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Trump Loses in Court — But Pressure Remains on the Press and Late Night (with Mike Pesca) · The Oath and The Office

• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Welcome to The Oath and the Office Podcast. I am
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: John Fiegel. Seang, it's been quite a week. Judge Alien
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Canada's back at a sequel nobody asked for. The UK
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: police have arrested Prince Andrew. What does it mean when
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Written sacrifices their spoiled, lecherous prince to save an institution,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: and America sacrifices an institution to save our spoiled, lecherous
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: prince while their monarchy is acting more republican than our republic.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: We need someone smarter, braver, and bolder than most mortal men,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: and that is Professor Corey Bretschneider, Political Science Ivy League
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: professor and the author of The Oath in the Office
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: and the Star and mac daddy of this podcast. Corey,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: it's so good to see you.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Welcome.
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: Thanks John.
• 0:52
  Speaker 4: Your intros get better and more extreme every week, which
• 0:55
  Speaker 4: I appreciate.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Just try to endanger your tenure, Professor, That's all I'm
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: trying to do.
• 1:00
  Speaker 4: That's what we're doing here. And we'll talk about the
• 1:03
  Speaker 4: tariff's case. You know, there's some good news on that front.
• 1:06
  Speaker 4: Of course, we'll talk about Prince Andrew, and then I'm
• 1:08
  Speaker 4: also happy to say, in the second half, we're going
• 1:10
  Speaker 4: to get to a great discussion with Mike Pesca about
• 1:13
  Speaker 4: the question of journalism, and the question in particular about
• 1:16
  Speaker 4: whether or not, in a time in which democracy is
• 1:19
  Speaker 4: under attack, the rules of journalism alter or whether they
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: can stay the same. And it's a spirited discussion. I
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: hope you'll hang out and listen to that too.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: We don't see eye to eye on everything, and yet
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: it's a really fun funny conversation. But Professor, obviously we
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: got to talk about the elephant in the room. The
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: six to three majority of the Supreme Court last week,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: including two of Trump's own appointees, decided barely that the
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: rule of law now does apply to Donald Trump. The
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: court rule that he cannot use the International Emergency Economic
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Powers Act IIPA to impose his sweeping global tariff tantrums.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Right wing folks are mad. They're saying the Court made
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: a mess for Trump and the American people. I'sretty sure
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: it was Trump who made the mess. And of course
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: one hundred and seventy five billion in tariffs already collected.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: People are suing to get their money back, and all
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: we know so far is Trump's response cory, which is
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: to have no game, have an unhinged hissy fit, and
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: attack the judges personally and talk about their families in
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: kind of a creepy way. So let's begin with that.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, why is this decision so significant that they
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: have struck down Trump's tariffs?
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: Well, let's just start with the awfulness that has been
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: the Supreme Court during this assault on democracy. The Court
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: in particular, using what's called the shadow docket. We've talked
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: about this before, but for listeners, I want to remind
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: them this is a technique where the Supreme Court of
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: the United States doesn't give reasons for its opinion. Part
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: of what gives the court legitimacy in the first place
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: is that it explains why it's doing what it's doing
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: and what the law is. And yet in the shadow docket,
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: they don't do that. They refuse to do it, and
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: they have found overwhelmingly for Trump again and again, undermining
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: the lower courts that have often stopped them. And now,
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: in the most significant case that we've seen, the Supreme
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: Court has said, the most significant case in which they've
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: stopped them, the Supreme Court has said very clearly, you know,
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: it's dictators that act by dictate or executive order, especially
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: when the Constitution gives Congress the powers that are being usurped.
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: And here in the terrorist case, it couldn't be clearer.
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: I say this in Mi amic is brief with our colleagues,
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: which prefigured a lot of what.
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: The decision said.
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: The theme no taxation without representation. It's taxation that was
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: given to Congress, and a tariff is nothing but a tax.
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: And yet here the president comes just claiming to usurp it.
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: And more than that, I mean, the other real insult
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: in these teriffs is that after Nixon, the Congress actually
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: had a moment where it pushed back in a historical
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: way against the president and the presidency and it said, look,
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: we're going to constrain the use of emergency power, including
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: in economic emergencies. We're going to limit what you can do.
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: And the real horror show of what Trump did is
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: that he took this statute that limits his power and pretended,
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: in the most grotesque way, that he gave him the
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: power to unilaterally impose these tariffs. It does anything but
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: And guess what the Supreme Court made both those points.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I can't wait to see how the
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: one hundred and seventy five billion in tariff's already collected
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: gets returned to people, Corey, I mean that's not crypto money.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: That is actual money paid by American importers, which means
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: American businesses, which means American consumers, which means all of you.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: So what the obvious question is at first, who gets
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: that back? Is there going to be a VENMO request
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: to people? Do we all get store credit at Trump's
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: merch side? Is there going to be a fifteen percent
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: processing fee to retrieve our illegal taxes? But one of
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: the things that really stood out for me was the
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Major Questions doctrine, which I think is a thing that
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: John Roberts just made up to knock down Joe Biden
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: trying to fulfill a campaign promise to help out Americans
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: with interest rates on student loan debts. The Major Questions
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: doctrine was widely viewed as a tool used by the
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: right wing majority to limit administrative agencies like the student
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: loan case. Now they just used it to limit presidential power. Corey,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: What exactly is this thing that John Roberts made up
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: for the rest of us?
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: I think, first of all, that that is right.
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: The origin story of major questions is largely about limiting
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: the administrative state, limiting the rules that the Environmental Protection
• 5:31
  Speaker 4: Agency can make, and other agencies that are trying to
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: engage in taking Congress's law and implementing it as.
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: Best they can.
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: So now the question was, in a time in which
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: the administrative agencies are increasingly the same as what the
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: president says and does under the theory of the unitary executive,
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: is this doctrine that before was used to constrain the agencies,
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: including experts in those agencies, now going to be the
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: tool that we can use to stop a president. And
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: skeptics of the Supreme Court said, man, this is only
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: about stopping administrative agencies. It's not going to be used
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: by this court against Trump. And what we argued in
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: the brief is that there is no difference under the
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: unitary executive theory, good or bad. In the current world.
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: The president and the administrative agencies are essentially the same,
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: and so it has to constrain a president.
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: That was our hope.
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: Skeptics of our argument and of this Court thought, no
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: way are they going to do this. They're just purely partisan,
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: and you know, some of us expected that we would
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: get a majority of decent justices who came on the
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: side of the law, and that's exactly what happened here.
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: Six justices said, by the way, what is obviously true,
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: which is that a statute that stops the president can't
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: be used to aggrandize his power. Of course, we had
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: three dissenters, including the hackiest of the Hackey.
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: Justice's happen on, Oh, Jess, I'm going to give that
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: to Justice coust.
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: Going in a tough competition, But this is somebody who,
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: in his opinion, just repeated what the administration said. And
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: one of the subtle things about this opinion, one of
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: the things I love that I haven't heard commentators comment on.
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: It's the Supreme Court called them out.
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: Six justices said, Justice Kavanaugh, all you're doing is repeating
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: almost word for word what the administration said in their brief.
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: And that's not judging. Judging means actually applying the law.
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: And you know, thankfully it hasn't always been the case.
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: Six justices here did apply the law.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: So what I didn't have on my bigo card was
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Justice Neil Gorsich basically saying, in very polite federalist society language.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: The Constitution lodges the nation's law making powers in Congress
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: a loan, which is, I think that Supreme Court speak
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: for I'm going to have this job longer than the
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: guy who hired me. Read the first article. I mean,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: Gorsich even said that legislating is supposed to be slow
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: and deliberative because that's stability. Let's ordinary folks plan their
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: lives when the rules shift from day to day. I mean,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: he was pretty much saying markets like predictability, not your
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: damn mood swings, right. I mean, the Constitution gives Congress
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: the power to regulate tariffs. This liberal ruling is actually
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: being constitutionally conservative.
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: I think.
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: You know, Justice Gorsicch and Justice Kavanaugh are often mentioned
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: in the same breath, and Justice Gorsich is worried about
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: that being grouped in with a hack like Kavanaugh, and
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: you know, he's proven himself in a couple of key
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: moments to be.
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: Much more of a serious justice.
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: One example actually which really parallels this is when interpreting
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: the nineteen sixty four Civil Rights Act, which protects against
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: discrimination based on sex an employment.
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: In Title seven of the nineteen sixty four Civil Rights Act.
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: Justice Gorsich said that includes gay and transgender people.
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: Plain as day.
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: The word sex in the text obviously applies to discrimination
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: against gay and transgender people. That's the plain meaning of it.
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: And what he said here is that the plain meaning
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: both of the lawed issue, which is called IIBA, this
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: International Emergencies Act, constrains a president.
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: And what does the Constitution do.
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: It gives, as you said, the taxation power, including the
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: tariff making power to Congress. So you know, these aren't
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: brilliant points. They are basic points that any judge should say.
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: But he shows himself to be a person of integrity,
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: especially in contrast to his co clerk, who also clerk
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: for Justice Kennedy and that's Kabina.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: By the way.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: Within moments of the Supreme Court saying presidents can't do
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: this only Congress, Trump announces a new ten percent global
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: tariff and then he upgrades it to fifteen percent, because
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: I guess when the Supreme Court says you can't do that,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: the logical response is, oh.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, watch me do something slightly different.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: So I guess we should expect more lawsuits Corey in
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: the months and months to come, and they will be
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: litigating this long after the Lord has had Donald Trump's
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: arteries do what the Lord is going to have his
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: arteries do.
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, a couple points on that, if you don't mind Johnson. Sure.
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: One is that absolutely his speech unhinged after the ruling
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: which attacked his justices for betraying him.
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: Essentially, I mean, this president has.
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: No idea of what the idea of an independent judiciary
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: is supposed to be and can't even imagine it. And
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: you know, he's criticizing them for doing their jobs. I
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: think that only is going to reinforce to them that
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: we are facing and attack on democracy and that we
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: need an independent judiciary. That's my hope, and it also
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: is a message to the lower courts of the need
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: to stand against this president who thinks that they all
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: work for him.
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: Is he defying the order, that's an interesting question.
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: He certainly would want to, but the reporting seems to
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: suggest that the lawyers internal to the executive branch are
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: telling him, no, you can't just defy the Supreme Court.
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: Now they're trying to find other laws, including a trade
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: act that would authorize some of these tariffs. And now
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: the question is are they going to get away with it.
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: But those laws, when you look at them, are much
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: more constrained than this emergency statute. They have time limits
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: on them, for instance. And so although they'll try to
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: revive these tariffs, and though we're going to face litigation,
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: I think the Supreme Court, these same six justices are
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: going to slam them down again. And that's a good
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: thing for the country.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: When we come back, Judge Alien Cannon is back and
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Prince Andrew is going away.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: Don't go away. This is the Oath and the Office.
• 11:19
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• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Oath on the Office. I'm John
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: fugel Sang and Professor Bretschneider. Judge Aileen Cannon like a
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: sequel no one wanted. She has now blocked the release
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: of volume two of Special Counsel Jack Smith's report on
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: the voluminous evidence of guilt in Donald Trump's classified documents case,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: and her reasoning was it would plainly offend her previous
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: dismissal of the case and contravene basic notions of fairness.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: In other words, she's saying, you can't know the crimes
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: he committed because of basic notions of fairness. We have
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: entered the Hallmark Channel version of fascist jurisprudence. Cory, I
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: don't know where to begin. She said, we can't release
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: the evidence because no adjudication of guilt has been reached,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: and that's because the case never reached the jury. But
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: it never reached the jury because she dismissed it. So
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: is this the new legal standard? If the trial didn't happen,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: the crime doesn't exist.
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: Wow, she really is a pale imitation of a judge,
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: and she's not really engaged in judging. She's just engaged
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: in trying to defend Donald Trump at all costs. We
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: saw that during the document's case, and we talked about
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: this at length, but she essentially said that Jack Smith's
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: role as a special prosecutor, long established as part of
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: the executive branch, was somehow unconstitutional and illegal. That was
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: one thing she did to destroy the case. And now
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: what she's doing is preventing the American people from seeing
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: the evidence, seeing actually what Smith as. He's under attack,
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: by the way, for legally trying to shut down Donald
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: Trump to show the truth, which is that this president
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: committed a crime and he was doing nothing more than
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: looking into that wrongdoing. I think we've got to do
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: some history here to see how wrong she is. The
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: long history of investigations of presidents and former presidents involve
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: special counsels like Jack Smith looking into wrongdoing, and this
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: is crucial exposing the evidence to both Congress and the
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: American people.
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: And the idea is that sitting.
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: President, certainly who commits wrongdoing might be subject to impeachment.
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: And the role since Nixon has been of the special
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: prosecutor to reveil the truth again to the American people
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: and to Congress.
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: So let me just give you the examples.
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: What happened during Watergate, and I talk about this and
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: the presidents and the people at length, is that the
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: special prosecutors, Archibaldcox first and then after he was fired
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: and replaced by Leon Jaworski, compiled massive evidence of Nixon's crimes,
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: and the decision was made to hand over in what
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: was known as the Roadmap, to Congress and to the
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: American people details of what were happening. And that's what
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: brought the Judiciary Committee during Nixon to vote up articles
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: of impeachment and led to Nixon's resignation. During Clinton, the
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: Grand Jury looking into Clinton's perjury, accused perjury and obstruction
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: of justice. The information was passed on to the Congress
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: and impeachment. You agree or not agree, We got to
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: see what the report said. Mueller, even during the first
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: Trump impeachment, looked into his wrongdoing, looked into his crimes,
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: and exposed through his report this information. We should have
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: had a fourth report, a report from Jack Smith, letting
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: us know, letting us decide as Americans about whether or
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: not impeachment is justified, not just a precedent, but one
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: that goes back decades. And here's this rando judge just saying, no,
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: I'm going to shut it down.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: That's it.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: I mean again, she argued it would be unfair to
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: release a report when there was no adjudication of guilt.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: But it's because she canceled the damn trial and my
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: favorite lie from the whole thing, look at what you've
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: done to me. I'm reading these rulings now. But she says,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: the court need not countenance this brazen stratagem. Brazen stratagem perfect.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: That's like a boss fight in Dungeons and Dragons, the
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: brazen stratagem. Historically, special counsel reports have always been released
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: to the public. Right, there is precedent here for this.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: We paid, our tax is paid for this information. And
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: she's not saying the evidence isn't completely true.
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: And let me just reiterate my examples Nixon, Clinton, and
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: Trump in the first administration. In none of those was
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: there a conviction, and yet we had them released. And
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: so the idea that she's just claiming this precedent that
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: if there's no conviction, then we can't release. You know,
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: it wasn't like he was found not guilty after a
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: trial in all those instances. In fact, this process of
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: releasing the information to the Congress and to the American
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: people was in lieu of a trial. Y, And so
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: she's just making it up as making it up, as
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: she did make up this story about that the special
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: prosecutor was somehow an illegal or unconstitutional appointment.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Well, here's my last question on this, and then we
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: can move on to Prince Andrew, because that's what all
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: the kids want to talk about. She's saying fairness to
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: the defendant who hired the judge. Fairness because there was
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: no jury verdict because the defendant hired this judge. But fairness, Corey.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: In a constitutional system, I think has to also include
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: public accountability. If fairness is what's driving all this, Fairness
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: includes transparency when extraordinary events occur. Fairness I think allows
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: history to see the record. If a trial never happens
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: due to judicial rulings, does the public lose access to
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: the investigative findings by default? It seems like a future
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: wiser court on the appellate level might overturn this well.
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: In order to get to that stage, Jack Smith would
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: have to appeal it, and it's you know, there are
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: questions about standing. We'd have to think more about how
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: we would get that kind of appeal, and I'm not.
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: Sure if it will happen.
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: But the bottom line is, if it doesn't become transparent,
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: if it doesn't become released, we've really undermined.
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: You know, there's so few.
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: Let me just put it in the most blunt way,
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: there are so few checks on a president, so few
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: checks on a criminal president. And as you know, I'm
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: fond maybe too much quoting Patrick Henry who said, the
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: system is not designed to handle a criminal president. There's
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: nothing to stop such a force. That's the word he uses.
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: And now one of the things that we do have,
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: at least to slow down a criminal president is transparency.
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: And she's really seen our weakness in our constitutional system
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: by denying us even the ability to see these things. Now,
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: would impeachment come about if we saw what was released?
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: Maybe, but even if it didn't, it.
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: Would at least be a kind of accountability, and the
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: kind of accountability that we got in the first Trump administration,
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: and that without these details is really being denied to us.
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: I mean, you know, another thing that might happen is
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: a subpoena by Congress in the instance, as I think
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: about it, in the instance in which the Democratic Party
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: takes the House, they might subpoena the report.
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: That's going to be an interesting case.
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: But I think they're you know, in pursuit of impeachment,
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: they would have a right to see it. And the
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: idea of grand jury secrecy and all of the examples
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: that I gave was trump by these interests and transparency.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: I just think alien Cannon has bought a one way
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: ticket to Pambondy Island, where short term power out weighs
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: long term disgrace. All Right, I got to ask you
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: about the UK because you know, they just went and
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: arrested the arrestee formerly known as Prince Prince Andrew has been.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: They pulled up to his house and they took him
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: in and his brother, the King signed off on this.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: Because no one is about the law here, Corey. In America,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: we treat no one is above the law. That's more
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: like a decorative throw pillow, you know, like like here
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: pambodies like well, define above. But I just want to say,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: like in France, yes, they have announced new investigations on
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: Epstein related to human trafficking through his longtime associate Jehan
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: look Brunel, who was found dead in his cell. But
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: they're opening that up. In Brazil, they just sentenced their
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: former president for his efforts to overthrow the government and
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: illegally keep power. South Korea impeached a president and sentenced
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: him to life in jail for insurrection. This week, Britain
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: arrested a prince and in America we re elect the
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: convicted felon and sex offender who had cops beaten for
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: a lie. And we call that strength. And Trump sighed
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: the Epstein Files Transparency Act into law. They were supposed
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: to release everything by December nineteenth. They've broken the law
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: every day since. My question is in the UK they
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: can do this. What institutional difference has allowed that process
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: to move forward?
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: There?
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: Is it just that Pam Bondi's not in charge in
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: the UK?
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: Well, you know, I think that the systems that we
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: have are often compared in a way that we teach
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: in Civics that turns out to be wrong.
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: The Civics one on one version of it.
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: The Civics version is America is a democracy and Britain
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: is a monarchy and in democracy, no one is above
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: the law.
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: We're all equal. And monarchy, the king is above the law.
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: And here's the reality, and it goes back to the
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: founding of the United States.
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: We've always had.
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: Two views about Britain. One the view that you and
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: I hold and that many Americans. I think most Americans hold,
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: which is exactly that that no person is supposed to
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: be above the law, not even a president. And we've
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: had cases, including ones that connect to what I was
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: talking about before US versus Nixon eight to zero, saying
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: a president doesn't have immunity from a criminal subpoena, that
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: they can be investigated the same as everyone else. But
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: there also is a very different understanding of America, and
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: it's one that goes back to John Adams, who thought
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: that the British king was too limited in his power
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: and that democracy had gotten too vast, and that we
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: needed to increase the power of a president beyond the
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: power of a British king. That might sound wild, but
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: I document that in the presidents and the people. We've
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: talked about it here, and with the immunity case, we've
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: just doubled down on that authoritarian, monarchical idea of the constitution.
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: And so here's the result.
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: And you know, your your analysis gets it perfectly that
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: in the rest of the world, where they have functioning democracies,
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: you see indictments of a former prime minister, right, a
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: former prince.
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: I love that line. By the way, John, I'm still
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: laughing about it.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: The oh the arrestee formerly noticed Prince.
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: I was up late on that one.
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: It's just too good. And I'm glad you admitted you
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: didn't just come up with it because that would be
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: too brilliant. You had you had to have time for
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: that one.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: But you know what one of the survivors, marie Ja
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: k Shartuni said, if only DOJ acted as decisively. It
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: took British police less than three weeks from the release
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: of the latest tranch of Epstein files to arrest Andrew,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: making Pambondi and Cash Hotel look increasingly inept. And she's right.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: This thing was, this thing was never about one predator.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: It's about access of influence and money in this aristocratic
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: ecosystem where power or proximity to power or was the currency,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: and you're allowed to rape children.
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: Let me just double down on my point, right, because
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: I think partly it's the immunity story, and Trump's immunity
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: is the opposite of the democratic idea that no person
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: is above the law. But the other thing in our
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: system that is a real weakness is that the attorney general.
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: And this is actually the origin story of the idea
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: of the unitary executive. The founder is actually debated should
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: the attorney general be independently elected? In New York for instance,
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: Letitia James, the attorney general is independently elected and doesn't
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: work for the governor, doesn't work for Hoclo. And you
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: know that has benefits of independence that you can investigate,
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: for instance, criminality within the executive branch. In our national system,
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: the federal government, we don't have that situation. We have
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: an attorney general who works for the president, and that
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: you know, good president. The president would say, hey, I
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: don't want to have contact. You heard during Obama the
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: attorney general was worried even about conversations on a ttarm
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: with Obama. Oh yeah, Now contrast that to what the
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: abuse right now? And you heard Preeparara talk about how
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: he saw things that way. Don't even take the phone call.
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: That was part of his thought process But what this
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: president has done is blown through those norms and shown
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: the weakness of the system by essentially ordering the Attorney
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: General not to look into the crimes of the century,
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: the vast crimes that are documented in these files.
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: And that's what we've got here.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: Anyone who helped bring girls or women across state lines
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: or to Epstein's private island could be charged with trafficking.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Anyone who abused these underage children could still face charges
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: of sexual assault or soliciting prostitution, which is what Epstein
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: got nabbed for the last time. And this Department of
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Justice is investigating zero of the criminals cited in the files.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: They've named the victims and taken away their privacy, but
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: they are protecting the guilty. They want you to believe, Corey,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: this was a child sex trafficking ring with no actual clients.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: We are witnessing a shift in democracies where some nations
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: are enforcing a lead accountability and the United States is
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: choosing not to. I don't think this story is going
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: away before midterm time, Professor to.
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: You, no, and I think it should go away as
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: we defeat the Republican Party in Congress, and this president
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: we're going to talk to Mike Pesco, who's a journalist
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: and neutral. I'm not neutral at the Democracy and I
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: don't mind saying it. And we're not on an FCC
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: airwave so that we'll use our freedom.
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: But I will say that's not enough.
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: What we really need when it comes to this issue
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: that we need to talk much more about lead accountability.
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: And that's really what you see in the Epstein files
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: is a grotesque and unaccountable elite. We need to have
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: legislation that ensures that this isn't going to continue to happen,
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: and that holds the Attorney general, that holds the president
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: to account. One thing we need, and I've said this
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: many times, is an independent prosecutor that can look into
• 25:59
  Speaker 4: this doing by the executive branch without being fired by
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: the person at the top, by the p Yeah.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: I think Democrats who run on a special independent prosecutor
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: just for Epstein files alone are the Democrats who are
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: going to clean up with fundraising. And you know, we
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: shouldn't need a special prosecutor for this because we're supposed
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: to have separation of powers. Good God, professor, you beat
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: this intem me. You look at the tariffs, you look
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: at the judicial defiance, you look at the blocked reports.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: We are in a separation of powers crisis right now.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Because Mike Johnson is not the Speaker of the House.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: He appears to be Donald Trump's human diaper, holding in
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: a lot of crap for this guy before he hit
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: the break really quick, Corey, What should Americans watch most
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: closely in the next six months.
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: Well, I think the question of separation of powers.
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: We've talked about that in relation to the Supreme Court,
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: which is pushing back against Trump's illegal usurpation of Congress's power.
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: Now the question is is Congress is also going to
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: push back against the usurpation of its power, including its
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: powers of investigation and oversight over agencies like ICE. And
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: of course, the real thing to watch for as the
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: midterms heat up is are there candidates out there that
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: are really taking a stand and saying we're going to
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: impeach this president. We pushed Senator Whitehouse Representative lou on
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: that question. They didn't fully come on board with what
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: we were saying, but they indicated to me that that
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: is on the agenda, and I think we need to
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: see an impeachment of this president at this point.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: Oh, we need to see a lot of them. Come on, Democrats,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: start doing another article every week, Please fund raise off it.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: You know what I think. I think Democrats need to
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: do what the Republicans did with their doomed, suicidal repeal
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: Obamacare votes. We laughed at them, but they were saying,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: this is our messaging, and they fund raised off of it,
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: and they were consistent. They were trying to take healthcare
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: away from poor people because they're evil, but they were
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: consistent in doing it and it wasn't the folly that
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: we thought it was. So I say, start loading up.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: Just have different articles every week until something sticks. I
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: know we have to hit a break that Mike Pesca
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: is waiting in the wings. We'll be back in just
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: a moment with the Oath and the Office.
• 28:07
  Speaker 6: Here's what you've been missing on the Stephanie Miller Happy
• 28:10
  Speaker 6: Hour podcast.
• 28:11
  Speaker 7: I had to bail out at ten thirty. I was like,
• 28:13
  Speaker 7: I can't deal with this anymore. I'm having a blast,
• 28:15
  Speaker 7: but this is too much. Donald all in one big
• 28:17
  Speaker 7: chunk with his refrigerator magnet speech of fining, and it's
• 28:21
  Speaker 7: like every five seconds he's got to go back to immigration,
• 28:24
  Speaker 7: and it's just the copy and paste structure of the
• 28:27
  Speaker 7: whole thing.
• 28:27
  Speaker 6: It's just gotta beech sassified his torture under the HAG
• 28:31
  Speaker 6: or something. I yeah, other people stronger than I. Someone
• 28:36
  Speaker 6: posted my favorite part of the State of the Union
• 28:38
  Speaker 6: when he said they got two point four million people
• 28:40
  Speaker 6: off food stamps, but didn't mention it's because they cut
• 28:42
  Speaker 6: them off.
• 28:43
  Speaker 8: Oh yeah, yes.
• 28:45
  Speaker 6: Seeing an anchor, Abby Phillips said, Trump is once again
• 28:47
  Speaker 6: falsely claiming there's rampant voter fraud, but even his administration
• 28:51
  Speaker 6: has failed to find any evidence of that. Subscribe to
• 28:54
  Speaker 6: the Stephanie Miller Happy Hour podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stephanie
• 28:57
  Speaker 6: Miller dot com, or wherever you get your favorite pod guests.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Oath on the Office. I'm John Fiegel,
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: sang Professor Bretschneider. I am very excited about this guest.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: I am a longtime fan of his podcasting prowess, and
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: we've also lived kind of parallel lives in the past.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: Two tell the kids who's coming up.
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: It's a thrill to invite Mike Pesca. And there was,
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: of course a Long Island reunion between the two of you,
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: both from Long Island Mike Pesca is an award winning journalist.
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: He's the host of the longest running daily news podcast,
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: which of course is called The Gist. Was my honor
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: to be on The Gist and to talk about the
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: presidents and the people with him soon after it came out,
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: and I'm also happy to announce that he's the brand
• 29:46
  Speaker 4: new host of the award nominated podcast how To. So,
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: Mike Pesco, Welcome to the Oath in the Office. It's
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: a pleasure to have you.
• 29:54
  Speaker 8: Oh thanks for having me. I know that one of
• 29:56
  Speaker 8: you is from Suffolk County and I'm from Nasau County,
• 29:58
  Speaker 8: so we're gonna have to get over that during this interview.
• 30:01
  Speaker 8: That is a big barrier between the two counties of
• 30:05
  Speaker 8: Long Island. But I'm sure by the end we'll be
• 30:08
  Speaker 8: able to find common ground, maybe in farming down.
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: And I hate to pull out my trump cart, whige
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: is that I'm from Queen's base side.
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: So oh no, it's another.
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: It does right, that's right, technically it is Long Island.
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: So Mike, I mean, we love to jump right in
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: and ask you a question.
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: With your journalism.
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: One thing that we're talking a lot about on the
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: Oath in the office is the various ways that this
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: administration is trying to shut down the opposition. And some
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: of that, of course, is being done through criminal indictments
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: and political opponents, but we're also focused on the way
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: that this administration's use the FCC as a kind of
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: weapon threatening opponents late night. So I would like to
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: ask you just your thoughts about what's happening. And one
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: of the themes we're also talking a lot about that
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: your thoughts on is how can journalists respond and fight back?
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: How can comedians and those in entertainment.
• 31:07
  Speaker 8: Comedians, I think, maybe have the easiest assignment right make
• 31:11
  Speaker 8: the people laugh, and there are a lot of great
• 31:15
  Speaker 8: comedy clubs for that. Journalists they kind of need. I mean,
• 31:18
  Speaker 8: independent journalism is burgeoning these days, but I still think
• 31:22
  Speaker 8: it's better to have actual newspapers, if nothing else, as
• 31:25
  Speaker 8: launch pads for the future independent journalists of America. And
• 31:29
  Speaker 8: we're seeing fewer and fewer of them. And then we
• 31:32
  Speaker 8: saw huge cuts of the Washington Post, and that's pretty
• 31:34
  Speaker 8: bad for democracy because if you look at you know,
• 31:37
  Speaker 8: you'll often hear the counterpoint. We'll look at all these
• 31:39
  Speaker 8: people who are doing journalists outside the mainstream. But how
• 31:43
  Speaker 8: do you even hear about them in the first place.
• 31:46
  Speaker 8: You know, Matt Taibi was at Rolling Stone, or look
• 31:49
  Speaker 8: at who's you know, top ten in sub stack it's
• 31:52
  Speaker 8: guys who are on CNN, or if it's Jennifer Rubin
• 31:54
  Speaker 8: from the Washington Post. So without these both farm systems
• 31:58
  Speaker 8: to teach people journalism or these like I said, launch
• 32:01
  Speaker 8: pads way to get people identified. It's not a system
• 32:04
  Speaker 8: like the comedy clubs where you kind of rise up
• 32:06
  Speaker 8: and then you know, maybe you get a sick coompanybe
• 32:08
  Speaker 8: you just do a podcast and sell out an arena.
• 32:10
  Speaker 8: The whole journalism model is pretty broken. We could get
• 32:13
  Speaker 8: to the FCC. But you know, I was just wondering, like,
• 32:16
  Speaker 8: since John is a foot in both worlds, does he
• 32:18
  Speaker 8: have talked to a lot of comedians about this. I
• 32:20
  Speaker 8: also have a show called Funny. You should mention it
• 32:22
  Speaker 8: used to be that comedians were pretty sour on the
• 32:25
  Speaker 8: ways to actually get noticed, and there was a big
• 32:27
  Speaker 8: there was a big you know, the pipeline wasn't exactly open.
• 32:32
  Speaker 8: But now I think journalists have a tougher time.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: It's a good question because when I was starting out,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: you know, I was getting a lot of work doing
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: dopey TV jobs that didn't really feel right for me.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: And I always wanted to talk about politics and religion
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: as a comedian. And I'll always give Bill Mark credit.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: He was the first person to encourage me to go
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: deeper into politics and religion and alienate potential employers in
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: other realms. So, I mean, for a comedian, you have
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: to recognize that and you take it on. You know, yes,
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: you can have that superpower of talking about what's going on.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: You can travel to other rooms where just comics who
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: joke about normal stuff can't. But when you decide as
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: a comedian to take on politics, you're signing on for
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: having half the audience potentially hate you, for having most
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: of your material be dated in two weeks, and for
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: pretty much agreeing you don't ever want to be on
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: late night TV shows because the only people who ever
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: do political comedy on TV, you might notice, are people
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: who have their own TV shows. It's really tricky outside
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: of like CNN Paddles, to go on TV as a
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: comic and talk about this stuff. But that's why you're right.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think you have two feet in the
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: same world as well, because podcasting is allowing so many
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: comedians to branch out and to be funny and yet
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: talk about social issues at.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: The same time.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: And I think you set a model for it, Mike,
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: not that you're a stand up, but that you always
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: keep it entertaining first and preachy last, which is, I
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: think you know what this is about. It's not just
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: about delivering the information. It's also got to be highly listenable.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: And that's something I don't really think they teach a
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: journalism school.
• 34:05
  Speaker 8: No, the budsmen, which is it's not a gendered role.
• 34:09
  Speaker 8: This is a Swedish word. But when they had budsmen,
• 34:13
  Speaker 8: they would always weigh in on, oh, that wasn't well sourced,
• 34:17
  Speaker 8: or oh you could have given more information. They always
• 34:20
  Speaker 8: default to more and more, give more information, you know,
• 34:23
  Speaker 8: your forty five second news slot to convey facts tersely. No, no,
• 34:28
  Speaker 8: put three minutes worth of information there. But they never
• 34:31
  Speaker 8: prioritize be interesting. And I always said, you have to
• 34:34
  Speaker 8: be informative, but you also have to be interesting. Now
• 34:38
  Speaker 8: the algorithm just defines interesting in a way that I
• 34:41
  Speaker 8: think is sort of more like a meth head would
• 34:43
  Speaker 8: find things to be interesting, right, And the old way
• 34:46
  Speaker 8: of being interesting as a journalist is maybe your lead
• 34:50
  Speaker 8: graph is compelling, right, you don't start with statistics. But
• 34:53
  Speaker 8: do people even have the opportunity to consider the lead
• 34:57
  Speaker 8: graph or to consider a well craft did written piece.
• 35:00
  Speaker 8: I think not. But to Corey go back to your
• 35:04
  Speaker 8: question and Brendan Carr and the FCC, I think it's
• 35:07
  Speaker 8: important to talk about the two big forays he had
• 35:11
  Speaker 8: trying to influence the discourse and late night talk shows.
• 35:15
  Speaker 8: So a few months ago he jaw boned stations to
• 35:19
  Speaker 8: essentially intimidate them to take Jimmy Kimmel off the air
• 35:23
  Speaker 8: Jimmy Kimmel critical of Trump and a disfavored host. And
• 35:27
  Speaker 8: so he made the point, especially with the station groups
• 35:30
  Speaker 8: that are considering a merger before the federal government. Uh,
• 35:34
  Speaker 8: you might want, you know, will anyone rid me of
• 35:37
  Speaker 8: this meddlesome priest. You might not want to put that
• 35:39
  Speaker 8: wisecracker on the air. And there's a lot of case
• 35:42
  Speaker 8: law that I think you could talk about. It's very interesting,
• 35:44
  Speaker 8: you might say. One might say, well, you know, just
• 35:47
  Speaker 8: talking out loud about things is that allowed? And the
• 35:50
  Speaker 8: Supreme Court has weighed in on jaw boning as an
• 35:55
  Speaker 8: if you're a First Amendment advocate, as I am, it
• 35:58
  Speaker 8: is a violation of one's First Amendment rights to essentially
• 36:02
  Speaker 8: threaten the use of federal agencies to come in and
• 36:05
  Speaker 8: regulate without actually doing the regulation. There's a case. It's
• 36:09
  Speaker 8: very interesting because it was a New York case called
• 36:12
  Speaker 8: I Think Volo in New York where she now teaches
• 36:15
  Speaker 8: at Fordham Law School. She was a New York state administrator.
• 36:18
  Speaker 8: She was jaw boning to try to get certain companies
• 36:22
  Speaker 8: to not do business with the NRA, and the jaw
• 36:26
  Speaker 8: boning itself was deemed the federal government impermissibly overstepping its bounds.
• 36:32
  Speaker 8: And so that's what I think car was doing there.
• 36:34
  Speaker 8: But now when we come to the latest of what
• 36:37
  Speaker 8: Carr was doing and try to maybe intimidate CBS from
• 36:41
  Speaker 8: airing an interview with James tel Rico's running forward Dan Senate,
• 36:46
  Speaker 8: there's a question which is was car overstepping his bounds
• 36:52
  Speaker 8: or was he advocating for a more rigorous enforcement of
• 36:58
  Speaker 8: what is within the FC He sees ambit and purview.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: For the first time, for the first time.
• 37:04
  Speaker 8: That is true. That is true. But you know, if
• 37:07
  Speaker 8: you have laws on the books and you decide to
• 37:09
  Speaker 8: enforce them, that's allowed. If you decide to enforce them selectively,
• 37:13
  Speaker 8: that's probably not allowed, and it shouldn't be allowed. And
• 37:16
  Speaker 8: we should also note that he doesn't like what these
• 37:19
  Speaker 8: late night comics are saying, so he wants to enforce
• 37:22
  Speaker 8: the law, and he wants to enforce the equal time rule.
• 37:26
  Speaker 8: He however, does not want to enforce that with AM
• 37:29
  Speaker 8: talk radio. Wear off everyone, so we all know what's
• 37:33
  Speaker 8: going on.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: Greg Guttfeldt's guest list is safe. You're so right, I mean,
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: for so many well years, I got.
• 37:40
  Speaker 8: To say, I gotta say. And he actually pillayed a
• 37:42
  Speaker 8: senator from Nevada about this when she was like, why
• 37:45
  Speaker 8: don't you weigh in on Fox? He is correct and saying,
• 37:49
  Speaker 8: because they're not a broadcaster, I can only weigh in
• 37:51
  Speaker 8: with the broadcasters, and that is antiquated and old, but
• 37:54
  Speaker 8: that's the world we're living in. He sees himself as
• 37:57
  Speaker 8: I have a lever. I can shut up Colbert or
• 37:59
  Speaker 8: at least make his life hard, or at least convinced
• 38:02
  Speaker 8: the CBS lawyers that if he interviews tel Rico. He
• 38:05
  Speaker 8: also asked to interview Jasmine Crockett, and that might not
• 38:08
  Speaker 8: be an outrageous interpretation of what Carr was saying.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I agree with everything, except we have to
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: remember the equal time rule is the most sacred, sacred
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: of all rules to the f season, next to no
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: nipples at the Super Bowl. Oh, that equal time rule
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: is so sacred to the FCC that they never thought
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: to bring it up until last week because they don't
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: want Tallarico getting the Democratic nomination for Senate, because they're
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: terrified of all this Jesus talk. And you know you're
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: right about Kimmel the unsung hero. There was Monday Night
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: Football threatening Sinclair. Okay, you don't need us either, and
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: that's what made Sinclair back down. But what's amazing to me,
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: and I ask both of you, because your brains are
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: much bigger than mine at this point, how do we
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: distinguish between legitimate oversight and intimidation? As corporate media is
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: finally finally learning what stochastic terrorism is, we're learning this
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: new stochastic self said censorship, I mean regulatory pressure, even
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: without a formal ban or policy, can create a really
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: chilling effect. And do you think soft censorship that we're
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: seeing here with Colbert with Kimmel, is this more dangerous
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: than overt censorship precisely because it's so deniable.
• 39:17
  Speaker 8: I think that it's not, but it is dangerous. And
• 39:19
  Speaker 8: I always come back to, you know, isn't this subtle
• 39:22
  Speaker 8: racism worse than when it's out in the open. And
• 39:23
  Speaker 8: we used to say that when it was subtle, and
• 39:25
  Speaker 8: then it got really out in the open. One to
• 39:30
  Speaker 8: ten ones is seven and a half stochasticity. That is
• 39:33
  Speaker 8: a really interesting frame to put on this. I do
• 39:36
  Speaker 8: think it's actually more apt than the terrorism thing, because
• 39:39
  Speaker 8: what it means is that it's just iterative and little
• 39:41
  Speaker 8: by little, drip by drip, you get the effect that
• 39:44
  Speaker 8: you want. And there is a censorship or there is
• 39:47
  Speaker 8: a shutting down of speech that the FCC is engaged in.
• 39:52
  Speaker 8: They have an interesting theory of the case, which is
• 39:54
  Speaker 8: that car will say I can't well, he won't say
• 39:58
  Speaker 8: I can't regulate, but he knows it's very hard for
• 40:00
  Speaker 8: him to regulate the networks. And when people think of ABC,
• 40:03
  Speaker 8: they think of Kimmel or Monday Night Football, and they
• 40:05
  Speaker 8: think of CBS, they think of Colbert. But the networks
• 40:08
  Speaker 8: aren't licensed by the federal government. The broadcasters are. So
• 40:12
  Speaker 8: he looks at the end users and he knows that
• 40:15
  Speaker 8: he could use that lever there. I do wonder, however,
• 40:20
  Speaker 8: if his I use this phrase before, but I'll set again,
• 40:22
  Speaker 8: if his theory of the case was so detailed that
• 40:26
  Speaker 8: he literally or the Trump administration literally thinks that they
• 40:31
  Speaker 8: want tall Rico not to be the nominee. They'd rather
• 40:35
  Speaker 8: have Jasmine Crocket because maybe that's a sophisticated analysis of
• 40:40
  Speaker 8: who is best to win that Texas race. Also, but well,
• 40:44
  Speaker 8: I can't see Trump weighing in to help Jasmine Crocket.
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: Exactly exactly about it?
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, because they would think they think the people
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: of Texas would never go for her. They think that
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: tall Rico is so riskier because they he's fluent in
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: Jesus and they don't want to hear that at all.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: And b they assume that Texas is so bigoted that
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: a black woman in the Senate would be impossible, whereas
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: they're both great and she could be the most transformative
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: Texas politicians and San Richard's professor.
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: Go ahead, I'm sorry, tot.
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: Y'all, No, not at all.
• 41:13
  Speaker 4: I was going to ask Mike to bring it back
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: to your original point about journalism and sort of the
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: way that it's falling apart. I mean, even if these
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: things that Brendan Carr turns out to do are illegal,
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: I mean, is there a worry the way that you're
• 41:26
  Speaker 4: looking at the landscape, that people are getting intimidated that
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: you're not seeing journalists stand up. I'm thinking of Barry
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: Weiss and CBS and a lot of the traditional ways
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: the journalists came up rather than being a CBS, for instance,
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: being a bastion of independent journalism and fact checking. It
• 41:42
  Speaker 4: looks like it's anything. But I mean, are they winning
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: in that sense even if what they're doing is illegal
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: and ultimately they have to back down.
• 41:50
  Speaker 8: Well, I know you guys are open to debate and
• 41:51
  Speaker 8: counter opinion, so I'm going to lay this on you.
• 41:54
  Speaker 8: I wrote a piece called why is no One Nice?
• 41:55
  Speaker 8: To Barry Weiss at Rhyme, so I went with the
• 41:58
  Speaker 8: headline it was that it is true there were a
• 42:02
  Speaker 8: couple of high profile incidents that were alleged to have
• 42:05
  Speaker 8: been some example of interceding to help Trump or to
• 42:09
  Speaker 8: help the Trump agenda. However, I talked about those incidents.
• 42:13
  Speaker 8: One was she got in there. She told CBS's sixty
• 42:17
  Speaker 8: Minutes that a couple of hours or not even twenty
• 42:20
  Speaker 8: four hours before air that she had problems with a
• 42:23
  Speaker 8: piece on Seacott Prison and Sharon Alfonsi, who is the
• 42:26
  Speaker 8: reporter on that piece, Yeah, it didn't go public, but
• 42:29
  Speaker 8: wrote a widely circulated memo that is a sophisticated person
• 42:32
  Speaker 8: in the news she knew would go public and she
• 42:34
  Speaker 8: used the word censorship. I do not think it was censorship.
• 42:37
  Speaker 8: I made the case that but for the fact that
• 42:40
  Speaker 8: it was so close to airtime that it had the
• 42:42
  Speaker 8: effect of not spiking the piece, and that's an important distinction,
• 42:45
  Speaker 8: but holding the piece, many of the edits were legitimate,
• 42:49
  Speaker 8: and then the piece that did air a few weeks
• 42:51
  Speaker 8: later was unchanged the actual body of the piece. But
• 42:55
  Speaker 8: there was a long addendum afterwards that I really thought
• 42:58
  Speaker 8: as a news consumer gave worthy and excellent information, Like
• 43:02
  Speaker 8: there was a question about if tattoos would have warranted
• 43:06
  Speaker 8: inclusion in a prison, and during the piece they talked
• 43:09
  Speaker 8: about this. One guy's tattoos were the Jumpman logo from
• 43:14
  Speaker 8: Michael Jordan, and he didn't have any tattoos that would
• 43:16
  Speaker 8: you know, flag an investigator. However, the guy did have
• 43:19
  Speaker 8: a swastika tattoo and he had a sixty six six
• 43:22
  Speaker 8: tattoo and then and then sixty minutes. I think they
• 43:25
  Speaker 8: noted that.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: That's all you need, really, that's that's all you need
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: to pay somebody in a goolag.
• 43:29
  Speaker 8: No, it's wrong. You're right, there's absolutely no justification for that.
• 43:33
  Speaker 8: But as an explanation, I would just say, if you
• 43:35
  Speaker 8: want to strengthen and if you want to make a
• 43:38
  Speaker 8: piece as air tight as possible, you even include the
• 43:42
  Speaker 8: portions that don't open you up for critique on the
• 43:45
  Speaker 8: back end. So I would say during the piece they
• 43:47
  Speaker 8: could have talked about the swastika as a he did
• 43:51
  Speaker 8: have this on him, however, and he doesn't even know
• 43:53
  Speaker 8: what it is, and in many cultures it doesn't have
• 43:55
  Speaker 8: the valance that of Nazism. Okay, So there's a long
• 43:58
  Speaker 8: way of saying that what Barrywise did or what CBS
• 44:01
  Speaker 8: did in that incident was I think justifiable in terms
• 44:05
  Speaker 8: of the substance of the piece. The timing was rather bad.
• 44:09
  Speaker 8: Then there is the bigger question of you know, is
• 44:11
  Speaker 8: she trying to turn CBS into some Trump water carrying network.
• 44:17
  Speaker 8: And there are a couple of high profile examples, including
• 44:19
  Speaker 8: Tony Dikoppo, the new anchorman saying we salute you, Marco Rubio,
• 44:23
  Speaker 8: and you don't want an anchorman saying that. However, if
• 44:27
  Speaker 8: I my sister was saying this to me, and I said, okay,
• 44:30
  Speaker 8: how can I falsify that thesis?
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 44:34
  Speaker 8: Because if the thesis is true, it has to be falsified.
• 44:36
  Speaker 8: What other evidence might I be able to introduce such
• 44:39
  Speaker 8: that you would say, ah, it's not a water carrying network.
• 44:42
  Speaker 8: What if I pointed to one hundred or two hundred
• 44:46
  Speaker 8: incidents of their anchor people asking extremely tough questions to
• 44:51
  Speaker 8: and of the Trump administration since Weiss took over, and
• 44:54
  Speaker 8: that has happened, and they gave They did one of
• 44:57
  Speaker 8: the best interviews with Homan right after the the Ice shooting,
• 45:00
  Speaker 8: and Margaret Brennan has been great on Face the Nation
• 45:05
  Speaker 8: and other sixty minute pieces have absolutely filaid the Trump administration.
• 45:09
  Speaker 8: So if you watch what people say about CBS, it's
• 45:15
  Speaker 8: I think, become a pile on. If you actually watch CBS,
• 45:19
  Speaker 8: and there's too much time to watch everything, I do
• 45:21
  Speaker 8: think that it would be indistinguishable to most viewers. If
• 45:26
  Speaker 8: you put up the CBS Evening News and ABC World
• 45:29
  Speaker 8: News Tonight and Tom Yamas's News, you wouldn't be able
• 45:32
  Speaker 8: to say which one's the supposedly pro Trump one I
• 45:35
  Speaker 8: do not believe.
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I guess to push back, one thought
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: might be that all the networks are to some degree
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: not doing the kind of reporting that you would want
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: to see when you have an assault on civil liberties,
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: including what we started with. I mean, here's just a
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: follow up question about WIS in particular, And one piece
• 45:52
  Speaker 4: of reporting suggested that she was really criticizing the show
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: for not interviewing Steven Miller and giving him his full due.
• 45:58
  Speaker 4: And I guess in that case it was a normal
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: official I might see the point. But Stephen Miller, of course,
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: is known for lying, for for just you know, acting
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: in a way that words don't seem to connect to
• 46:10
  Speaker 4: truth necessarily, and I guess I wonder about that.
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: Also.
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: The other worry was, you know, the sort of affection
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: that she showed for Trump in person at one point.
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: And so I mean, to any of those concern you,
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: and also more broadly, I mean, what about the thought that, yes,
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: they might not be that different than the other network players,
• 46:28
  Speaker 4: but maybe we're in trouble in that corporate media more
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: generally just isn't.
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: You know, And it's not.
• 46:33
  Speaker 4: It's not I don't think disconnected from ourther discussion, because
• 46:36
  Speaker 4: there is a chilling effect going on when you see
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: Trump threatening his critics as he has across the board.
• 46:42
  Speaker 8: Yeah, I have no I have no problem with purveyor
• 46:45
  Speaker 8: of news trying to establish decent relationships with newsmakers. This
• 46:50
  Speaker 8: happens all the time. It happened when there was this
• 46:54
  Speaker 8: kerfuffle when the host of Morning Joe went down to
• 46:57
  Speaker 8: Lamara Lago and I think a lot of people talked
• 47:00
  Speaker 8: about bending the knee, and I don't know what actually
• 47:02
  Speaker 8: happened there, but this is just a tried and true
• 47:05
  Speaker 8: tactic of you talk to the people you're going to
• 47:08
  Speaker 8: be reporting on and say, and Bill Maher too, oh yeah,
• 47:13
  Speaker 8: people filayed Bill Maher for taking that meeting, and Bill
• 47:17
  Speaker 8: Maher has a quasi news show. It's what you do
• 47:21
  Speaker 8: with the actual coverage, not the optics of if you're
• 47:24
  Speaker 8: nice or not or seemingly nice or kiss someone on
• 47:27
  Speaker 8: the cheek. You know. Then again, many of us might say,
• 47:31
  Speaker 8: I think my lips might melt off if I tried
• 47:33
  Speaker 8: to kiss him, But then again, don't take the job
• 47:36
  Speaker 8: of running a news organization, because that's what a news
• 47:39
  Speaker 8: organization has to do and to convince the people that
• 47:42
  Speaker 8: you're reporting on that you're going to be fair. I
• 47:44
  Speaker 8: think is fine now as far as getting a reference
• 47:46
  Speaker 8: or a quote from Stephen Miller, if you can't do that,
• 47:49
  Speaker 8: the piece would probably be better if you get one
• 47:51
  Speaker 8: of his classic uh bit old flecked effectives. I don't
• 47:56
  Speaker 8: know else, but I think she also tried to get
• 47:59
  Speaker 8: home in, you know, and she had or that organization
• 48:01
  Speaker 8: has shown that it has a decent in with Homan
• 48:03
  Speaker 8: because he was on the evening news right after the killing,
• 48:08
  Speaker 8: the second killing in Minnesota. So I'm saying it's worth
• 48:11
  Speaker 8: a try. It's probably wasn't worth a try at that
• 48:13
  Speaker 8: last moment. But Sharon Alfonsi said, if we allow the
• 48:17
  Speaker 8: administration to have the last say in this and they
• 48:20
  Speaker 8: could spike a piece, then we're not engaging a journal.
• 48:24
  Speaker 8: That is true, that's not what happened.
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: But the sixty minute piece had been legally vetted and
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: finalized for broadcast.
• 48:31
  Speaker 8: Wet isn't the same right legal? I mean, I've had
• 48:34
  Speaker 8: many pieces you probably have the equivalent of yes, this passes, muster,
• 48:39
  Speaker 8: we won't get sued. It doesn't mean that you know
• 48:41
  Speaker 8: it wasn't that best piece.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: It can be, right, But I think Sharon Alfonsi's whole
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: critique was that this was political. This wasn't editorial. This
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: was because it was yielding to political pressure because Trump
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: was publicly complaining about sixty minutes and now Anderson Cooper
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: apparently has more free time on his hands to be
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: a dad. I mean, seemed to scream to be connected.
• 49:02
  Speaker 8: Right, they seem to be. I'm not saying you're wrong,
• 49:04
  Speaker 8: And there's certainly there's something going on politically in that
• 49:08
  Speaker 8: Paramount and sky Dance do seek approval a merger if
• 49:12
  Speaker 8: that happens. If I was al Phonsie, I'd be unbelievably upset.
• 49:17
  Speaker 8: She did the piece in the way that sixty minutes,
• 49:19
  Speaker 8: which is the most highly regarded broadcast news program out there,
• 49:24
  Speaker 8: they have like a murder room of a murder board,
• 49:28
  Speaker 8: which is a phrase where people ask you the toughest questions,
• 49:32
  Speaker 8: and the pieces past that, and the regular process of
• 49:36
  Speaker 8: the sixty minutes piece, which is like the gold standard
• 49:39
  Speaker 8: had been passed. So she doesn't want to have to
• 49:41
  Speaker 8: fly back from Texas and redo a piece, and she
• 49:44
  Speaker 8: got upset, and it's understandable and she made allegations like censorship,
• 49:49
  Speaker 8: and she said that it seems political. I can understand
• 49:53
  Speaker 8: her being upset about that. I don't think the process
• 49:55
  Speaker 8: was great, but that doesn't necessarily mean it was political.
• 50:00
  Speaker 8: Many other explanations for what it could have been. Then again,
• 50:03
  Speaker 8: I can't disprove that there wasn't some political motivation, and
• 50:07
  Speaker 8: it could be broader, like here's the politics of it
• 50:10
  Speaker 8: where redefining CBS as something different from what it had been,
• 50:15
  Speaker 8: and everyone at CBS will say something like, well, that's
• 50:18
  Speaker 8: horrible because what CBS had been is and they'll reach
• 50:21
  Speaker 8: for Morrow and harvest of fame and the CBS has done.
• 50:26
  Speaker 8: But if you look at the ratings, what CBS is
• 50:28
  Speaker 8: is the last place network and if you don't and
• 50:32
  Speaker 8: kind of buy a lot in a lot of its news.
• 50:35
  Speaker 8: And I'll also add that sixty minutes is still a
• 50:37
  Speaker 8: highly rated news show after football, and when it doesn't
• 50:42
  Speaker 8: air after an NFL game with its lead in, it's
• 50:44
  Speaker 8: a mediocre news show. It doesn't even do as well
• 50:47
  Speaker 8: as forty eight, not mediocre in quality, but if it's watched.
• 50:50
  Speaker 8: And so these broadcast networks want viewers, and they want money,
• 50:56
  Speaker 8: and they want to maybe take a few more Hail
• 50:59
  Speaker 8: Mary's than the people within the CBS who think that
• 51:01
  Speaker 8: they're the guardians of this great institution that cannot fail.
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: And I might just pull back a little bit to
• 51:07
  Speaker 4: the big picture and ask, and you know, this is
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: a really interesting discussion. You're giving a defense of journalism
• 51:13
  Speaker 4: as it's you know, traditionally practiced in a normal time.
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: I would say absolutely, But I guess I.
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: Think what makes this moment different is that the president
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: of the United States is in an all out attack
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: on free speech and on our institutions of democracy. And
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: so my question to you, you know, thinking about all
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: these journalistic principles, is whether or not the sort of
• 51:34
  Speaker 4: traditional balance and neutrality that we might associate with journalism
• 51:38
  Speaker 4: has to shift a little bit. Maybe you think it doesn't,
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: But even we had Jake Tapper a few weeks ago,
• 51:43
  Speaker 4: and I was surprised that by the end of the
• 51:44
  Speaker 4: discussion he really just came out and said, yes, it's
• 51:47
  Speaker 4: not a two sides moment, you know, even for me,
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: even for traditional journalism, because when you have an attack
• 51:53
  Speaker 4: on democracy, you have to cover it as such. So
• 51:56
  Speaker 4: I guess that's my I don't know if it's a
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: pushback as we abstract from the Barry Weiss's case and
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: pull back from that specific example.
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: But I mean, what do you think.
• 52:04
  Speaker 4: My sense is that it really isn't a moment in
• 52:07
  Speaker 4: which we hear equally from two sides, or we consider
• 52:11
  Speaker 4: Steven Miller's view alongside its opposite, that we have to
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: do a kind of coverage of the moment that understands
• 52:18
  Speaker 4: the historical place that we're in, which is that democracy
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: is fragile and that all the institutions that we've for
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: a very long time taken for granted are under attack.
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: As you said quite rightly, there was a lot.
• 52:29
  Speaker 4: Of talk in previous decades about subtle forms of racism,
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: and now white supremacy is so overt. You know, we're
• 52:36
  Speaker 4: facing a different kind of threat, different magnitude. And I
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: guess I think that too about the president. So just
• 52:41
  Speaker 4: invite you to react to that.
• 52:43
  Speaker 8: Yeah, I most identify with Marty Baron, who was then
• 52:45
  Speaker 8: editing the Washington Post, and there was this discussion in
• 52:47
  Speaker 8: the newsroom right after Trump was elected the first time,
• 52:50
  Speaker 8: and what Baron said was, we don't go to war,
• 52:53
  Speaker 8: we go to work. That's what I think you should do.
• 52:55
  Speaker 8: You shouldn't issue fairness, you shouldn't issue I am still
• 52:59
  Speaker 8: a believer the ideal of objectivity, not that it could
• 53:02
  Speaker 8: always or maybe even ever be achieved, but this notion
• 53:06
  Speaker 8: in journalism circles of there's no such thing as objectivity,
• 53:09
  Speaker 8: so let's just pre define the truth and report from there.
• 53:11
  Speaker 8: I do not think that that is the best way
• 53:14
  Speaker 8: to actually arrive at the truth. So, yeah, Jake's absolutely right,
• 53:18
  Speaker 8: there's no two sides to Hey, maybe the January sixth
• 53:21
  Speaker 8: rioters had some really good points or shit on Nancy
• 53:27
  Speaker 8: Pelosi's desk in a really good way for their balance. Right,
• 53:30
  Speaker 8: there's no way, there's no way to do that, and
• 53:32
  Speaker 8: there are so many stories like that. But when you can,
• 53:35
  Speaker 8: and I don't think the Seacup prison is, you know,
• 53:38
  Speaker 8: some example that we have to orient ourselves around. You
• 53:41
  Speaker 8: should consider the sides, the accurate sides of an issue,
• 53:46
  Speaker 8: not come predetermined. There are some things, there are some
• 53:50
  Speaker 8: points that even the Trump administration makes correctly. And then
• 53:54
  Speaker 8: I think your discernment or a journalist's discernment doesn't even
• 53:58
  Speaker 8: necessarily come from let's give Trump his due or the
• 54:02
  Speaker 8: Trump faction there full due. It's more like of the
• 54:07
  Speaker 8: people correctly who are upset or up in arms about
• 54:10
  Speaker 8: what Trump is doing. What is the best and most
• 54:13
  Speaker 8: rational tone or analysis, right? So I'm just thinking of
• 54:16
  Speaker 8: this recent Supreme Court case, and beforehand there was a
• 54:20
  Speaker 8: lot of analysis saying the Supreme Court is illegitimate and
• 54:23
  Speaker 8: we're in a constitutional crisis. So you can report on
• 54:27
  Speaker 8: it like that. You could report on it as if
• 54:29
  Speaker 8: that's your assumption, or you can say, well, what's a
• 54:32
  Speaker 8: constitutional crisis. Let's define what that is. What are the
• 54:34
  Speaker 8: costs of calling the Supreme Court illegitimate? If the Supreme
• 54:38
  Speaker 8: Court then comes and strikes down something like the tariffs,
• 54:41
  Speaker 8: if we already define them as illegitimate, doesn't that give
• 54:45
  Speaker 8: Trump a lot of room in leeway to act as
• 54:48
  Speaker 8: if that ruling was illegitimate. So I think that that
• 54:51
  Speaker 8: is where it's not both sides, but it's a full
• 54:55
  Speaker 8: analysis and a fair analysis of different ways of interpreting
• 55:00
  Speaker 8: all the phenomena that's going on in our society.
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: I just want to say The New York Times has
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: a great series that's starting about how we need to
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: listen to the economic concerns of people who defecate On
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi's desk, I highly recommend it.
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: Mike, You've been so jars.
• 55:14
  Speaker 8: With Midwestern diners and they've difficult.
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: We found so many men who deficated in the Capitol
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: that day, and we're listening to them.
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: You're so generous, We're.
• 55:22
  Speaker 8: Able to put it in little boxes and ship it
• 55:24
  Speaker 8: into that company where we could find out if they
• 55:27
  Speaker 8: have bowel disease.
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: I wanted to just ask you one last question, if
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: I can drag you here for a little longer. Your
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: new show How To Your work is really known for
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: engaging people you disagree with to an admirable extent, and
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: I'm just curious on how to level What have you
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: learned about arguing without dehumanizing?
• 55:46
  Speaker 8: Well, one of the last hosts of that show is
• 55:48
  Speaker 8: Amanda Ripley. She wrote the best book on this about
• 55:52
  Speaker 8: how we spin out into conflict that we can't pull
• 55:56
  Speaker 8: back from. And so what I try to do, what
• 55:58
  Speaker 8: I said to you is some like if I were
• 56:02
  Speaker 8: to falsify that, and as people who believe in the
• 56:05
  Speaker 8: enlightenment and the ability of to falsify a thesis, that
• 56:07
  Speaker 8: struck you as oh yes, yes, for something to be true,
• 56:10
  Speaker 8: that is it something we have to engage with. And
• 56:12
  Speaker 8: then I said something like, might I present to you
• 56:15
  Speaker 8: some counter ideas? And then you know, this probably tickled
• 56:19
  Speaker 8: your self conception of men who are open minded. So
• 56:24
  Speaker 8: that was I don't know if it's a tactic. I
• 56:25
  Speaker 8: fell into it quite logically, but that's the sort of
• 56:28
  Speaker 8: thing that I try to do when disagreeing and coming
• 56:31
  Speaker 8: out with coming out with a blunderbuss of counter statistics.
• 56:36
  Speaker 8: It actually it does get the most engagement in our
• 56:39
  Speaker 8: algorithmic world. And all these headlines like Fugel saying owns pesca.
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: Oh, that's the title of our show. How did you know?
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: Oh, please spell it with a pe Corey, please spell
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: owned with a piece so I could pay her the millennials.
• 56:55
  Speaker 9: Please, my god, you really guessed it the opponent of
• 57:00
  Speaker 9: Oh my god, that'll find my friends who like the
• 57:05
  Speaker 9: Confederacy really like the concept of owning people.
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: Wow, Mike, what a pleasure. Thank you so much for
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: joining us today.
• 57:12
  Speaker 8: My pleasure. Thank you guys so much for having me.
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: Mike.
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: What is the best way to follow you and to
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: keep up with your brilliance all the time?
• 57:18
  Speaker 8: You know, my show is the Gist. It's on every day,
• 57:20
  Speaker 8: and then I have the show how to so the
• 57:23
  Speaker 8: recent one is how to emigrate to the Netherlands as
• 57:26
  Speaker 8: a throat ble because Dan Savage as that question, he's
• 57:29
  Speaker 8: actually more than a throuble, it's polyamorous. So you can
• 57:33
  Speaker 8: check out those two shows wherever you get your podcasts,
• 57:35
  Speaker 8: or go to Mike Pesca dot.
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: Com right on. Thank you so much, thank you.
• 57:40
  Speaker 4: Thanks so much, Mike, what a pleasure to have you
• 57:42
  Speaker 4: on the opening the office.
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: Much gratitude to Mike Pesca, Corey, great booking. Thank you
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: so much. You get the best guests as professor, what's
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: the what's the best way for our listeners to keep
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: up with your brilliance the other six days of the week.
• 57:54
  Speaker 4: Well, you can find me on Blue Sky as Democracy
• 57:57
  Speaker 4: prof of course you can review us wherever you get
• 58:00
  Speaker 4: your podcasts. We're on Spotify, we're on Apple. We're way
• 58:04
  Speaker 4: beyond five hundred and thirty now and almost all five stars.
• 58:07
  Speaker 4: So thanks for that, and you know, tell your friends,
• 58:09
  Speaker 4: send an email let them know what a great discussion
• 58:12
  Speaker 4: we had today, including the great discussion about journalism with
• 58:16
  Speaker 4: Mike Pesca following up on other discussions, and of course
• 58:19
  Speaker 4: good to have people that we don't always agree with
• 58:22
  Speaker 4: right on.
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you, Professor. You guys can hear me on
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: Sirius XM five nights a week on Channel one twenty seven.
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: Corey joins me live every Monday, and we do take
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: your calls.
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: I got a substack.
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: My book is Separation of Church and Hate, and Professor,
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: thank you so much.
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: Once again for another great episode.
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: We'll see you guys next time on The Oaths and
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: the Office.