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- [00:00]
Sam Stein
Hey, guys, it's me, Sam Stein, managing editor at the book, and I'm joined by Andrew Egger, who is the author of Morning Shots. We are here to talk about habeas corpus. Or frankly, can you define habeas corpus? And are you a cabinet official who can define the term habeas corpus? Because apparently there's one cabinet official who has no idea what it is, and she's in a pretty influential position. That's the tease. Before we get to the substance, subscribe to the feedback. We appreciate all the subscriptions like our content, share with family and friends. It's educational, informative. It's good for the brain. All right, Andrew, let's talk shop. Kristi Noem, who is our Secretary of Homeland Security, had a little trouble today defining habeas corpus during a budget hearing in the Senate. This is Senator Maggie Hassan. Let's roll the tape.
- [00:50]
Maggie Hassan
So, Secretary Noem, what is habeas corpus? Well, habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country. Let me stop, ma' am. Habeas corpus. Excuse me. That's incorrect, President. Habeas corpus. Excuse me. Habeas corpus is the legal principle that requires that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people. If not for that protection, the government could simply arrest people, including American citizens, and hold them indefinitely for no reason reason. Habeas corpus is the foundational right that separates free societies like America from police states like North Korea. As a senator from the live free or die state, this matters a lot to me and my constituents and to all Americans. So, Secretary Noem, do you support the core protection that habeas corpus provides? That the government must provide a public reason in order to detain and imprison someone? Yet I support habeas corpus. I also recognize that the President of the United States has the authority under the Constitution to decide if it should be suspended or not. It has never. Let us be clear, though. It has never been done. It has never been done without approval of Congress. Even Abraham Lincoln got retroactive approval from Congress.
- [02:09]
Sam Stein
Okay, you go first. And I'm going to read some of the headlines that Christine received for this flub. But what are your initial reactions to this?
- [02:19]
Andrew Egger
She. She sort of got sandbagged. Let's say that off the top, it's a little bit of a gotcha question in the sense that she's not expecting to be asked. Let me just say that right off the top. Okay, okay, we're done. We give her her one Thing. Don't tell me the. Don't tell me that. It's, you know. Ah, come on. She should have known. Of course she should have known. But it is, it's just funny to see it kind of happen in real time where she's like, oh, I'm gonna. I'm gonna get destroyed for this one, aren't I? And she kind of, you know, you.
- [02:42]
Sam Stein
Think she saw that.
- [02:44]
Andrew Egger
Her poker face is amazing. And this is like the thing that we see over and over again with Christi Noem is like, because there have been so many of these bizarre news cycles where, like, you know, all the interviews that she had to do after her book came out and it came out that she had, like, shot that dog, or last week, that dog.
- [03:02]
Sam Stein
Her dog.
- [03:03]
Andrew Egger
Her dog. Her dog got her dog.
- [03:06]
Sam Stein
Stray dog roaming the property. It was her dog.
- [03:09]
Andrew Egger
When Eric Swalwell, you know, ambushed her with the pictures of Kilmar Breo Garcia's tattoos was like, are these Photoshopped? This picture that, this picture that the President was holding up, is that Photoshopped? And she wouldn't look at the picture and she just, like, couldn't get off the moment. But, but the whole time, you know, she's. She's able to just kind of like, deadpan and stare straight ahead and not break. Which I guess is. Is admirable in a way. But. No, let's hear some of those headlines. It's. It was a rough moment for the.
- [03:33]
Sam Stein
Do you think, like, there's something about her that makes her uniquely targeted for sandbagging? Because this is now her showmanship at these hearings. This is twice now that this has happened to her. But I don't think it's. We can, we can just debate whether this was a sandbag. And this is, you know, if you, if you're, if you're in the act of trying to suspend the principle, you should probably know what the principle is. Anyways, headlines. I'm just gonna read a few. This is just brutal. Axios Gnome botches habeas corpus Question at Senate hearing. CNN Gnome incorrectly says habeas corpus allows Trump to remove people from this country. New York Times. Christine, um, incorrectly defines habeas corpus as the president's right to deport people. Politico Gnome defends potentially suspending habeas corpus. Flubs definition as Trump's right to remove people. Oh, and, and the Daily Beast, my alum, my, My old stomping grounds, they were a little harsh on this one. Ice Barbie, Christy. Gnome offers her own made up definition of habeas carpus. I guess the beast has to. Beast. That was, yeah, so that was, you know, I, I, I think you, you obviously should know what it means. I think the fact that it's not that she didn't know what it means, her definition of it was, like, totally revealing, too. Right? It's like, oh, yeah, it gives Trump the right to do whatever he wants, basically.
- [04:52]
Andrew Egger
Yeah, yeah, 100%. There's a reason, there is a reason why, you know, she keeps getting into these situations. And it's the combination of the fact that ultimately she's the cabinet official with whom all of the, not all, but a big chunk of the most controversial, the most kind of alarming stuff the administration is doing. The buck stops with her on this stuff. All of this, all of the deportations, all of the stuff with, you know, sending migrants to El Salvador and yanking people's protected status and, and, you know, these, these sort of misinformation campaigns against individual people who, who have been swept up in these dragnets and, you know, smearing them as terrorists and gang members and all this sort of stuff, all of that ultimately lands at her feet. So she has a lot of very difficult questions to answer. And meanwhile, she herself is, one, not particularly adept at answering these kinds of questions. And two, she's just kind of a faintly, faintly ridiculous, She's a very ridiculous figure, just in general. I mean, she's, she's among the more kind of like bombastic and just kind of like out there members of an administration that's full of bombastic and out there people with her kind of, I mean, the whole Ice Barbie thing refers to her cosplay, you know, going along on these raids, you know, carrying weapon wearing, you know, all kitted out in the, in the gear. And it's just, I mean, it's all, it's all has this sort of faintly ridiculous air to it. And, and when you combine it all, it's, it's, she's, I mean, she's a headline machine.
- [06:14]
Sam Stein
Yeah. And, you know, I think part of it is that everyone knows that this is just performative or not. I want to just be clear. It's very serious what's happening. But her testimony is performative. It's designed to never admit fault and to please Donald Trump. And so, you know, it forces her, compels her to do ridiculous things like never acknowledge that Eric Swallow staffer is holding literally a huge board in front of her or admit that the tattoos that Trump thinks are on Kilmar Abrego Garcia's knuckles, which are just obviously Photoshopped. Never admit that they're Photoshopped. And so then she gets put in these absurd positions and looks bad. So part of this, I think, is not totally her fault. It's Trump's fault because Trump demands these obsequious displays. The contrast today is with Marco Rubio, another cabinet secretary, Secretary State. He's on the Hill as well. He's talking to, I believe, the Foreign Relations Committee, and he's getting into it with Senator Chris Van Hollen, who is the one senator who actually went down to El Salvador, met with Burger Garcia. Rubio and him just had a really heated exchange. He went on for several minutes. It took place after Van Hollen's questioning was done. Chair of the committee allowed Rubio to respond. Van Van Holland took a lot of umbrage to that because Rubio used the occasion to just go off on Van Hollen and to misrepresent a few things, including accusing Van Hollen of having margaritas with Abrego Garcia when that was set up by the Salvadorian government. Anyways, let's watch a little bit of that. And you had some interesting thoughts on the contrast between Rubio and. We can get to that at the end.
- [07:49]
Marco Rubio
And I have to tell you directly and personally that I regret voting for you for Secretary of State. I yield back.
- [07:56]
Kristi Noem
May I respond?
- [07:58]
Marco Rubio
You may.
- [07:58]
Kristi Noem
Sit. Well, first of all, your regret for voting for me confirms I'm doing a good job. Based on what I.
- [08:03]
Marco Rubio
That's just a flipping statement.
- [08:04]
Kristi Noem
Mr. Secretary, can I respond? Mr. Chairman, you may.
- [08:06]
Marco Rubio
I didn't ask. Senator, please let the secretary. I'd be happy to, but then I can respond to his. Your time's up, Senator. And willfully used, I might add. Your remarks do not represent the view of this committee. Well, Mr. Secretary, please.
- [08:20]
Kristi Noem
Well, I'd like to. I can't respond to everything he said because much of these are untrue. But I'll go through a few. First of all, I'm actually very proud of the work we've done with USAID. For example, I don't regret cutting $10 million for male circumcisions in Mozambique. I don't know how that makes us stronger and more prosperous as a nation. I don't regret psychosocial support services.
- [08:38]
Marco Rubio
I raised Sudan. Mr. Secretary, can I respond to that?
- [08:40]
Sam Stein
Senator?
- [08:42]
Marco Rubio
Senator, I'd ask you to suspend. You had seven straight minutes. I chose to use my time that way, Mr. Chairman. That's my right to use my time. Please suspend that way.
- [08:51]
Kristi Noem
Secretary Rubio, in the case of El Salvador. Absolutely. Absolutely. We deported gang members. Gang members, including the one you had a margarita with. And that guy is a human trafficker. And that guy is a gang banger. And that. And the evidence is going to be clear in the days.
- [09:06]
Marco Rubio
Mr. Chairman, who you went to do. Secretary Rubio has the floor.
- [09:10]
Kristi Noem
Chairman.
- [09:10]
Marco Rubio
He can't make unsubstantiated claims like that. Secretary Rubio has the floor. Secretary Rubio should take that testimony. The federal senator, United States, because he hasn't done it under oath.
- [09:22]
Kristi Noem
About the student visas, let me say this. I don't deport anybody and I don't snatch anybody. The State Department does not have officers in the street snatching everybody. What I do is revoke visas. And it's very simple. A visa is not a right. It is a privilege. People apply for student visas to come into the United States and study. And if you tell me that you're coming to the United States to lead campus crusades to take over libraries and burn down, try to burn down buildings and acts of violence, we're not going to give you.
- [09:47]
Marco Rubio
Is that what Ms. Oztork did?
- [09:49]
Kristi Noem
We're not going to give you.
- [09:50]
Marco Rubio
Is that what she did? Come on, Mr. Secretary.
- [09:51]
Kristi Noem
And every single one of these blowing smoke. Senator, the bottom line is if you're coming here to stir up trouble on our campuses, we will deny you a visa. And if you have a visa, First.
- [10:00]
Marco Rubio
Amendment applied to the United States.
- [10:02]
Kristi Noem
And we're going to do more. There are more coming. We're going to continue to revoke the visas of people who are here as guests and are disrupting our higher education facilities. People are paying money. These kids pay money to go to school and. And they have to walk.
- [10:13]
Marco Rubio
Writing an op ed to the toast papers, disrupting the foreign policy of the United States.
- [10:17]
Kristi Noem
I want to do more. I hope we can find more of these people. That pathetic Mr. Scott, the other day.
- [10:21]
Sam Stein
All right, so there's just a little clip of Rubio and Van Hahn. Why do you think Rubio is more effective?
- [10:27]
Andrew Egger
Yeah, I mean, there's two things. I mean, effective is kind of a term. It's a little bit in the eye of the beholder. Right? Because obviously he is dissembling and everything, but he's a good politician. We've known this about Marco Rubio forever. Is that he is effective at spin. He's effective at deflecting. He's effective at taking a melon baller and carving out whatever parts of his brain hold the conscience and the stuff that he previously cared about in terms of foreign Aid and standing up to dictators and all that stuff, setting all that aside, to just go out there and really put on kind of a righteous face and stonewall, essentially, and hold his own in a way that Donald Trump really appreciates. Donald Trump doesn't necessarily love to see Kristi Noem stepping on rakes. Donald Trump likes to see Marco Rubio out there dodging around the rakes. So that's, That's. That's the main thing there. I can I just say one thing also about that. I mean, the, the margaritas thing is just like a kind of a hobby horse of mine where I just. I just can't.
- [11:24]
Sam Stein
I find it infuriating. I find it infuriating that there.
- [11:27]
Andrew Egger
That. That is a thing that. That officials of our government have now picked up as.
- [11:32]
Sam Stein
Let me, let me jump in here because I find it absolutely infuriating. He is actively taking the side of a El Salvadorian autocrat who is trying to humiliate a sitting US Senator. And he's taking the side of the autocrat.
- [11:47]
Andrew Egger
And not just. Just taking his side, but regurgitating.
- [11:51]
Sam Stein
Regurgitating his propaganda.
- [11:53]
Andrew Egger
Yeah, the, The. The. The most flimsy, ridiculous, obscene, like, like the kind of propaganda that's only intended to work on. On, like, people who don't have a free media. Right. Like, like, like if you are an autocrat who has squashed all dissent and people aren't allowed to get on the Internet and figure out what's real, then maybe you can get away with, like, this kind of nonsense. But we, but like the idea that the United States of America, that our government, that our top officials here not only would, like, not hate that and not oppose that, but that they would channel it themselves and use it to throw at their own political, domestic political opponents here for cheap shots. I mean, it's. It's really. It's really grotesque. And, and I. My jaw hits the floor every time. It's been going on for a while.
- [12:35]
Sam Stein
It's the lowest rung. I will just add. Yeah, I will just add to that. Like, you know, he's dealing in an alternate reality with a lot of this stuff. I mean, there was a report yesterday From Cato that 50 or so Venezuelans who were sent to El Salvador were not, you know, had no sort of legal case against them being here. They were here under legal protections. He's talking about revoking student visas. It's very evident. The courts have proven that in some of these cases, it's the flimsiest of pretexts to revoke visas. We're talking about, like, singular op eds written as the sole basis for revoking visas. I mean, it's embarrassing if you look at the total totality of the record. But he's defending it. Obviously he's defending it because he's part of the administration. But, you know, I thought as. When we say effective, we're just talking about as a mode of political communication. But some of the defense was really devoid of any sort of moral standing or factuality. And I, I thought that was evident there. And you could tell Van Hahn was livid with some of the stuff he was saying because of it.
- [13:35]
Andrew Egger
Yeah, yeah. And I don't know whether any of this stuff is stuff that, that Rubio actually cared about back in the day, whether he actually did have, like, a real.
- [13:44]
Sam Stein
We presume he did. Right. He used to be. I mean, you know, better than I do. I mean, he was. I assumed he was more in the mode of, like, let's stand up to autocrats and let's protect free speech. And, like, obviously he worked on immigration reform post 2012.
- [13:59]
Andrew Egger
I mean, he absolutely did all of those things in a political environment where it seemed like it was, you know, beneficial for the politician for him to do all those things. And that's the. I think the kind of. The last point I want to make about Rubio is like, obviously, Rubio, whatever he did in the past, who knows whether he has always been. At the moment, Rubio is essentially a craven politician skin suit. Right. I mean, he's allowed Donald Trump to fully, like, infuse him as a vessel so that he will have a future in this party, and it is causing him to do all these horrible things. And I think that one of the. This is not breaking any news to anybody here, but one of the big reasons why we're in such a mess right now is because the whole Trump movement has made the incentives so horrible for all the craven politicians who are willing to be skin suits before you could be a skin suit for some good things before. You could be just trying to be a craven politician and build your brand by opposing autocracy, by standing up for freedom in America and around the world. Right. I mean, like, that's. That, that arguably that's what Rubio was doing before, if, if he's willing to let all that go now to be the Secretary of state for this guy and, and, and do all this, all this shit today. But, like, man, I would love to get back to an incentive structure where, where people who are actually acting selfishly are thereby motivated to. To stand up for some good things in the world. That's all. It's. It's just. It's all. It's all. It's also grotesque. All right.
- [15:21]
Sam Stein
Skin suits and melons that you can scoop out with the brain. Andrew's got it all going on.
- [15:26]
Andrew Egger
Yeah, we started a little rocky, but we got. We tuned in by the end.
- [15:31]
Sam Stein
All right, thank you. Thank you, buddy. Really appreciate it. Thank you guys for watching the feed. Really appreciate that as well. Subscribe and we will talk to you later.