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- [00:00]
Tim Miller
Foreign. Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. We're back with one of our faves, an opinion columnist for the New York Times, also co host of the legal podcast Advisory Opinions. It's David French. What's up, man?
- [00:25]
David French
Tim, it's always so good to see you.
- [00:27]
Tim Miller
It's good to see you, too. I noticed you're not posting as much anymore. I just a little kind of behind the curtain here. I like to prep for the guests by just diving deep into their recent posts. Are you cleansing your social media life or is it just the grandbabies or what's happening?
- [00:45]
David French
No, we're in the process of kind of moving up to Chicago for my oldest daughter is starting law school and she's got two little grandbabies, four and two. And we're going to be helping with the grandbabies while my oldest daughter's in law school. And so. Yeah, Tim, let me just say this. I have a recommend and I have a do not recommend.
- [01:06]
Tim Miller
Okay.
- [01:07]
David French
Okay. Recommend grandbabies.
- [01:10]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [01:11]
David French
Do not recommend moving. However. However, grandchildren are the. The good reason to go ahead and upend your life. So. So we're in the middle of that.
- [01:22]
Tim Miller
Okay. So it's not part of Pritzker 2028. You're not. You haven't gone full native?
- [01:27]
David French
No, no.
- [01:28]
Tim Miller
We have a live event in Chicago, so maybe I'll see. It's next week, May 28th. It's sold out. But I don't know if you. If you DM me and you're really special, we might figure something out. But we'll be there on May 28th. And I've got. I had some backlash when I made a joke about the Chicago weather on a couple podcasts ago, some listener backlash. And I'm just pulling up the seven day right now. It's 55. 55. It's fucking May 20th. Who would want to live there? I'm sorry, I do not apologize for my views on this. It's 55. Today's the high. That's not acceptable. How are you going to tolerate that? You're a Southern man, Tim.
- [02:05]
David French
It's a great summer city. And it's not summer yet. So, you know, you just. You just got to give Chicago a pass until, like, it's officially summer, and then it's just a tremendous place to be.
- [02:17]
Tim Miller
It's summer in New Orleans already, but we've got a bunch to talk about. Obviously want to do legal stuff with you since you're not posting. I was listening to advisory opinions recently. So I have some follow up questions from you on your recent podcast. But I guess the most recent case of relevance is the Alien enemies case was 7 to 2 ruling essentially that the Venezuelans, overwhelmingly Venezuelans that we have disappeared to a foreign prison camp had due process rights. I guess I'm curious what you think that means for the Venezuelans themselves who are trying to organize as a class now and whether they're going to have relief, the ones that have already been sent. And then also just what you thought about the result there, seven to two ruling.
- [03:03]
David French
Yeah. I don't think you can look at these Supreme Court cases in isolation any longer. I think what you're looking at right now is an emerging understanding with the Supreme Court. Well, I would say seven members of the Supreme Court that this administration cannot be trusted. And the reason why I say that is because you've had now twice the court intervening in the Alien Enemies act context very quickly, very quickly in very unusual ways. And so this is where the dissent, you know, maybe if you squint, has a point, because the court really is intervening in these cases at just record speed. It's remarkable. People who don't follow the Supreme Court closely really have no idea how unusual all this is that these cases are hitting this fast. So it's intervening very, very quickly. It's intervening in a way that is increasingly decisive. You had more vague language like facilitate return, for example, or you had more vague language like due process notice in an opportunity to be heard before removal. And now it's getting to be like, no, no, no, you're not doing it correctly. This notice. You're g not notice enough. And the one other thing which also links we we also had the birthright citizenship oral argument. And it was very telling. There was a very telling moment when Amy Coney Barrett asked the Trump administration about would it comply with rulings, would it respect precedent? And the Trump administration said generally it was talking about precedent coming out of the circuits. And I believe their quote was generally yes, in general. In general is not the right answer. The answer is only yes, we will respect precedent. So you could hear the irritation in Amy Coney Barrett's voice in that moment. So I think you're seeing an increasingly impatient and skeptical Supreme Court.
- [05:04]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I want to get back to the Venezuelans in particular, but just really quick on the court breakdown. It is notable that it's the two Bush appointees, each separate Bush, H.W. and W appointees that are out on their own on this and the three Trump appointees that have Been rebuking him. I don't know if there's a psychological examination. I don't know if there's like Fox Brain. I don't know what we can attribute to this, if it's just random or there's no regrets from Trump about his first term choices. What do you make of that breakdown?
- [05:36]
David French
You know, Trump has been pretty mild in his criticism by his standards. I mean, he, he has some tweeted out or truthed out some pretty deranged stuff about the Supreme Court in general.
- [05:46]
Tim Miller
And he did say that he wanted to release terrorists at the Chevy Chase Club, which I believe John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh are members of. So not exactly mild for him, I.
- [05:56]
David French
Guess, by his standards. By his standards, right. Which is obscene for everybody else. But by his standards. And I'm talking about the very specific aimed at his justices that he appointed, you haven't seen that as much. However, MAGA is over some of these guys. Especially MAGA is over Amy Coney Barrett. But the problem here, Tim, is if you followed these people closely over the years, if you've known about Amy Coney Barrett or Brett Kavanaugh or Neil Gorsuch before Trump, you would know that it would be surprising if they just fell in line behind him. That that would be the surprise. Because they had records and they had their own independent existences and philosophies before Trump came along. And they're in a very different position from a Mike Johnson or a John Thune. They don't have to worry about primaries. They don't have that pressure hovering over them. So what do they have to face? Twitter shame storms? You know, they do have threats for sure, but they have security. And I'm not so sure that threatening them is productive. I'm not so sure that threatening them is going to give you the results that you want. And so these are people who are independent. They have their own record of accomplishment. They have their own, you know, they have their own dignity and they don't have to face primary voters. And historically, the more you push them and the more you threaten them, the more resistant they become.
- [07:25]
Tim Miller
Yeah, a couple thoughts on that. I mean, all three of them had pretty strong records on, on abortion related issues on Roe and all that, which I think maybe so just the kind of shock of that the overturning of Roe to folks in the left led maybe to a misinterpretation of the three. Right, Totally. Because that was like one case where they just were very. That was one topic where they're going to be very misaligned from liberal and progressive people. And so maybe there's like a projection that they will be that misaligned across the board on everything else. So it's one theory of the case I have as I'm doing a social analysis of this. The other. And some listeners are going to get mad about this. Maybe the wives, I don't know, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito have some pretty radical wives when it comes to their political philosophy. I don't know if you can get into this on advisory opinions, but you're welcome to in the bulwark. But that might be my other explanation for the breakup of the majority there.
- [08:23]
David French
There seems to be very little question. Well, certainly Ginni Thomas certainly heavily radicalized.
- [08:30]
Tim Miller
And she was actively an active participant in the.
- [08:33]
David French
Yeah, I don't think we have to dive into the psychology of their marriages to know that definitely when it comes to Thomas and often Alito, they are in a different category in approaching these cases than the other seven. And I honestly wonder, and here's what I do wonder, I do wonder if Thomas and Alito are still willing to give the administration sort of the traditional benefit of the doubt. In some ways, this presumption of regular order that we've talked about on advisory opinions has been sort of been kind of a part of the approach to the Department of Justice from the judiciary. The Department of Justice has been seen as a respectable player in the legal, you know, has been seen as sort of a standard setting, not just respectable but standard setting player in the legal system. And so there's been this kind of and you talk to defense attorneys and they can go on at length about there's just too much deference to the Department of Justice. And I think that you still have some of that coming from Thomas and Alito. And I don't think you see it from the other seven.
- [09:38]
Tim Miller
Well, I hope it's deference to the Department of Justice. I kind of think they want a MAGA autocracy. But you know, since there's only two of them, that's kind of splitting hairs, I guess, at this point. Just really quick back on the Alien Enemies act cases because we have a fundraiser and live show with our friends at crooked in Washington, D.C. june 6, which is raising money for some of the legal defenses of some of the people who have been sent to El Salvador. So people haven't signed up for that. You should go to the website and check that out if you happen to be in D.C. june 6 and want to come hang out. There have been some developments which I mentioned at the start about how I don't even know what you would call them as a class. Like I was about to say, the deportees, they haven't really been deported. The disappeared feels a little dramatic, but that's really closer to what it is that they are trying to organize as a class to get kind of relief as a class. And there have been various different kind of rulings on that at the lower courts. I wonder what you think the hope for relief might be for those that have already been sent.
- [10:36]
David French
Well, I think there's a lot more hope now even than there was a week ago on two counts. And they're related to something I said earlier. Count number one is just the most recent case, which says we mean due process, we mean it. Okay, so it's not 24 hours notice, it's not 12 hours notice. That doesn't satisfy it. You have to have an actual process here. So that's number one. And then number two, you had the birthright citizenship oral argument, which I think was going down the road might be more important than people realize, because everyone's sort of focused on the merits of birthright citizenship. Like, is this thing actually legal? And if you think that Trump's birthright citizenship EO is legal, you had no comfort from the court in that oral argument. It was, if you listen to the oral argument, it was almost presumed that it was an illegal executive order. But what they were really wrestling with was this concept of the nationwide or the universal injunction. And it became pretty clear that at least a significant part of the court says one way through this, rather than sort of having these grab bag injunctions and not injunctions from district to district would be to organize class level relief. And so it was very clear to me that the court was encouraging this, that it was encouraging going down the route of class certification. And so when you have that kind of encouragement from the Supreme Court, I think you're going to see that radiate down to the lower courts. And you could have classes of potential deportees under the Alien Enemies act and then seek relief on that basis.
- [12:10]
Tim Miller
Fingers crossed. And it seems like you're on the birthright citizenship thing. You seem that it feels like you think that SCOTUS is going to rule against the administration on that.
- [12:17]
David French
Well, okay, so this is a weird case because what was actually up before the court and what they actually spent 95% of their time talking about was the whole concept of the universal injunction or the nationwide injunction. So it was really an argument about the injunction power much More than it was an argument about birthright citizenship. It was this weird argument, Tim, because it was almost like everyone was saying, okay, we know this birthright citizenship order is total, hot, steaming garbage. Everybody knows this. What's the right way to strike it down? That was sort of the whole tone of the argument. So you could very well end up with a kind of headline out of the Supreme Court that something like, Trump wins victory. But it would only be a victory in the sense that this nationwide injunction concept is pulled back some. That's not really a Trump victory. That's more of a limitation on the judicial branch. But then what you'll also have is alternatives to the nationwide injunction, such as class actions. And then that's where Trump. He's just not going to win on birthright citizenship. I mean, there was just no hope. There wasn't a glimmer of hope on birthright citizenship for the Trump administration that leaked out of that oral argument. Not a glimmer.
- [13:31]
Tim Miller
And so what about the side of it, about the injunctions? How do you think that they're gonna.
- [13:36]
David French
So I think on the injunction point, they may well say, okay, nationwide injunctions are pulled back to some extent. But I'm fine with that, Tim. I'm fine with that. This is something that has been a problem for across multiple administrations. This is not just a Trump thing. And what happens for listeners who not really followed this closely is let's suppose a president enacts a policy that you don't like. Well, a state attorneys general or other plaintiffs will then go and find the local court that they believe will be most favorable to them. In other words, it's called forum shopping. So they go. If you're more progressive, you go to the Northern District of California. If you're conservative, there's this one judge in Amarillo, Texas, I believe Texas, who is like the favorite judge of conservatives who are looking for nationwide injunctions. And so they go running to these handpicked judges to get these national orders. And that's not really how the system is supposed to work. The system is supposed to provide relief. But think of it like this, Tim. You could go to eight, eight district courts, you could lose seven out of eight. But if you can just find one that would agree with you, then you can get that nationwide injunction, at least for a time. So I think this practice does need to be pulled back, but there also has to be an avenue for people to get relief. And that's where this class action concept comes in. And, man, we're getting in some legal weeds Here.
- [15:05]
Tim Miller
That's great. This is good. I like to, you know, a little bit of both. I like to do both here. You know, we can get nerdy, we can get legal, and then, you know, we can do pop kissing, you know, kind of content another day and just like straight Trump derangement syndrome the next day. You know, you got to keep people on their toes. You know, when there's craziness going on in the world, nothing brings me peace of mind like talking to David French and hope that that brings you a little solace as well. But there are other ways to bring some control to your life, to bring some certainty. And one of them is with our sponsor, Selectquote, one of America's leading insurance brokers with nearly 40 years of experience helping over 2 million customers find over 700 billion DOL in coverage since 1985. Other life insurance brokers offer impersonal, one size fits all policies that may cost you more and cover you less, while Selectquote's licensed insurance agents work for you to tailor a life insurance policy for your individual needs in as little as 15 minutes. And if you've been worried about getting coverage with a preexisting health condition, Selectquote partners with carriers that provide policies for a variety of them. High blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, or if you don't have any major health issues, they work with carriers that can get you same day coverage with no medical exam required. Head to selectquote.com and a licensed insurance agent will call you right away with the right policy for your life and your budget. Select quote, they shop, you save, get the right insurance for you for less@SelectQuote.com Bulwark Go to SelectQuote.com Bulwark today to get started. That's SelectQuote.com Bulwark Speaking of nerdy, what else we got coming on the court? Anything else just as far as, like, what you're most interested in as far as the session is concerned?
- [16:52]
David French
Yeah, well, you know, we've been having kind of two tracks and it's a symbol, it's an interesting symbol about how our politics is changing all of the heat right now at the Supreme Court. And all of the attention on the Supreme Court is on the Trump administration litigation cases. So you've got a lot more heat about birthright citizenship or alien enemies act than you do about, like the traditional culture war cases that are also coming up to the court. So you have a case, for example, on Texas's law restricting age, gating, access to pornography in some universes, that would be one of the biggest cases of the term. Or you've got Tennessee's restriction on medical interventions for gender affirming care two, three years ago. That would be the number one case on everyone's mind. And it's fascinating to me as the Republican Party is becoming something very different, like Bernie economics with we're going to.
- [17:51]
Tim Miller
Get into the foreign policy side of things here in a minute. I was listening to Marco sounded like Cindy Sheehan yesterday at an event at the White House. So, you know, we'll get to that in a second.
- [18:00]
David French
Yeah, it's like Bernie's economics and Code Pink's foreign policy. I mean, you know, what is even happening here? And so that means that a lot of the culture war issues that very much coded Republican versus Democrat or very much were, the things that were getting people out of bed in the morning to go post on Twitter, are receding in importance to the sort of more fundamental structural issues of American democracy, such as these minor questions of how long can we keep our republic, or will the global international order that has kept great power peace since 1945 collapse in front of our eyes because we killed it? Like, those things are very much more on people's minds than the culture war stuff, which, though important compared to those kinds of issues, feels more or less like a historical blip by comparison to trends that might be talked about in a hundred years.
- [18:56]
Tim Miller
One more thing. You just teased me on advisory opinions when I was listening this morning and said you were very excited to talk about Barnes versus Felix. And I was like, I don't even know what Barnes versus Felix is. So now I'm going to make you do it on this podcast first. So it's a spoiler for advisory opinions listeners.
- [19:09]
David French
Tim, Tim, Tim. This case is something else. So this goes. This is a police violence case. It's a police shooting case, and it involves a situation. It's a horrible. It. This is awful. But a police officer pulls over a car for unpaid tolls, okay? Turns out that it was a rental car and the person driving it wasn't even the person who refused to pay the toll. So they've just rented a car. They're driving. They don't know why they're getting pulled over. They didn't do anything wrong. They didn't fail to pay the toll. But then things get really weird. So the cop comes up. There's at the beginning a normal exchange, but it kind of gets a little weird. And at one point the police officer says, can you get out of the car? The driver turns the car on. The police officer starts to say he had turned the ignition off. Then he turns the ignition on. The police officer starts to warn him, tries to demand that he get out of the car. The driver inexplicably starts to drive away. Nobody knows why he starts to drive away. The police officer inexplicably jumps on the moving car and in the space, which is, again, that's inexplicable. A human being does not stop a moving car by jumping on the side of it. Okay? So he jumps on the side of the moving car, which then puts him in mortal danger. There's just no question if you're hanging on to the side of a car as it's driving, that you are in total mortal danger. So he pulls out his gun and he shoots and he kills the driver. And so the family of the deceased driver sues the officer because they were saying, look, this is totally unnecessary. This shooting was totally unnecessary. You created the danger by jumping on the car that you then resolved by killing him. And so the fifth Circuit had said, no, no, you don't ask the question, why did he jump on the car? You don't look at anything other than the immediate moment of the threat. And if at that immediate moment, the police officer reasonably felt like his life was in danger, he can pull the trigger. And so the issue was at the Supreme Court. Do you look at the totality of the circumstances that led up to the shooting, or do you only look at the immediate moment of the threat? And, Tim, I know, like, America isn't being torn apart right now by these police violence cases, but this is a critically important case going forward.
- [21:35]
Tim Miller
I mean, it was the driver Black. I just for the context of this.
- [21:39]
David French
The Supreme Court ruled that you have to look at the totality of the circumstances and send it back down. So it was a very good ruling.
- [21:45]
Tim Miller
So they sided with the driver.
- [21:47]
David French
Supreme Court sided with the driver.
- [21:48]
Tim Miller
Yes, Supreme Court sided with.
- [21:49]
David French
The Supreme Court sided with the motorist side with the driver, and sent it back down for more proceedings. But it was a very good and important. It's one of these background cases that's more important than people realize, because one of the problems we have, and you and I both know this, is this just total lack of trust in institutions, just this collapsing trust. Well, one of the ways you destroy trust is by insulating institutions from accountability. And some of these doctrines that have protected police have insulated law enforcement from accountability and degraded trust. And this is a step forward towards accountability.
- [22:25]
Tim Miller
I'm glad I asked about that. Good news? Yeah, good news. As you were telling me the whole story, I was listening to it and just, you know, as I'm, you know, as my, my nature is always to expect the worst happening, can like prepare for it. I'm listening to you tell the story and I'm like, oh God, they're gonna side with the murder, with the murdering cop. And so it's, you know, so that's.
- [22:42]
David French
No, no, no, it's that, that's part.
- [22:44]
Tim Miller
Of also the problem why we don't have trust, because these stories don't end up in the front page. Right. Like where the inverse would.
- [22:51]
David French
Right, exactly.
- [22:52]
Tim Miller
I don't know how to fix that problem. It's like a fundamental problem about media and what kind of stuff people consume. Surfshark's military grade encryption helps protect your online privacy from prying eyes. And if you travel a lot like I do, you want to make sure your data is protected while you're sitting in airports using the free WI fi because hackers love that public free Internet. Plus Surfshark does not track or log its own users data. So that means no IP addresses, no timestamps and your browsing history stays with you. It's privacy at its finest. As for me, when I'm on the road, I can watch my favorite movies or you know, before they lost Game seven, my favorite nuggets games. Because Surfshark lets you bypass geo restrictions to access block content from around the world. Surfshark also offers other products like surfshark Search trying to say that five times fast. Which allows you to browse without being tracked or bombarded by all those annoying outs. It's time to take control of your online security. Try Surfshark today and enjoy their 30 day money back guarantee. Secure your digital world now. Visit the link below and start surfing securely. Until next time, stay tuned and stay safe. Go to surfshark.com the bulwark or use code the bulwark at checkout to get four extra months of Surfshark vpn. I want to move over to the Hill. You mentioned that there's some Bernie economics happening within the gop and that's kind of true because we have a president that wants to do a state run economy that's even maybe more totalitarian. Not maybe, definitely more totalitarian than anything Bernie has produced. Meanwhile, they're trying to pair that with this. I don't even know what you call it. Paul Ryan on steroids. It's kind of rude to Paul Ryan to even put his name in it. This what Bill Kristol called a big beautiful turd of a bill in the morning newsletter this morning. And so I just, I kind of an open, open reaction. What do you make of, of the reconciliation bill they're trying to jam through on the Hill right now?
- [24:54]
David French
Borderline insane bill. We just remember, Tim, came out of a period of inflation in the early years of the Biden term that, you know, you don't want to overuse this word, but it absolutely like sort of had, especially amongst poor middle class, working class families, had a traumatic effect where you're talking about people living paycheck to paycheck whose paychecks are purchasing less and less. And so the overhang from that inflation and the long term consequences of that inflation are chief reason why Kamala Harris isn't president of the United States. And so you would think that this sort of notion that we can spend, spend, spend, run up deficits at, at astronomical levels, that that would be oldthink. In other words, we've now realized that all these kind of folks who said deficits don't matter, that public spending is sort of this thing that you can just turn on the spigot and you solve recessions and do all of these amazing things. That's over. That should be over.
- [25:56]
Tim Miller
Oh, it's not. I got some messages from some MMT people in the past couple weeks about my, about my deficit. I didn't understand there's things I'm missing about the inflationary period of last few years.
- [26:09]
David French
Oh yeah, it's, it should be over, but apparently it's not. And this time it's coming through the Republicans, not through turning on the spigot and spending giant, giant, giant sums of new money. They are doing that to some extent, but also by starving the government of revenue by the continuing tax cuts without any kind of systemic fiscal reform at all. And if your listeners don't follow Jessica Riedleigh of the Manhattan Institute, they really need to on Twitter. Jessica's probably this is a person who is consistently asked to come to the Hill for the kind of closed door briefings where members get the straight scoop or off the record briefings where members get the straight scoop. But Jessica's work has been invaluable and just sort of showing this sheer scale that's just the incredible scale of our fiscal problem and how this bill is going to make everything worse. I mean, people forget that the deficit went up under Trump every year. Even during peace and prosperity before COVID the deficit was increasing every year.
- [27:18]
Tim Miller
He's the king of debt.
- [27:19]
David French
Oh yeah. Even Though Doge has made all these headlines about cutting, cutting, cutting. You know, by some measures, the Trump administration is already outspending the pace of the Biden administration. And then you add on the big, beautiful bill and you're going to have everybody knows that we can't keep doing this, and yet we keep doing this and doing it worse and worse. And the big beautiful bill is just going to make things worse.
- [27:43]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I mean, the combination of doing, if you bring the DOGE into it and some of the Medicaid cuts and the SNAP cuts, it really adds how insane it is. It's just like there are these ostensible efforts that have this kind of veneer of fiscal responsibility on them that are really just totally hackish and causing pain. Not fixing anything structurally, just going to cause pain to either government workers, some of whom who didn't deserve it, most of whom didn't deserve it, really, or poor Americans with regards to SNAP or Medicaid. And you're doing that and pairing it with something that is, I can add 6 trillion onto the already increased. So that's not like the total deficit number. Like the total number is like 16 trillion. Because we're on a path of adding 10, you know, a trillion a year over the next 10 years. We're just dumping six on top of that with this bill and then adding the cuts, you know, just as like a little cherry on top for people. We're going to make some cuts to people's SNAP programs. And the whole thing is preposterous. And it's like you can see the kind of pain in the chip Roys of the world as they try to talk about it. There's no real rationale for it.
- [29:01]
David French
Right. And this is part of this Trump instinct. At one moment, he wants to give everything away to anybody who asks to win over love and adoration and approval. So it's some days he's not going to ask any of his constituents to pay any more money. He's not going to make any painful cuts except to people he doesn't care about, which, you know, a lot of people in the Met, in the Medicaid world are saying, no, no, no, these are a lot of your voters. These are a lot of your voters. Why are you doing this? So one day he's promising the world and then another day he's, when he's talking about tariffs and trade, he's like, get ready for the austerity and the difficulty. And so it's just back and forth. So it's Bernie, one day it's like, it's like possessed Bernie one day, and then it swings to possessed Paul Ryan the next day. And that's just no way to run an economy.
- [29:54]
Tim Miller
No, it's kind of the worst of both worlds, really. It's like, it's the worst part of both of the ideological. I mean, there's something to be said for both Paul Ryanism and Bernieism. He's like, I'm gonna take the worst elements of both and we're gonna combine it into one big irresponsible piece of policy that makes.
- [30:12]
David French
It's like that Bizarro World. Superman. Bizarro World. So this is Bizarro World, Bernie. Bizarro World, Paul Ryan. But we don't know. Monday it's Bernie Day, Tuesday it's Ryan Day. Who knows?
- [30:25]
Tim Miller
Hey, guys, it's Tim and Sarah. We're here with my frenemy John Lovett from Love it or Leave It. We're bringing you guys all a special.
- [30:32]
David French
Crossover collab with the Bulwark and Crooked Media, the Never Trump Rhinos. Meet the self important podcast bros. You.
- [30:39]
Tim Miller
Are definitely the fucking self important one. June is Pride Month, and we're gonna be live in D.C. on June 6 for World Pride for a very special live show FundRaiser featuring the three of us, plus some gay special guests.
- [30:52]
David French
This one's a little different. Proceeds from tickets will be donated to support Andre Romero, the makeup artist who the Trump administration wrongly disappeared to El Salvador and who is currently being held in Sakat. Crooked and the Bulwark will be donating the proceeds from this fundraiser to the Immigrant Defenders Law Center.
- [31:09]
Tim Miller
Tickets on sale now@crooked.com events.
- [31:13]
David French
These are going fast, so get yours before they're gone.
- [31:15]
Tim Miller
Go to crooked.com events and we will.
- [31:19]
David French
See you all on June 6th.
- [31:23]
Tim Miller
Let's move to foreign policy. There was a two hour call apparently with Vladimir Putin yesterday between Trump and Putin. What came out of that call was basically nothing. No ceasefire. A promise to talk more. Promise to talk from Putin while he continues bombing Ukraine. He described it as, we have the principles of settlement, the terms of a possible conclusion of the peace agreement. Gary Kasparov, Russian dissident and chess genius, wrote, when a war criminal dictator talks about the terms of a possible conclusion of the peace agreement for the war he started and chooses to continue every day to kill more innocents. He's telling you he thinks you're an idiot while he stalls. And it feels about right to me.
- [32:11]
David French
Yeah, I mean, why would Putin come to the table? I mean, now there are a lot of reasons why a reasonable ruler would come to the table here. I mean, his military has suffered catastrophic losses, the young men of his country being bled dry. But this is not a reason.
- [32:28]
Tim Miller
And Trump's offering a totally irrational, like, type of deal that you really aren't going to get with another US President who is not in your pocket, right. Who's like, totally, you know, we will welcome you back into that world of nations, economic, economically, diplomatically. So, you know, I mean, that would, I guess, be the rationale that you're going to get this great potential. You know, you're going to have an American counterpart that's going to give you whatever you want.
- [32:53]
David French
The problem with that is, of course, Putin knows Zelensky won't accept those terms. And so one of the things that is unfolding right now, and this is something that actually, I was talking to some people right at the start of Trump's term who had been following this entire saga since before the original invasion of Crimea in 2014, and they said this. Trump doesn't realize how much Putin has changed. He is not dealing with the Vladimir Putin of his first term. He is not. He is dealing with a man who has launched the biggest land war in Europe since World War II, has gotten away with it to the extent that right now it's still him against Ukraine with his North Korean allies coming in. He launched a war that he thinks right now he is winning. And Trump's unwillingness to stand with Ukraine gives Putin every belief that he can just keep winning. So why, why do you concede anything if you're Vladimir Putin? Where, yeah, there has been some aid released that was pre approved in the Biden administration over to Ukraine, but there's no new aid apparently coming from the United States. Putin, I don't think thinks Europe can sustain this war effort. And so Putin believes he's holding all of the cards. And it's really interesting watching this sort of realization dawning on JD Vance or others that, well, golly gee, Putin might not be negotiating in good faith. We've been reaching out to him. I mean, and you're just thinking, where have you been, Zelensky? Look, I'm old enough to remember Zelensky very calmly in the oval office telling J.D. vance that Putin can't be trusted. And J.D. vance using that as a pretext to unload on Zelensky, you know, in front of the world to the thunderous applause of maga. Look at our guy standing up. And everything that Zelensky told him is being borne out in real time. And JD Vance and that team are like, wait, what? What's going on?
- [34:59]
Tim Miller
Does it seem like JD has reflected on that at all? Actually, you're being kind of nice to him by acting like he's like, wait, what's going on? He has. He's basically taking in this new information and in the most condescending manner possible, lecturing people about how the fact that he was wrong and the fact that he was wrong means that we're just gonna have to walk away from the table because people don't appreciate how right I was. I wasn't being thanked enough. Like, it's. His tone is unbelievably condescending. Like, while talking about this.
- [35:30]
David French
I'm so glad you said that. I'm so glad you said that, Tim. Because, you know, one of the things that we're seeing about the right is you take almost any malady of the far left.
- [35:41]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [35:41]
David French
And then you take it over to the. To the Trump right, and they make it worse. So cancel culture from the far left. Bad magic. Cancel culture. Hold my beer. Okay. Far left condescension, smug. If you're disagreeing with me, you're a bad, problematic person. That's bad. Trump turns it into, if you disagree with me, I'm so obviously right. That you're not just an idiot. If you disagree that you're also a coward. And so MAGA overlays the cowardice over the idiocy and problematic allegation. And so every malady you saw on the far left in these sort of woke world, the anti woke MAGA world has replicated and amplified. And. And what you just pointed out, this condescension, this smugness, this arrogance is one of those. One of those maladies that it's just amplified.
- [36:36]
Tim Miller
Yeah. And with most cases, not even with bad intentions, like the road, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. A lot of times as far left maladies come with good intentions and they're like, layering over on top of them with ill intent. I don't know if that's true for Marco here. I want you to psychoanalyze Marco for me because he was. I did a thing with Peter Hamby on Friday where we ranked the most obsequious members of Congress, and Marco wasn't drafted in the first three rounds. And so he, I think maybe heard about it on the podcast, wanted to make sure that he, you know, he got recognized in the future. Here he was yesterday talking about Trump the Peacemaker. If you can stomach it, it's going to be about 48 seconds kind of an aside.
- [37:18]
C
One of the cardinals I was meeting with, Mr. President, the day before the papal mass said to me, you know, it's very unusual for us. It's, you know, we have an American president that wants peace, and it's some of the Europeans that are constantly talking about doing war stuff. So it's kind of the world's upside down in their mind right now. It's usually the other way around. And it's a great honor to work for a president who literally spends half his day, maybe more, trying to stop wars, end wars, prevent wars, and it's an extraordinary thing to be a part of. And thank you for your leadership on that front. He's a.
- [37:54]
Tim Miller
It goes on. It gets worse.
- [37:55]
C
A key part of the speech he gave, and I just summarize it this way. Our president is a builder, not a bomber. He wants to make things. He wants to build things. He wants people to have prosperity and to be happy.
- [38:07]
Tim Miller
He wants people to be happy. Does Marco believe. Has Marco just gone fully native? I don't understand. Like, Marco is now blessed are the peacemakers, like Neokon Marco, what has happened?
- [38:22]
David French
It would have to depend on how we measure the obsequiousness scale, because is it from start point to finish point if it's that scale? Marco Rubio has the Olympic gold easily because this was a guy, remember, in 2016, who was sounding the alarm as loudly and urgently as anyone in that race. He did not do what Ted Cruz did for a while, which was to play super nice and friendly with Trump. Rubio was more against Trump sooner than a lot of the other guys were. And then he goes from that to this. That's a huge migration. And in my experience, Tim, there are some great, valuable life lessons you can learn by being a litigator for 21 years. And one of the things that you learn is that when people can commit to a bit, so much that they become the bit. And one of the things that I remember thinking when I was a young lawyer was, what's it like to represent somebody who knows they're guilty? In other words, they know they're guilty. Well, I was mainly a civil litigator, not criminal. It's a different thing. And one of the things that I saw was that in civil litigation, people could convince themselves of almost anything if enough money is on the line, if enough pride is on the line. And then years and months and years go by, people migrate into the bit completely. And I feel like that that's where we are with a lot of these Republicans. Traditional Republicans who are now quite maga. They have migrated and they are the bit. Now they are into the bit.
- [39:52]
Tim Miller
So I think this is right. I think he looks at himself in the mirror and thinks, I'm a good person now. This actually is part of how I rationalize being for who I know is kind of has a bad character traits. But, like, we're doing good now. We are. The cardinals and Vatican City are blessing me now. And this is how I rationalize that. I truly think that he is. That he's gone, like, fully around the bend on that.
- [40:12]
David French
Oh, I totally agree. When I meet somebody who's as vocally Trump loving as Rubio is, I now know. I mean, I know countless people like that. Just countless people like that, including former establishment Republicans who are effusive. And I. I do not detect deception here. And, and I will tell you this, it's also a different thing. Like when you're traveling in Republican circles in 2016, you had. There was this constant, he's doing terrible things. I wish he wasn't our guy. But then that when the cameras come on, then you defend him and attack the Democrats. I'm not hearing that green room honesty anymore. As much or not? Not nearly as much.
- [40:55]
Tim Miller
A little bit on the bill. On the bill. On the financial stuff, like a little bit on the tariffs and stuff. But like.
- [40:59]
David French
Oh, yeah, yeah, on the tariffs, you started to get it. But on some of these other issues. No, no.
- [41:04]
Tim Miller
And the Marco thing. And again, this, like, becomes cliche at this point to even bring up. But just. It's just so stark with him, is that if Kamala had won and was saying we need total rapprochement with Iran and Russia and frankly, the sponsors of Hamas, all three total, like, in exchange for whatever, some financial deal. And her secretary of state was talking about how she's a peacemaker and how the only thing that matters is that we lay down our arms and that everybody hugs and that she just wants people to be happy. The person who offered the most withering critique of that in all of Washington would have been Marco Rubio.
- [41:49]
David French
Oh, no question. No question. I mean, this. This idea that we're going to effectively switch sides in the Ukraine war, to side with Russia, the Republican Party for generations would been apoplectic. This is worse than any of the alleged, you know, the appeasement or weakness allegations thrown at a Walter Mondale back in the day OR A George McGovern back in the day.
- [42:18]
Tim Miller
The Obama apology tour.
- [42:19]
David French
The Obama, I mean, which.
- [42:21]
Tim Miller
It wasn't great for me.
- [42:22]
David French
No, I hated it.
- [42:23]
Tim Miller
So it was like a mild. It was just the most mild compared to what Trump just did in Saudi.
- [42:29]
David French
Oh, it's unbelievable. It's just unbelievable. The direct attack on the United States of America, the direct attack sort of on our history and our foreign policy and all of its predecessors. And then the appeasement of a Russian dictator, the imitation, in many ways, of a Russian dictator's approach to foreign policy, where with this whole spheres of influence, where Canada now becomes more of an enemy than Russia in some ways, I mean, what are we even. We're trying to bully and intimidate our neighbors the way that Putin tries to bully and intimidate his neighbors. This is. This is something that. And here's what's frustrating to me, Tim. Such a small percentage of Americans pay close attention to politics that there are millions of Republicans who are walking around still thinking that the Republican Party is the hawkish party on national defense. They're still thinking that this is. If you want strength, if you want toughness, you go to Donald Trump. And what we are seeing is with Trump, you're beginning to see appeasement. Not just beginning to see. You're seeing appeasement, you're seeing abandonment of allies, you're seeing weakness, you're seeing retreat, you're not seeing toughness. And then this much vaunted Houthi bombing campaign, which I think one of Biden's failures was his failure to deal with the Houthis. And Trump was going to do it. And so for a month or whatever, he bombs the crap out of the Houthis.
- [43:54]
Tim Miller
Oh, I'm sorry, I thought he was a builder, not a bomber. He was bombing the Houthis.
- [43:57]
David French
Oh, he was in the bombing phase, which is the pre building phase. Right, got it. And so he's bombing the crap out of the Houthis to no apparent effect, and then just like, calls it a day. And I guess the shipping lanes aren't as vital anymore. I mean, it's all very confusing. And my newsroom colleagues at the Times wrote up a really tremendous report of sort of the confusion around the bombing campaign and how ineffective it was. And let's look at the Pete Hegseth record. So far, we've had a signal chat scandal. We've had the loss of a lot of his senior team. We've had a Signal Chat Scandal 2.0, and we've had a completely ineffective bombing campaign against the Houthis. But, hey, at least the military isn't woke anymore, Tim.
- [44:44]
Tim Miller
Well, no, they're tough. It's the tough military guys are really taking out the Houthis that we just gave up after months, you know? And also, David, like, look, this is the thing. As long as if everybody could just be happy and build golf courses and have crypto, why would they do wars? Wars aren't about anything anyway. It's just all about money and happiness. And if Donald Trump can just go and give people hugs and let them use his fake currency and, like, build cool resorts, then peace will come in our time. That's right. I think that's right. History's proven that out. Are you ready to feel normal for a second? You ready just to breathe? Sometimes it's like, what earth are we on? Like, how is this earth? Mike Pence did an interview on Sunday, and it's just like, in case you have any doubt about what an actual what Marco Rubio might have sounded like, you know, had. Had the fates gone a different way, and had he not decided to totally sell his soul to Trump, here was Mike Pence on the topic of the Qatar plane and the aforementioned Trump speech in Saudi Arabia.
- [45:44]
D
Well, I think first we've got to remember who Qatar is. We've got a military base there. I have members of our immediate family that have deployed to the region. But Qatar has a long history of playing both sides. They support Hamas, and so the very idea that we would accept an Air Force One from Qatar, I think is inconsistent with our security, with our intelligence needs. And my hope is the president reconsiders it. Kristen, I've never been a fan of American presidents criticizing America on foreign soil and particularly giving that speech in Saudi Arabia where 15 of the 19, 9, 11 hijackers hailed from and not including Osama bin Laden. I thought was was unfortunate your former.
- [46:41]
Tim Miller
Colleague, General Goldberg liked to talk about the invasion of the body snatchers and how all of his, you know, conservative colleagues had their bodies snatched.
- [46:47]
David French
Yeah.
- [46:47]
Tim Miller
And apparently it's a two way thing. That's. Which is interesting. Like, your body can be. Be snatched and then returned to you, which has happened for Mike Pence.
- [46:55]
David French
Well, you know, the thing is, Mike Pence had a reaction to January 6th that normal people would have, which is, these people tried to kill me. They may not be great people. Okay. And then you have all these senators and congressmen who are like, these people tried to kill me. How can I be closer to this team?
- [47:12]
Tim Miller
How can I butter them up a little bit so they aim their fire somewhere else? Maybe we can give them a $5 million payout like we just did to Ashley Babbitt's. Family.
- [47:20]
David French
Yeah, exactly. Now, this Cutter plane issue, you know, you're of two minds of it, because one of them should be. Nothing about it should be surprising. I mean, the guy has been. I mean, just going back to the first term, when one of the first signs that somebody had or an organization had really begun to turn from traditional conservative to MAGA was they're renting out the Trump hotel ballroom for their events, Right? So. So because Trump is still master of his empire, his business empire, while he's President of the United States. And so people are using Trump properties and spending money at Trump events and Trump properties. So he's taken this to a whole nother level with the Trump meme coin scandal and the crypto nonsense. So this is just the next evolution. And so in the one sense, you wouldn't be surprised, but in another sense, you just sometimes have to step back for a minute and just do this mental exercise of what if Barack Obama had agreed to receive an airplane from a nation that supports Hamas and that his attorney general, who had previously been paid, what was it, 100,000amonth by the same nation before she became Attorney general, signs off on it?
- [48:40]
Tim Miller
Can we throw on top of that that the only reason that he wants it is because he wants to feel fancy and opulent? Think about all the segments that Fox did about how Obama was fancy and conceited and liked to eat arugula. It's just insane. It's like, no, I just want to feel fancier. That's why we're doing it.
- [49:00]
David French
Yeah. The other people's planes might be nicer than our plane. And look, I'm not defending Boeing in any way, shape or form for not getting the plane. The Air Force One, done on time, on budget, the new Air Force One. Boeing has problems, but the cure to Boeing. Boeing's problems is not a Qatari plane. That's not the cure to Boeing's problems. So it's just utterly, utterly absurd where we are here. And. And then this extra layer of. It's not a gift to him, say his defenders on Twitter, because it's going to his library afterwards, like in the Reagan library. Well, the understanding I have is that this is not just going to be going into some hangar and sitting around in the. In a Trump library. This thing may well be available for his use after he leaves office. So an opulent 747 to his opulence tastes becomes his for his use after office. Now, it remains to be seen how it will all work out. We have to acknowledge that remains to be seen how it all will all work out. But this is just. This should be shocking stuff. It is not shocking stuff to a sufficient number of people.
- [50:12]
Tim Miller
I saw you posted about this, and I saw it, too. I haven't had a chance to mention it. There have been a lot of protests in Gaza among the Palestinians, and you posted one of them chanting, we want to live. Hamas out. Hamas out. And kind of astonishing bravery there that is worth mentioning. And again, I just think kind of lays bare just kind of the hollowness of this Trump foreign policy that's just like, you know, as long as we can do deals and trade, you know, and trade cash with one another, you know, with other despots, everything will turn out okay. Like, you know, there are fundamental human. Human life is at play. You know, values, human rights. Like, all this stuff is still part of foreign policy, even if you want to wish it away. I don't know. But take that any way you want.
- [51:00]
David French
The presence of those protesters is a rebuke to those people who would dehumanize the Palestinians on the right to say, there are no. And I'm sure you've seen this on Twitter, there are no innocent Palestinians. They're all bad. They're all awful. And this was a temptation that some people had during the worst days of the Iraq war, was to sort of think of the Iraqi people and dehumanize the Iraqi people. But my commander in Iraq said something really brilliant at the start of our deployment. He said, a lot of you guys are going to be hostile to the Iraqi people because you're going to see them seemingly totally passive in the face of some horrific evil. And he said, let me ask you a question. What do you call one man with a gun in a room full of a hundred people? I don't know, sir. A majority, he said. They dictate the terms. So for us to understand the mindset and the thoughts of the other hundred people, you got to get rid of the man with a gun. And once you get rid of the man with a gun, the civil society can flourish. And I've thought about that in the context of Hamas. They've been living under this Hamas brutality for a very long time, 20 or so years, they've been living under Hamas brutality. They know very well if they stand up to Hamas, they come could be killed, brutally tortured and killed. And so to see this as breathtaking bravery, and it's a sign for everyone on the right, far right, who says these people are just too far gone. No, no, there are people showing indescribable courage. And then for those people on the far left who for some reason tend to think that Hamas is some sort of authentic representative of the Palestinian people and that it's somehow an acceptable outcome.
- [52:42]
Tim Miller
Of this war for violent resistance is what is needed because. Yeah.
- [52:45]
David French
Or that an acceptable outcome of this war is Hamas still in charge. Those protesters rebuke them as well, because they're a living symbol that, no, Hamas is not a representative of the Palestinian people. It's a faction, no question. But it is not the representative of the Palestinian people. And so I think it's one of the most courageous things I've ever seen. And it has within it the seeds, the very, very, very small seeds of actual hope here. But hope does not live for very long in the Middle East.
- [53:18]
Tim Miller
All right, a couple quick other legal items on the free speech topic I always do like to talk to you about. I'm just so blown away by the commitment to the free speech on the anti woke. Right. In particular, we saw this week, James Comey, and I don't know you have a lot of expertise, having been a lawyer on first amendment issues. What do you think? Posting an Instagram picture of stones that say 86, 47. Is that jailable?
- [53:44]
David French
86, 47 or no? I mean, it's not even close. I mean. So let's look at this from two standpoints. One, is, is 86 a violent threat? No. I was a waiter back in the day, Tim. I don't know if you ever had the. Yeah, yeah.
- [54:02]
Tim Miller
Where? What kind of restaurant?
- [54:04]
David French
So I was a waiter at a restaurant called Darrell's in Nashville. It was a chain restaurant, kind of like an Applebee's back in the day, except a little, you know, they all like an outfit.
- [54:13]
Tim Miller
Did you have to wear flair?
- [54:15]
David French
I did not have to wear flair, thankfully. But I did have to wear those suspenders.
- [54:20]
Tim Miller
Suspenders.
- [54:21]
David French
I had to have a handwritten name tag. And then I had the white shirt and I had like maroon suspenders.
- [54:30]
Tim Miller
That's cute.
- [54:31]
David French
So, and then I left Darryl's and worked at the old Spaghetti factory, which I think is still on second Avenue in downtown Nashville. And so that, my friend, is a crappy waiting tables job because there's like seven courses and the meals are cheap.
- [54:45]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [54:46]
David French
And so it's a bad. Lots of work. Exactly. But where were we going with the waiting?
- [54:54]
Tim Miller
You know that 86 doesn't mean assassinate.
- [54:56]
David French
Yes, yes.
- [54:57]
Tim Miller
As a waiter, as a former waiter.
- [55:01]
David French
This was an inefficient way to tell this story. But when you're waiting tables. You know, 86 the fries. Like, you're out of the fries. 86 the, you know, 86 the filet or the prime rib, you're out of it. And so he's meaning, like, we should be done with him.
- [55:15]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [55:16]
David French
So that's not a violent threat. And and the other thing, though, even if a reasonable person could interpret it as some sort of aspirationally violent sentiment, there's actually Supreme Court authority on this.
- [55:25]
Tim Miller
There's a case, Hang Mike Pence, for example, if it said Hang Mike Pence.
- [55:29]
David French
Hang M. Pence, instead of 8,647. Now, in that context, where you're actually storming the building.
- [55:35]
Tim Miller
No, I meant if just the stones said Hang Mike Pence.
- [55:38]
David French
Right, right. There is a case about a Vietnam War protestor who during the Vietnam War said, if I'm drafted, the first thing I do when I get a rifle is I'm going to shoot Johnson. And this went all the way up to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court said, that's free speech. That is free speech. So it's a joke. It's a ridiculous joke that they would call this some sort of violent threat or actionable threat.
- [56:02]
Tim Miller
Okay, just going rap fire on these. So Warren Wyden and Sanders sent a letter essentially saying that there is a concern, there's an appearance of bribery in the situation with Paramount where, like all signs point to the fact that Paramount is going to settle with Trump on the ridiculous 60 Minutes lawsuit. What do you make of the back and forth on that?
- [56:23]
David French
Yeah, I think bribery is a major stretch, especially considering the recent Supreme Court authority on that issue. I think what you're talking about is, you know, you wrote throw around a legal term of art like that. No, but it's a grift, man, and it is cowardice. It is a cowardice in the most significant way. And it's not just cowardice in the abstract. It's very dangerous cowardice. Because what we're seeing, Tim, I'm actually less alarmed that Donald Trump is Donald Trump than I am that major institutions capitulate to Donald Trump, because when he came in, we knew who he was, we knew his character. And so none of the things that he's doing should surprise us at all. However, what is surprising me is the sort of retreat and capitulation of key elements of civil society, including big, big legal institutions, including major media institutions. So you're beginning to see, Tim, how Americans and American institutions, we're not made of some sort of special clay where we're uniquely resistant to thugs and tyrants. We do have systems that help us resist thugs and tyrants, but the people who make up these systems in many ways are just as weak, just as cowardly, as you've seen around the world in the face of autocrats. But to see that in the US is. It's tough to absorb.
- [57:49]
Tim Miller
I mean, Sherrie Redstone should be ashamed of herself. It's so pathetic. I want to move to your new city, Chicago. There's a new DOJ investigation into your mayor. I don't know if you saw this. Your mayor's about as popular as, like, Janetta Warts. So I don't really have a huge political fandom of Brandon Johnson, but I'm not sure about jailing him. Here is what the letter from Harmeet Dhillon said. In your remarks made at the Apostolic Church of God in Woodlawn, you highlighted the number of black officials in your administration. You then went on to list each of these individuals, emphasizing their race. And as a result of that, they are opening investigation, I guess, regarding determining whether the City of Chicago is engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination in hiring. I just want to read you his quote here. He said he lists all the people that he's hired who are black. And then he says there are some detractors who will push back on me and say, you know, the only thing the mayor talks about is the hiring of black people. No, what I'm saying is when you hire our people, we always look out for everybody else. We are the most generous people on the planet. Having people in my administration that will look out for the interest of everyone, and everyone means you have to look out for the interest of black folks, because that hasn't happened. That's how we ensure long term sustainable growth. So what do you think there? DOJ letter at Brandon Johnson?
- [59:05]
David French
Being proud of the fact that you have an increasingly diverse workforce is not evidence of illegality. Okay, so it is absolutely true, however, that you can potentially create diverse workforces through illegality because race based hiring, race based promotion is illegal. Okay? So it should not occur. However. However, it is very weird. We're getting to a very weird time, Tim, when if a person who is hired is not a white male, people presume malfeasance.
- [59:41]
Tim Miller
Okay, I shouldn't laugh. That's horrible. But yeah, you're right.
- [59:44]
David French
I mean, but think about it for five seconds. I mean, like, oh, wait, there's a black police commissioner. Well, that's obviously dei. Or there's a woman pilot. Well, that's obviously dei because the default competence is white dudes. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no. The fact of the matter is that a nation that has, like our nation, been afflicted with centuries of, of de jura and de facto racism, that when you stop being racist, just that alone is going to start increasing diversity. Okay, sure. So being not racist will increase diversity. But then if you got an administration saying, oh, look at that increased diversity, there must be a problem. That is not the way the law works. And also, it is not the case. And this is so important for people to realize after the Harvard ruling on affirmative action, which I think was the right ruling, that Harvard cannot discriminate on the basis of race and its admissions. I think that was the correct ruling. It is not the case that diversity efforts are now illegal. It is not the case. For example, here's an example of a very legal and quite good diversity effort, the Texas 10% rule. So the Texas 10% rule allows you to be admitted to a major Texas public university if you finish in the top 10% of your high school class. That disproportionately helps non white applicants. It does provide assistance and help to non white applicants, but it's a race neutral criteria. So it's just, are you in the top 10% or not? And so because of the facts of historic marginalization, whenever you reach out on the basis of class, you have disproportionate benefits also on the basis of race. That is not illegal. In fact, it's not just not illegal. I think it's actually a really good thing for institutions to do is to reach out on the basis of socioeconomic class, which does increase racial diversity. It's a race neutral way of increasing American diversity and representation in American institutions. And so what the Trump administration is doing, however, is just basically taking any move that honors the existence of black people in the workforce or women in the workforce, or you name it, and then uses that as evidence of illegality. When you and I both know that a super white workforce, they would look at and go, oh, meritocracy, baby, meritocracy.
- [62:26]
Tim Miller
Great job. Yeah. No, and I also think in this case, this is intimidation. This is like simply what this is. This is not like a legit. I don't think that Harmeet is looking to take this case in front of a grand jury. What they want to do is scare people out of doing diversity hiring. Like, you know, they want to make people feel self conscious and nervous as they're going through the process of trying to figure out how to hire non white applicants. Is really like, like the press.
- [62:52]
David French
And look, if you can prove that there is discrimination on the basis of race.
- [62:56]
Tim Miller
Yeah, but based on the church speech where you're bragging about your staff, like, come on. I have mixed views on this. I had one more legal thing I want to bring to you because I did your city, Chicago, we have one in New Orleans right now. Big, big discussion about this.
- [63:07]
David French
Let's do it.
- [63:08]
Tim Miller
I have the two wolves inside of me. My civil libertarian side and my old Republican law and order side are like fighting each other right now. So I want you to help me. New Orleans police have been using information from a 200 plus camera network to find wanted individuals for the past two years. It's a facial recognition camera and they've been migrating the streets and sending alerts to officers phones in real time. I guess they see, you know, suspects of violent crimes. Crime is down in New Orleans significantly over the last two years. Don't know if it's related or not. But they have found violent criminals using this process. We also did just let 11 violent criminals escape from jail.
- [63:46]
David French
So we saw that.
- [63:47]
Tim Miller
Even Steven here.
- [63:48]
David French
Yeah, I saw that.
- [63:50]
Tim Miller
But there's other, some very real like civil liberties concerns because they went out around, around city council as far as like what types of alerts and how broadly the AI, you know, facial recognition cameras are being used. You've been briefed in all the details of this case, but what do you make of the. Because this is coming everywhere, the potential for using facial recognition technology.
- [64:11]
David French
I mean, you know, I'm enough of a fan of British crime dramas, Tim, to be aware of the almost near universal existence of CCTV over overseas. I mean, in Britain. But why do all the murders happen in the CCTV blind spot?
- [64:27]
Tim Miller
Well, you got to advance the plot.
- [64:30]
David French
I gotta advance the plot. That's right. Well, so traditionally there's been this phrase used when you're describing what is reasonable and unreasonable when it comes to search and seizure, when do you need a warrant versus not a warrant, et cetera. And there's this phrase that has endured for a while, although you criminal defense lawyers and prosecutors listening, painting, I understand I'm about to paint with broad brush here and there's lots of nuances, but there's been a phrase that has been used for a while that is reasonable expectation of privacy. So if you're in a place where you have a reasonable expectation of privacy, like your own home or in other circumstances, in a hotel room or other places, then that's this sort of zone of protection. But if you're out in public. Out in public. You've generally not been deemed to have a reasonable expectation of privacy. And so things like, like traffic light cameras or cctv, things like that.
- [65:23]
Tim Miller
I hate traffic light cameras. This is the two wolves inside of me. I'm like, I pretty much hate all this. Unless you're talking about we're using it to find violent criminals. Then all of a sudden I get interested, but then I'm like, wait a minute, does that mean that I'm being inconsistent?
- [65:37]
David French
Well, no, you're being perfectly consistent. You want to get away with your transgressions and you don't want anyone else to get away with theirs.
- [65:44]
Tim Miller
Okay, thank you. Thank you, David. I appreciate that. I am consistent.
- [65:48]
David French
It's an ethos. It's an ethos. But yeah, so I tend to be fine with CCTV in public spaces, but the devil's in the details. Like as you were saying, if you've got a bad AI model or you've got something here that is creating a kind of dragnet effect that could result in people, innocent people being sort of grabbed, disruption to innocent people, racial bias in this.
- [66:15]
Tim Miller
Cameras are less good at determining black faces, which could be possible, particularly at night. And so then you end up getting people that are, that are drug in who they. You think that they're violent criminals, but they get arrested for some other, like, petty crime that they did. You know what I mean? Like all that stuff is.
- [66:30]
David French
So I would say in principle, a CCTV presence in public spaces. I'm fine with it, but the devil would be in the details.
- [66:38]
Tim Miller
I lied. I do have one last topic. We've NBA playoffs are happening. Both of our teams have been dispatched by the Oklahoma City Thunder. My team won three games, yours won zero. So I think, you know, we had a little bit of clarity on how that, how that series would have turned out had we got to face each other. So there are four squads left. Who are you rooting for? Do you have a. Who are you pulling for?
- [66:55]
David French
I gotta say, I'm rooting for the Knicks. Knicks, I've got to say. So I kind of go. I am a very geographic sort of span, which is I root for the team where I live. So that's. Memphis is closer to me and living in Tennessee. But I also used to live in for a year in New York. So I've got that. I've been to the Garden when it's rocking and the crowd's going insane. So I've got a tiny. And then, hey, I work for a New York company. So they're not my first choice, but I'm jumping on the Knicks bandwagon right now.
- [67:24]
Tim Miller
Very rarely are New York teams kind of like, you know, the fan favorite or the. The, you know, story. New York teams have, you know, kind of like the best. Even called an underdog story feels overstated. But the Knicks have been bad for so long, it kind of is. It's kind of nice and refreshing to see Madison Square Garden popping like this. I got to go to a game a couple weeks ago there. It was unbelievable. Jalen Brunson, all the Nova guys. It's a big year for Nova. We have a Nova Pope.
- [67:49]
David French
Oh, man.
- [67:49]
Tim Miller
Nova Nix. So it could be that my brother went to Villa. Nova, I'm with you. I'm there. I also have a. Just a real soft spot for Anthony Edwards, and so I would. I wouldn't mind seeing the Timberwolves beat the Thunder. I love Anthony Edwards. He's got some rough edges, but I like that about him. He's so fun. He's so fun. I just. I'm tired. Like, I feel like when I was growing up, there was all these great rivalries and trash talking and a lot of the players now it's like politicians. Like, a lot of the players have been trained by PR bots now, and they're like very, you know. You know what I mean? And so they. They don't have the personality that is not. Ant. Edwards is just a phenomenal athlete as grapesot. So that would be my other. My other rooting interest.
- [68:29]
David French
Ant is incredible to watch, hilarious to listen to, and a total mess.
- [68:36]
Tim Miller
He's just all things I love.
- [68:38]
David French
He is an absolute mess. But my fate. One of my favorite interactions was last year when they were advancing to the Western Conference finals against the Mavericks and Sir Charles, you know, one of the great living Americans, Charles Barkley is interviewing anti and he says, it's been a while since I've been to Minnesota. And Ant interrupts him and goes, well, bring your ass. Bring your ass. It was so funny. And in the moment, you hear the studio breaking up and it was just like this complete. It was so funny.
- [69:11]
Tim Miller
He was shouting at a fan recently and doing kind of the reverse Marco. If you remember what Marco said about Donald Trump's manhood and Ant was describing his in the inverse to a fan. I love that type of trash talk. You know, if had it been Sarah Longmont JVL on the pod, I would have been vulgar there. But with David French, I like to behave a little bit.
- [69:32]
David French
Well, I'm the only one who cursed, Tim. I'm the only one who cursed.
- [69:35]
Tim Miller
Is that true? You're the one that cursed on the pod today.
- [69:39]
David French
I just said. I just quoted Ant, so I don't think you. Did you say anything worse than ass over the course of the whole.
- [69:47]
Tim Miller
Usually, I don't know, sometimes they just come out. I don't monitor my own. I'm constantly. It's like being around my mother. I curse way less around my mother and it's like a subconscious. It's somewhere just inside of my little brain. It's like you're a stand in for my Jesuit school teachers or something. I don't know what it is. David French long as always. We always go over with you. I appreciate it. Thank you so much for spending all the time with us. Everybody go check out advisory opinions, your work with the New York Times and we'll be seeing you soon.
- [70:17]
David French
Thanks so much, Tim.
- [70:18]
Tim Miller
All right, folks, we'll be back here tomorrow for another edition of the podcast. See you all then. Peace.
- [70:22]
E
My name is Pink and I'm really glad to meet you. You're recommended to me by some people. Hey, is this illegal? Hey, it feels illegal. I've saw quite a few times of paranoia. Oh, I should name a. Don't know, I should call you. Hey, it's 24Y. Hey, we're getting high around the corner now you're sitting on my bed. Then later on we can talk on it instead we'll meet again. My head works like it used to and maybe next time I tell my girl come through. I like the fact that we don't communicate. As long as you don't cover your best mates.
- [71:53]
Tim Miller
The Borg podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.