← The Bulwark Podcast
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- [00:00]
David French
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Tim Miller
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David French
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Tim Miller
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David French
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Tim Miller
text, phone, email or the LifeLock app. Get the alerts that could make all the difference. Save up to 30% your first year@lifelock.com special offer terms apply. Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome back to the show. Opinion columnist for the failing New York Times. He's also co host of legal podcast Advisory Opinion Advisory Opinions. He was a JAG officer. There are a lot of opinions today and so we've got him on the podcast. It's David French. How you doing, Tim?
- [01:35]
David French
It's great to see you. Do we have anything to talk about today? Anything interesting?
- [01:39]
Tim Miller
We have a few things. We have a few things like about two minutes before I got down, I got a blaring headline in the Borg Slack Samuel Alito resigns. And I was preparing some Martha Annalito jokes. She had flipped the flag upside down at her home to mark the moment, but apparently NPR just kind of fucked up. So that's good. So now we just have to go through the rulings instead.
- [01:59]
David French
All I saw was no resignation. I did not know that anything else went out like that.
- [02:03]
Tim Miller
That's somebody had popped something off. It happens, you know, you get an itchy trigger finger on the publishing button. So we'll keep an eye on it as the show continues. But the news of the morning, the biggest news of the morning is that birthright citizenship is alive and well in the country. It was a six to three decision. They struck down Trump's eo. Six three was pretty notable to me the three number as as opposed to zero or two. Gorsuch was the third dissent. But I was wondering what your takeaways are.
- [02:33]
David French
First topline takeaway is thank the Lord. This is over what a ridiculous diversion to try to change, you know, centuries of American law and precedent because of your malice against immigrants. I'm glad the Supreme Court ended this thing. I'm glad that's over. I am surprised by the 3. I wouldn't have been surprised if it was 7. 2. After oral argument. I am a little surprised that Gorsuch joined in this. So I'm surprised by how narrow the margin was. It was more of a five. One, three. Kavanaugh was concurring in part and dissenting in part. But bottom line, six, three.
- [03:12]
Tim Miller
Yeah, just on Kavanaugh. This is all coming in quick, but it seems like he basically said that the law Congress passed in the 1950s is the reason why birthright citizenship is still allowed and that Congress could overturn that law if they wanted to. So it wasn't on constitutional grounds. Is that right? Right.
- [03:32]
David French
You know, so the 14th amendment says in its text that it empowers Congress to pass laws to facilitate the enforcement. And so, yeah, the bottom line is Donald Trump. Six, three. Donald Trump could not do it. You had five very solid votes for the idea that, look, this is just the Constitution. The Constitution says. And then Kavanaugh, the statute says. And so all of this is sort of like we're real time digesting. There might be something at the end of this, Tim, where somebody says they NPR'd it. They said something that they shouldn't have said about interpreting. But we're trying to, you know, we're in real time trying to figure this out. But the bottom line is it's gone. It's dead. The Trump EO is gone. It's dead. Birthright citizenship is still the law of the land. I don't see any reasonable prospect for it not being the law of the land anytime in the near to medium term future. This debate is settled for now. And thank the Lord.
- [04:30]
Tim Miller
Look at in time for America 252. You know, we can wave our little American flags and know that isn't it great.
- [04:36]
David French
We're not fundamentally changing American citizenship to be More exclusive on America 250.
- [04:41]
Tim Miller
It is great. It's not that great that the President of the United States wanted to fundamentally change the nature of American citizenship to make it more exclusive on America 250. But the fact that failed, in some ways, it's poignant, honestly.
- [04:54]
David French
Half full. Yeah, we're in a half full glass. Half full podcast.
- [04:58]
Tim Miller
All right, well, we'll see how that goes. This is not a new one. We have a couple other cases from yesterday and today I want to get to. But I just want to throw this in the immigration bucket, which was the TPS ruling last week, which I've been waiting to get your take on. Always when analyzing Supreme Court cases, you have to kind of separate inside yourself. Okay. What are your feelings about the actual law and actual ruling and feelings about the policy itself? Because sometimes those are in conflict on the policy itself. I just. I'm just so outraged by it. It's so tragic. It's insane. Like, the idea that somebody that came to this country under temporary protective status has been working, had kids, here, goes to church, is a good member of their community, and now, like, who knows, they can be worried that federal agents are going to knock on their door and send them back to a failed state. It's crazy. Just. Just on a practical level. Yeah. On the legal side of it, and I know you and I agree on that. On the legal side of it, you know, this is more your expertise, but I was seeing some interesting analysis of this last week about basically, the court saying that, like, this is outside of their purview and so, like, taking that to its logical conclusion. Like a Democratic president couldn't. Could wave their wand and make anybody protected immediately, which would have been news to Barack Obama, who tried to pass DACA several times. But I don't know. What do you think?
- [06:13]
David French
Well, this is one of those cases, Tim, that I'm 100% with you, that the administration is being unspeakably cruel here. Unspeakably cruel? Vicious. I think they're being blatantly racist. I don't think that requires trying to interpret dog whistles. It just requires us to listen to bullhorns. At the same time, the law here, as written, is a terrible, dreadful law, because what it does is it gave an enormous amount of discretion to the administration and then had another element in there that said that revocation of TPS status is not reviewable by the courts. So in other words, the. The actual law here is congressional malpractice. That's at 11 on a scale of 1 to 10, because it's just taking congressional prerogatives and authority and handing it over to the president and then even doing something worse than that, Tim, writing into the law, the judges cannot interfere. So this created a real problem if you're wanting to challenge the revocation of TPS status. And so what that meant was the argument became, okay, well, we can't review the actual decision, but we are asking the court to review the process that led to the decision. Now, the way I talked about this, case right after. That's a hard argument to make. I'm not saying it's like a frivolous argument. It's not a silly argument, but it's a hard argument to make. The odds are against you. If you're asking a court to review something when a statute says it's not reviewable, that puts you behind the eight ball. And so there was a lot of anger at the court over that that I think was misplaced, which was, why aren't you talking to Congress about passing these laws that give so much discretion to a president? At the same time, there was another element there, which was, was this a violation of the Constitution? In other words, did all of the racist statements mean that this is something that was beyond that? The Constitution, of course, sits over a statute. A statute is subordinate to the Constitution. And so when they targeted the Haitians, for example, racially, did that mean that they committed a constitutional violation that the court could remedy? That would mean that the statute, that statutory discretion, didn't come into play? Okay, that was a more complicated second question, and this is one where I've got problems with the court's reasoning on that part of it, because here's what they said. They said, look, there were a lot of racist statements that Trump made. But so far, the Trump administration has cut off every single TPS designation that has come up for review, regardless of what country it's from. So he's not just targeting people in the race. He's getting rid of all TPS designations as they come up. Now, the counter to that is, well, every TPS designation that's come up has so far been from a majority minority country. And so then the next question is, has. Is there a majority white country that has a TPS designation? Yes, Ukraine, but that hasn't come up yet. And so the court was trying to. Was essentially saying, well, look, yes, there was this vile rhetoric, but they're just canceling TPS to everybody, which they have the discretion to do.
- [09:39]
Tim Miller
And then there was the Alito had the Sopranos defense, you know, which is that everybody gets vile rhetoric against them sometimes. I mean, the Italians, the way that they treat Columbus Day right, yeah, it's really unfair.
- [09:50]
David French
But also, at the same time, and this is just stop me for just getting too much in the weeds here.
- [09:56]
Tim Miller
No, please.
- [09:57]
David French
I felt there was an inconsistency between the way the Supreme Court talked about race in the black codes in the Hawaii gun control case and the way they talked about race in the TPS case. And here was the difference.
- [10:10]
Tim Miller
Explain I haven't covered the Hawaii case. So just quick, what happened?
- [10:13]
David French
Yeah, my goodness. We're in it now, Tim. We're in it now. So the Hawaii case was this gun was a case involving a gun regulation that said in Hawaii that unless a private property owner, like a store or whatever, clearly indicates that you can bring a gun inside by default, even if you have a concealed carry permit, you cannot carry the gun in. So private property by default in Hawaii is barred for guns, but a owner can say yes and allow. And the Supreme Court struck that down as being overly restrictive of gun rights. But when Hawaii was trying to justify this regulation, it said it was similar to a law in Louisiana, your Louisiana, Tim, in 1865.
- [10:57]
Tim Miller
Oh, great. That ban, that's always a good model.
- [10:59]
David French
Yeah, 1865, red flag flying, right. And that at least purportedly on its face appeared to be a race neutral ban on people bringing firearms onto private property. And they said, see, this goes back to 1865. And the majority was like, shame on you, Hawaii. These were the black codes. These were the laws that were passed and then enforced against black citizens. So even though the law said on its face that nobody could bring a weapon onto private property without the property owner's permission, the reality was this was aimed at black citizens. And so the majority of the Supreme Court said, don't look at these, don't look at these because they are discriminatory. But then you flip around and you go to the TPS case and here you had very racist statements against the backdrop of a sort of presumably neutral application. And they said here, well, the neutral application is what matters, not the racist statements. You got to kind of figure out how are you dealing with overt racism from public officials and when does overt racism for public officials trigger that enhanced constitutional scrutiny?
- [12:10]
Tim Miller
This is going to take us to the Calvin Ball debates that I want to have at the end once we go through all of these rulings to answer people that I know, it's Calvin and Hobbes in the cartoon. Calvin played a game where he just changed the rules all the time whenever he wanted to. And there's some accusations that's what's happened on the court where it's like, well, you know, you can't. In this case, we want to protect gun rights. And so the racist premise is something that we can't abide. In that case, we don't really care that much about the Haitians rights. So the racist premise we're not going to consider as much. That's one potential way to look at it. Okay, let's go to the firing power because there is some, I think, interesting potential subtext in that category on this as well. So the two big rulings were Slaughter and Cook. They kind of go different ways. Basically, this is about the executive's power to fire people at independent agencies. The court ruled in Trump's favor in Slaughter case, basically saying that the administration can fire people at independent agencies at will. Trump's bleached about this when it happened. He's very excited. Today's historic Slaughter decision by the Supreme Court is the greatest increase in presidential power in 100 years. Such a monumental ruling at such an important time. He did another bleat to show the importance of the Slaughter case. Ninety years of precedent, 10 years less, has been completely and unequivocally overruled, greatly increasing presidential power at a time when it is most needed. You can see how I'd be a little alarmed by those comments, but why don't you give us just kind of a summary of the cases?
- [13:37]
David French
Yeah. Also, listeners, don't rely on Donald Trump for your Supreme Court analysis.
- [13:41]
Tim Miller
Okay. Well, I think that it's important to see how Donald Trump is interpreting the Supreme Court rulings. Maybe. Yeah, maybe that can be something that's telling. But anyway, go ahead.
- [13:51]
David French
So this is the, I'm not going to say the culmination because it's not. It's part of a long running trend with the conservative majority in the Supreme Court, and that is this. The Supreme Court is giving the President more authority over the executive branch, but it is at the same time diminishing the power of the executive branch. Okay, what do I mean by that? What the Supreme Court did in Slaughter is basically say if you have an executive branch agency, if this is an agency that exists within the purview of executing the laws, that's what it. Part of what it does is it executes the laws and it has a presidential appointee at the top of it that that executive branch agency, and really here's the core of the ruling, is going to have to be accountable to a political figure, whether it's a president. If it's an executive branch agency, it has to be accountable to the president. If it's a legislative agency, it has to be accountable to Congress. You cannot create an agency with lawmaking, law enforcement powers that is not accountable to an elected official. And so these independent agencies, which have had often multi member commissions with staggered terms were created often with the purpose of, well, they have independent expertise that they should exercise regardless of who's in office. And that problem with that is each one of these independent agencies exercises enormous power, lawmaking power, law enforcement power. And this is a very long standing conservative argument that's creating, in essence, an additional branch of government, one not contemplated by the Constitution. Because the Constitution only contemplates branches of government that are either run by judges, the judicial branch, or elected officials, the President or Congress. And so what the Slaughter case is saying is if you are a lawmaking part of government, you are accountable to the president. Now, it is not saying that civil service rules are gone, that the president can do whatever he wants with the executive agency, that the president has unlimited authority or control over the executive agency. Far from that. But it is saying that if you're a law enforcement agency, you're under a president. And so what that will mean is the next Democratic president can then sweep out all the Trump appointees at the top of these agencies. They don't have to linger around like they would under, you know, previous rules. So this really does cut both ways. And it's different from Cook in interesting ways and similar to Cook in interesting ways and. Yeah, it's fascinating.
- [16:35]
Tim Miller
Yeah. Okay, well, let's get to Cook. There are a couple of layers here, and you just mentioned one, so we'll just start with that. I do think Donald Trump is still president for two and a half more years. I don't know if you're aware of that. So things that give him additional power, make him feel like he has additional power do concern me.
- [16:52]
David French
Oh, me too.
- [16:53]
Tim Miller
Yeah, me too. Cutting the other way, though, is one of the big challenges that Democrats were gonna have in 2029 is what do we do with all of these people that Donald Trump brought in here who are total hacks and who might have corrupt or malign intent within the government. And Supreme Court's making that challenge a little easier on them. So that is, I do think, much easier. Yeah. Silver lining to this. But what's the other side of a silver lining? Do we have an inverse dark clouds and silver light dark cloud? Okay, I've got a couple of dark clouds too. But let's talk about the Cook ruling. There's some technical parts of this you should maybe get into. But like, at its, at the top level, it kind of seems like they basically just carving out the Fed from what you just said, because for. For kind of reasons, they're like, well, the Fed's existed. It hasn't really. It's only existed since 1910, but it had a precursor that existed since the beginning. And so it's kind of like, well, it's sort of waive this rule for the Fed. That's my layman's understanding.
- [17:53]
David French
So, Tim, I've been mulling over this ruling for like 24 hours and thinking about it and I've read it twice now all the way through and I'm kind of where you are and let me so. But not, I'm not all the way there. This let me steal, man. And I look, I'm super glad the case came out the way that it did. I think, I think it is actually a sound ruling and I'll explain why, but I think we have to own it, okay? You have to just own it. And so here's what I mean. So if you read the majority, they're basically saying in both text and subtext that the Fed is just different. It's just different from any other agents like the FLTC or the SEC.
- [18:36]
Tim Miller
Just like SEC football. It's just, it's just built different. You just can't compare.
- [18:39]
David French
And you know that's true, Tim, you know that's true.
- [18:41]
Tim Miller
But yeah, you can't compare.
- [18:42]
David French
You can't compare, but it's just different. It is not an ftc, it's not an sec, it's not an epa. It traces its lineage back to quasi public and private entities that even existed before the Declaration of Independence. There has been a sort of bank like this or bank like structure like this through most of American history. And if you want to talk about sort of original public meaning of what the Constitution does and does not permit, you know, the majority opinion sort of laid down the look, Hamilton and Madison were with us, you know, that's like the getting dealt two aces in Texas Hold' em is when, if you're making an originalist argument, you've got Hamilton and Madison medicine on your side. You're, you're in a great position. And so they're essentially arguing that this thing is something that would have been contemplated and existed at the founding. It's recognizable structure that is indispensable to sound monetary policy. So therefore it's just not the same and we're not going to apply the same rules as we, we do in slaughter, because it's just not the same thing. And we're going to uphold the independence of the Fed and we're even. You know, and Kavanaugh had a concurrence where he was just like, we're upholding the independence bet here. We, we cannot introduce uncertainty into the world markets. Now the problem is, Tim, just from a Conceptual standpoint, the Fed does an awful lot that. That is actual rulemaking lawmake. I mean, the Fed has a real governmental role. Okay? It really does. And, and so, okay, if it has a real governmental role, which branch of government does it fit into? Which elected official is it accountable to? And the court doesn't do run the traps in the same way as it did with the Slaughter case. Like, okay, if you have a lawmaking or law execution role, which elected official are you accountable to? Here the Court just essentially saying, look, this is a, this is a historic American institution that's just basically grandfathered in. And here's where I say that I wish we'd kind of own it. And here's what I mean. I find the arguments that the Fed, as distinct from, say, the FTC or the SEC is just its own thing completely, and therefore a President or the Congress isn't in charge of it to not be super persuasive. But here's what I do find to be persuasive, that if you're ever talking about sort of ending precedent, if you're ever talking about changing a legal structure, there is in the law something called reliance interests. In other words, you are. If you are talking about overturning a legal structure, you have to think carefully about what will happen if you do so. For example, in the Dobbs decision, this was a very big and contentious part of the Dobbs decision, the Justice Alito laid out. Reliance interests are very important in stare decisis analysis or in the, you know, in the legal analysis. And yeah, so if an entire society has ordered itself around a particular legal structure, you have to think it's like a Chesterton's fence kind of thing. There's a fence. Let's knock it down. No, wait, why is it there? Why is it there? And so essentially what I see Kavanaugh doing is basically saying, can we just be real here? If we go in and wreck the Fed, it's not just 330 million people in America. It's a global economy. The reliance interests are about as strong in guaranteeing the independence of the Fed as you can have in law, because you've ordered an entire economic system around a particular legal construct. And that's what I say about own it. You kind of just have to own it.
- [22:29]
Tim Miller
That makes sense to me. But then the problem is that why does this only extend to the Fed? Because there are other lines of interest. There are other government interests, right? And so it's like, okay, for example, after Watergate, there were a lot of reforms that were put in place that were like, hey, we saw that the way that the structure was working allowed for a lot of corruption. And so we want to create independent oversight bodies. We have new power strike inspectors general, special counsel. And so there are a bunch of other things that you could argue should have some independence from the executive, particularly oversight things such as inspectors general. And the Supreme Court has washed all that away. I mean, like, a lot of the, you know, post Watergate reforms now are moot because the president can just fire people at will.
- [23:21]
David French
Tim, you raise a really good point. And that is essentially, there's a weird thing that happened post Watergate. And post Watergate, you know, there will be people who are listening, who are experts in sort of all of the regulatory reforms. Post Watergate is shorthand for there was a period of time in which there were a lot of reforms, and some of those are in real jeopardy, are gone now. And part of the problem that you had, and this is where the reliance argument, I think, really starts to lock in in the Slaughter case. In other words, you've got actually a stronger reliance argument than maybe the the majority acknowledged. But Gorsuch did in his concurrence, which is, would Congress have created all of these agencies if it knew that the president, it couldn't make them independent? Would they have ever existed in the first place, or would they have existed in that form? And I think the answer post Watergate is no. They wouldn't have even made the agency, certainly not with that structure. Would they have made it a pure executive agency with fewer powers that the president controlled, or would they have but, you know, moved some powers into a legislative agency? I mean, these are options they would have had. And so I do think it's a very solid critique of the court's opinion to say, well, wait for decades. Congress is actually working, creating these agencies with the expectation that this was the legal structure. And Gorsuch acknowledges that. He says, would they have done this? And he kind of answers his own question, but then says, well, our obligation is in essence to keep the executive pinned into his constitutional box, which means that all of these agencies just don't have as much power as Donald Trump thinks they do. And, and so that's why I say, I think what the court is trying to do is give the president more power over the executive branch, but give the executive branch less power, which is nerve wracking in the present moment, to say the least.
- [25:27]
Tim Miller
In the present moment, you have a Congress that doesn't want us to have any power. The Congress that has abdicated all power, essentially, in broad strokes. Okay, nerve wracking, nerve wracking. Americans are carrying over a trillion dollars of credit card debt at rates north of 23%. Yikes. That's more than $200 billion a year in interest paid mostly by households who happen to be sitting on the largest pool of untapped home equity in U.S. history. Think about that for a second. You own a home, you've built real equity in it. And yet when you need capital for a remodel, for a debt consolidation, for something your household budget didn't plan for, the financial system routes you to a 23% unsecured card instead of letting you borrow against the asset you already own. This is a quiet tax in the American middle class, and the big banks aren't really racing to fix it. Aven built the first home equity line of credit issued on a Visa card. The same swipe that used to cost you 23% now costs you a fraction because it is secured by the value you've already built. This is hundreds of dollars a month back in your pocket. With Aven, you can check your offer at no cost with no impact to your credit score. There are no hidden fees. Because you own a home, you qualify qualify for a rate the credit card simply cannot offer. Aven has a 4.9-star trust pilot rating from over 8,000 customers. If you own a home and you're carrying a high interest balance, you are overpaying for capital. Aven fixes that. Go to Aven.com to discover your offer. That's AV E N.com Aven stop overpaying for capital. Even Financial Inc. NMLS 204-2345 cards issues pursuant to a license from Visa USA Inc. By Coastal Community bank and MLS 462289 member FDIC equal housing lender subject to approv terms apply. Visit Aven.com for details. Yeah, this other case dropped right before we started, so I don't expect you to have done the twice over reading. But I just do want to mention it because it's a little bit more into my wheelhouse, which is campaign finance world. And that is The Supreme Court ruled 6:3 to strike down coordinated spending limits between candidates and party committees. This is basically as part of campaign finance reform. There was, you know, a rule that kind of benefited campaigns. They got, they got preferential rates on tv and there are various other benefits that you got with if you're spending money that was donated to a campaign as opposed to donated to a PAC or to a party committee like the Republican National Committee or the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The majority ruled that the limits on those expenditures for the other committees violated the First Amendment. It's kind of just another extension of Citizens United, basically leveling the playing field, giving more. I mean, just in the sense that you're weakening the campaigns themselves. The previous Citizens United States, the campaigns themselves basically did the advertising. I know are some exceptions, but basically it happened through the campaigns themselves, since United allowed more power for all these outside groups to spend unlimited money. And now this is the campaign committees now having equal power. I'm wondering your take on this. I guess I will begin by saying I'm a little unconvinced by the idea that this is a violation of First Amendment rights to the campaign committees. I don't. I don't. Do campaign committees have first movement rights? Is one question. Another question is just having to pay higher ad rates. Is that a violation of First Amendment rights? Like if I called the. If I called the New Orleans Time pecune Advocate and said, I want to run an advertisement tomorrow, and they quoted me a rate that was higher than the lowest rate that they had quoted any of their other customers in the past, Are my First Amendment rights being violated then? I'm a little skeptical, so we'll put it there.
- [29:07]
David French
One of the big parts of this was the coordination part. In other words, you have the. You had this weird prohibition in coordination between parties and candidates, and that, to me, made no sense. And it ended up empowering super PACs to this just massive degree. And so, Tim, here's. I feel like we need to go and just rip up the whole campaign finance structure and start over, because it's like everything we do to fix the last problem creates another problem, which then create. Then you try to fix that, and it creates another problem which creates. But, but let me. Let me just back up first principles here. If the First Amendment means anything, it means political speech is the highest. That is the reason for being of the First Amendment is the protection of political speech. Yes, all other protected speech is included in there, but political speech is the core of this. It's the core of why we have a First Amendment is to influence politics and to influence public debate. And so right there, if you're going to be restricting and you're going to enact a labyrinth of regulations that start to really restrict a way in which ordinary Americans or the clubs or groups that we belong to interact with the political process, you're setting off all my alarm bells. Because the First Amendment exists for the protection of this political participation. Then if you start to restrict the way people can interact and then you make it more complicated, as it is infinitely complicated now, then you always look at it like this. Complexity is a subsidy for the wealthy. A whole lot of money allows you to hire the lawyers that allow you to participate legally in the public square. So if you have regulation plus complexity around political speech, you are creating a very uneven playing field. And you are starting to create a situation in which the very purpose of the first amendment is being violated. With that as a backdrop, let me just say we've done that at scale for years. Think about this, Tim. Let's suppose you want to support a candidate like you. You're just a group of people and you want to support a candidate and you get together with a bunch of friends and you start to try to pool resources to put up yard signs. All of a sudden you're going to find yourself locking into a lot of legal regulations that are very difficult to understand and comply with. And then you begin to have all kinds of barriers. If you're in a campaign, who can you talk to? Who can you not talk to? And what all of this has done is it diminished the power of political parties to define who they are. It has diminished the power of political campaigns as super PAC money comes rolling in. So I actually kind of like an opinion that grants more coordinating ability between a political party and a campaign which is ostensibly a part of that political party.
- [32:00]
Tim Miller
As an academic exercise, I agree. As a practical exercise, we're here and you have campaign contribution limits. So if you're one of those people in a group right now and you want to get your friends together and you're like, hey, we're all going to go support candidate X. Well, you can. Each person can only spend $7,000 per candidate unless you go form an official committee. Right? You can give to the party committees 40 something thousand, now 50,000. It keeps going up a little bit. And then you could give to a super pack, as Elon Musk found out, half a trillion if you want.
- [32:35]
David French
That makes no sense.
- [32:38]
Tim Miller
The whole thing makes no sense.
- [32:39]
David French
No sense at all.
- [32:40]
Tim Miller
The whole system makes no sense. So then the law that's like, okay, well, we're going to. They're kind of offsetting this somehow by saying, okay, we're going to give cheaper ad rates to the campaigns themselves to give them preferential treatment to be able to get on the airwaves and communicate their message to voters before the election. It's like, okay, that makes sense to Me, I guess, within this labyrinth of rules, but I don't know. The whole system is pretty stupid, I guess. I just, I don't know. I was pretty skeptical of the notion that this is. And I guess they're not trying to fix the whole system, they're just trying to make.
- [33:18]
David French
It's whack a mole. Every new fix creates a new problem. It's a giant mess.
- [33:24]
Tim Miller
I might sue, though, over my First Amendment rights. I feel like I'm not going to get the same rate that the party committee does. And so then we can just keep going down the rabbit hole. Trump had some Ls. I just want to just really quick hit the Trump Ls because that's nice. It's always nice when Trump gets Ls. At the Supreme Court, it was a 5 to 4 ruling on the states may accept mail in ballots that arrive after election Day. This is kind of like the inverse of my opinion on the TPS ruling. I think that this is stupid how we're doing mail in balloting right now, and I think it's actually hurting the democracy. I've talked about that a lot on the podcast, but whatever. If the state wants to do that, they're allowed to accept mail in ballots after election day as long as they're postmarked by election day. I thought it was kind of weird there was only a 5, 4 ruling, really. And then Trump also most deliciously lost his appeal in the Eugene Carroll case. And so now he does have to pay that woman her money when it comes to the adjudicated sexual assault.
- [34:18]
David French
Yeah, this was, on balance, not a great term for Trump. I mean, he, he definitely had some wins. We've talked about two of them. Slaughter in agency heads and the tps. So it's. No one should say that the Supreme Court just spent the whole term rebuking Trump, but he took some massive losses. National Guard in Illinois. Tariffs. Tariffs were the centerpiece of his domestic policy agenda. You know, he just left birthright citizens,
- [34:44]
Tim Miller
so maybe they were trying to give him a win. It was in a form of a loss on the tariffs, maybe as the Supreme Court trying to help me, kind
- [34:50]
David French
of saved his economy, maybe over time. But yeah, you know, so, you know, and then he took a loss on birthright citizenship, which is really a centerpiece of what you might, might call the big MAGA agenda of narrowing and transforming the very nature of what American citizenship means and, you know, sort of moving America from being a creedal nation to a nation that is more, quote, unquote, heritage American Blood and soil, European kind of model. He took very big losses. He also had several wins. But I think on balance, if you're looking at the Trumpist attempt to kind of recreate the American republic has been rebuked pretty decisively.
- [35:31]
Tim Miller
Shout out to my girl, Robbie Kaplan, who is Gene Carroll's lawyer on all that. And once she's in, my. Sorry, David, above you on my favorite podcast guests, in part because she listed out all of her sex, past sexual partners when she was on this podcast. Gene Carroll did. I'm not going to ask to do that, but it was a. It was a delightful experience. And it was. The list. The list was unbelievable. I mean, you want. It was like an astronaut and an Oscar winner. She had the best list ever. So I guess I'd brag about it, too. So good on her, Tim.
- [36:02]
David French
If that's what it takes to be at the top of the podcast list, I'll. I'll just have to settle for second tier.
- [36:08]
Tim Miller
Defer.
- [36:09]
David French
I'll just have to. I'm so sorry.
- [36:13]
Tim Miller
That's great. Now, I wasn't asking, but thank you for contemplating. All right, we're taking back the 4th of July at the Bulwark. Donald Trump and MAGA is trying to own July 4th and patriotism in general, and that's fucking stupid. We shouldn't let them do that, right? It's our country. It's here. We're here. We're queer, we're Americans. We love it. We're patriotic. We can wave the flag. And that is about the values that we all share as fellow Americans. It is about that creed. J.D. vance and Donald Trump want to pretend like we're not a nation based on a creed or a nation based on their whiteness and orangeness. And that just ain't true. And so we're going to take back the holiday. I hope you join us and do it along with us. If you've been thinking about becoming a member in the Bulwark community, right now is the moment. This week only. Fourth of July week. We've got a deal for you. A full Bulwark membership for everything we offer on our website. 86 bucks a year. That's 14% off. So come on, do it. This is your moment. TheBullWork.com July 4th Again, TheBullWork.com July4. We'll put a link in the show notes, become a Bulwark plus member. Come hang, yell at me at the comments. It'll be great. Usa Just really quick on the DOJ stuff, just get an update from you on that a. On what we've been seeing from Blanche, in particular, this case in Prairieland I mentioned on Friday's show. I don't know if you've been following that, the protests, the ICE protests with the antifa where the DOJ put out this press release that said leaders of antifa cell led to 100 years in prison. Kind of a complicated case in the sense like one of these protesters did shoot a cop, you know, so. Right. This is not. We're not talking about people that were completely without merit in being looked at by the Justice Department. On the other hand, one of the people that was part of the antifa cell leaders was not even there at the protest and was arrested subsequently for carrying antifa materials in their car. 30 year prison sentences as part of the Trump EO around domestic terror, left wing terror. So I don't know if you have any thoughts on that or what we've seen from the DOJ lately.
- [38:31]
David French
Yeah, the issue with that case is not the sentences with these guys. I mean, they're the. If you really dive into the facts of this case was a violent. This wasn't like a bunch of innocent folks arriving in a Protestant, oh my gosh, somebody has a gun. And how did this. You know, this was not. This was not that. So the issue here is not was justice done on those guys. You know, any one of those given sentences, you should be, any of us should be very careful at just saying a jury verdict. And when you have a jury verdict and sentencing under the federal sentencing guidelines, that it. That somehow the fix was in. You know, we, we need to be careful about that. These cases are tried in front of juries. Juries render verdicts based on the facts in the law. And this was violence. A cop was shot. So I have no sympathy. And unless I saw some very compelling evidence that there was a miscarriage of justice.
- [39:25]
Tim Miller
However.
- [39:26]
David French
What about the J6ers.
- [39:28]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [39:28]
David French
You know, so this is, this is the problem you have here, Tim, is that that in a country where the rule of law is fracturing. Yeah. It can still impose justice on somebody who's not a friend of the regime. It will still be. You know, I wrote a piece some time ago about this concept of sort of the dual state that existed in the right, has existed in the rise of totalitarian regimes, and that is the justice system can exist for most people in a normal way. But if you are in a category of person disfavored by the regime or favored by the regime, you enter the second state and the second State is, well, justice will not be imposed upon you if you have committed crimes in service of the king, you know, in service of the sovereign.
- [40:18]
Tim Miller
Sure.
- [40:18]
David French
In service of the regime. And so that's the impunity that the Trump allies have. There were some reporting earlier this week that I saw, you know, there's, it's kind of an open secret kind of thing that $2 million gets you a pardon. And, and so that's the problem that we have. It's not that justice isn't being done in some cases.
- [40:42]
Tim Miller
That seems like a crime.
- [40:43]
David French
Yes.
- [40:44]
Tim Miller
Was that a crime?
- [40:45]
David French
Well, you know, after Trump, United States, it's actually an open question, which is kind of weird to think about. But the problem here is it is justice for thee and not for me when it comes to friends of the administration. And that's the issue.
- [41:02]
Tim Miller
Even more than that, I guess I would say this, like, setting aside the merits of this case, it was like creating a new terrorism designation just for your foes.
- [41:10]
David French
Yeah.
- [41:11]
Tim Miller
Like, that's about again, you know what I mean? Again. So it's even, it's kind of, it's justice for thee, not for me and then for thee. Actually, it's a little bit like justice plus, you know what I mean? And so I think that's a little bit of what we're seeing from the doj. They've failed at that a lot at the top level, you know, of with the famous opponents. But and I think that is, that's why I kind of want to mention the Prairie Land case, because I think that they're, you know, that maybe they are having more success.
- [41:37]
David French
Well, I think the better example of the real double standard isn't the Prairieland case where a person was actually shot. It's all these cases that are falling apart in Chicago where case after case after case has been brought against protesters only to be dropped by prosecutors. You've had the exceedingly rare circumstance where grand juries have refused to indict. You are now seeing a scandal of where it's coming out that the officials with the U.S. attorney's office, Assistant U.S. attorneys, were behaving improperly in front of the grand jury, trying to lobby the grand jury in improper ways, dismissing.
- [42:14]
Tim Miller
Going after the ICE protesters.
- [42:16]
David French
Going after the ICE protesters at Broadview, you outside in, in Chicagoland area. And so there's a woman who was shot five times, called a domestic terrorist. And then by, you know, press release, and then when the evidence comes out, they drop the case, you know, and they find out that it was nothing like the initial press release. So there are putting aside that Prairie Land case where a a cop is actually shot, there are lots of other cases where the administration is overcharged, made up things, it has slandered innocent citizens and it's just case after case after case after case like that. And for some reason they haven't gotten the attention that these Texas cases have gotten. But the Texas cases aren't necessarily a great example.
- [43:02]
Tim Miller
It's because they're winning. Yeah. It's because the administration's loser. Yeah, it's like, okay, yeah. But there you go. Fair enough.
- [43:09]
David French
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Earn four times the points on your favorite brands now through July 28th on eligible items like Pantene Moisturizing Shampoo, Gillette Razors and Refills, Secret Clinical Strength Deodorant, Herbal Essences Hair Care, Old Spice Deodorant, Pampers, Swaddler's Diapers, and Crest Clean Breath Toothpaste. Enjoy savings on top of savings when you shop in store or online for easy pickup or delivery, restrictions apply. See the website for full terms. Identity theft can cost more than you think. Drained investment accounts, stolen tax returns, lost wages, expenses for lawyers. It's a lot. That's why LifeLock is backed by the Million dollar protection package, which covers up to $3 million for the most comprehensive plan. So if your money is stolen due to identity theft, they've got your back. If you have personal expenses while resolving identity theft, like paying for travel or extra childcare, LifeLock has your back. Need coverage for lost wages because work had to take a backseat throughout all this. You. You guessed it, LifeLock still has your back. Plus there's coverage if you need to pay fees for lawyers and experts to resolve your case. Don't face the burden of identity theft alone. Protect your future and finances with LifeLock. Join today, visit LifeLock.com iHeart and save up to 30% your first year. That's LifeLock.com iHeart for 30% off terms apply.
- [44:36]
Tim Miller
Owning into Dem politics stuff and what we see from the DSA this week. But we saw a surprising, maybe not surprising. Let me rephrase that. We saw a really adamant defense of the Constitution and American values, even when it's inconvenient politically coming from the left wing of the Democratic Party over the weekend and I don't think that got enough attention. Maybe it's a low bar to step over, but it's not one that any of the Republicans have stepped over recently. And so I want to play for you. Zoran Mamdani on this week. Okay, so we're just about out of time. I gotta ask you, I noticed that you're turning 35 soon, right?
- [45:15]
David French
In a few months, yes.
- [45:16]
Tim Miller
So you now hit one of the constitutional requirements to run for president, but
- [45:21]
David French
there's another one that says you have to be a natural born citizen.
- [45:23]
Tim Miller
You were not born here.
- [45:24]
David French
Yes, but do you think that's something
- [45:28]
Tim Miller
that should be changed in the Constitution? It would take an amendment. But do you think that we should change that? No, I think the Constitution looks good the way it is. Just the way it is. Just the way it is.
- [45:38]
David French
I'm very excited to focus on New York City.
- [45:41]
Tim Miller
Very different than 20, 28 hats that the Republican senators are wearing.
- [45:47]
David French
That's interesting. I had not seen that. I had not seen that. That's very interesting that he did that. Yeah, I happen to disagree with him.
- [45:56]
Tim Miller
Oh really? How about that? Hot damn. Zoran should be eligible to be president or not him in particular, but Arnold
- [46:05]
David French
Schwarzenegger, to be clear, I'm not saying we'd amend the Constitution.
- [46:09]
Tim Miller
So Zoron is.
- [46:11]
David French
No, I think a US citizen should be eligible to be. Any US citizen should be eligible to be president. Naturalized or natural born. I think we should be on the exact same footing. We're all equally citizens of this country. And I would say that some of the naturalized citizens I know are some of the most patriotic Americans, you know, I've encountered. Now I could be talked out of that. I mean there are there. It's not that it's just a purely bigoted reason that you would choose natural born citizens. But I, that's funny. I disagree with Mamdani on a number of things and that that's a different. Another one of them.
- [46:47]
Tim Miller
That's another one. But you had to be at least feel good that he, you know, isn't doing the wink and nod thing that Trump was doing. Which is just my point. It's a notable difference. It's like, well, you never know. You never know. John Carl, Maybe we could challenge it. We have people looking this. There are many other different ways to go about this and there are smart people that think the other that I
- [47:05]
David French
don't think it's the biggest issue in the world. Like, I have a list of constitutional amendments I'd like to see pass to really keep another authoritarian moment like this from ever happening again. To really have try to deal with American polarization and dysfunction. I even taught a class called five Constitutional Amendments to Save America, which was a ton of fun. I love that that's not one of the them like amending natural. That's so that's not an urgent issue.
- [47:32]
Tim Miller
Well, we're going to go back to the earlier clip and just make sure that MAGA social media sees this. It's like French change constitution to help Zoran get elected president. Oh, just let people know that's what happened.
- [47:43]
David French
If you guys do that, if you guys promote this podcast, you're going to destroy me.
- [47:50]
Tim Miller
Okay, well, I don't know. I think they already hate you enough, David. Maybe just lean into it. Maybe just lean into it as well. Of troll. That's what they, you know, learn to learn about the trolling. All right, we'll get, we'll let you get some credit. Street cred back on DSA thoughts. I want to talk about Graham Platner. Pull out Sienna poll, New York Times, Portland Press Herald shows him beating Susan Collins 4947. So close. Interestingly, Graham Platner is losing with white non college voters 59 to 36. And he's winning college educated whites 68 to 31.
- [48:29]
David French
None of that's surprising.
- [48:31]
Tim Miller
Yeah, but it's interesting.
- [48:33]
David French
It's interesting. None of it's surprising. The DSA model appeals disproportionately to rich white progressives or privileged white progressives.
- [48:42]
Tim Miller
I think it's young people across the board because I got some pushback on this because I made this exact point a couple, maybe a week ago. And I think in fairness, if you look at what happened in New York, rich white progressives, college educated progressives and young people, black, brown, white people, everything. I think that's kind of the coalition, basically.
- [49:02]
David French
Yeah. And there's a lot wrong here, Tim. I think we might disagree about Graham Platner, but I think there's a lot wrong here. And one is hidden in the. Not necessarily hidden in those numbers. And that is this sort of idea that I'm gonna. We're gonna select a Graham Platner, a guy with a Nazi tattoo. A guy with a history of sexting women, not his wife, who was only recently on a pretty gross, you know, pretty gross sex site while still being a married dude. Like we can go down all the list to then turn around and say, well, this is an authentic working class guy. Kind of tells a lot of working class people that, you know, that that DSA consultant class thinks you're a bunch of scumbags. Because I don't know, regardless of class in this country, if you're walking around with a Nazi tattoo, if you're sexting a person when you're married to a person that's not your wife, if you're saying a bunch of the things that he's done, I don't denigrate the claims against him about his. That he manhandled a former girlfriend, like at any social class. That is scumbaggery in any social class. And the idea that to turn around to working class people and say, ha, ha, what of you, I think it's just so. It just is. It's so condescending. It's absurd. When I grew up, the term working class values meant things like a man's word was his bond. That that was sort of viewed as like working class values. It's not. Overlook that Nazi tattoo.
- [50:40]
Tim Miller
This takes us to the Texas thing. Because I do just want to explore in this question. I understand the sentiment that is condescending. I also understand this idea like, like Democrats need to try to figure out a way to try to reach working class men. And I never thought that like the thing that was appealing about Graham Platner to them was the scumbaggery. Like the case would have been like the idea was that he was, to use a lib word, centering their concerns. You know, that would be the case for it. And the scumbaggery thing cuts both ways. Like when you start to look at Texas, right? Because we have also seen a Texas poll, Talarico, 47, Paxton 47, thought it was interesting. While you were reading the Cook ruling two times over, I was deep in the cross tabs on this Texas poll, trying to understand what was happening there. Tao is basically overperforming among old whites, which is interesting. And Hispanics way overperforming with Hispanics. And that is kind of what has them close to a tie with white non college and with. With whites outside of the big metros in Texas. He's getting annihilated. Platner was 59, 36. Talarico is losing. White Non College, 68, 27. So I don't think the non college whites in Texas are looking at Ken Paxton saying, well, that scumbaggery is not my working class values that you're espousing there. So to me.
- [52:04]
David French
But you also have to lay over religion. There are massive differences between the white working class of pain and checks.
- [52:10]
Tim Miller
Sure, sure, sure, of course. So anyway, I guess I have two thoughts on this. And my first question is you just kind of look at Platner and tell Rico and you see kind of this weakness of the Democrats effort to try to appeal to these groups that they need to win. Platner was trying to be a working class guy for working class people. Tell Rico, a religious guy for religious people. And you're not really seeing it hit in either place.
- [52:33]
David French
Well, but also, we have to look at the background. So here you have Graham Platner in a. A state that is, what, D 14, and he's up 2 on Susan Collins. You have James Talarico in a state that Trump won by what, eight or nine, and he's tied with Ken Paxton. And so what you have here, I
- [52:55]
Tim Miller
mean, so you want about Susan Collins much more appealing opponent than Ken Paxton.
- [52:58]
David French
Much more appealing opponent. Exactly. But here's what I'm worried about, Tim, is I feel like you could have a situation where Talarico, in large part because of his underlying decency and openness to people with disagreeable points of view he disagrees with, ends up overperforming a normal Democrat substantially, but losing. And Platner ends up underperforming a normal Democrat but winning.
- [53:24]
Tim Miller
And it incentivizes all these bad takes and traits. We're like, see, this is what we needed.
- [53:30]
David French
Bingo.
- [53:31]
Tim Miller
Exactly.
- [53:32]
David French
If you're winning a D14 state by three, I mean, you won.
- [53:37]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [53:37]
David French
But you're like J.D. vance in the Ohio Senate race. Right. You. You underperformed.
- [53:42]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [53:42]
David French
And if you're in a R +8 state, that is Texas, that is the heart, the beating heart of the political power of the right in the United States, and you lose by two. Yeah, it's still a loss. I got you. It's still a loss, but you had a chance there. And I feel like we, we're being perfectly positioned right now, Tim, to take the wrong lesson out of 20. And that really concerns me.
- [54:08]
Tim Miller
And this matters, actually, narrative matters. This is where most of what we do, hot air punditry, gas baggery, doesn't really matter that much. But Joe Biden's run in 2024, I think, was in large part premised on people taking the wrong lessons for 2022. Totally. Totally. And so it's like they want. The Democrats didn't. There wasn't a red wave. So that means that the Democrats did well and that people are happy about the Biden administration. It's like, no, there wasn't a red wave because Republicans nominated a few insane people and because of the Roe v. Wade overturn, like, that's why there was a red wave. Like, it had nothing to do with Joe Biden or the Democratic brand at all.
- [54:44]
David French
It was Dobbs plus doofuses that stopped the red wave. Yeah, absolutely. Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Earn four times the points on your favorite brands now through July 28th on eligible items like Pantene Moisturizing Shampoo, Gillette Razors and Refills, Secret Clinical Strength Deodorant, Herbal Essences Hair Care, Old Spice Deodorant, Pampers, Swaddlers Diapers and Crest Clean Breath Toothpaste. Enjoy savings on top of savings when you shop in store or online for easy pickup or delivery, restrictions apply. See the website for full terms. Identity theft can cost more than you think. Drained investment accounts, stolen tax returns, lost wages, expenses for lawyers. It's a lot. That's why Lifelock is backed by the million dollar protection package, which covers up to $3 million for the most comprehensive plan. So if your money is stolen due to identity theft, they've got your back. If you have personal expenses while resolving identity theft, like paying for travel or extra childcare, LifeLock has your back. Need coverage for lost wages because work had to take a backseat throughout all this? You guessed it it. LifeLock still has your back. Plus there's coverage if you need to pay fees for lawyers and experts to resolve your case. Don't face the burden of identity theft alone. Protect your future and finances with LifeLock. Join today. Visit lifelock.com iheart and save up to 30% your first year. That's lifelock.com iheart for 30% off terms apply.
- [56:19]
Tim Miller
On that question of kind of the impact that elites and people can have, this is one area I think maybe we have a little disagreement with. I just want to hash out about what kind of democratic establishment people should do with regards to whether it be Platner or Chevalier or anyone that they don't prefer, either for policy or character reasons. I do see a lot of pressure from the D.C. consulting class on the Democratic establishment to be like, like, you must stand up right now and show backbone and oppose the things that you don't like within your party and go after them. And to me, having lived and then they'll look at us and never Trumpers and be like, you must do that as well to demonstrate that you're a good never Trumper. And to me I'm like, wait a minute, I lived through the Tea Party thing actually in 2010. And I think that if the lesson that you take away is that the establishment people should attack them, I think that you really weren't awake during the Tea party of 20 2010. And let me just explain what I mean by that. It's like the people the Republican Party base was mad at, the Republican establishment, they said, you did not reflect our views enough. You did not care about our concerns about immigration. You do not care about our concerns about the war in Iraq. You did not concern about our concerns about our jobs being sent overseas. Regardless what you think about the policies, those are the things that the Republican base was mad about, about. And the Republican Party leaders, myself included back then were like, no, you're supporting insane people. And what we really need to do is move to the middle on immigration and appeal more to suburban women. And then Republican voters were like, fuck you. No, like by John Boehner, by Eric Cantor. Bye. You know, fuck you. And so I think now I'm seeing a lot of Democratic consultants in the middle, like, move into the same thing where it's like, okay, I'm going to attack the left who has. Whatever you think about it, they're mad that they don't think that the party were successful in standing up to Trump. He won twice. They were right about that. They don't think the party cared too much about foreign concerns rather than domestic, and they don't think that they are standing up enough for their economic concerns. That's what the base is mad about. And so to me, I think if I was a center left Democrat, what I would try to do is talk to those people about the ways that I agree with those concerns and that I'm going to be responsive to your concerns on this right now and I'm going to find you a new way to beat Trump and fight maga. And I think that what you're seeing a lot is a lot of the center left gems say, you know, I think we should do more of the same. And it's like, well, no shit, like you're empowering the DSA by like attacking the DSA and saying we should do more of the same. All you're doing is creating more dsa. So anyway, this is just a strategic question about how to manage that. And I think that there's some misses happening, but I'm curious. You feel free to disagree with me on that. But that's just kind of how I think about it.
- [59:07]
David French
I mean, look, I, I'm going to agree in part and to use the language of the I'm going to concurrent part and dissenting part. So let me, let me concur for a moment. And that is our political part. The if, if a Democrat, if there is a party that needed a bigger tent, it's the Democratic Party because There was, especially in 2024, what was very plain was that the bigger ideological tent belonged to the Republicans, that the Republicans were more welcoming to different points of view. And as long as you put on the red hat, you are welcome. So pro vaccine, anti vaccine, pro Ukraine, anti Ukraine, like you, you pro life, pro choice. And so the Republicans actually ended up with a broader ideological coalition than the Democrats.
- [59:50]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [59:51]
David French
And so the Democrats absolutely needed to broaden the tent, but it still has to be a tent. It can't be an open field. Right. So there have to be lines you will not cross. And, and especially when those lines start to get into outright bigotry and discrimination. I don't care how much you talk about universal health care, if you' interracial marriage and you believe that Vladimir Putin has some good points, you know.
- [60:16]
Tim Miller
No, no, right, that's true. No, that's true. I agree with that.
- [60:20]
David French
You can be for universal healthcare, but if you're a raging anti Semite. No. And so, you know, and I mean a genuine anti Semite, I don't mean just critiquing Netanyahu. And then the other thing is a lot of these left, I'm sure you saw this, the video of the Scott Wiener event situation in San Francisco.
- [60:38]
Tim Miller
I was going to talk about that on tomorrow's spot, but let's do it. Let's do it.
- [60:41]
David French
So if you want to talk about a guy who came towards the left with an open hand and actually changed policies in some ways to be more critical of Israel, and yet he's run out of, and showing up to demonstrate for trans people in his constituency, and he's run out because he's not all the way radicalized or whatever the complaint was. Just remarkable stuff. And so I think also Democrats, you have to understand, and having lived through this on the other end with the Tea Party of, on the back end of the Tea Party, which is. Oh, I really realize that some of these people actually, they, they just wanted to occupy and take over one of our two great political parties and transform it into something unrecognizable to what it was a few years ago. There's a lot of. I think a lot of mainstream Democrats would do well to know that some of the, a lot of these far left. I'm not talking about left. Yeah, Bernie. Or aoc. I'm talking about far left. Some that some of these DSA candidates we've seen recently, they hate the Democratic establishment as much or more than they hate maga.
- [61:57]
Tim Miller
More. More. For sure.
- [61:59]
David French
More. And in fact, they were Happy. Some of them were happy to see Trump win, to punish Biden. And so you have to have a tent. It cannot be an open field. And so if you're bringing in, and here's my basic bottom line line, you do not need red shirts to beat brown shirts. You do not need brown shirts to beat red shirts. And that's shorthand for brown shirt fascist, red shirt, communists. And so if you ever find yourself tempted to ally with communists or outright fascists to beat the other side, you are playing into the extremist playbook, which is to present themselves as the only effective opposition to the opposing extremist.
- [62:42]
Tim Miller
I think that that was more concurrent than dissent. And I'm going to revise and extend my remarks because I think that the point I'm trying to make that I think that the myths that the people on the center left make is not that there should not be tent poles. It's not that you should not call out bigotry or illiberalism when you see it. It's just that you also need to provide people who are unhappy within your coalition about your leadership. You need to show them that they're hurt.
- [63:11]
David French
Total agreement, I guess.
- [63:12]
Tim Miller
Like, hey, heard. Because that's not what John Boehner, what Eric Cantor, what Mitt. God love them. Like, they. Mitt did it a little better than Bader and Cantor, actually. But, like, mostly that's not what the Democratic establishment that got overthrown did. Jeb, like, I'm talking about my own mistakes. I'm throwing myself in the pirate. You have to say to the voters, hurt. Like, you're right. Like, the way we've been doing things got us two terms of Trump. Okay. And we need to do things differently. And we're going to. And here are the things that I think that we should do that are within my values, blah, blah, blah, that are a new strategy that's responsive to your concerns about whether it be foreign policy or cost of living. And instead, sometimes what you see is we've got a handle on things here. We're doing pretty good. And it's like these crazy people over here look at. I don't support that. And that's where I start to. It's about the emphasis. You know, you have to put the emphasis on the right syllable.
- [64:13]
David French
So, you know, one of the things that's, I think, so telling is that it's young people who are driving a lot of this on both sides. So if you're looking at who's going to be fascist curious, it's typically not going to be 78 year old uncle Bob.
- [64:25]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [64:26]
David French
You know, it's going to be interesting.
- [64:27]
Tim Miller
I thought that was interesting. The Talarico poll. That's why I mentioned it. Who is Talarico overperforming with? Old kind of George Bush, Republicans in the Texas suburbs and Hispanics. Like that's who he's overperforming with. Totally.
- [64:39]
David French
So you're worried about his nephew Gunner, not old Uncle Bob.
- [64:42]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [64:43]
David French
So the nephew Gunner is watching Nick Fuentes and all of this. Here's the problem. You remember that old Churchill adage, democracy is the worst system of government, except for every other one, of course.
- [64:53]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [64:53]
David French
We have a group of young Americans who've grown up with democracy as the worst system of government. And they've had no exposure to the others that the older boomers had when they saw fascism, when they saw communism, when they saw imperial Japan, when they. Or lived in the shadow of all of those evil empires. Right. And so the younger cohort is growing up with all the flaws of democracy without firsthand experience of the horrors of many of the alternatives. So we have to do two things at once. One, to your point, we have to go and say we got to try to make democracy better. We can't just sit there and say socialism, communism, whatever, are horrible. We have to make democracy better. And so. Absolutely. And that's the first point of your thing, which is we have to walk with an open hand to young people who are growing up in this miserable political environment. And if we're sitting there going, ain't democracy grand? And it's this one. Right. We have a huge obligation to do better. At the same time. At the same time, we have an obligation to draw lines and to educate. And you cannot forsake either obligation.
- [66:03]
Tim Miller
That's why I like having you on David French. I like that wisdom. You're making my point better than me. All right, we're out of time. We're way over. And so I want to do this. You had a great article on one party rule hiding in plain sight. I'm just going to endorse it and tell people to go read it. We'll put a link in the show. Notes, you had another column that I just want to mention. Give you briefly if you could explain the purging of General Donahue and why that is so alarming to you.
- [66:27]
David French
Yeah, so. So we have seen a lot of things from the very beginning of Hex's tenure that should be quite alarming. Everything from using a non classified social media app to communicate airstrike information to launching wars without congressional approval. Although that is primarily a Trump thing, firing multiple generals and admirals. Lots of evidence that he's been that Americans are engaged in unlawful strikes in the Caribbean. I mean, there's just thing after thing after thing. And sometimes you never know what will be the straw that breaks the camel's back. But in this case, I think what we had was maybe a 2x4 that helped break the camel's back because heth essentially forces out a General Donahue. CD Donahue, who might be one of the single most respected universally respected war fighters in the army. Just universally respected. And so. So the thing about this is I think there were two things happened at once. One was timing. This happened after the Hegseth military adventure in Iran was floundering, not because of the military failure, but because of terrible political leadership. You just had a flu outbreak in a basic training base because of the loss of the flu, you know, making the flu vaccine voluntary. You'd had a series of other firings of generals. You'd had the signal. So one after another after another. But the whole time Hegseth is saying all of this is for a meritocracy, all of this is for lethality. And then what does he do? He basically forces out one of the. If he is out, if he isn't good enough. There is no argument that excellence can trump politics in hexis military. And I think that's why this was the two by four that broke the camel's back. And I'm seeing alarm from Republicans. I'm seeing alarm from right leaning independence. Of course, all the alarm from the people who've already been saying that there is a problem. But I. I really feel like this was a. This was a moment, you know, their old Hemingway statement. How does a company go bankrupt gradually then suddenly? I think this was the gradually then suddenly moment on the broader public, sort of that broader public sense of the state of the military.
- [68:49]
Tim Miller
Yeah. And it ties to kind of what we were saying earlier about the Slaughter case and all this. It's like this is happening all over the government. Government where good people, good public servants are getting removed and they're being replaced by hacks. And it's obviously particularly alarming in the military. Okay, Last thing. Your beloved Memphis Grizzlies have made a trade. John Morant is off to Portland. The jailblazers are back. A lot of buzz about maybe the Nuggets and the Celtics looking at a big trade potentially centered around Jalen Brown. We'll see. I'm wondering Just how you're feeling about the state of play and is there any hope in Memphis? Are you sad to see Jogo? Are you just succumbing to the reality and just becoming a Spurs fan?
- [69:33]
David French
So. So, Tim, also, while we were talking, I got a News alert. Shams LeBron is leaving the Lakers, but will play next year.
- [69:42]
Tim Miller
Wow. So, so much that's interesting. Yeah, warriors, spurs are my. Are the two most likely, I would say, for. For.
- [69:49]
David French
Or does he go back to the Cavs to try to win one for the hometown before he.
- [69:54]
Tim Miller
Yeah, Cleveland's pretty far from la. I don't know. I think he likes his house.
- [69:59]
David French
Yeah. Yeah, I think so. What a league, Tim. So we went from probably the most depressing regular season that I can remember, where it felt like by the last 40% of the of the time, a third of the league was just tanking, which completely distorts the competitive environment. It was miserable to watch. And then one of the best playoffs of my lifetime. It was so fun. And then a crazy off season. So, two things. One, I like the Spurs. I've always liked the Spurs. They're high in my NBA hierarchy. They're nowhere near my top team at the Grizzlies, but the future is so bright, you got to wear shades. Except that, you know, Wimby, he does not want to become the Bill Lambert of the 2000s.
- [70:48]
Tim Miller
Yeah, a lot of shine worn off. Wemby else got kind of whiny. Yeah.
- [70:56]
David French
And so, you know, and I think Wimby should look over to Portland to my John Morant, who just was traded because there was one point where all the shine was on John.
- [71:06]
Tim Miller
Feature of the league was John Morant. You guys couldn't even get them off your books. You had to. You had to take Jeremy Grant's shit contracts just to get rid of them.
- [71:14]
David French
Terrible. I mean, it's terrible. And so the combination of injuries and his own, you know, sad. Sadly, his own immaturity led to all the shine falling off so fast. And so you can look at somebody who's 22 and say, the world is your oyster, but you have to make choices. And, you know, Wimby's made a lot of really good choices. He's done a lot of things that put him in a position to be the face of the league and to be a beloved superstar. And he's got a chance to come back after the Finals because I do remember tragic Johnson in the 1980s, where he. He had a bad finals against the Celtics, and a lot of people wondered about his legacy. And, you know, he obviously came back from that. So Wimby's got all the time in the world, but there were some. There were some trouble signs. And as far as Jaw, it's just sad. I'm sad. Yeah.
- [72:05]
Tim Miller
I hope he gets a second wind in Portland. We'll see. I always like Jaw. Very fun to watch, and I feel some responsibility because it all started to unravel with him at Shotgun Willys, the Denver strip club. Club. That's where it started to go down for Ja. He brought a gun and 50 grand and to Shotgun Willies after a Nuggets game one night. And, you know, back when I was in the closet, I. I got dragged to Shotgun Willies a couple times. And that's just not the place that you want to be after the game. That's all I'm saying.
- [72:33]
David French
Not. And also after a lackluster performance that game. And then. And so, yeah, it was just so bad on so many levels. And then, you know, right after he comes back after the suspension, then he's. A very brief Instagram video of him brandishing a gun again. And. Yeah, and then he kind of quit on the team in a couple of games. Threw his coach under the bus. And look, Memphis still loves him. I still, you know, I love the guy to death. I want. I wish nothing but the best for him, but it's just sad.
- [73:02]
Tim Miller
Yeah, Boozer, he's got his head on straight. Soon enough. Come on, he'll be great.
- [73:07]
David French
And we got Isaiah Stewart with beef stew. I mean, we got some guys that, you know, they've got that grit and grind in them coming back.
- [73:14]
Tim Miller
So that's. David French wants to change the Constitution to make sure his Orion mom, Dante, can become. I'm just joking. I'm just joking.
- [73:23]
David French
You're gonna do it to me again? You're gonna do it to me again.
- [73:27]
Tim Miller
Tim, look, we appreciate you, as always, and we'll be talking to you again soon. All right, brother?
- [73:34]
David French
Thanks, Tim.
- [73:35]
Tim Miller
We'll be back tomorrow for another edition of the show. See y' all then. He's a natural born lover and he.
- [73:41]
David French
He suits me fine He's a natural born lover and he's just my kind He's a natural born lover and he takes care of business.
- [73:55]
Tim Miller
The Borg podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.
- [74:06]
David French
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- [75:06]
Tim Miller
It's called soccer. It's called football Soccer Cracker Foot Bowl Domino's Best deal ever. Lets you get any pizza, including stuffed crust with any toppings for 9.99.
- [75:20]
David French
Okay, we can agree on that.
- [75:21]
Tim Miller
Yeah, fully.
- [75:22]
David French
So pineapple? Don't ruin it.
- [75:25]
Tim Miller
Get any pizza, including stuffed crust with
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David French
any toppings for 9.99.
- [75:29]
Tim Miller
Finally, something everyone can get behind. And if the refs disagree, that's between them and Domino's, which means the only thing left to find right over is who's ordering.
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David French
Dom Minnows Prices higher for some locations. Excludes XL and specialty pizzas. Select this offer from 6:15 to 7:26 online only. Size availability varies by crust tank max 7 toppings 6 for pan and New York style crust. Minimum purchase required for delivery prices, participation, delivery area and charges may vary.