← The Bulwark Podcast
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- [00:13]
Tim Miller
Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. We've got a doubleheader today in segment two. My colleague Andrew Egger, fresh off his star turn in the Trump White House briefing room, comes in to tell us how weird that was. But first, she's a professor of law at the University of Michigan. Second straight University of Michigan guest. Hail to the victors. She's also go blue. She's also co host of the podcast Strict Scrutiny. She clerked for Anthony Kennedy, and she's the author of a brand new book, how the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe theories and bad vibes. It's Leigh Lippman. What's going on, girl?
- [00:50]
Leigh Lippman
You know, same old, same old. Everything is amazing. World is looking great.
- [00:55]
Tim Miller
Yeah, who's got it better than us, right?
- [00:58]
Leigh Lippman
Exactly. Thanks, Jim Harbaugh.
- [01:01]
Tim Miller
That's my sport reference for the day for you. Okay. I want to do book stuff and kind of refresh my old Federalist Society originalist muscles from my Republican days on the back half of this. But first, just because there is so much going on, I've had several people pitching me about when having come on the pod to talk about upcoming Supreme Court cases. And I'm just like, y' all talk to me at the end of May. There's too much shit going on daily day to day till I get into what's coming on the Supreme Court docket. But I figured this would be a good chance to just get a little overview with you, the big cases coming up, you know, that we'll obviously be digging into deeper as the rulings are coming down. So, I mean, I just glanced at this morning. We got gender care for minors, gay kids books, ban Alien Enemies Act. Abrego Garcia, what jumps out to you?
- [01:50]
Leigh Lippman
Yeah, so I definitely think the Trump administration is doing the Supreme Court a real solid just by drowning out coverage of what they might be up to because the court has a bunch of big cases on their docket. So there's the gender affirming care ban that you noted. United States versus Scremetti, that's about weather. Laws that ban gender affirming care trigger heightened scrutiny whether courts have to look closely at them or whether courts are just going to basically sign off on them. That could obviously have a ton of implications for a Republican controlled Congress adopting a federal ban on gender affirming care or on the Constitution for minors.
- [02:23]
Tim Miller
Just for minors.
- [02:24]
Leigh Lippman
No, even for adults. Because if the Supreme Court says laws that ban gender affirming care don't discriminate on the basis of sexual and don't discriminate on the basis of gender identity, then laws that restrict that care for adults would also get super deferential review. So, yeah, that case could be hugely significant. And then they have the religion in schools cases. So there's the LGBTQ book case that you mentioned about whether parents can challenge a school district's decision to have storybooks with LGBT characters in them. Because that apparently triggers Sam Alito as well as other religious and social conservatives.
- [03:06]
Tim Miller
Mrs. Alito, for sure.
- [03:07]
Leigh Lippman
Oh, yeah, for sure, for sure. And also apparently Neil Gorsuch, who read Pride Puppy and had an utter fucking meltdown. So he looked at this book, which is a puppy.
- [03:18]
Tim Miller
Pride Puppy. Is that like someone in a pup mask at a Pride couple.
- [03:22]
Leigh Lippman
It's a little dog at a pride parade and teaching kids what you will find at a pride parade. And Neil Gorsuch looked at this book. There's a woman in a leather jacket. And he was screaming at the top of his lungs at the advocate, why are you letting kids look for bondage and sex workers and bdsm? And the advocate is like, that's a woman in a leather jacket, Neil. So there's that.
- [03:46]
Tim Miller
I'm glancing at some of the pictures now. There is. The puppy has a little neckerchief that's. Neckerchiefs are popular at the gays, so that's not surprising. Yeah, I'm not seeing any bondage here, but I'm just kind of glancing, so. Wow. Okay.
- [04:01]
Leigh Lippman
Yeah, so there's that one. There's also a case about whether states have to create religious public charter schools. You heard that, right? Whether states are required to create.
- [04:10]
Tim Miller
Required to.
- [04:11]
Leigh Lippman
Yeah, yeah. Because Sam Alito, Brett Kavanaugh think it's actually unfair discrimination for a state to charter secular schools, but not religious ones. Yes. They are literally declaring unfair unconstitutional the establishment clause, which heretofore had prohibited religious schools. But pay no mind.
- [04:30]
Tim Miller
Okay, we'll get back into the originalism on the back half of that. That fits with the originalism thesis.
- [04:36]
Leigh Lippman
Exactly. I could go on. You know, any number of Trump cases might make their way back to the Supreme Court. You mentioned Alien Enemies act and Abrego Garcia. Of course, the court is also hearing the big case about the Birthright Citizenship executive order. Though technically the question they are asking is whether trial courts have the authority to block policies on a nationwide basis or instead have to limit their rulings just to the states in which they reside or the states that challenged a policy. So that's a big case. There's a case that could kneecap what remains of the Voting Rights act and whether it actually protects against districting that dilutes the political power of racial minorities. So many big cases. And again, the Trump administration is just drowning all of this out.
- [05:20]
Tim Miller
What about the Doge cases? Is any of that gonna make the Supreme Court either like the probationary federal workers over fired or the access to the Social Security Administration? Like that stuff's still winding through the courts right now, right?
- [05:31]
Leigh Lippman
Yeah. So if it ends up at the Supreme Court anytime soon, it's going to be on the shadow docket or emergency docket. That is the Trump administration or plaintiffs might run up to the Supreme Court asking them to put on hold some lower court ruling or asking for an emergency injunction. Those aren't cases the court heard argument in or full briefing that were necessarily expecting a decision by June. That would be more on like a last minute basis.
- [05:55]
Tim Miller
But we are expecting by June something on Alien Enemies act and the Venezuelans.
- [05:59]
Leigh Lippman
I mean, not necessarily. It really depends what happens in the lower courts because the court hasn't granted for full review any Alien Enemies act cases. But of course, these cases are developing so quickly in the lower court, it's super possible something ends up there.
- [06:16]
Tim Miller
One of the lawyers, one of the immigration lawyers I've been talking to said that there's an encouraging development about how some of the Venezuelans or Vincenta Scott were granted to be part of the class. But then it was another court ruling that I guess is calling that into question. So I guess who has standing and who's part of all of that is kind of tricky when it comes to people that are not technically here legally, which was the case for maybe not all of the Venezuelans, but most of them.
- [06:47]
Leigh Lippman
Yeah. So the Supreme Court basically created this situation where individuals in different states, they all have to challenge their potential expulsions and detentions because the D.C. district Court, he had blocked the Alien Enemies act nationwide, but the Supreme Court said, no, no, no, no, no, you can't do that. Every individual has to litigate their case in habeas class actions. And so those rulings are going to be limited to, you know, anyone who's detained in a particular district or state. And so, yes, people in some places are protected, people in others aren't. And that's why the Trump administration is like trying to move people between jurisdictions to get them into places where they aren't protected. And yeah, it's just crazy.
- [07:31]
Tim Miller
Just like kind of looking back what they've done so far this year, whenever I have a legal person on. There's kind of a variety of views on just like how catastrophic it is, you know, versus like, well, actually in a couple places, particularly Amy Coney Barrett has shown some surprising pushback on the Trump administration, particularly in the Garcia case and some of these immigration cases. What do you make of what we've seen so far this year as far as these kind of shadow docket cases?
- [08:01]
Leigh Lippman
Yeah, I think thus far, honestly, the Supreme Court has tried to avoid any big rulings and tried to defer saying anything that big about the Trump administration. Yes, Justice Barrett has occasionally joined with the Democratic appointees know, and Chief Justice Roberts on some matters. But even when the court has ruled against the Trump administration, they've given the administration some wins and some wiggle room to work with. Like in the Abrego Garcia order or even in the United States Agency for International Development case, they waited to release their ruling until after the government was under obligations to actually pay out the funds. So they have ruled against the Trump administration sometimes, but avoided doing so in pretty pointed or harsh ways.
- [08:46]
Tim Miller
The other big kind of policy legal cases that are coming up as far as active Trump policies is the trade case. I guess yesterday. This is outside of the Supreme Court wheelhouse. There's a three judge panel in the Court of International Trade that held the first some oral arguments on the cases challenging the legal basis for Trump's administration's tariff framework. I guess there are at least seven of these cases out there trying to nullify Trump's tariffs. What do you make of that? Like, whether that is something that, like, might possibly happen or, you know, what do you think of the merits of the trade cases?
- [09:18]
Leigh Lippman
Yeah, so it's a tough case because presidents have been granted, you know, substantial powers under the Economic Emergency Powers act, as well as over foreign trade and tariffs more generally. And so I think the courts at that hearing were very nervous about trying to second guess the president's determinations about whether there was an unusual and extraordinary threat, even though Donald Trump's claims for why there is are just insane. Like the trade death deficit has existed for a really long time. That's neither unusual nor extraordinary. But the court didn't seem to be comfortable with any kind of rule that the lawyers challenging the tariffs had offered for when courts could say something wasn't actually unusual or extraordinary. And then there are the host of doctrines and rules that the Republican appointees on the Supreme Court have come up with, like the Major questions doctrine, the idea that agencies can't do anything that big, you know, under Statutes that are generally worded, or the non delegation doctrine, which is supposed to limit the, the extent to which Congress can confer authority to make regulations on non legislative entities. The problem is the Republican justices have basically created these rules that gerrymandered in exceptions for things Republicans wanted to do. So the major questions doctrine might not apply to the President or the non delegation doctrine might not restrict the President's ability with respect to foreign affairs and trade. And so it's unclear to what extent at all these doctrines that the Supreme Court invented are going to be much use in these cases.
- [10:51]
Tim Miller
The interesting example of what you're just laying out is this Chevron doctrine in the Chevron case, right. Where kind of simultaneously the Supreme Court has said that the agencies cannot do things that are not specifically legislated via Congress. And it was basically an attack on the EPA and these other agencies who had, you know, there's broad funding about what kind of regulations that they're going to do or broad language what kind of regulations they could do. And then, you know, there's this kind of deference towards, you know, the agency heads and what that could mean. And the, you know, conservative Supreme Court wanted to rein that in and force like Congress to be very specific about what those regulations are. So on the one hand they want to rein in the executive branch, on the other hand, now Congress basically doesn't exist anymore. And so the Trump administration is just like issuing executive orders like we're deciding how much Ozempic costs today and like tomorrow we're doing this. And so how do you sense that the court is gonna kind of balance those two? Or maybe they're not going to try to balance.
- [11:54]
Leigh Lippman
Yeah, so I think there are kind of two different things going on. One is, I agree with you. There's always been this ridiculousness in the Supreme Court's insistence that they are going to somehow teach Congress to legislate. Like if only the Supreme Court justices undid Chevron and adopted this major questions doctrine, then of course Congress would just buck the fuck up and start passing more legislation. And like, how delusional are you to think that you could single handedly do this? Like it's not about you. And yet they still cling to this fantasy world that just does not describe the reality that we are living in. And then, you know, they have also, while they have been skeptical of administrative agencies like the epa, they have simultaneously been very pro presidential power. And these things, right. Sit in uncomfortable tension with one another. Because of course, right. The idea that an administrative agency can't do shit because it's not the legislature could also be said about the president and yet doesn't seem to give them any pause. And one more thing, just on Chevron, this is just like this perfect. Like you were for it before you were against it. I mean, Chevron was originally this Republican supported doctrine because it was announced in a case involving the Reagan's epa. And guess who was the head of the EPA at the time? Neil Gorsuch's mom.
- [13:17]
Tim Miller
Oh, really?
- [13:18]
Leigh Lippman
Anne Gorsuch, Burford.
- [13:21]
Tim Miller
I didn't know that.
- [13:22]
Leigh Lippman
Anne. Yeah, so I kind of write about this in the book as like part of Neil's villain origin story. Like his mom got chased out of the epa and this apparently has given him a complex against the administrative state, which he's been out to get ever since. It was really wild in the oral argument about overruling Chevron, the lawyer who is challenging Chevron was asked, you know, do you want to keep the result in the Chevron case? And he literally said, well, with respect to Justice Gorsuch, his mother's epa, I think she got, she got it right. Basically. It's just, it's so wild, like how messy that entire zine is.
- [13:57]
Tim Miller
So what was the original, like, object? It was Gorsuch's mom, as the Reagan EPA administrator was, you know, going further than Chevron, the corporation thought was, you know, and so they're challenging the regulation, I guess. Is that what was happening?
- [14:12]
Leigh Lippman
Well, so, yeah, she was deciding basically when power plants needed permits in order to construct new pollution emitting devices under the statute. The statute has rules. It's like, okay, if you make a new device, new stationary source, like, you need a permit. And she said that doesn't include when an existing power plant makes new pollution emitting devices, like within the power plant, as opposed to making an entirely new power plant.
- [14:36]
Andrew Egger
So.
- [14:38]
Tim Miller
You know, I was just talking to my husband yesterday about how we need to do a little bit better about planning ahead. We're trying to make a couple changes to our house, vibe it out a little bit more. And it's probably smart for us to, you know, actually have a budget, actually plan before we start randomly getting stuff. Just one idea. And here's another place that it's smart for you to plan, and it's when you're creating a trust and will. Creating a trusted will is a very slow and time consuming process, leaving you less time for more important tasks. Trust and will makes creating your will easy and time efficient, meaning you can focus on other important tasks. You can get 20% off@trustedwill.com the bullwork keep your family prepared and protected by managing your will or trust online. Each will or trust is state specific, legally valid and customized to your needs. You can ensure your family and loved ones avoid lengthy, expensive legal proceedings or the state deciding what happens to your assets. Their simple step by step process guides you from start to finish, one question at a time. You can save loved ones time and stress by having all your documents in one place with bank level encryption. Live customer support is available through phone, chat and email. So uncomplicate the process with trust and will protect what matters most in minutes@trustandwill.com Bulwark and get 20% off. That's 20% off@trustandwill.com BulWark so this is related to kind of what I wanted to talk to you about. I mean, the I was challenging old David French about this a couple weeks ago and maybe we can continue to hash out this conversation in the weeks ahead. But to me, like, I don't want to say that there never was any coherent, genuine, ideological, you know, conservative view of the court. Obviously there are always debates on the right, but like the originalists or the people that are Scalia or whatever, that there's nobody ever that had, you know, coherent view of like what the court's role was, you know, in relationship to the Constitution. Because I think that there was some of that. But I think that as we've gotten into the Trump era, what has been revealed is that similarly to across many other elements of conservatism, it was much more about power than maybe they wanted to let on or wanted to even believe themselves going back. And that what we're seeing now is a lot of the conservative legal movement kind of backfilling, like the rulings that they want or the political outcome that they want, and then pushing for a ruling that supports that, regardless of whether it fits within, you know, whatever your constitutional rubric had been, you know, during the Reagan era. I mean, obviously I think you believe that, but could you kind of hash that out and how you get into it in the book?
- [17:22]
Leigh Lippman
So the first chapter in the book is partially about the rise of originalism. And I'm definitely sympathetic to the idea that for some people, originalism or was this kind of pure, on its own, inherently correct method of interpreting the Constitution. But originalism to other people was also this intuitive way of explaining why certain decisions of the Warren Court, as well as Roe versus Wade was wrong. Right. Like they knew, they had an intuition that of course These things cannot be correct. And originalism was an easy way of explaining why that was so. And then for other people, originalism was a way of advancing an ideological agenda. You know, Ronald Reagan's Attorney General, Ed Meese, you know, just stood up in front of the ABA and was like, yeah, originalism, that's a way to roll back civil libertarianism. That's a way to advance, you know, our traditional social issues platform. You know, that's also what Stephen Markman, who was one of the assistant Attorney generals, wrote about originalism again in the 80s. So I think originalism has always been different things to different. And like any method of interpretation, you know, it has its virtues and it has its vices. You know, it was sold as. It's principled, it's neutral. Right. It's easier to apply than other methods. I think those things are debatable. But that's not to say people didn't believe them, and that's not to say people weren't pushing originalism, you know, for never those reasons. So, you know, I agree with you that originalism, textualism, any method of interpretation is always going to appeal to some people just on its own terms. But, yeah, then along comes Sam Alito, and you put any method of interpretation in his hands, and he's going to do whatever the fuck he wants with it. And, you know, the Republican judicial selection machine found enough people like that and perfected the process such that they could give them this tool that sounded really nice in judicial confirmation hearings and sounded objective and could be explained in, again, like, abstract, technical ways. But everybody knew what they were going to do with it.
- [19:30]
Tim Miller
You can describe it in the title there as bad vibes. Right. That's how they're going to justify this. And certainly there's some bad vibes around this supreme court, specifically around Mrs. Alito.
- [19:42]
Leigh Lippman
She is a bad vibe.
- [19:43]
Tim Miller
She is like a human bad vibe. I look at all this and I was, like, paging through it, and to me it's like, honestly, I think what wit has we've learned over the past five years is that it's like culture all the way down.
- [19:56]
Leigh Lippman
Yeah.
- [19:57]
Tim Miller
Like, everything is about kind of like an imaginary or real, in some cases, culture war that they're in. Sometimes it's a real cultural war over real issues, and sometimes it's kind of this imaginary. I don't like these other guys. And it's more of like a high school cafeteria, like, rival gang type thing than anything actually deeper. And it's like we've now seen in the Trump administration Like, he has shat on every single, like, supposedly principled constitutional argument imaginable. He's shat on every free market argument, every, you know, pencil head on K Street ever pushed over my entire life. And yet 96% of the people, including most of the Supreme Court with CBD on Amy Coney Barrett, like, has just gone along with it.
- [20:42]
Leigh Lippman
Yeah.
- [20:42]
Tim Miller
And then to me, it's just because it's like, my side good, the other side bad, and it's like, really not much more than that.
- [20:47]
Leigh Lippman
Yeah, no, I mean, I definitely think there is some aspect of that. And I think when you say it is about culture, you know, I view the Republican appointees on the Supreme Court as being acculturated in this, like, conservative grievance industrial complex that has taken over the Republican Party. You know, that is the energy that defines them. They view, you know, Democrats, progressives, anyone that doesn't agree with them as attacking them and coming after them. And so they have made the law kind of fashion based on the emotional needs of at least five men and maybe Amy. Right. Who believe that equality is actually a form of discrimination. And calling racial discrimination racial discrimination is actually discrimination. Like, it's just this nutty kind of worldview where they have such strong main character energy that they can make, you know, again, LGBT storybooks about them. They can make the establishment clause into rank discrimination against, you know, religious and social conservatives. And so when that is the worldview that they were socialized in, and when that is what is being repeated to them in this media ecosystem and political and cultural network that they are a part of, that is, I think, how they perceive most of the cases and many of the issues that come before them.
- [22:13]
Tim Miller
Let's talk about the Fed Sock role in all of this, because there also kind of exists two Fed Socks. Right. Like, there are lawyers who go to random schools that go to random law schools in the country and are. And have more conservative legal views, and they join little Fed sock clubs and it helps them get hired for jobs. And then there's, like, the D.C. feds. And so. And there's some overlap between. There's some bleed between the two groups. Right. Then there's the DC Fed Sock, which is Leonard Leo, and the political activists that have pushed this grievance culture that you've laid out and tried to place the people from the clubs who I think most fit their grievance ideology into powerful positions. So just talk about how important that is and what you get into in the book.
- [22:55]
Leigh Lippman
Definitely. And I hear a lot of what you are saying in the comments that I see on social media from many of the lawyers who are in the federal society, but not in the inner circle of the federal society, because they'll make jokes about how well, Leonard Leo didn't tell me who I should vote for or Leonard Leo didn't tell me what I should think. And it's like that can be true. Right. Of course, they run all of this programming where they are not necessarily getting to know every single lawyer who attends all of these bar association events. Right. In random cities. Right. And at different schools throughout the country. And yet that is also part of what gives them purchase and cover, you know, to do the other things that Leonard Leo is doing. Because if you don't understand how this debating society. Right. And how this institution that just provides forum and networking can also be engaged in this system of selecting nominees, figuring out who's going to do the things they want to do, then you are kind of getting the wool pulled over your eyes. And so I agree it can do both. It just so happens that doing both things operates to the benefit of the inner circle part.
- [24:07]
Tim Miller
Yeah. And it gives more power. It gives them more power and influence and allows the maligned parts of the group to essentially put people in these extremely powerful road positions where they have control over massive decisions that influence the whole country. Right. So sometimes to like college campuses when I speak on and it's like, well, you know, some of my candidates that I worked for, looking back on my time in the Republican Party were good. I still like. Right. Or good people. And I think would probably have good judgment. And yet, like, if you find yourself as part of a group and you find yourself having to say, well, my little corner of the group is good, you know, like, that's maybe should be a sign that the group that you're in isn't that great. Like, maybe there's a splinter after effort you should consider.
- [24:55]
Leigh Lippman
Right. Totally. Totally fair point.
- [24:59]
Tim Miller
I think that the appointment of suitor is maybe something that hypercharged. I agree. We were always on this path, Right. Like we are on this, you know, our whole culture, our whole society has been politicized. So eventually the Republican legal movement was going to be politicized more and more over time. I feel like that's inexorable.
- [25:19]
Leigh Lippman
Yeah. Democrats haven't really picked up on that just yet.
- [25:22]
Tim Miller
Okay, that's a great point. That's a great point. Why is that, do you think? Then we'll get to suit her? Why hasn't, why hasn't the Democratic legal.
- [25:27]
Leigh Lippman
Movement, you know, this is one of those things where I feel like I'm not on the inner circle, I'm not in the inner network. So I don't have real insight into this because I'm screaming at them all the time to like get with the program. And yet they're not listening. This inner circle operates very differently.
- [25:41]
Tim Miller
Yeah, there are a lot of things that have been politicized on the left, no doubt, but certainly the legal argument from this sort of rubric, like the institutional legal world has been politicized on the right like it's insane. You can't even compare it. It's not even the same ballpark. But. So Souter gets appointed to the Supreme Court and ends up siding more and more with the liberals over time. Right. And like there is this, you know, when I was coming up in Republican politics, there was just this conventional wisdom, right. That like, you know, it's kind of part of this anti elite sentiment. Right. Like we pick these elites, they go to these, these elite liberal Ivy leagues, they say they're conservative, but they get to D.C. and they start going to the cocktail parties. And over time they start to get more and more liberal. And like that served as the rationale for we need to be more aggressive about identifying people that are going to be part of our culture war, part of our grievance war on side at all times. And I don't know, what do you make of that kind of the suitor experience hypercharged the appointment of these more kind of partisan, ideological judges.
- [26:51]
Leigh Lippman
Yeah. So not only did it, but I.
- [26:53]
Tim Miller
Don'T mean to blame David Souter about this, who also just died. Rest, you know, rest easy, King. You know, it wasn't his fault. I'm just saying it just happenstance.
- [27:00]
Leigh Lippman
It is not his fault at all. But in addition to this fueling a desire to select individuals who they knew better and thought would be more reliable, both, it also fueled them wanting to throw their own cocktail parties. Right. And offer the justices their own PJ trips and create, you know, an alternative media ecosystem so that they would receive their claps for doing the things that the conservative legal movement wanted them to do. And so that's also part of the story of the post Souter world social incentive structure.
- [27:31]
Tim Miller
An anti Georgetown cocktail party circuit. I love that. That's a great point.
- [27:36]
Leigh Lippman
Exactly. But yes, this is part of the tragedy of David Souter, who is an independent jurist who did really care about the fact that, and in my view is someone who I would describe as a real small C conservative judge. Right. Like very incrementalist didn't want to do real shockwaves through the law. And soon after he is appointed to the court, he decides not to overrule Roe versus Wade. And that is what sets off these calls of no more suitors. And that spawned the kind of increase in the federal society's focus on identifying nominees who could be trusted as well as creating this social incentive, incentive structure and professional incentive structure for them to do, you know, the quote, right thing. I don't know why the call ended up being no more suitors rather than no more Kennedys, because like, he did it too. And he had initially voted to overrule Roe and then changed his mind because.
- [28:32]
Tim Miller
He was Catholic, I think, honestly, because I think there are a lot of Catholics in this world and I just think that he was more so like culturally felt more like one of them than Souter did, who kind of felt like this like northeast defeat, like fucking Rockefeller Republican or whatever from a different time. I don't know.
- [28:50]
Leigh Lippman
Yeah. And then of course they didn't scream about Justice o' Connor because she's a woman and so of course she couldn't be counted on to do the right thing.
- [28:57]
Tim Miller
Reagan, Victor. It's a good point. Talk to about Kennedy. Well, how was he able to buck this? Do you have any memories or any thoughts about Justice Kennedy?
- [29:05]
Leigh Lippman
Yeah. So obviously I was not there during Planned Parenthood versus Casey, but I think he has real views about what the Supreme Court is for and is very sold on a perception of the court as this independent, neutral arbiter in certain ways. And so the pressure the political movement to overrule Roe versus Wade, I think made him uncomfortable because this is not a man who was at all right, like pro choice or sympathetic to the arguments, you know, about Roe versus Wade. I mean, he wrote anti abortion shibboleths into the US Reports when he said without evidence, he conceded there's data to back this up. He said, of course, like most women come to regret their abortions. So it was really his sense of the court and his desire for it to be independent of politics that probably pushed him and Casey.
- [30:01]
Tim Miller
How refreshing that is. What a different time.
- [30:03]
Leigh Lippman
Exactly.
- [30:03]
Tim Miller
A Supreme Court justice that's like, I'm going to do rulings that go against my personal views because I feel like that's what the law says. That feels quaint.
- [30:13]
Leigh Lippman
Sounds like a fiction book to me.
- [30:16]
Tim Miller
Seriously. Definitely not from Aria, I guess. How about one more for you? Let's do a medal stand. We've got doms and we've got telling the President that he's immune from crimes. What would you say is the third decision that is the most representative of the conservative grievance, fringe theories and bad vibes of the Supreme Court?
- [30:35]
Leigh Lippman
Man, you're really gonna make me pick one. Okay, I'm gonna pick two, and I'm gonna call it a tie.
- [30:40]
Tim Miller
Okay, well, fourth, first and medal stand. There's like a little shorter stance.
- [30:43]
Leigh Lippman
Exactly, exactly. You always need a first runner up. So 303, creative versus Olennis. You know the recent case where they said violated the first Amendment to apply Colorado's civil rights law that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation to a wedding website designer? And the reason why I just think that is, like, perfect conservative grievance. Cannibalizing the law is first they insist, well, this case doesn't involve discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Because sure, she wouldn't make a website celebrating a same sex wedding, but guess what? She wouldn't make a website for a straight couple that also wanted to celebrate a same sex wedding. And it's like, like, get the fuck out of town.
- [31:21]
Tim Miller
I love these cases. I'm always like, every time I got in a fight with somebody over this case, I was like, I would be on your side. If you can find me a single case of a baker or of a wedding website maker who would not make a website for someone who's on their fourth wedding. A straight couple who's on their fourth wedding. Or like some other. A straight couple that's on some other. That does some other violation of. Or a straight couple who had premarital sex. If you can find me one example of this, then I'll maybe think, consider your arguments that it's not about discrimination. But it's hard to find one of those. It always seems to be the case.
- [31:50]
Leigh Lippman
Exactly, exactly. And at the same time, they say, well, definitely not discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. It is discrimination against religious and social conservatives, because that's really what equality is. So, yeah, vibes all the way down. Conservative grievance, et cetera. Then I'd say law of democracy cases like Shelby county versus Holder, where they just announced that the Voting Rights act unconstitutionally discriminated against the former Confederacy. Like turning a case involving racial discrimination into one where the former Confederacy is the real victim. Wow, that's real galaxy brain conservative grievance.
- [32:25]
Tim Miller
Yeah, well, white farmers in South Africa and the former Confederate States are the real victims in our society. Leeuwen, thank you so much. The book is how the Supreme Court runs on conservative grievance fringe Theories and Bad Vibes. The podcast Stroke Scrutiny I also really love. So go check that out. Go Blue. Appreciate you coming on the pod and enjoy the book tour.
- [32:46]
Leigh Lippman
Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
- [32:48]
Tim Miller
All right, up next, Andrew Egger. And we are back. He's the White House correspondent at the Bulwark. He's the co author of our Morning Shots newsletter, which is fantastic. He has one other title I'll mention at the end. It's Andrew Egger. What's up, eggs?
- [33:18]
Andrew Egger
I'm so excited to get to the big reveal. You're tipping your hand there, Tim.
- [33:23]
Tim Miller
The newsletter's been awesome, by the way. I just want to say we're going to get into your newsletter from yesterday, but if people aren't signed up, go to the bulwulwork.com, make sure to sign up for the morning newsletter. It's a nice supplement to the news newsletters because you give people the news they need to get, but also just a lot of flair. And you got Bill Kristol quoting, who knows? I mean, it could be Epicurious one day. Could be Churchill. It could be anybody.
- [33:50]
Andrew Egger
This morning in our slack, Bill was giving Sam Stein grief for wanting to put in a Christopher Nolan quote, wanting to put in a quote from the Dark Knight Rises. Bill was like, why are you always wanting to do these quotes? Nobody's ever heard of man. And meanwhile, it's Samuel Johnson and all kinds of good stuff from Bill. So, yeah, get the newsletter, everybody.
- [34:07]
Tim Miller
It's a great, I think I just myself just pronounced the Greek philosopher Epicurus, like Epicurious, like the app, which shows you kind of my level of deep Greek philosophy knowledge. Okay, you are inside the lion's den. You were invited to be in the special, very special in a lot of cases, not in your case, a lot of times, like short bus special social media chair, where most of the questions to date for our press secretary have been, you know, about how great of a mother she is, et cetera. I guess they were looking to try to bring some balance. Let's listen together to your exchange.
- [34:43]
Andrew Egger
Thank you for having me, Caroline. The president posted another ad this week for his Trump meme coin. The group that's running that coin is encouraging people to buy in order to win a dinner this month with the president. Why is the president planning to attend a dinner for the top investors in his coin?
- [34:57]
Leigh Lippman
Ms. Look, the President is abiding by.
- [34:59]
Tim Miller
All conflict of interest interest laws.
- [35:01]
Leigh Lippman
The president has been incredibly transparent with his own personal financial obligations throughout the years.
- [35:06]
Andrew Egger
The President is a successful businessman, and.
- [35:08]
Leigh Lippman
I think, frankly, it's one of the many reasons that people reelected him back to this office.
- [35:11]
Andrew Egger
There are at least some people who are buying this coin who seem to view it as an opportunity to influence the president's views. There was a logistics company this week that said they would buy $20 million in the coin in order to advocate for free trade between the US And Mexico. If buyers are buying for that reason, are they wasting their money? Look, I can assure you the President.
- [35:28]
Leigh Lippman
Acts with only the interests of the American public in mind. Putting our country first and doing what's.
- [35:32]
Andrew Egger
Best for our country, full stop.
- [35:34]
Tim Miller
That's his intention and that's what he's focused on. All right, I wanna get into the substance of the crypto conversation in a second, but, like, that was weird. That was pretty weird, huh? Like, what's it like in there? Did it feel culty? What was the vibe like?
- [35:47]
Andrew Egger
To be honest, I had no idea what to expect. When they reached out to me, they were like, just kind of called me out of the blue, hey, you know, come be in the new media seat at the White House. I was like, are they. Is this gonna be some kind of shaming ritual? Is this like they've been kind of mad that the bulwark's been getting some attention and they're gonna bring me up here and shove me into a van? You know, these are the kind of the paranoid thoughts going through my brain. They played it very straight.
- [36:07]
Tim Miller
She's gonna swirly you. They're gonna bring out a toilet and like, swirly you just kind of.
- [36:12]
Andrew Egger
Exactly. Yeah. Like put video testimonials from like ex girlfriends up on the screen in the briefing room. I don't know. They played it extremely straight. You know, they asked me for a bio, they read it, they said nice things about our subscriber numbers, which thanks to all of you subscribers for giving us nice subscrib read. And they gave me the first two questions at the briefing, which it's been a weird assortment of people. I mean, it's. It's one of these initiatives. Obviously the things that have made headlines have been the just unbelievably mealy mouthed and sort of worshipful questions that they've gotten from some of the more like, influencer types that they've let into that seat. But it's been a weird spread. You know, it's been guys like Tim Pool, but it's also been, you know, a number of just sort of newer media companies, like Notice and Semaphore that just asked kind of of probing, good questions about the White House. And that's what I tried to do as well. Like I said, they played it perfectly straight. They brought me out there and let me ask my questions. And it was just kind of a sort of bizarre experience because it's not super clear what the White House gets out of it. But I guess that it is basically just this. It really is ultimately kind of an fu to the White House Correspondents association and to the Associated Press, which used to get the first questions at the briefings. And so sometimes they're going to give the question that used to be the Associated Presses to Tim Pool. Sometimes I guess they're going to give it to me. And ultimately, I guess what matters to them is that they aren't actually letting the journalists pick. They're the ones who are making the decision.
- [37:35]
Tim Miller
Do you feel any dark spirits walking in there? Was there a Children of the Corn vibe among the staffers? I mean, I just, I don't know. To me, I feel like it would feel very strange just to walk into the Trump White House at all.
- [37:48]
Andrew Egger
I always find it very strange to be in lower press there where the, where the kind of junior level White House staffers work. I found it weird during Biden. I also found it kind of weird during Trump because technically you're allowed to be there as a credentialed White House reporter. You can go in there and talk to them and ask them questions and stuff. But it's just the vibe is very strange. It's completely unlike Congress where the staffers are all in their offices and the principals walk around and you can talk to them. I've never quite gotten my feet underneath me there. So I don't know whether there's no music.
- [38:16]
Tim Miller
It's very quiet in there. It's kind of like I've never been during the Trump times. Maybe it's a little bit rowdy or during the Biden era was kind of like a churchy vibe in there. Like I felt like I had to whisper at times.
- [38:27]
Andrew Egger
Yeah, a little bit. I don't know. They were chatting it up. Fox News was up on a tv, they were eating some cupcakes and things that somebody had brought in. I don't know. I was more focused on the question and whether or not I was about to get sandbagged. You know.
- [38:40]
Tim Miller
Did you encounter any MAGA creatures?
- [38:42]
Andrew Egger
Just junior. Com staff, junior people. You know, just friendly, bright, shiny faces of the new right wing future.
- [38:48]
Tim Miller
Were your palms sweaty? Were your armpits sweaty when you Left the briefing. Did you feel nervous?
- [38:55]
Andrew Egger
I wasn't taking like moisture level tests or anything, but I was a little freaked out, man. I had no idea. Like I said, they called me. I was like, why are they bringing the bulwark into here? Is there some dark scheme? But it all went fine.
- [39:07]
Tim Miller
Okay. The question itself, you're focused on this crypto scam, which I think is very important. The Qatari plane has, I think, potentially overtaken it, especially if it ends up becoming Air Force One or Trump's personal library plane as far as the most visible example of just the unbelievable graft of this administration. But the coin bribe story is not going to go anywhere. So I think the fact that you laid the groundwork on that is important. We have this new story out of the Times this morning. I want to read to you. A struggling technology company that has ties to China and relies on TikTok made an unusual announcement this week that it secured funding to buy as much as 300 million of Trump.
- [39:47]
Leigh Lippman
Trump.
- [39:47]
Tim Miller
The meme coin marketed by Trump GD Culture Group is a publicly traded firm with a Chinese subsidiary. It has only eight employees and it recorded zero revenue last year from an e commerce business that operates on TikTok. That feels like that's on the up and up that they got 300 mil and just decided to put it straight into the coin. A Chinese company with zero revenue. I don't think there's much to see there.
- [40:12]
Andrew Egger
The through line with all of these stories is just how much of a black box it all is, right? I mean, we know just openly that these are things that Donald Trump profits from. He and his associates own 80% of the supply of this coin. Whenever people put more money into it, it pushes up the price and they make money. And beyond that, you know, there's, there's all kinds of opacity based around, you know, we know this because there's been reporting on this. But a lot of the reporting only serves to highlight how, how completely untraceable and oblique a lot of this is. The only reason that we know, for instance, that like the bulk of the major purchases of this coin have come from overseas is because Bloomberg did an investig the trading platforms that those purchases were made on, many of which bar US users from trading on them. And so based on that, they know that they're not here at least. But that's kind of all the further that we know these wallets are largely anonymous. Your point about the Qatari plane is a good one. I feel like it's a little Bit like what we just saw happen with the China tariffs, where the tariffs were at like 10,000% for a month. And so now that they've come back down to only 30, we're all kind of like, oh, thank God, now they're only 30. But 30% tariffs are still kind of alarmingly large. And like, yeah, the Qatari plane does sort of wash out some of these other financial scandals and some of this other open corruption, because a $400 million plane is just one of those kind of eye poppingly large numbers that like, of course, yeah, it's, you know, nothing really holds a candle to that. But at the same time, I mean, the Trumps do stand to make, you know, millions of dollars off of these various crypto grifts. They get a cut of all these transactions that are happening and they own massive supplies of these coins themselves, these various coins themselves. So it's all very open, it's all very naked. And as you heard in that clip, I mean, Carolyn Levitt essentially doesn't even try to offer any kind of halfway plausible alternate explanation other than the one that we all know is the case, which is that he just wants to make a bunch of money and this is an easy way to do it. He thinks it's a deal, he thinks it's a good deal for him. And he thinks the conflict of interest stuff is kind of pointless and for squares and for nerds to follow those rules. But not only does she, I mean, she says, obviously we're abiding by all conflict of interest rules and regulations and stuff, and I resent the very notion that anybody would suggest any of this is unethical. But there's no alternate explanation given for why he would possibly be interested in doing this.
- [42:34]
Tim Miller
Because we all know they're going forward with, and you're asking about this dinner, they're in this dinner where the actual funders of the coin, people that are paying, trust Trump, get to go to a dinner and his golf club and then get to come to the White House. And so it's like, and it's never stopped the Trump administration before from just like bald place, lying about something, just being like, there's no. But you can't simultaneously say there's no conflicts of interest here. And also we're gonna give a special White House dinner only to the people that put the most money in our pocket. I mean, it's a comical bribe.
- [43:11]
Andrew Egger
I'm not totally sure that the White House is involved. Right. The wording is a little opaque on the visit.
- [43:16]
Tim Miller
The White House, though.
- [43:17]
Andrew Egger
Is that in there? My reading of it? Maybe I should bone up on this. I had thought that what was on offer was like, there's this dinner and there's this reception at the club at Trump's golf course in D.C. and that Trump would be present for that. And then there's this kind of oblique reference to a VIP tour for like the creme de la creme, for like the top of the top. But it's not super clear from the wording on the website what the tour is of. I don't know whether it's been externally reported that that's the White House or what. But. But that's. I mean, either way, the point is not like, oh, they get to see the Lincoln Bedroom, right? The point is they get access to Donald Trump. The point is that they get personal proximity to this guy who has this big sign around his neck that says buy me, and they get to pitch him on stuff, presumably. I mean, we don't know exactly what that dinner's gonna look like. It could be that he's kind of scamming all of these people and there's not gonna be that much access on offer. But we do know that at least some people are thinking of it in those terms, are buying the coin with the express hope that they'll be able to influence the President and with good reason. Cause they're putting money in his power pocket.
- [44:15]
Tim Miller
Maybe you're right. Maybe I just assumed that the VIP tour was of the White House. You know what they say about assuming. Regardless, though, to your point, like, they pay, they get access to the President of the United States. Again, it's farcical from the first administration stuff about how there's a wall between Trump and Don and Eric, and Trump doesn't even know what's happening over there. And it's just the suns that are. It was farcical then, but they're not really even going through that rigmarole now. It's just like Trump's gonna meet with the people that are paying him for his worthless shit coin. And there's no conflict of interest because you all know Donald, and Donald just does whatever he wants. So that's the story. And that's the best spin they had, essentially.
- [45:00]
Andrew Egger
I think the point that you make is a good and important one, which is that even in the first term, when things were wildly less insane than they are today, ethics experts still were having conniptions constantly about all of the ways in which Donald Trump was obviously self dealing because he had not divested from his properties. The quote, unquote, blind trust was just that. He had kind of pinky promised not to talk to Don Jr. And Eric about the internal workings of the Trump Organization. But meanwhile, things were constantly happening where he didn't need to be in the board meetings to kind of understand how, how he could trade on that. Foreign leaders were constantly going to his properties and dropping a bunch of money, and he was putting up the Secret Service at his clubs and having the government pay him to do that, all sorts of things like that. And that was just the first term. And now all that stuff is still happening. He's still got the Trump Organization kind of fake blind trust set up along the same lines as the first term. But now he is openly trading on, not just making money in his preexisting ventures and skimming off the top in that way way, but launching all of these new ventures that trade on his brand as the President of the United States. All of these different crypto schemes, all of these different NFTs and the sneakers and the watches and all of these things that, again, just put money directly in his pocket, many of which are just sort of skeevy and lame. But these crypto ones, which are particularly kind of alarming and untraceable and corrupt.
- [46:25]
Tim Miller
Well, I'm happy to get you in there. They are monitoring us. Stephen Miller is shitposting me, you know, and they want to spar with you over crypto, so. So I guess that's better than being ignored barely on the margins in the slightest.
- [46:39]
Andrew Egger
I do think they're a little bored of the Glazers. I think Tim Pool and the Gateway Pundit and those people, that's not a good look, even for the White House. Carolyn Levitt doesn't get anything out of that.
- [46:50]
Tim Miller
The Mitch McConnell podcast guys were brought in there and they were like, you're so great. And I was like, have some fucking dignity. At least ask her about some old school Republican question like tariffs or something.
- [47:02]
Andrew Egger
And she is kind of constrained by the nature of the thing to like, dignify their question and be like, wow, I'm so glad you asked me that. The mainstream media would never pat him on the back. And you know that internally, she's like, these fucking guys are like, no use to us. It's not helpful. It's not like they want to mix it up with the reporters. They want to clown on us as the fake news and beat us up and let the clips go viral. So, like, she can keep bringing the podcasters in as much as she wants to. And I guess they will keep doing that a little bit, but they could also have me back anytime they want to. You know, our door's open.
- [47:31]
Tim Miller
You're unclountable. And you're. The newsletter from yesterday I want to talk about had a great headline. MAGA has always been at peace with East Asia, and it was about this kind of a sub element of the trade war. We talked with Justin about the economic part of it yesterday, which is the most important element, of course, that affects people. The political side of this, the Republican criminology side of this is interesting because, like when the tariffs were at 10,000% two minutes ago, there was a cadre of, let's say, China hawks as well as social media influencers who just want to be MAGA alpha dogs to overcompensate for their dick size. And so those two groups together were really pushing about how this trade war showed that Trump was finally the man that would stand up to China, unlike these other weak establishment politicians. And then he backs off from 10,000% down to 30%. And now the message is not that we're not actually at war with China. We're just trying to get a good deal for us. And how they process that has been kind of interesting. So how do you kind of divine what is happening there? Do any of these people actually have any. Any serious policy beliefs?
- [48:54]
Andrew Egger
Obviously, China hawks exist, right? I mean, there are people out there who have for a long time been clanging a bell about various unfair trade practices from the People's Republic of China, various national security concerns that may be implicated with letting them to do a whole lot of our critical manufacturing things like that. Those are not like fake concerns. But the thing that we have seen over the last month is a lot of people kind of putting on those concerns sort of as a skin suit suit, just as kind of momentary MAGA messaging at the moment. When Trump, very improvisationally in early April, decided to narrow his tariff focus from the whole world to China, right? Like April 9, April 10, he pulls down all of the quote, unquote, retaliatory tariffs on most of the world that he had slapped into place a week before. And he says, now we're just doing China. Now we're going after China. 135% tariffs on China. And again, from a certain kind of subset of the MAGA world, world. The response to this is finally, at long last, we are getting serious about this gaping wound that we've been bleeding out from, which is our previous trade relationship with China. This, this, this thing where they sell us cheap goods and we, you know, economically prosper in the short term, but in the long term, we're destroying our domestic manufacturing base and we're selling our future overseas and all these sorts of things. And finally, finally, someone's willing to do something about that. Kevin O' Leary, Mr. Wonderful from Shark Tank. He, he had a clip on CN viral. He was like, I want 400% tariffs on China.
- [50:23]
Tim Miller
I love how you just deadpan that, like, this is the world we're in. Just like, you know, Kim O' Leary, Mr. Wonderful from Shark Tank, like a key influencer now in our society. You know, like, if you're a MAGA reality show star, you really do have quite outsized influence now versus, I don't know, 2014.
- [50:41]
Andrew Egger
Right, right. And people very easily kind of go into and come out of that, that kind of pantheon of voices that are worth listening to because. Because it's. Anyone who's gassing up Trump at the moment can go momentarily viral over there, right? So, like, he has this thing where he's like, finally, Trump's doing it. I want 400% tariffs on China to punish them for all their trade cheating and stealing. And, you know, Donald Trump Jr. Is pushing that, and Libs of TikTok is pushing that. And, you know, you basically have all these people. And then as the economic conditions start to deteriorate and the conversation starts to become a little bit more about the pain, about the cost of all of this, this decoupling from China, then it's the messaging sort of shifts even in the White House from that kind of thing to, look, this is the play. We have to do this, and we all have to be willing to kind of suffer a little bit of pain for the glorious future, to solve these problems, to stand up to China. And all that lasted for about a month, Right. And then this week, the White House just pulled the plug. And you might think that all of these people who were so overjoyed to see the White House finally stand up, up on all of these things after supposedly, according to all these people, the previous status quo was completely untenable and unsustainable and indefensible, Right? But now Trump's trying to go back to the status quo. You're not exactly seeing this outpouring of rage and this sense of betrayal from all these people who thought this action a month ago was so necessary. I mean, it's just, tariffs go on. We're bringing domestic manufacturing back. Tariffs come off. Art of the deal, Tariffs go on. We're doing it, we're bringing it back. Tariffs come off art of the deal. And I guess we're just going to repeat this ad infinitum for the rest of the administration.
- [52:13]
Tim Miller
I don't think that it is, it does a lot of good to psychoanalyze the maga knob slobbers. I think they're just going to be happy with whatever happens. So obviously the Benny Johnson's of the world will, you know, continue to do their, their cruise thing. What about the hawks? What about like the actual hawks which supposedly was the former National Security Advisor who got promoted to the UN Mike Waltz? What about the Tom Cottons of the world? I've even seen much from those guys. I mean it is ostensibly there are some genuine China hawks out there, but you're not seeing a lot of that in the public conversation really. I'm not seeing Tom on Hannity really pushing for this or anything.
- [52:54]
Andrew Egger
I think it's a combination of two things. One is sort of just strategic silence, right? I mean nobody wants to come out and be the fly in the ointment while the Trump administration is trying to trumpet this deal. And the Trump administration kind of has these people in a little bit of a bind because. Because the previous situation where we were both kind of doing this ad hoc trade embargo with China while also antagonizing the rest of the world on trade was completely antithetical to what these hawks want, which is to sort of isolate China on the world stage. Right? To kind of create this grand coalition of freedom loving peoples who will all trade with one another and none of us will do the kind of business with China that we've done before. And there was an interesting quote in Semaphore because you bring up Tom Cotton. I don't know if this was Tom Cotton, but it was plainly a person from that kind of Tom Cotton China hawk wing just this morning where he was basically just complaining anonymously to Semaphore about the way this had all been done in such a clownish manner so as to not successfully isolate China and not successfully be able to put any pressure on them to decouple from the whole world because of the reasons that I just mentioned. And so I think that it's difficult for them because again, they don't really want to cut the administration loose or bring down the wrath of God on themselves. But at no point were the real China hawks really pleased with either the former tariffs or this kind of back.
- [54:15]
Tim Miller
Off of them now bold, anonymous Senator in Semaphore, we keep asking Republican senators to go in the pod. None of them want to, but I'm thinking like, I wonder if I could do it cop style where we kind of anonymize their voice and they sit in the shadow and we get to talk about Donald Trump's trade war and they can feel that they can be candid about their thoughts.
- [54:37]
Andrew Egger
Yeah, you wouldn't necessarily have to even put them in the shadow. A lot of them look very similar to one another, you know what I mean?
- [54:45]
Tim Miller
It's kind of like that kind of thin, old white guy kind of thing. A similar haircut.
- [54:49]
Andrew Egger
Right. I guess maybe more in the House of Representatives than. Okay, can I just read this to you? This is from Semaphore. In private. Some Republicans are still smarting over what they see as Trump's self inflicted economic wound. So here's the quote. It's been disastrous. The objective I thought, and most of my constituents think, is to keep the rest of the world, but China in particular, from ripping us off. So where do we end up? We end up with slightly higher tariffs on China, but we've alienated the rest of the world. One Republican senator told Semaphore, if they can't choreograph a better ending to this, you have to ask, has this all been worth it? What are we accomplishing? This GOP senator added, so that's kind of the view from, from that wing of the party that you're talking about of like, oh, that was all interesting.
- [55:27]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I can feel those. I can feel those. What are we accomplishing? Nothing. What were his rhetorical questions? I can field them for him.
- [55:34]
Andrew Egger
Where do we end up? What are we accomplishing? Has this all been worth it?
- [55:38]
Tim Miller
Nothing. No. Yeah. What are we accomplishing? Nothing. Has this all been worth it? No. And also just on top of that, I don't think that your constituents do actually care about the rest of the world isolating China. But it's nice that there's still a couple Manhattan Institute centers still in there thinking that the world is going to come back around to them. Feel free to just free yourself. Unshackle yourself, Republican Senator. You know, life is short. Come share your thoughts with me. Final topic, in addition to being a White House correspondent and author of Morning Shots newsletter, you're also our porn correspondent. So we had to bring you on today because Mike Lee, senator from Utah, who I don't think was that blind senator, has filed a bill that would basically criminalize interstate porn exchange, which would essentially ban porn hunter and I think create a lot of legal questions for People sending naked selfies to a friend or lover that is in a different state. You, as a Hillsdale grad, have expressed in the past some sympathy to this. So I would like to see what you think about the Mike Lee bill before we discuss the politics of it.
- [56:41]
Andrew Egger
Yeah, you're bringing this up to me blind because I had not actually seen this bill. I do wonder you say images you're sending to your significant other in a different state. But. But is it even clear just from your description of that, maybe you'd even run into trouble in the same state, you know, if the data itself is somehow bouncing to a data center out of state or something like that. Not a tech policy, tech law reporter. So I don't know how any of that would work.
- [57:04]
Tim Miller
The bill would pave the way for the prosecution of obscene content disseminated across state lines or from foreign countries.
- [57:10]
Andrew Egger
Let me say one thing on that, which is that I am pretty much of the opinion that the whole notion that, like, porn is too ubiquitous and sort of universally accessible to do anything about from, like, a regulatory standpoint, I find that kind of defeatist and lame and not very persuasive. Like, smoking used to be totally ubiquitous, and we've found ways to curb that socially. And I think it's pretty bad for people on the whole to just take a modest stance on it.
- [57:39]
Tim Miller
Porn is pretty bad. The consumers. Yeah.
- [57:42]
Andrew Egger
Yeah. Not great. Not great for America to have everybody constantly looking at Internet pornography. That's my modest opinion, but I couldn't speak to you about the contours of this.
- [57:50]
Tim Miller
A lot of pornographics X these days.
- [57:52]
Andrew Egger
I know, it's horrible.
- [57:53]
Tim Miller
They could start within the house. They could start by kind of doing some regulation inside the house. I don't think.
- [57:59]
Andrew Egger
Michael, you mentioned that the whole Internet is just breaking down. The barriers between things just don't really exist. And bots are taking over everything, not just pornography. We're going to have to do something about this World Wide Web. I feel like.
- [58:13]
Tim Miller
Tim, what would you like to do about it? What would you like to do about the World Wide Web?
- [58:16]
Andrew Egger
I'd like to.
- [58:16]
Tim Miller
I don't know.
- [58:17]
Andrew Egger
I don't know. It seems bad for people, but it is where we make all of our money. So it's. You know, there's things that go both ways.
- [58:23]
Tim Miller
Yeah, the phones are a big problem. So it seems like you're kind of. You're sort of backing off your porn ban stance. You're now just hoping for, like, some social stigma around porn. I mean, I guess I'm Trying to think the smoking bans, how did it work? We banned it in restaurants. That really helped, you know, so people weren't getting in restaurants, but it's not really an equivalent of that. And I guess it's like you could, couldn't, you know, it's not like a very common situation. It's some gay bars, I guess you're seeing porn inside the bar. But those people that are going in there pretty much, you know, getting what they're signing up for. I think, you know, not. It's not like Chili's has porn that you could be banning, you know.
- [58:56]
Andrew Egger
Right, right. No, I think, I think the, the best analog to like the banning smoking in restaurants things for this is, is the thing we've seen kind of at the state level, which is these sort of ID verification laws that, that are aimed at, at, you know, making it harder for kids to access online porn, which I think is a worthy goal in the first place and also has the useful knock on effect of just making it sort of more irritating and kind of tricky for other people to access as well. Like Virginia passed a porn ban or a porn verification law for, you know, to keep minors off of it. And you know, a few other states have done it as well. And like pornhub for instance, no longer is accessible in those states. You know, mean, I obviously all this stuff, it's the Internet, people can find ways around all of this stuff. But the idea is you make it a little bit more stigmatized, you raise.
- [59:46]
Tim Miller
Some barriers back in the old days, before your time. Not me, because A, I'm not that into porn, I have a lot of other vices, but B, I was a closeted homosexual. But some of my friends, you go to the gas station and get somebody else to buy it for you. There are always ways to get around these prohibitions. But creating a little bit of barrier to entry, that's what you're saying? A little bit of barrier, a little bit of friction.
- [60:09]
Andrew Egger
Exactly. And those laws have had some success, I think already and not just from the MAGA side. I mean there's been kind of a cross partisan coalition for some of those things.
- [60:17]
Tim Miller
Okay, you could probably win me over on the merits of this. I'm always happy to meet in the middle, create some friction. I will say as a political matter, I don't know, it should be in the Democratic Party platform, but I do think it would benefit a couple of Dems to just kind of, you know, take a more liberal, liberalitarian view on this. Liberalitarians had a moment back in the mid 2010s that sort of faded away, just, you know, to kind of get it and inject it into the manosphere. I don't know that there's a lot of awareness that the pornhub bands are the Republicans Fault the manosphere. Having this Mike Lee ban on porn seems to be something that a lot of these morons would probably not like. I think on a past podcast I mentioned this gentleman, Andrew Schultz. Schultz, he's a comedian. He had Pete Buttigieg on recently and during a recent podcast he said he was explaining his evolution from being a Democrat to now supporting Trump. And he goes, I don't think I've changed. I just like the dudes that get pussy and say whatever they want, referencing the fact that Bill Clinton got a blowjob in the White House and now Donald Trump also used to get a lot of avoiding sexually transmitted diseases. Apparently it was his Vietnam. And so that was the main issue for. I think it is a sign that you're pretty fucking stupid if you're determining who wants to be the President of the United States, you know, based on who seems to be the biggest pussyhound. But it might be nice for Democrats to like, just let Andrew Schultz know that the people that don't want them to say and view whatever they want and, you know, want to make it harder to access naked women online are actually, you know, the Republicans and Mike Lee on the short list for Attorney General if Pam Bondi ever gets on the wrong side of Trump. So, I don't know, maybe some political opportunity there. No, I know you're not gonna like that.
- [61:59]
Andrew Egger
I just love this future that we're lurching into where the median American voter, this kind of swing guy that both sides need to court is this exact guy, this sort of barstool Republican guy, just the dumbest kind of grossest, most empty headed, smooth brain thinking with his dick guy in all of America. And both parties need to court him from now on and wherever he goes, they win. And that's just the future of America. So that's really exciting for everybody and especially for me.
- [62:27]
Tim Miller
Usa. Usa. All right, thank you, Andrew Egger Eggs. He's been great. Sign up for his newsletter. Appreciate also Lee Littman for coming on the podcast. Check her podcast out Strict scrutiny. And we'll be back here tomorrow for another edition of the Bulwark podcast. We'll see you all then. Peace.
- [62:46]
Unknown
Overweight freaks riding around on wheelchairs motorized by electric motors made by goblins in a fact factory overseas. They're there to buy drywall and other products so they can eat back at home on the sofa. They watch tv. They watch TV about a man named Chandler Bing who died in a freak hot tubbing accident. Spent his time drinking hot dog flavored water on a popular TV show called Tub Girls. I don't want to pay for anything. Clothes and food and drugs for free. If it was 1970, I'd have a job in a factory. I am a man that's made of me. You're on the Internet looking at me. I hate almost everything that I see and I just want to disappear. Okay, all right, okay, all right, okay, all right, okay. I stand outside of the McDonald's. I'm flexing my muscles till I explode. I hope they see me in the drive through lane. I hope they see me in the drive through lane. I stand outside of the lobby. I'm trying to get some free woman.
- [64:10]
Tim Miller
Sweaters, you know what I mean?
- [64:13]
Unknown
I hope they see me the taxiway. I hope, I hope they. I hope they. I hope they. I don't wanna pay for anything. Clothes and food and drugs for free. If it was 1978, I'd have a job at a factory. I am a man that's made of me and you're on the Internet looking at me. I hate almost everything that I see that I just wanna disappear. I'm subscribed to your mom's only fans. I spend five bucks a month to get pictures of her flappy giblets. And I spend another $10 a month to chat with her on the AI chat program. It feels great. Clothes and food and drugs for free. If it was not a taste of any, I'd have a job and a factory. I am a man that's made of me. You're on the Internet looking at me. I hate almost everything that I see that I just want to disappear.
- [65:33]
Tim Miller
The Bulwark podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.