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- [00:00]
Harry Litman
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- [00:31]
Total Wine and More Host
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- [00:32]
Asha Rangappa
The IRS said I filed my return.
- [00:34]
Harry Litman
But I haven't 1 in 4 tax paying Americans has paid the price of identity fraud.
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Asha Rangappa
What do I do?
- [00:39]
Harry Litman
My refund though. I'm freaking out.
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Harry Litman
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Asha Rangappa
I'm so relieved.
- [00:49]
Jen Rubin
No problem.
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Harry Litman
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Jen Rubin
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- [00:57]
Harry Litman
Visit lifelock.com podcast terms apply. Welcome to Talking Feds, brought to you live from Princeton University. Okay, we've got a fantastic episode. I just want to first start by thanking Kim and the program in law and normative thinking and her fantastic staff, including Kim Murray. She's made this whole thing possible. We're hosting our periodic roundtable with colleagues drawn from the deep bench of the Contrarian, which just marked one year of really excellent pro democracy journalism. So much happens every week, as Kim said. So just to set up very quickly what we'll be talking about, the news. We'll focus on Jeff Bezos. Some of you may have heard God gutted the Washington Post laying off a third of the paper staff, presumably. Welcome news to Donald Trump, whose administration has gone after journalists relentlessly, most recently with the unprecedented indictment of Don Lemon. Meanwhile, Trump repeated comments about nationalizing elections. Steve Bannon, his ally, is promising that ICE and US troops will soon polling places during the midterms. And ICE continues to run rampant in Minnesota. And the overload of cases is exhausting judges and even the lawyers tasked with supporting it, one of whom quit with the valediction. This job sucks. This system sucks. Just this week. But there are still 700 federal agents. Fewer in Minnesota, but not necessarily an end to what many of the state officials there have called a federal invasion. Okay, so discuss all of that. I'm really pleased to welcome three brilliant members of the Contrarian Starting with Norm Eisen, the publisher of the Contrarian, also the executive chair of the Democracy Defenders Fund, where he's been deeply involved in scores really of court victories against Trump's excesses. Among his many previous roles in government, he was the ambassador to the Czech Republic. And how cool is that? Norm Eisen, thanks as always for being here.
- [03:21]
Norm Eisen
Thank you, Harry. Thanks, everybody. Hello.
- [03:27]
Harry Litman
Got the applause line.
- [03:29]
Jen Rubin
Okay.
- [03:30]
Harry Litman
Asha Rangapa. She teaches national Security Law at Yale University. She co hosts the podcast It's Complicated, and she's got a fantastic substack. Everyone should check out the Freedom Academy. But how about this? Just a few years out of Princeton, Asha became a special agent in the FBI working counterism cases in New York. And how ridiculously cool is that? Welcome, Asha Rangapa. Thanks, Harry. And Jen Rubin, the editor in chief of the Contrarian, co founder, lifeblood, really, before launching the Contrarian with Norm. And she wrote an opinion column for 14 years at the Washington Post. And her departure obviously started a death spiral there. Her great past. Fact is, she graduated in the same law school class as me, where she was. Yeah, first in the class. And how cool is that? Welcome, Jen Rubin. And Jen, I want you to stick with you because let's begin with the pretty dramatic bloodletting from the Washington Post yesterday. From mere flesh wound to death spiral. How do you view it? And what the hell?
- [04:51]
Jen Rubin
It is a great crime against journalism and democracy. It is a shame. It is not the fault of the people who work there. There are still wonderful journalists. This is a murder by an owner who no longer thinks of the newspaper as something for which he is a steward. When he first bought the Post from the Graham Company, he seemed to understand that, and he talked about a stewardship of a paper. He championed rights for journalists. He invested heavily in the Washington Post. Then comes along Trump, too, and he decides that the Washington Post is more an adjunct to his businesses like Amazon and Blue Origin, and we better not screw those things up. So we began a downward slide, beginning with him nixing a editorial that was going to endorse Kamala Harris for president, continuing in a dispute that led to our Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist to leave because she had done a cartoon that depicted Donald Trump and other tech with in a statute and Bezos and other billionaires offering up cash. This was a documentary, actually, not so much as a cartoon. But those two events happened and that was enough for me. I was off the train, so I left. A great number of people left the Post. And what happened this week is the culmination of a long process of strangling this newspaper. This is change in the sofa for a billionaire. It is not something that is going to bankrupt him. If he ran it for the next thousand years, it wouldn't bankrupt him. He does not have a devotion to accountability journalism, which is the signature of the Washington Post. And in fact, we became a hindrance because we were going to write mean things about Donald Trump and we can't have that, can we? So he therefore began to squeeze and squeeze and squeeze. And this last major surgery, amputation, is a blow from which I think the, the paper, at least in the near term, will not recover. He has wiped out the book section, which is strange for someone who owns Amazon, by the way. He has also done away with the sports section, which is usually an attention getter for most newspapers. And he wrecked the metro and international bureaus as well. And in fact, one of the international reporters was left stranded in, in Ukraine of all places, because she was fired via email and has to figure out how to get home. So this is, of course, the oligarchy we now operate in. Billionaire and multi billionaire men have captured the government, have captured the economy to a great extent, and they view the free press as a hindrance, as an enemy to. Because of course, we are. What we do is hold people to account. We hold people responsible. We probe. We don't accept BS answers and we don't take propaganda. So we are now seeing the demise of another great paper. I would only analogize it to what's happened at cbs. Some of us might talk about that, which is another crime against journalism and hence the importance of independent journalism. And so for all of you who are not contributors, you can go to contrarian.substack.com and support independent journalism. And that's where a lot of the people from legacy media have wound up. It's not a substitute, but it is one way in which we continue to hold the rich and powerful to account.
- [09:06]
Harry Litman
Norm, I know you have some thoughts, but I just want to set up. It's more really than another great newspaper. It's got a storied history literally in holding power to account. And if it's lost, it's really hard to say what replaces it. Norm, you had thoughts?
- [09:25]
Norm Eisen
Just that whenever we talk about the predations of the past year, it's my practice. It's somewhat of our editorial approach at the Contrarian to talk about the pushback of the democracy movement. Of course, the Washington Post at the time that we started the Contrarian had hemorrhaged about half a million subscribers. We soon had half a million subscribers, making us one of the top substacks. And another part of that pushback is when you subscribe. Jen, you said if you're not a contributor, go to substack. Com. Of course we welcome you as contributors. You can also subscribe there.
- [10:14]
Harry Litman
You are paid and Freedom Academy and.
- [10:17]
Norm Eisen
Talking Fit neglect Asha who and we contribute to each other all the time. One of the things that Jen and I stumbled into and Harry, who was an original, and Asha both were people we brainstormed with when we were should we do this? How should we do it? One of the things that we stumbled into, we invented a new form of journalism where you not only make the journalism, but the proceeds. Because we're not owned by anyone, all the proceeds get rolled over to pro democracy litigation. So we, as it happens, at the Democracy Defenders Fund, we have the first of the test cases of the wrong full Washington Post terminations of Karen Attia, who was one of the columnists at the Post. And that has been part of the thesis of the work we do to get the landmark cases. We're going to be prosecuting that case. We've already gotten some discovery and we're going to have other big announcements. Karen spoke today at the rally of the people who were terminated because she was the first to be wrongfully pushed out the door. And she has an actionable claim. So there's always a tale of how the democracy movement is pushing back on these terrible events, which I want to.
- [11:48]
Harry Litman
Speak to and maybe ask you about, Asha, because this is something that has been really illustrative of Trump 2.0 that maybe took a lot of people by surprise. We knew he was going to ravage the government. We knew that there might be a supine Congress, but he's been phenomenally successful. Jen laid out that it really is. I saw a kind of chart that what it would take for Bezos to continue to fund the Washington Post. And it really is, you know, lunch money or less. But he has Trump in universities, media, law firms, somehow really been able to put his stamp on in a way that has made them, these large institutions of civic society, part and parcel of the whole thing everyone is fighting back against. Did that sort of take you by surprise? And what do you think accounts for it?
- [12:50]
Asha Rangappa
Yeah, I think the speed and force with which it happened initially kind of the shock and awe campaign was surprising to me. And I think the original sin there is the Supreme Court's immunity decision. It's hard for me. I mean, I think he would have still come back and tried to do stuff. But if without the immunity decision, he would not have been as emboldened as he was, and more importantly, these other institutions, you know, it's not only that he realized he was no longer accountable to any law. Everyone else knows he's not accountable to any law. And so when he is in control of the levers of power that can impact their funding, whether they can do mergers, all of these things. And we saw it with law firms, too. Trump 1.0. Law firms were stepping up to represent people. Trump 2.0. They don't want to touch it. And that's why Norm's network of lawyers are doing it. All right, so I personally think it goes back to the immunity decision. It not only upended the balance of power in our government, but I think it really upset the relationship of fundamental civic institutions in our society with the government as well.
- [14:12]
Harry Litman
It's a great point. And the Supreme Court didn't say, he can't commit a crime, but he can't be prosecuted. And if you put, as a former prosecutor, if you put that lens on, really again and again and again, starting especially with some of the pardons, they are criminal acts, even if they'll never be, sort of justice for it. I want to stick with journalists for one second. And this gobsmacking indictment now last week of Don Lemon, which seems like yet another kind of transgression of boundaries.
- [14:45]
Jen Rubin
And Georgia Ford.
- [14:46]
Harry Litman
Yeah, right.
- [14:48]
Asha Rangappa
Yeah.
- [14:49]
Harry Litman
And Georgia Fort, the independent, same thing. Minnesota journalist. And you're right, I need to include her. But the thing about Lemon that gave the extra, I think, cherry on top to Pam Bondi is he's a longtime antagonist of Trump. But the contrarian basically said, you know, there's been a lot bad with Bondi, but this is the last straw. And as in response, a piece you wrote, Jen actually called for her impeachment. Want to explain why you think this is really over the top, even by the standards we've been absorbing?
- [15:27]
Jen Rubin
Well, I think I actually called for impeachment a couple times before, but this is to put an exclamation mark on it. She has weaponized the Justice Department in approving prosecutions of James Comey, of Letitia James, of others, of opening investigations on members of Congress with a cock and bull story about real estate fraud, a very strange topic for someone like Donald Trump. And then the arrest now of these two journalists for doing nothing but journalism. She has been a facilitator of the authoritarian regime. Remember, it was her Justice Department that wrote memos that justified the invasion of Venezuela and the kidnapping of its president. It was her Justice Department that justified the extrajudicial murders on the high seas of 125 people. Two of them, by the way, have now brought suit. And good for them and their families who are seeking some compensation. But without a compliant Justice Department, there would be tripwires. He would not be able to accomplish these things. And it is not just the things she has done, of course, but the things she hasn't done, the people she hasn't pursued. She didn't think there was anything to investigate when it came to these two murders in Minnesota. Well, she reversed on one of them because of the public outcry. She doesn't think there's anything to investigate. When Donald Trump gets a whole bunch of crypto cash from a foreign government, there's nothing that needs to be investigated that has to do with this administration.
- [17:17]
Harry Litman
And, say, $50,000 in a kava bag.
- [17:20]
Asha Rangappa
Yes.
- [17:21]
Jen Rubin
And he's supposed to be the good guy who comes in to Minnesota now. So she has utterly, utterly failed in her role. And as others have said, she's also fired for partisan reasons. A whole slew of people. There was a tweet that was sent out that kind of personifies their thinking. They were now advertising for more lawyers. Imagine that. And they put out an ad on Twitter. This never went higher through Twitter. And what the ad said was, if you believe in Trump's agenda, come work with us. That's authoritarian nonsense. The Justice Department is supposed to be apolitical. It is the lawyer for the people, for the Constitution, not for Donald Trump. But that's not how she sees it. And I think she should be held accountable to the full extent of the law. And we'll probably talk about it later, but bar associations need to hold people to account. Judges need to hold people to account. And hopefully, with one or both houses of Congress in Democratic hands, she will face exacting inquiry.
- [18:35]
Norm Eisen
And remember, this is a Cabinet member who the Washington Post evaluated well qualified. Needless to say, when she was nominated, our reaction was not well qualified. We had her number from the get go. Actually met her in the impeachment where she was one of Donald Trump's defense lawyers. And that does seem to be the principal criterion for a leading role in Asha, your former place of employment, the FBI, headed by a Principal Trump defender at all costs. Kash Patel and doj Pam Bondi, Todd Blanche. And just look at the results.
- [19:24]
Asha Rangappa
Can I just add something on the FBI front with regard to the journalists? I mean, one of the things that is implicit in this, that is not obvious, is that the constraints that were normally cabining FBI investigations are clearly out the window. That, you know, in the 70s, after the church hearings, because of the civil rights abuses, there were a set of rules that were implemented within the Justice Department called the Attorney General guidelines. They govern how cases can be opened and investigated. And journalists are given wide, wide berth as, I mean, you are not allowed to open an investigation solely based on First Amendment activity. And I had counterintelligence cases that touched on journalists and just the hoops, and you just don't wanna touch those with a 20 foot pole. And so the fact that this is happening to me tells me that this is an outward manifestation that those rules are out the window. Which means. And that's the only thing that is constraining the FBI. There's no legislative charter for the FBI and there's a long Runway between when they begin an investigation and when it gets to a court where a court might look at due process. I mean, you know, so all of these techniques, these investigative techniques that they can use to invade privacy, to follow you, to, you know, go through your track like they can do this. And it's clear to me that there's no more rules that are meaningfully governing or restraining this behavior.
- [21:03]
Jen Rubin
And they were also involved in seizing the ballot in Georgia, something I cannot imagine any other FBI allowing to occur. Now, they had a warrant from a judge. We've yet to find out what the affidavit behind that is and what cockable story they told that judge. But nevertheless, for FBI agents to go in and seize ballots for which they know the federal government has no responsibility for an election that happened now six years ago, says to me that they are nothing but a praetorian guard for this president.
- [21:39]
Harry Litman
I just want to make a few points as the next Dojer. So first, you know, you almost would never do an election office. To Asha's point, forget about it. What would be required? A journalist could sometimes be implicated in a separate kind of criminal investigation. But a crime for covering an event, absolutely out of the question. On the prosecution guidelines that were put into play, one of them is you must, you must believe the person's guilty, and you must believe or you can't bring a prosecution, that it is likely that a jury is going to convict them beyond a reasonable doubt. I think it's clear this is one of the cases where they don't believe that they can't believe it. And the punishment is the humiliation and the like of don Lemon. And just one more quick point, which is, Bonnie didn't just green light this. She literally, her name on top. An attorney general never, ever, ever would sign an indictment. And she issued, interestingly, a little out of sight, so she couldn't take the questions. She's got a hearing coming up next Wednesday. That should be interesting. But she made. She said, I have greenlighted. She was. It seemed very performative to me. And for whom is she performing? I think that kind of goes without saying.
- [23:04]
Norm Eisen
Of course, you're right about the process is the punishment, but look at the results you get from that. There have been two big signature criminal prosecutions of the Trump Bondi Blanche doj, Jim Comey and Letitia James. Both of those cases were thrown out. I'm sure it was. I know them both. It was not a delight to learn that they had been indicted, but they were confident they had done no wrong. They said so publicly, and those cases were bounced. So we were very proud to work on the theory that we helped secure the judgment against Alina Haba right here. She was your supposed U.S. attorney. We developed pretend. Right, the crony phony. I refer to them as the crony phony U.S. attorneys. We developed that theory right here. New Jersey. The third circuit then used it. We backed it up with judicial briefs to support AG James and Jim Comey's case, again powered by contrarian subscribers. And that's what you're going to get in the Don Lemon and Georgia Ford cases is another embarrassment, and it really does a vast damage to the Department of Justice, to the FBI, to. To the rule of law, but above all, to the Trump administration, which has record low numbers on issue after issue. The American people don't like what the president and his phony cronies are doing.
- [24:59]
Harry Litman
Ever the optimistic litigant. But it's. No, it's true that the counterpoint. And by the way, it is really true. Your own involvement. Have I cut you off, Asha?
- [25:09]
Asha Rangappa
No, no, no. I was just. I was just. I'm just gonna point out that for Trump, I do think that it's less about winning than in creating the narrative. I mean, if you even think back to the Ukraine, the perfect phone call to President Zelensky. He just wanted an investigation announced, Right. Going back to the first campaign, it's to be able to say, lock her up. I mean, it's the suspicion that gets created by the investigation itself. That is the point. And so it is great that they're being thrown out, but I do think that we need to understand there was a great article in the Atlantic that said this is a clicktatorship. It's a clicktatorship because it's all about creating the spectacle, the video, the meme, the social media propaganda. And I teach information warfare. So that is, I think, a piece of it. Not actually the merits of the case are even winning.
- [26:07]
Harry Litman
It's a really good point because there is an impact on the ground. Why are the Clintons now having to testify? Because they know if they don't, the contempt will go to Bondi Lemon. Yes, the case will be thrown out, but how many journalists, especially those with less means, now are concerned? The big cases so far, especially the district courts, God bless them, have held the line pretty well. But it's not as if it's been no damage.
- [26:37]
Norm Eisen
Well, Asha's comment. And the four of us are friends, so we sit around and talk this way. And there are other wonderful friends here with us today. But Asha, hearing you talk about that, you know, the perfect call. Congress had the opportunity twice to impeach and remove Donald Trump. And when we talk about him and his own cronies and those who immediately surround him, we also have to look not just at the perpetrators of authoritarianism, but the enablers of authoritarianism and all those who had the opportunity. Okay, one impeachment, bad enough, but that second, impeachment, they all knew what they were dealing with, and that is the enablers are also as bad in moral stature as the perpetrators.
- [27:43]
Harry Litman
All right, it is now time for a spirited debate brought to you by our sponsor, Total Wine and more. Each episode, you'll be hearing an expert talk about the pros and cons of a particular issue in the world of wine, wine, spirit, and beverages.
- [28:01]
Total Wine and More Host
Thank you, Harry. In today's spirited debate, we unbottle the truth about wine. Is there really a right or a wrong way to enjoy it? Wine drinkers near and far have lived by a certain set of written yet unofficial rules to follow, particularly when it comes to pairing wine and food. You've heard a couple of them before. White wine pairs with seafood. Red wine pairs with big old juicy steaks. And while we like to think of these more as guidelines than rules, some suggestions actually do serve a higher purpose. To help your wine get the most from your dish and vice versa. One pairing that's not quite as obvious involves tannins. Tannins are the dryness that you taste and feel in wine. They come from grape seeds, skin, or oak barrels. Traditionally, high tannin wines and spicy foods don't pair well together. The dry components of the wine become more pronounced with spice, which makes the food itself tastes even hotter than it actually is. From drinking red wine with fish to white wine with beef. We say you do you. But there is one no, no that we wholeheartedly live by. Always. Yes, always hold your glass by the stem and not the bulb. And there are a few reasons why putting your warm hands on the bulb transfers unnecessary heat to the wine. As wine warms up, it will become off balance and you will taste the alcohol more and more. Not to mention you can easily avoid smudges to your beautiful glassware. To truly enjoy wine, you can never go wrong pairing the wonderful selection and helpful guides at Total Wine and More. Cheers.
- [29:30]
Harry Litman
Thanks to our friends at Total Wine and More for today's a spirited debate. I want to move to election interference, if I could, because that's a new area. Maybe there'll be a pushback, but we've seen him announce to a Republican audience we need to nationalize the elections. We've seen Steve Bannon promise ICE goons like on the ground. How real is it? What do you think they're preparing to do? You and all of us who lived through an effort that didn't have the same army behind it, Jen, even though.
- [30:14]
Norm Eisen
She'S the editor in chief and you know, the subscriptions are essential to our life, sometimes she tells me my incessant promotions are pushing the boundaries of good taste. I do have to say just another one.
- [30:29]
Harry Litman
Kind of a quiet little well, I.
- [30:31]
Norm Eisen
Can, because I'm about to talk about another contrarian powered initiative this year. This ended.
- [30:38]
Harry Litman
You have something you first wanted to offer.
- [30:40]
Jen Rubin
However, as the editor, you know, let.
- [30:44]
Harry Litman
Me just talk about the issue sometimes to be moderator.
- [30:47]
Asha Rangappa
Yeah.
- [30:48]
Jen Rubin
The issue here is not about the 2020 election. This is about the 2026 election. This is setting the precedent of grabbing ballots, which is entirely outside the law. The federal government does not run elections. It's even in the Constitution the states run elections. And oh, by the way, this is the party that's always screaming states rights. Get out of our business. When they offered, when they volunteered to provide information to the states that would help them detect malware, detect hacking, they said, no, this is an invasion of us. We don't want this. But now they're going to seize the ballots. So this is about setting up 2026. And I think the fact that you had Tulsi Gabbard there and Donald Trump getting on the phone with the Craziest.
- [31:44]
Harry Litman
Age Asha may have some thoughts about that.
- [31:47]
Jen Rubin
Crazy.
- [31:48]
Asha Rangappa
Yeah. And I have my theory on Tulsi Gabbard. So Tulsi Gabbard is the Director of National Intelligence. This is a coordinating role among the intelligence agencies. The DNI has no investigative authority to conduct investigations. However, let's go back six years when things were getting desperate in the White House. One of the crazy cuckoo puffs.
- [32:12]
Jen Rubin
Cuckoo for cocoa puffs.
- [32:14]
Asha Rangappa
Theories that was. Or ideas that was presented was for the military to go seize voting machines. And the theory that they wanted to do this on is that there had been foreign interference in the election. If you ever. If you remember things about Italian satellites and Hugo Chavez and Chinese bamboo and all those states that were doing audits, looking for this is kind of what they were, you know, the rabbit holes that they were going down. We now have the former head of state of Venezuela in our custody. So if you wanted to come up with evidence that Venezuela interfered in the election, you might have some leverage to get it right. But I think that, like, to me, the fact that Tulsi Gabbard was on site for this is something along those lines. It is about seeding a narrative about foreign interference in the election as a way to, as Jen said, create some justification for a national security emergency, you know, heading into the coming elections.
- [33:26]
Harry Litman
Norm, you've been very patient. Tell us how the Contrarian's gonna save the day in this.
- [33:30]
Norm Eisen
I've been semi patient. I've been, like, moving around in my chair and fidgeting. Look, this announcement that we're gonna nationalize elections and take control in 15 states and Steve Bannon's rantings. This is not new. Donald Trump signed an executive order to assert control of elections under pretext of wanting identification and citizenship. Well, guess what we went to court on behalf of in this case. It was not only fueled by Contrarian subscribers, but a contributor, Juan Proano of lulac, our nation's most venerable largest Latino civil rights org. Juan was our client, lead plaintiff. We went to court and we stopped that executive order. He Then he. When he was frustrated. And we've gotten ruling after ruling in that case. We just won another one on another piece of the case. The AGs have been a marvelous part of this coalition. All of these cases have involved many clients and partners in terrific organizations. We have Mall Jen, the aclu, Public Citizen, Protect, Democracy, Democracy Forward. And the civil rights groups are a part of everything. The NAACP, the LDF, the Legal Defense Fund, NAA's Legal Defense Fund, LULAC, as I've mentioned, the other Brennan center, wonderful civil rights groups all over the country. Fair Fight, that's been part of the joy of the contrarian is having the heads of all those groups on. Then he said, oh, I can't get control. How am I gonna steal 26? I can't get control through my executive order. The power of the pen. I know I'll redistrict. I'll get all those captive Republicans to redistrict. Well, I was very honored to represent those Texas legislators. I traveled to Chicago with them. We raised a hue and a cry. And so we ended up defending Prop 50 in court. Just, I think it was yesterday, California's counter to Donald Trump. Take that, Mr. President. And just yesterday, the Supreme Court, without a single dissenting vote, the Supreme Court said, nah, I don't think so, Donald Trump, we uphold the victory at trial on Prop 50. So I believe we're already seeing the efforts. They're already failing. Whatever other death and destruction since 2020, all of these efforts have failed. This massive democracy movement, we haven't even talked about no kings and the millions of voters who are mobilized. And this massive democracy movement is going to counter with the help of judges who are loyal to the rule of law, including many Republican and Trump nominees. He's not going to get away with that.
- [36:45]
Harry Litman
I'm going to sound a less sanguine note.
- [36:47]
Asha Rangappa
I was just about to say Norm is the optimistic.
- [36:51]
Harry Litman
Well, look, and in the $64,000 question, maybe we all are, will the Republic survive? But Norm, we've had, you're right, kind of fought to a stalemate to date. But there are different. There are many ways to sort of go at this, but one of them is the various ways in which Trump has claimed emergency powers and has looked to the courts to defer to those characterizations. So we dodged a very big bullet in the Trump vs. Illinois case. When I think when it first came up, we were very worried that the court might say something like, well, you know, a Trump appointed judge, as you said district court judge had said, look, we defer to the president, but this is untethered to the facts.
- [37:38]
Asha Rangappa
To say you're talking about the National Guard.
- [37:40]
Harry Litman
Yeah, but I'm. Now, there's no rebellion. But the court, I think could very well defer on some assertion of emergency power. And the consequences would be the ability then to take that power and use it in the many ways they already have for the election.
- [38:01]
Jen Rubin
The reason I am less optimistic than Norm.
- [38:06]
Harry Litman
Everyone's less optimistic than Norm.
- [38:08]
Jen Rubin
I know, but that's what you need to start an online publication out of nothing. I am the better.
- [38:17]
Norm Eisen
I told her we would be a big success.
- [38:20]
Jen Rubin
Yes.
- [38:20]
Norm Eisen
She wasn't so sure. But now here we are.
- [38:25]
Harry Litman
Two things, Princeton, you made it.
- [38:28]
Jen Rubin
Two things. One, the damage that has done in human lives and to the fabric of the democracy is a really dagger through the heart of all of us who love democracy and love our country. People are dead, people are maimed, people have had their lives uprooted, families have been separated apart. People have been subjected to unnecessary trauma. So the victims may have some pleasant notion that their sacrifices in the long run may pay off. But we have a lot of victims and whatever we do after the fact legally does not erase those harms. And, and I think we have to be very cognizant of claiming victory when there are people dead on the streets of Minneapolis and other cities and people dying in custody of ice, for example. The other point I want to make is that ultimately the rescue does not come in the courts. Part of why Donald Trump is going to screw this whole thing up is because he got greedy. Imagine that he thought the shift of Hispanic votes to the Republican Party was real and permanent. So when he ordered the governor of Texas, and just think how crazy that is, he ordered the governor of Texas to re redistrict, he assumed that he could lower the margins in some areas, pack Hispanics into fewer districts and therefore pick up more Republican seats. Well, guess what? Hispanics have turned on Donald Trump like the rest of the country. And of those five seats, he may not win more than one of them. Maybe he'll lose them all and he's going to lose the ones in California. So ultimately, although we are discouraged and although he throws up one barrier after another, why is he finally on the run? And because he can read the polls too, he claims he's ahead. He knows better. Ultimately, it is 7 million people on the street, 5 million people on the street. It is election after election. You guys did your part here in New Jersey with a whopping win in November. Same in Virginia. Yes, and all of those special elections and they continue on to the present. We had just last week a state Senate election in Texas. As the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives pointed out to me last night in an interview, those districts are larger in Texas than congressional districts. There was a 31 point swing towards the Democrats. That's the real solution. And we have to keep people in the fight. We enjoy and we take pride in all of these little intermediary wins. But ultimately it's going to be the people deciding that they don't want this. And that's what Minneapolis has done and crystallized, I think, for millions of people who just didn't get it before this.
- [41:44]
Asha Rangappa
And I also rain on Norm's parade, just briefly. So. So I will say this. What?
- [41:51]
Norm Eisen
Yeah, I mean, these are my best friends. Can you imagine what my life is?
- [41:55]
Asha Rangappa
So here. Here's what I'll say. Say about the court cases, which are important and they're super important. And one of the things that I think is very noteworthy that's happening in all these cases, but a lot of these cases is the fact that there's no longer this, what we call a presumption of regularity on what the government is presenting. Presumption of regularity is really this capital that the government has built up when it goes into court, so that when they present one of their positions or facts or it's assumed to come out of a good faith, normal process that the court can take at face value. And what we see over and over again is this deference that Harry's talking about. They're not willing to give the deference. They're, in fact, in many cases saying, we actually don't believe you. We are not going to give weight to this. So I think to that point, the lack of deference, because otherwise the executive branch gets a tremendous amount of difference when it comes to things like national security and all of that. What I would say, though, is I think the bigger problem is that the problems that we're facing, our courts are not intended to handle it. They handle discrete cases and controversy. So this is like they're doing their best and they're plugging these holes. And then we've got this, you know, the Supreme Court, which we can talk about. But this isn't the remedy. The courts are not the remedy for the kind of crisis that we are in right now. The remedy is a political one, and as Norm mentioned, that has been neutered. And so we're in a very difficult situation because to Jen's point, the more he knows he's unpopular and is going to lose, the more desperate he's going to get. And so even with these court cases, and I think we're going to turn to ice, this is the trump card, I think. Right.
- [43:58]
Harry Litman
I mean, it's a brilliant point that, you know, whatever we think about the courts, they're slower. The timeline is different. There's only so much they can say. There has to be something standing. It's always supposed to have been a backstop. And the grades we assign them are given their outsize role with congressional, basically absence but this is a really good segue to ice, I think, both legally and politically, because it does seem as if possibly it is the political issue that really might be kind of bringing. In fact, let's start there. Even though I wanted to end there, is that now what everything else has not been the thing that is really making the American people just bolt from.
- [44:50]
Jen Rubin
I think it is. And what we're seeing is the arrival on the scene, belated though it may be, of the first branch of government who knew we had a Congress? But suddenly they pop up out of their slumber, they decide that maybe they should be exercising oversight and maybe they should control the power of the purse. Very novel ideas. Well, this is what they have not been doing for over a year now. And the fact that they could not get out of the people's mind those images that videotape talk about the power of the press and of individuals to capture that stuff. Imagine if we didn't have video of any of that. We would be back at square one. And that and the lies, the ridiculous, appalling, insulting lies that this administration has come up with has, I think, moved the populace in a way it hasn't been moved before. And you see it in sports figures, in entertainment figures, in people who are not political wrestling and wrestling matches. Absolutely. And when that happens, when culture takes it, politics is not the antidote for him. It's not the solution. So we do have Congress that is now being pushed to the forefront by the public. By the way, little secret, politicians don't lead, they follow. And expecting them to get out ahead of public opinion is probably a fool's errand. But we are in the business of pushing the public in favor of democracy. So it's having its effect. And there are reams of ideas for how to restrain ICE limitations, things they can't do. The question is if there's the will to do it and if some of those Republicans who now see their careers evaporating in November decide that they will lead and lend their votes. And I think we have a greater opportunity than we ever had to do something. And it's not going to be the total solution. The total solution only comes when you have a Democratic president, a Democratic House, a Democratic Senate, you blow up DHS and you reform each one of those institutions, which, frankly, should never have been thrown together into this giant police establishment in the first place. So I think we're farther ahead than we were two weeks ago. It's going to be a long, long road.
- [47:26]
Norm Eisen
I'll press a slightly different, slightly Overlapping model on where we are and the centrality. I think Minnesota has been a pivot point. One of the amazing things about the Contrarian is that we actually travel to all these places or have correspondence there. Our wonderful Tim Dickinson has covered Portland. He's in Portland. That's been a hotspot. I went with Katie Fang to Minnesota last week. I think it was last week. They blur together. Minnesota will be looked back upon as a historic turning point, much as Birmingham or Selma are looked at as turning points on the Civil Rights act, the Voting Rights act and the shift in this country to have a majority opposed Jim Crow. Our wonderful Kim, who invited us here to Princeton and I have the opportunity to kibitz with the political scientists. And of course I have a background as a diplomat. We are not the first backsliding democracy. In fact, there is a whole branch of political science scholarship and there's a huge debate going on. Kim and I talked to the people on both sides about backsliding democracies, competitive authoritarian regimes and U turns. And the idea is, can you break a backsliding democracy? Can you wrench the wheel around and can you sustain it? And if you measure. There's one more optimistic school. I'm not an optimist. That'll be the last thing I'm going to explain in this answer. There's one more positive school that says over the past century more than 2/3 of backsliding democracies have worked U turns. There's a school that looks at the data a little differently and says, well, many of them have re backslid. How do you measure that? Be that as it may, we know there is a Model 6 Areas of Contestation that emerge when you study this. And I would argue not as an optimist but as somebody who's hopeful. I would argue hopeful based on the evidence. I would argue that as you look at this, that these. In each of these areas there's been a kind of waterfall. Minnesota is very important. It starts with proceedings in court. And that struck a spark when we couldn't do anything else in the beginning. It seems so dark. We struck a spot of light and we've met. Flood the zone with rule of law, shock and awe. Then the public protests began and Minnesota really built on the no kings movement and the millions in the streets. Then we began to see polling results in and at the polls. This extraordinary electoral wave, 227 out of 268 elections in 2025 where the pro democracy candidate won or outperformed by double digits. The Press started coming around. Look how different the New York Times headlines have been of what happened in Minnesota versus earlier. Both sides ism. Finally, as Jen points out, the sixth, the fifth of these areas. Political leadership, it always trails. But boy, the government funding shutdown. They flexed their muscle day one. They flexed their muscle on ice. They got that ice, dhs, CPB bill broken off. And then finally, the thing that is toughest of all, the sixth, is having a positive policy program. What is the affirmative vision? Not just being against the authoritarianism. Is there an equally gripping alternative to maga? That sixth piece of the puzzle has yet to be developed.
- [51:39]
Harry Litman
Let's pick this up, though, back in Minneapolis. And you know, on the one hand, you've had courts say to this point of the loss of credibility, unbelievable things when thinking of it as an alum of the Department of Justice and how I would have, you know, gone and hid my head in the sand. On the other hand, we've had Judge at least two or three in Minneapolis. ICE just continues to. The chief judge memorably said, you violated more orders in January than most agencies have done in their existence. So they haven't taken the next step of trying to hold ICE in contempt. It does seem as if Minneapolis is a kind of ground zero now. In fact, let me serve up sort of two parts to the question. One, there's the courts. There's also the administration. Whether it is in fact receding or just preparing a new flood zone with Mr. 50,000. I always forget his real name. 50,000. Kava bag. Oh, yeah. Tom.
- [52:47]
Asha Rangappa
Tom Homan.
- [52:48]
Norm Eisen
Oh, man.
- [52:52]
Harry Litman
So, you know, even now with all the pushback, you could see Minnesota as half empty, half full. Where what's going on on the ground and where will it head?
- [53:04]
Jen Rubin
It's interesting when you were saying that they won on the shutdown, understand what winning now means. They didn't get the extension of the aca. People's health insurance is going to go sky high. What they won was the public opinion and public support moving the electorate towards November. And that is, I would hasten to repeat again and again to our Democratic friends on the Hill. The point is the fight you're not going to win. The substantive issue on 99% of these things. What you're gonna do is win the fight, have the public on your side and have the other side indict themselves by these positions that they are taking. I do not think that Tom Homan is pulling back. He pulled out 700 people. He's got 2,000 left. You know how many people were there before all this, 150. I'm bad at math, but not that bad. They are still way ahead.
- [54:09]
Harry Litman
He's not great himself.
- [54:11]
Jen Rubin
Yeah. And yes, the courts, the lower courts have done a marvelous job. The 8th Circuit is not a great circuit, unlike the 7th, which actually did constrain the Ice and Border Patrol in Chicago. We do not have a victory yet that we can point to in Minnesota. But again, this is why Trump is so frantic about the election, because every one of these becomes a political loser. And when they become a political loser, the Republicans in Congress get nervous. They start inching away. You get more of them willing to sign on to a discharge position. You get more of them in the Senate willing to take him on. So it is slipping. We are in a race now. Can we get to the finish line in November and score big victories before he crushes the entire system? Right now, I think it's a horse race.
- [55:17]
Harry Litman
I thought, let's personalize this. We only have a few minutes left. So it's really a slightly petty place to end. But I was so struck when I think it was Kristi Noemi who said, everything I've done has been at the direction of the President and Stephen. So Donald Trump has been fickle. There's no person, really, who hasn't come into his disfavor. It does seem as if, from all we know, that Minnesota and generally that Stephen Miller is the architect. I'm just wondering if you think that role as in for, you know, if his head is potentially on the block. You could also ask about Bondi, who the rep, by reports she was, has not been in his favor. But are we, you think, going to see some bloodletting in the administration as a way of responding to these problems?
- [56:16]
Asha Rangappa
I mean, I don't think so. With Stephen Miller. He seems to, you know, be the Rasputin of. Of this administration. I have a plan. I think that if somebody just goes and tells Trump that the reason that he did not win the Nobel Peace Prize was because of Stephen Miller and his ice plan, it would be done. He'd be out. The ice would be out. That would be it.
- [56:39]
Harry Litman
So if it's Loretta Loomer or whoever, who tells him that.
- [56:43]
Norm Eisen
Laura Loomer.
- [56:43]
Harry Litman
Laura Loomer. Thank you.
- [56:45]
Norm Eisen
Are you sure that Putin's not the Rasputin of this administration?
- [56:50]
Asha Rangappa
That's true. So, yeah, that's what I would say.
- [56:55]
Jen Rubin
Yeah. I think like the cockroach in the nuclear winter, he will be there at the end and he will be surviving some of these other people. I Don't think so. And by the way, if Democrats get the House or the Senate, I would expect some of them to leave before they get put on the witness stand before a committee that actually wants Republicans to leave.
- [57:17]
Norm Eisen
Some of the members of the Cabinet.
- [57:19]
Harry Litman
You mean some of the members of the cabinet.
- [57:21]
Asha Rangappa
Well, and I will just say to the point where you know it's Pam Bondi who's signing the indictment and Tulsi Gabbard is here at this. I think there's a little bit of a competition like a Hunger Games that's happening because you know, nobody wants the Eye of Sauron to land on them. Right. And he's kind of unhappy. And so, you know, all of them are scrambling to curry favor. I do think that Stephen Miller is the one person who seems to be, you know, not in the fire in.
- [57:49]
Harry Litman
The line of fire point by the one Princeton graduate up here. I gotta say, Norm, perhaps you had a thought. You've been kind of, you know, reticent.
- [57:59]
Norm Eisen
No, I'm just giving the. I'm just giving air to the colleagues. You know, I think that in looking at the landscape what you're seeing is the continued strategic flight of your and ashes former DOJ and FBI colleagues and that's been very important where you've had a wave of people who've quit the U.S. attorney's office in Minnesota rather than sign on to that people quit the Don Lemon and Georgia Ford indictments people quit the including hand picked Trump appointees quit the Virginia U.S. attorney rather than do Tish James and Jim Comey the part of this philosophy the reason that contrarian powered at Democracy Defenders Fund in action. We now have 252 cases and matters against the Trump administration including many of the landmark cases. When the New York Times ran their big article last week about the 600 cases, they picked eight to highlight the landmarks we were involved in one way or another in six out of the eight. But the philosophy has been to meet the flood the zone with rule of law shock and awe. And of course it's right. I shared the model for you with you. It's right that no one of those dimensions is going to be enough. It's the systems approach. And now 2026 is an election year. We are shifting to the ultimate decisor. In a democracy the thing that gives validity will be the election outcome. And I think you are gonna see a massive turnout like you saw here in New Jersey. What's the guy's name? Jack Citarelli?
- [60:25]
Harry Litman
Mikey Sherrill?
- [60:26]
Norm Eisen
No, the guy she Beat Citarelli. He thought he told everybody. Oh, this a very close race. Three points. It was a double digit blowout. There's a hidden majority, super majority of Americans who like their freedoms, they like their rights, they like common human decency, they like the values that this nation was founded upon 250 years ago. And you're gonna hear from them. So I think that blue tsunami is gonna crash down on Donald Trump in 2026. And if I can't get applause for that, I can get applause.
- [61:10]
Harry Litman
I will just remind. It might come as a surprise that it's a nonpartisan podcast. However, look.
- [61:19]
Asha Rangappa
Yeah.
- [61:19]
Harry Litman
And I wanna say, in the wake of the tsunami, if it happen, and it would be to the great good of the rule of law, there will be cleanup projects, especially in our Department of Justice, like you can't believe. But we should have such problems. Okay. We have the problem that a great conversation has come to an end. We're just about out of time. I knew it'd be excellent. We still have one minute left for the much beloved by audience, not so much Panelists feature five words or fewer where we take a question submitted and we each have to answer in five words or fewer. Ivy League theme. Today, the administration has demanded $100 billion from Harvard to take the boot off the neck, I guess you might say. What will the oldest university in the land counter with to Donald Trump's demand? Five words or fewer. Contrarian panelists, please.
- [62:21]
Jen Rubin
All Harvard has is money.
- [62:27]
Harry Litman
A hometown answer for the counteroffer.
- [62:30]
Asha Rangappa
Right. Larry Summers office is yours.
- [62:39]
Norm Eisen
The Harvard motto is Veritas. So the counteroffer will be to change the motto to Veritas. Nihil Spurcius este truly nothing filthier than you.
- [62:57]
Harry Litman
Norm's world travels come in handy. And I'm going with honorary doctorates Trump and Melania. We are. Thank you, everyone.
- [63:10]
Jen Rubin
Thank you.
- [63:11]
Harry Litman
Jen, Asha, Norm, thank you. A great Princeton audience. We're out of time and talk to you later. Thank you very much listeners for tuning in to Talking Feds. If you like what you've heard, please tell a friend to subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts or wherever they get their podcasts. And please take a moment to rate and review view the show. Check us out on substack@harrylitman.substack.com where I'll be posting two or three bulletins a week breaking down the various threats to constitutional norms and the rule of law. Paid Substack subscribers can now get Talking Feds episodes completely ad free. You can also subscribe to us on YouTube, where we are posting full episodes and and my daily takes on top legal stories. Talking Feds has joined forces with the Contrarian. I'm a founding contributor to this bold new media venture committed to reviving the diversity of opinion that feels increasingly rare in today's news landscape, where legacy media seems to be tacking toward Trump for business reasons rather than editorial ones. Find out more@contrarian.substack.com thanks for tuning in, and don't worry, as long as you need answers, the Feds will keep talking. Talking Feds is produced by Lou Cregan and Katie Upshaw, associate producer Becca Haveian, sound Engineering by Matt McArdle, Rosie Dawn Griffin, David Lieberman, Hansuma Hadrenathan, Emma Maynard and Hallie Necker are our contributing writers and production assistants by Akshaj Turbailu. Our music, as ever, is by the amazing Philip Glass. Talking Feds is a production of Doledo llc. I'm Harry Littman. Talk to you later. Sa.