Alison Gill (0:00)

MSW Media. Hey everybody, it's Ag. And welcome to Refried Beans, where we play an episode of the Daily Beans podcast from the same week either one, two or three years ago so we can see how far we've come. So please enjoy this episode from days gone by and note the date in the intro.

David Pepper (0:22)

Refried beans. I like refried beans. That's why I want to try fried beans, because maybe they're just as good and we're wasting time.

Alison Gill (0:32)

Whispering.

David Pepper (0:35)

Jelly beans, jelly beans.

Alison Gill (0:39)

Jelly beans. Hello and welcome to the Daily beans for Thursday, July 18, 2024. Today, President Biden is set to announce major Supreme Court reform efforts, including term limits. J.D. vance has yet to accept debates with Vice President Kamala Harris. The DNC says its virtual roll call to nominate Biden will happen in early August. Elon Musk is moving Tesla out of California. Rudy Giuliani says he has no regrets over the damage he did to the lives of Ruby Freeman and Shane Moss. And Jack Smith files official notice with the 11th Circuit that he intends to appeal Judge Cannon's decision to dismiss the charges against Donald Trump. I'm your host, Alison Gill. Hey everybody, Happy Thursday. Pretty, pretty bonkers news day today. We're going to try to cover it all for you. Dana is out. She is traveling. Also with me tomorrow, John Fugelsang for Fuglsang Fridays on the Daily Beans. And later in the show today, I'm going to be talking with the former head of the Ohio Democratic Party and the author of Laboratories of Autocracy, David Pepper. He's going to join me to discuss the DNC virtual nomination of Joe Biden in Ohio. Also welcome to all of our new listeners. We have tons of new listeners. We're glad you're here. Let your friends know if they need the news. Here's where you can find some. This is, this is where we aren't just covering wall to wall. RNC and Biden is old media reporting. So thank you for being here and supporting independent media. It is the way to go I think. Also President Biden has tested positive for Covid. He is returning to Rehoboth beach in Delaware to rest and self quarantine I guess. And he is vaxxed and boosted. He's having mild sympt. A full medical report has been released on his COVID test and his vitals unlike any medical reports you know from doctors who aren't on Trump's payroll about Trump. So thank you for the transparency, Mr. President. Also, Jack Smith has filed notice that he will appeal Judge Cannon's dismissal of the Trump charges in Florida. We will bring that to you if the appeal is filed by the time we record the Jack podcast this weekend. We'll bring you that appeal and all the details that are in it. Also, Senator Bob Menendez has told allies he will resign from Congress after being convicted on federal corruption charges. That's according to two people familiar with the conversations speaking to NBC News. Also some breaking news from ABC's Jonathan Carle saying, and I'm trying to follow this here and follow the sourcing, but we knew earlier in the day that Senator Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden had a one on one meeting and that Schumer was there to convey the thoughts of everybody in the Democratic caucus to Joe Biden. And Jonathan Karl just appeared on ABC News and said that he has been told that Schumer told Biden he needs to drop out of the race or he thinks it would be better if he stepped aside. And then he went to Chuck Schumer's office to confirm this. That means that the news, the source of this news is not Chuck Schumer. It's coming from somebody else who was at that meeting or was briefed on the meeting, but not Chuck Schumer himself. Now, Chuck Schumer, when asked, said he was relaying to Joe Biden what members of his caucus are saying. So we don't know right now whether Schumer actually thinks Biden should drop out of the race. I have contacted Schumer's office. I haven't gotten a response. Schumer hasn't made any as of as of the recording of this podcast, hasn't made any statements about this. He's been publicly supporting Joe Biden's candidacy. So I look forward to hearing what Chuck Schumer has to say about this when he does, hopefully if he makes a statement. So I wanted to convey that news to you before Schumer, Adam Schiff would be the top Democrat that was calling for Biden to step aside. And so I'm waiting on that confirmation from Schumer himself to see what he has to say about this. Obviously, if that's what he thinks, I disagree. I don't think that's the best way forward. I think Biden is the best way forward. We have 153 campaign offices and a huge bankroll and nobody who wants to replace Biden is saying who they would want to replace him with. Just that he needs to step down. Which I think is very telling because it seems like they want to skip over the vice president. So I don't know, we'll see what ends up happening when Schumer makes a statement. But I would disagree with that. Now, again, you know me. If the president decides that the best course of action for the party is to step down, I will be I don't think that's the best thing for the party, but I will support whoever the nominee is. And all I can say is it better be Vice President Harris. All right. That's all I want to say about that. We have a lot of news to get to. Let's hit the hot notes. Hot notes first up, from Tyler Pager at the Post. President Biden is finalizing plans to endorse major changes to the Supreme Court in the coming weeks, including proposals for legislation to establish term limits for the justices and an actually like enforceable ethics code. Because right now while there's an ethics code, they just police themselves. And this is according to two people briefed on the plans. He's also weighing whether to call for a constitutional amendment to eliminate broad immunity for presidents and other constitutional office holders. And these this is according to people speaking on the condition of anonymity. As usual, the announcement would mark a major shift for Biden, a former chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He was the chair who has long resisted calls to make substantive changes to the high court. The potential changes come in response to growing outrage among his supporters about recent ethics scandals surrounding Clarence Thomas and decisions by the new court majority that have changed legal precedent on issues including abortion and federal regulatory powers. We're talking about the Chevron deference and we're talking about presidential immunity. Quote, I'm going to need your help on the Supreme Court because I'm about to come out. I don't want to prematurely announce it, he said, but I'm about to come out with major initiatives on limiting the court. I've been working with constitutional scholars for the last three months and I need some help, he said. And that's according to a transcript of a call obtained by the Washington Post. Term limits and an ethics code would be subject to congressional approval, which would face long odds in the Republican controlled House and the slim Democratic majority in the Senate. Under current rules, passage in the senate would require 60 votes. A constitutional amendment requires even more hurdles, including two thirds supports of both chambers or by a convention of two thirds of the states and then approval by three fourths of state legislatures. That's why state legislatures are so important. The details of Biden's considered policies have not been disclosed, and shortly after the Post published The story former President Trump criticized it on True Social the Democrats are attempting to interfere in the presidential election, destroy the justice system by attacking their political opponent, me and our honorable Supreme Court. That's what he wrote. We have to fight for our fair and independent courts and protect our country. That's what Trump said. Biden's private remarks about his high court plans came More than two weeks after his performance at a June 27 debate with Trump, which prompted calls from some Democrats to step aside as the party's nominee. Among those who have rallied to his side are many liberals who strongly support calls to remake the court. Four days after that debate, the Supreme Court ruled Trump was immune from prosecution for official acts during his first term in office and that all future presidents will be immune. And then, of course, less than an hour after that, Biden called Lawrence Tribe, constitutional law professor at Harvard Law School, to discuss the ruling. And the arguments, quote, this decision today has continued the court's attack in recent years on a wide range of long established legal principles in our nation, from gutting voting rights and civil rights to, to taking away a woman's right to choose to today's discussion that undermines the rule of law of this nation. That's what Biden said. And I'm quoting in public remarks later that day, I would say people's right to choose. The next week, Biden called Lawrence Tribe again and the two discussed a Guardian opinion piece that Tribe wrote endorsing reforms to the court. Among the options discussed, term limits, an enforceable ethics code, and the constitutional amendment to address immunity. Tribe confirmed he spoke with Biden but declined to comment on their discussion. And eight Democratic senators have co sponsored a bill that would establish 18 year terms for Supreme Court justices, with new justices appointed every two years. The nine most recently appointed justices would sit for appellate jurisdiction cases, while the others would be able to hear original jurisdiction cases or step in as a substitute if one of the most recent nine is conflicted or cannot hear a case for another reason. And if they're conflicted, they should actually have to recuse themselves. Next up from New York 1, Vice President Kamala Harris has accepted three dates for vice presidential debates against J.D. vance. But the Trump campaign says they won't commit, they won't commit Vance to the debate, saying that arguing with Joe Biden's future on the ticket is in dispute. They say that we don't know if Joe Biden's going to be on the ticket because of Adam Schiff and they can't agree to a debate without knowing who Vance's opponent will be despite Biden's repeated insistence that he's staying in the race. Quote, we don't know who the Democratic nominee for VP is going to be, so we can't look at a date for their convention. To do so would be unfair to Gavin Newsom, JB Pritzker, Gretchen Whitmer, or whoever Kamala Harris picks as her running mate. That's what Trump campaign senior advisor Brian Hughes said in a statement. Now, Newsom, Pritzker and Whitmer are all popular figures in the party and often discussed candidates to help lead the party in a post Biden era. That trio of governors, as well as Harris, continues to support Biden publicly. Harris agreed to the debate set to be hosted by CBS in May. She agreed long before Vance was named to the ticket. Quote, now that the Trump campaign has selected a running mate, we encourage them to agree to a debate between Vice President Harris and Senator Vance. That's a quote from the campaign. Now, Harris and Vance had their first conversation on Tuesday after the Ohio senator was tapped by Trump to join the ticket, but they did not settle on terms for a debate. In an interview on Newsmax Tuesday, Vance said, obviously we want to debate Harris because it's important for the American people to see the contrast. Harris, in her congratulatory voicemail to JD Vance on his selection on Monday, urged him to accept the CBS debate, and Vance returned Harris's call on Tuesday and the pair exchanged pleasantries. That's according to a person familiar, and a second person told the outlet that they shared a desire to debate but didn't discuss specifics. Vance is set to headline the third day of the RNC Wednesday, and in a video released earlier Wednesday ahead of his speech, Harris called Vance a rubber stamp for Donald Trump. Make no mistake, JD Vance will be loyal only to Trump, not to our country. She goes on to say Vance would have gone along with Trump's wishes for his vice president to refuse to certify Joe Biden's election win in 2020, making a distinction between him and Trump's previous vice, Mike Pence. I'd also like to add that while Vice President Harris said JD Vance will be only loyal to Trump, I think he will also be loyal to Peter Thiel and Elon Musk. Who bought him? Who bought his candidacy now then Vice President Pence certified the results. We know in 2020. Despite pressure from Trump and his allies earlier this year, Vance told ABC News in an interview he would have told the states like Pennsylvania, Georgia and so many others, we need to have multiple slates of and I think the US Congress should have fought over it from there. Not good. Harris also called Vance a rubber stamp for Trump's agenda, criticizing him for his views on abortion and in vitro fertilization and accusing him of wanting to target programs like Head Start, focused on early learning and development. And of course he wants to go after Medicare. And don't be fooled by the New York Times. Vance advocates for a national ban on abortion, but the vice president, Kamala Harris said, we're not going to let that happen. Next up from CNBC, SpaceX CEO and ex owner Elon Musk said Tuesday he's going to move the headquarters of both companies from California to Texas. Bye. Musk had vowed to make the moves in response to Gavin Newsom's new law that bars school districts in that state from requiring parents to be notified of a child's gender identification. Newsom signed the law on Monday and Musk said, this is the final straw. Because of this law and so many others that precede it attacking families and companies. SpaceX will now move its headquarters from Hawthorne, California to Starbase, Texas. That's what Musk said on Twitter. He later added that the headquarters will also move from San Francisco to Austin. The Twitter headquarters quote, I did make it clear to Governor Newsom about a year ago that laws of this nature would force families and companies to leave California to protect their children. Seems like it's the opposite of protecting the children. In 2022, People magazine reported, Elon Musk's then 18 year old daughter was granted permission to legally change her name and gender to Vivian Jenna Wilson. She shed the Musk family name and took the maiden name of her mother, Justine Wilson, instead. When asked about the estranged transgender daughter in October of 2022, Musk told the Financial Times, can't win them all and claimed to have good relationships with his other children. Musk also told the Financial Times his daughter's decision was caused by neo Marxists at educational institutions. Musk recently endorsed former President Trump and is now going to contribute $45 million a month to a pro Trump super PAC called the America Pac. Trump is expected to roll back transgender rights if elected president. It's all over Project 2025, the 19th News reported, citing a February 2023 Trump campaign video that his proposals would terminate Medicare and Medicaid funding for hospitals that provide gender affirming care to trans youth, attempt to criminally charge teachers with sex discrimination for affirming students gender identities, and he plans to order federal agencies to cease all programs that promote the concept of sex and gender transition at any age. Any age. The American Academy of Pediatrics and other major medical organizations, including the ama, the American College of Obstetric and Gynecologists, the World Health Organization, they all support giving transgender adolescents access to the health care that they need. And on Tuesday, Governor Newsom shot back at Elon Musk in a post on Twitter saying you bent the knee and included a Screenshot of a 2022 post on truth Social in which Trump had berated Elon Musk. Now this next story is from cnn. Former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani says he has no regrets about falsely accusing two Georgia election workers of rigging the 2020 election. So the financially and morally bankrupt, permanently disbarred and criminally indicted former mayor of New York has no regrets. I have no regrets at all, he said. I'm on the side of justice, right and truth. That's what he said in an interview Tuesday on the convention floor at the RNC in Milwaukee, where he repeated his past denials of having defamed anyone. The former New York City mayor and one time attorney for former President Trump, who isn't an expected speaker at the convention this week, compared his legal plight to the Japanese internment during the Second World War. That's what he's comparing his legal plight to. In December, Giuliani was ordered to pay $148 million to Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss for defamation. His bankruptcy case was just dismissed. We went over that. So Freeman and Moss, as well as other creditors, are free to start seizing his assets. Giuliani attacked the federal judges who oversaw the defamation case filed by the two election workers as well as his bankruptcy case, calling the judges bloodthirsty and ridiculous. Always the victim. Giuliani also falsely claimed that Freeman and Moss's legal bills were being all paid for by President Joe Biden. I think he should be sued for defamation again. The mother and daughter were represented pro bono by a prominent law firm and an advocacy group called Protect Democracy, which has pursued Giuliani and others who tried to subvert the 2020 election. Their case provided a searing glimpse into the harassment election workers suffered while prominent Trump supporters spread lies about the 2020 election. Giuliani is separately fighting criminal charges in Arizona and Georgia related to Trump's efforts to undermine his electoral loss, and he has pled not guilty in both cases. Earlier this month, he also lost his law license in New York because he had pushed false information in a court challenging the election results on behalf of Donald Trump. And he is probably just about to lose his law license in D.C. as well. I give it another week or two before he does. And before we go to break and before we bring David Pepper in to talk about the DNC and their virtual roll call, I just want to sort of explain kind of where my mind was at this morning when I got up and I started thinking about Elon Musk basically buying J.D. vance's candidacy as vice president with a $45 million a month pledge to Trump and his work to try to get out the vote for the Republicans, including mail in ballots, which they all say are just too rife with fraud. They now know that they've shot themselves in the foot by promoting same day voting, in person voting. And so now they're trying to walk that back. And Elon Musk is going to fund it. It's going to fund those efforts. And I was trying to, you know, way back in the day when I started the Mueller investigation, and it started to dawn on all of us that if you frame everything Trump does, if you put it in, in reference to him wanting to make Putin happy, everything made sense, right? That he was transactional. If you think about him being transactional and a narcissist and a misogynist, you can sort of understand, like, the way he conducts himself and the decisions he makes make more sense in that frame, in that framing. And then, you know, I recalled how when Elon Musk bought Twitter, when it occurred to all of us that he bought it to wreck it, then everything that he did made sense in that framing. And so now I think about American oligarchs like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk and them throwing insane amounts of money at the Trump campaign. And I keep landing on this framing, the framing that Ketanji Brown Jackson warned us about on the April 25 oral arguments for Presidential Immunity, where she said, I envision like a, I'm paraphrasing a dystopic future where the Oval Office becomes the seat of criminal activity in the United States. So when you think about all of the rich people, the oligarchs, the oligarchy, the American oligarchy, throwing money at Donald Trump, they're trying to buy a piece of criminal immunity because the Oval Office is now cloaked in it. So anything, if Trump is elected that he does, or anybody he speaks to, that is considered an official act. And if he appoints Musk as an ambassador to something, then any discussion they have will be immune, not only immune from prosecution, but can't even be used as evidence. In private criminal behavior. So that when I start thinking about all of the wealthy people in this country, whether they sit atop a news conglomerate and donate to Trump, or whether they are like Elon Musk or Peter Thiel and are throwing millions and tens of millions of dollars at the Trump campaign, all I can think is that these oligarchs are now dying to get a piece of that criminal immunity to capture the Oval Office. Because it is now cloaked in immunity, any conversation that goes on in there with the president is barred from being used as evidence in a criminal trial. And once I started thinking about it that way, everything else made complete sense. Everything. So now it is up to voters not just to elect the right person for the job, but a step further to protect the Oval Office from bad actors, from those who would seek to exploit the criminal immunity bestowed upon the Oval Office and the presidency by the Supreme Court, which has been captured by the wealthy as well. So I know that's pretty deep. There's a lot of nuance there. I'm trying to figure out how to get it down to a bumper sticker. But for now, I think the thing that you should be talking to your family and friends about who might not be interested in voting. Voting is everything that's in Project 2025. Everyone in your life who isn't really big on voting or thinks they're both the same, or it's just not worth heading to the polls. There's something in Project 2025 that impacts everyone, whether it's the right to choose, whether it's veterans benefits that are going to be slashed, compensation and pension for veterans, whether it's union workers they want to do 160 hour work month or some crazy shit. So maybe that person in your life is a veteran or in the military, which, because they want to cancel BHA and military benefits, or maybe the person in your life is a member of a union, or perhaps the person in your life that you need to talk to has a uterus. There's something in Project 2025 that will impact all of us. Maybe the person in your life is an immigrant or lgbtq. Find out what that is. Find those people and find out what that new policy, that new Trump policy is that will impact them. And have that discussion with them and say please for me. For you. I remember talking to Stephanie Cough Lincoln's Bible at our live show in New York, and she's personally touched by gun violence. And she says, it's not above me to beg the people in my life to please vote blue up and down the ticket. And speaking of voting blue and nominations and presidential elections, I am going to be joined right after this break by our good friend David Pepper. He's the author of Laboratories of Autocracy and he's also the former head of the Democratic Party in Ohio. So you don't want to miss this interview. Stick around. We'll be right back. Hey, everybody, welcome back. I'm happy to be joined today by the former chair of the Ohio Democratic Party and author of Laboratories of Autocracy, David Pepper. Hi, David, how are you?