of you
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: know it is it goes to the you know, Milton
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: Friedman example. It's an incentive system that forced them to
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: do good things together because they because that's what the
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: incentive system created, not because they wanted to.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, it's very interesting because in some ways
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: in the Reagan era and around sort of also at
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: the beginning of the Clinton era and other eras in
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: American history, we had a two party system that was
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: also simultaneously almost like a four party system because you
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: had a Democratic coalition that included Southern Democrats, who were
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 3: quite culturally conservative and sort of Midwestern populist Democrats. You
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: had north the Eastern Liberal Republicans and sort of the
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: Western libertarian Republicans. These were very different factions, and you
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 3: could play one off against the other. You could do
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: cross partisan coalitions. And then you know, now we do
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: not have coalition parties nearly to the extent that we
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 3: did before.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: We got rid of regionalism. Though in beer and in flavors, right,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: we've nationalized everything. I mean, I sort of I missed
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: regionalism on that. We need more of it. Let me
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: get you out of here on this. The the the
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: mb you are. You are a huge NBA fan. Are
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: you as equally into college basketball?
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: I was?
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 3: I was, in fact, I used to be principally into
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 3: college basketball.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: I grew up in Kentucky, of course.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: But the NIL era, one and done's it's just it's
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: just too much for.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: But okay, but so I'm a I'm an nil optimist
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: in disrespect for college college basketball in particular. But I
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: see this now in football, which is the one and
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: done era sucked. Yeah, you know what's solving the one
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: and done era? And idea that these guys can make
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: a decent living for four years in college before. Like especially,
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: you know, take Ty Simpson who was drafted in the
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: first round, first round for the Rams, could have made
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: more money next year being the starter for the University
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: of Miami yep, than he is first round draft pick.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: You know, it used to be these guys left early
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: because of the money. And yeah, I would argue, we're
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: seeing the quality of college basketball has improved.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: Dramatically in the last four years, and I credit and
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: I l no.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 3: Okay, so I'm going to I'm going to agree with you.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: But with this, we still have one and done in
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: a different form the transfer portal. True, this is something
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 3: that's frustrating me. Like your team's overturned, like you turn over.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: You're a good libertarian, how would you handle this? Right,
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: You've got a legal I mean, freedom of movement is
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: something that labor law believes it well.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: At the same time, so our contracts.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 3: So in other words, you're going to get in an
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 3: IL deal, but you got to enter into a three
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 3: year contract.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: Well, I think that's fair.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And so what I would like to see is
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 3: I'm all in favor of than IL in the sense
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 3: that I like to see players compensated when they're the
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 3: drivers of the revenue, Absolutely compensate them.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: I also want to see.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 3: If you're going to compensate them, you're going to have
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: to professionalize the sport, and that means longer term contracts.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: That means limits on player movement, which is part of
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 3: what every professional league does. And so if you have
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: it where it's both a combination of you get paid
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: and you're a free agent every single year, what you've
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 3: created is just permittent instability. And I think you're going
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 3: to see you know, you've seen legislation, you know, the
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 3: Cruise Bill, which is you're going to get one transfer
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: and then after that you'd have to sit out a year.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 2: I hate the idea that we would.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 3: Need federal legislation to implement what would be should be
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: a common sense.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: We're not going to get federal legislation.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: I think we're going to get collective bargaining before we
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: ever get federal legislation, and we might do that. Honestly,
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: maybe this is better to do let collective bargaining because
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: and then see what happens.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that might be where this ends up, because I
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 3: do think we're unsustainable with the new version of one
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 3: and done.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: All right, let me get you out of here. On
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: the court thing.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: Can we solve the regular season best NBA sucks versus
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: the playoff NBA's fantastic problem.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: Not at eighty two games. So that's what you would do,
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: is reduce You.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 3: Can make it better, like I do. Think the new
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 3: anti tanking rule is going to help. You can make
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 3: it better. But I think I don't hate the NBA
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 3: Cup like I hate.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: I liked it. I've enjoyed it. I'm and they've done.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: They've gotten me to watch the NBA earlier than I
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: normally have as a sports fan. I'm a football guy first,
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: and November and December I sort of, you know, gloss
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: over the NBA.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 2: It's early.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: You know, I'll tune in starting in January and February.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: But NBA Cup has brought me. I mean, it is
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: exceeded in what you know Adamsilber wanted to have happened.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: So that's an improvement. What else would you do?
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So, I think the younger NBA fan does not
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 3: appreciate that the intensity of the regular season is ramped
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 3: up considerably and with that injuries, which, by.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: The way, I read an old Rick Berry memoir that
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: was written in seventy two. He was complaining about the
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: eighty two game season then, and he was twenty.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: Seven years old.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: Okay, like, these guys have been complaining about it for
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: years and talking about the play and talking about how
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: much the extra games making the postseason really wore them
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: down and all of this stuff.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: So ironically, this isn't a new thing.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: Yes, you know, it really is something that they've NBA
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: players have been complaining about going back to the sixties
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: and seventies totally.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 3: But if you watch the if you if you could
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 3: find tape of an eighties or early nineties regular season game, yeah,
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 3: you would be shocked at how little effort there is
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 3: compared to a current regular season game.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: And it was three quarters.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 3: Of pickup basketball followed by a pretty intense fourth quarter.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: And only the Lakers Celtics matchups in the regular season
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: had intensity to them, right, those are the only two
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: ones that ever had intensity because they only met twice
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: a year in the regular season, and it always felt
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: like a oh magic at Bird Finals preview.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: Let's go up.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it was like a gentleman's agreement between
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 3: the teams. We're going to play pickup hoops.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: It's going to.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 3: Be like an exhibition, and then we're going to we'll
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 3: bear down in the fourth quarter and then playoff.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: Basketball is fantastic.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 3: I just that I tell you that the current game
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 3: is so fast. There's a lot of interesting science now
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 3: that the way in which the game is played with
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 3: the euro step, the step back three, it places stress
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 3: on the joints in a way that the old form
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 3: of older forms of basketball didn't. So I think they
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 3: should really think about a shorter season.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: Well, look, it's either shorter season or larger rosters. You know.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: I look what NHL does you know? No player ever
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: plays more than eighteen minutes of a sixty minute game. True, okay,
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: I mean it's constant, you know. And I wonder if
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: you know, I've thought about this with the NFL. You
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: want to do twenty game season, fine, nobody can play
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: more than sixteen games. And then part of the strategy
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: is deciding when do you sit you know, you know,
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: you have to sit a starter four games?
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: Which four games do you pick?
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: Like, it actually adds some strategy to things. I love
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: that idea that you know, it's interesting, right, imagine you
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: have you know, Caleb Williams. You're a Chicago guy now, right,
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: so you're going to be watching these Bears a lot.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: You have your twenty game season that they're going to implement.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: But Caleb Williams can only play sixteen. You know, do
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: you gamble and assume you're going to be in the
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: playoffs and you just sort of lack it, you know?
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: Or do you know, do you decide you're going to
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: take the Tennessee Titans game that week and buy week
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: it and use the backup right?
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 3: Oh, Chuck, that idea is so brilliant. It is also
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 3: quite self interested because it's a full employment act for
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 3: podcasters because think think about the arguments, yes, four odd
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 3: quarterbacks running backs, the four game sample versus the sixteen game.
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: Oh man, endless content and more jobs.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: You know, you increase the roster size, you know, to
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: go to you know, instead of expanding the league like
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: in the NBA, instead of instead of you know, adding
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: more teams, go to twenty five rosters and have the
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: up and down, have the flexibility and nobody can play
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: more than sixty games, you know, in a season, and
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: you just and you make that the standard across the
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: board and then it's strategy.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 2: A little bit intriguing. Intriguing, Yeah, favorite French. Always fun
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 2: to talk with you. That's great to chat check