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- [00:00]
Mike Pesca
Foreign.
- [00:04]
Stuart Eisenstadt
It's Wednesday, June 18, 2025. From peach fish Productions, it's the gist. I'm Mike Pesca. Yesterday, Brad Lander, who is the city's New York City's third leading candidate for mayor, distant third, also the city's comptroller. A lot of people say comptroller. He's the controller. Appeared in Federal Court 2, he says assistant immigrant in his dealings with ICE. After a confrontation with agents and police, Brad Lander was arrested. I'm not sure if this was his intention. It was to his benefit ever so slightly, but I'm not here to call Brad Lander cynical. You can benefit from something that you sincerely believe in. What I am here to do is what media should do, which is just accurately relay the facts. So photos and descriptions of Lander's arrest caught fire online for of course it was quite a remarkable activity. The narrative of many activists, officials and members of the media was Brad Lander was arrested for essentially nothing, for acting entirely within his rights. Federal agents were outside of theirs. Here is a collection of that sentiment. Bill Madden, who I don't know, but he has 300,000 followers. He's an activist and Singer writes, if you are not ashamed to be an American, you're not paying attention. While visiting an immigration court, NYC controller Brad Lander was handcuffed for having the temerity to ask a question. 2025 TRUMP America is now a facsimile of 1934 Nazi Germany. Senator Alex Padilla wrote, like me, Brad Lander had the audacity to question the legitimacy of federal law enforcement actions, only to find himself handcuffed, pushed against the wall and detained. Congressman Greg Caesar writes, masked federal agents just illegally arrested New York's elected comptroller. Outrageous. The Trump administration went after Brad Lander for asking this simple question. Do you have a warrant? By asking this question, Brad was standing up for basic rights of all. Norman Ornstein, the journalist, writes of Brit Hume, who posted about it. Brit Lander asked if they had a warrant and was manhandled and arrested for just that. Finally, I could have done 100, but I wanted a blue sky. Representative. This is Dean Obadiah, the comedian and left wing talk show host on Sirius. Last week, Trump's henchmen assaulted U.S. senator Alex Padilla for simply asking a question of dog killer Kristi Noem. This week, Trump's henchmen attacked NYC official Brad Lander for simply asking to see a warrant to arrest immigrants in nyc. Well, I'll tell you, Brad Lander did in fact ask to see A warrant, and he was immediately shown the warrant. Also, he is not the lawyer of the man Eduardo, who he was either accompanying or advising in court. And the agents didn't have to produce a warrant. When just anyone asks for a warrant, they have to show it to the detained or about to be detained individual. And they did that. But when Lander was asking the question, he wasn't just asking the question. He had his arms linked with Eduardo, his other arm linked with wife Meg Barnett is a classic civil disobedience pose to try to get in the way of police who are policing. The video on this is clear. The audio is a little bit harder to discern. But on this version of the footage, you could hear Lander say very clearly, I'll let go when you show me the warrant. Give me a warrant.
- [03:33]
Mike Pesca
Do you have a judicial warrant? Do you have a judicial warrant? Can I see the judicial warrant?
- [03:43]
Stuart Eisenstadt
I will let go when you show me the judicial warrant. Where is it? So not just asking a question, linking arms with a potential detector detainee. The warrant, by the way, you might have also heard an officer there saying, it's right here in my hand. And the video is of him waving a paper. So Lander could say, though I guess not read it. What happened next? The detention by Homeland Security was an overreaction, but let us just be clear and accurate. It is an overreaction to Lander physically interfering with federal agents, not just asking a question. Also, a big mischaracterization was on the part of the Department of Homeland Security. Their description was that Mr. Lander had assaulted and impeded a law enforcement officer. Salted. That's a lie. Impeded is not. What is worse, we must ask ourselves, a federal official falsely describing the reasons for an arrest or a politically opportunistic slash principled politician trying to interfere with the government by making a point. Of course it's lying from the government. Of course it's that and even arresting Lander. They didn't have to do that, though I'm sure Lander doesn't really mind. I think simple proposition here, getting the basic facts right are important. I also don't think that undermines Lander's stance, but apparently a lot of people disagree. It's better for your heroes or the people on your side to be 110% perfectly right in everything they do. Hey, how can I say any of the people with tons more Twitter following than I do or I don't know about the blue sky following, but they're doing something right in our media ecosystem. They're putting their thumb on the narrative scale. And who's out there to punish you? Do you lose credibility with the audience? The audience is your audience, not the audience. And the audience became your audience because they like you and want you to say these things to begin with. But you, my friends, you are the Gist audience, the best audience in podcasting and impervious to flattery. And that makes you feel good, doesn't it? It does. Okay, maybe not impervious to flattery. You do have my respect, by the way, I will tell you that the Gist list is up and running on substack. Go to substack.mike pesca.com and there you will also find I did a substack live conversation with Nate Silver today. I did a substack live conversation with John McWhorter yesterday. On Monday, I'm talking to political writer Ross Barkin about the New York primary to take place. Well, it's taking place all around us with early voting. But the vote, the primary day is the day after Ross and I talk. We talk on Monday. We vote on Tuesday. There is no better time to follow me on Substack. And all that stuff I mentioned is free. All the content here at the Gist is also free. But if you want it not to be free, we also have those options for you. And that is not@mike pesca.substack.com that is quite confusingly at subscribe.mike pesca.com so subscribe for the bonus audio content and ad free podcasts or the substack on the show. Today I am joined by a former member of of several Democratic administrations and someone who has negotiated more settlements than the pal Mr. Stuart Eisenstadt joins me. This conversation took place a little while ago. We held it, we perfected it. But some of some of the things we say might not have anticipated certain Israeli strikes on Iran, for instance. But Stuart Eisenstadt is here to talk about the art and skill of negotiation.
- [07:41]
Guest Speaker
Stuart Eisenstadt is a veteran diplomat, a policy adviser for many U.S. presidents. He's the author recently of the Art of Diplomacy, How American Negotiators Reached Historic Agreements that Changed the World. He draws on decades of firsthand experience and interviews with one hundred and fifty global leaders. He got to Kissinger, who wrote the foreword for the book. He offers a sweeping behind the scenes account of Camp David to Kyoto to German reunification, to Holocaust restitution, which he was chief negotiator on. And I wanted to bring it up and I was thinking about the Book which has been on my nightstand for a while. I've been thinking more and more about the book as negotiations are going on, on in the world in so many areas. Welcome back to the gist, Mr. Eisenstadt.
- [08:31]
Mike Pesca
Mike, it's really a privilege to be with you again.
- [08:35]
Guest Speaker
So I want to get to the exact reasons you wrote the book and what you want to emphasize. But there was a phrase that jumped out at me, and I think, why not start by defining how you best see the role of empathy in negotiations, a specific form of empathy.
- [08:55]
Mike Pesca
So, first of all, diplomacy, Mike, is the ability of a negotiator to convince the other country or countries with whom you're negotiating that it's in their national interest to do what's in America's national interest. And finding that sweet spot is difficult, but essential because it's not a game of poker, it's not a winner take all. They have to have an agreement on the other side that they can take back to their public and to their leader. It has to be a win win situation. And one of the ways that you have to develop your skill to do, and it's not easy, is to put yourself in their position, in their shoes, to listen to what they're saying and ask yourself, if I were in their shoes, what would I need? And is that compatible with what America needs? When I was Deputy Secretary of the treasury in the Clinton administration, my secretary was Larry Summers. And Larry, who was One of the 150 people I interviewed, said, you need to have what he called unsympathetic empathy for the other side. That is, you don't get drawn into saying, well, I want what Iran once, but you try to empathize with, if you were in their shoes, what would you need? And that ability to listen is absolutely critical. In addition, developing a personal relationship with your key negotiator on the other side is also important. An example is during the German reunification talks, Mike, when we were trying to convince the Soviet Union to accept a reunified Germany after the Berlin Wall fell. And not only that, but a reunified Germany within NATO. This was heavy slogging, and Jane Tinker, preface for my book, used this personal relationship. He took the Soviet foreign Minister Shevonazy to his retreat at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and they really bonded personally. They talked about their children, their grandchildren, living in a united Europe without the kind of conflict we had during the Cold War. And that empathy, that personal relationship, was critical. I developed it also when I was doing the Holocaust negotiations with Germany, the German slave labor Companies and insurance companies and so forth with Count Otto Lamsdorf, who was my counterpart. And he had a real sense from World War II that Germany had a responsibility to deal with the slave laborers. And that sort of empathy was really critical. So developing a personal relationship, even with adversaries who are really tough, is absolutely critical.
- [11:55]
Stuart Eisenstadt
Yeah.
- [11:55]
Guest Speaker
It would seem to me that Richard Holbrooke is not Bosnian or Serbian. So he's in a position to perhaps be able to broker a piece, and he's one of them. And George Mitchell, actually, I think he.
- [12:08]
Stuart Eisenstadt
I'm not.
- [12:08]
Guest Speaker
He might have some Irish ancestry, but he's not a combatant.
- [12:11]
Mike Pesca
But, no, he's Lebanese.
- [12:13]
Stuart Eisenstadt
As.
- [12:14]
Guest Speaker
He's Lebanese. Okay. You, as a Jewish descendant of Holocaust survivors who would wind up writing the book about hidden Nazi gold, you're a little more connected, interconnected with the idea of Holocaust restitution.
- [12:32]
Stuart Eisenstadt
Was that.
- [12:33]
Guest Speaker
Did that put you in a good place, or did that pose some problems or challenges in terms of having unsympathetic empathy for the firms you were dealing with?
- [12:45]
Mike Pesca
That's a really good question, and I'm going to give you this answer, and that is I approach these. Obviously, I had a background. I had relatives who had died in the Holocaust. I had to approach this, Mike, not as a sort of Jewish representative, but rather, I was Under Secretary of State during part of the negotiations, Deputy Secretary of the treasury. And I had to represent the United States interest. So let me give you an example. In the German slave labor negotiations, I started those negotiations by saying that this had to be not just about Jewish slave laborers who were being worked to death. It had to be about non Jewish forced laborers, of whom there were many more Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, and Germany. The German government said, look, we're willing to do something for the Jewish slave laborers, but not for the others, because it'll open Pandora's box. Chancellor Kolt said that to me, former Chancellor Cole, as did the current Chancellor at the time, Schroeder. And I said, look, I am not going to negotiate this and try to relieve you of these lawsuits unless you're willing to cover Jews and non Jews. This can't be just a Jewish issue. And, Mike, the 10 billion Deutsche Mark agreement, that's $5 billion that we reached with the German companies and the German government. 80% of that went for laborers, another 20% for things like insurance and property. But 80% of that 80% went to non Jewish forced laborers. There were a million Polish surviving laborers who got paid. Now, we paid the slave laborers $7,500 apiece, the forced laborers, $2,500 a piece because they were viewed as an asset of the state. They could often have their spouses with them. They weren't being worked to death. Whereas the slave laborers, the whole intention was to try to work them into the ground. But still my key notion was this can't just be a Jewish affair, it has to cover both. So yes, I had this background, but if I came to it as a Jewish representative, I wouldn't have been successful. I had to be the representative of the United States of America and look at our broadest diplomatic needs.
- [15:12]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, so you have all these interesting examples of negotiations that did take place, but now I'm going to ask you about some that didn't which is about Germany. Germany not only was involved in the restitution that you negotiated, but right after World War II they paid reparations to Israel and to. In fact I've done some research into their reparations. Anyone who actually did survive or was in the womb at the time of the death camps, they were entitled to reparations. But that's my question.
- [15:43]
Stuart Eisenstadt
Why is it, was it a German.
- [15:46]
Guest Speaker
Self perceived self interest that made them negotiate and pay reparations? When you look at other countries that have had such a hard time bringing themselves to do that, I think about Korea and the Japanese, I think about Turkey and the Armenian genocide. What's the difference between Germany and these other examples?
- [16:08]
Mike Pesca
That's a great question and I do want to go back and tell you a humorous story on the Jewish angle. When Henry Kissinger was first named Secretary of State and met with Golda Meir, the Israeli Prime Minister, he said, madam Prime Minister, I want to set the ground rules very clearly. Number one, I'm an American. Number two, I'm Secretary of State only. Number three, am I Jewish. And she said Henry, you forget that in Hebrew we read from right to left now to answer.
- [16:39]
Stuart Eisenstadt
That's good, right.
- [16:41]
Mike Pesca
To answer your question, it's a really important question. If you compare the German reaction after the war to the Japanese reaction after the war, the Japanese never apologized to this day, 2025, they've never paid reparations to the people, the so called comfort women that they abused. Chancellor Adenauer who was the first post Hitler Chancellor in 1951, six years after the end of the war, made an incredibly courageous decision which was highly unpopular in Germany. He almost lost his finance minister and he said, we the German people are responsible for what the Nazis did. Now there was a high degree of feeling in the German public Oh, the Nazis were some other group. You know, we didn't have anything to do with them. Why should we have to pay? And Adenauer said, no, we are responsible as a German people and as a German government. And they've assumed that over the last 70 years, they've paid $90 billion. So I don't think it was just self interest. Of course, part of it was a price of getting back into the good graces of the world, but part of it was really, I think, a genuine effort to try to deal with the injuries and tragedy they caused. And I see this, Mike, right now, because in addition to negotiating for the US Government, I am the special pro bono negotiator for the Jewish Claims Conference, which was authorized by the Luxembourg Agreement in 1952 to be the official negotiator with Germany for all survivors. And, Mike, the people I am negotiating with and I've negotiated since 2009, $9 billion in recoveries, home care, increased pensions, hardship payments, child survivor payments, the people who were in the kindergartens. I'm dealing with people who weren't even born during the war, the German officials in the Finance Ministry. And yet they still feel a moral and ethical responsibility. So it's more than just self interest. It really is a very strong moral feeling that they have an obligation until the last survivor passes away, to recompense as much as they can. You can never make up, of course, for 6 million people killed and a million and a half children, but they really do feel this in their bones. It's part of their DNA.
- [19:14]
Guest Speaker
So you write about negotiators, like painters, they have to have this canvas to work on. Also emphasizing the point that it's more an art than a science. But I want to talk about the conditions that bring parties to the table. And you write, the historic agreements these negotiators achieved would not have been possible without the right historic context. The parties were willing to take the risk of breaking from the status quo because. Because either it was too painful to endure or the benefits were so palpable. I'm thinking of the negotiations going on with IR and their nuclear program and Ukraine. Does that describe where both parties are in the Ukrainian negotiation? Do you think that both parties have assessed that it's too painful to go on or too beneficial not to keep fighting?
- [20:00]
Mike Pesca
That's a great question. And let me give you an example of the kind of courage to break from the past that I was talking about. And then I'll get to your direct question. When Anwar Sadat, after four wars with Israel, went to Jerusalem on his own and said, no more wars. He lost his own foreign minister. This was not popular at home. When Mohammed bin Zayed, the Crown Prince of the UAE In 2020, normalized relations with Israel, it wasn't popular with his public. He did it because he thought it was important for his country. When the Catholic and Protestant communities in Northern Ireland, after 20 years of brutal civil war, decided it was time, enough was enough, that's where you get to the mutual harm. They both couldn't suffer anymore. There were 3,500 deaths. Tens of thousands of people had been maimed, and they finally said, we can't keep this up. It's too painful. Now, with respect to Iran, Iran is hurting very badly because of the sanctions, and they therefore have an interest in trying to get back into the nuclear agreement. That unfortunately, President Trump withdrew from the United States has a benefit in doing that because it keeps Iran from being a nuclear power. So the pain that Iran feels and the leverage that we have because of the sanctions creates an opportunity for an agreement. Now, interestingly, this is one area where Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump, who have otherwise similar view of the world, really departing because President Prime Minister Netanyahu wanted to bomb Iran very recently, even over the recent attack at Ben Gurion Airport. And President Trump said, no, I want to negotiate this agreement. Now, whether they'll be able to is another story. But this is a quite different change from the Donald Trump we saw who withdrew in 2018 from the first nuclear agreement that was negotiated by John Kerry and President Obama. So we hope that the pain and the isolation that Iran feels will be sufficient to bring them back into that agreement, but in an approved sense. In Gaza, however, you have a different situation. You would say, well, goodness, there's got to be mutual harm. Look, the whole Hamas infrastructure has been destroyed. Their top leadership has been destroyed. And Israel has a great interest on a positive side of having a peaceful Gaza. But in dealing with a terrorist group, it's very different than dealing with even a difficult government. Hamas doesn't really care about the fact that it's losing all these civilians. The hostages are their only way to survive. They know that once they give them back, then they'll be killed. So you have a situation with even the best negotiators, and I give 13 examples of the kinds of skills that you need. Even with the best Mike, when you have two parties who don't have a similar mutual interest, it doesn't work. Israel's bottom line is Hamas can't keep its arms and it can't govern. And Hamas's bottom line is we have to keep our arms. Maybe we stop back from government, but we're not going to disarm. So you have two polar opposites that make it extremely difficult to reach a common ground.
- [23:50]
Guest Speaker
I would think. Have you ever dealt with this, that the injection of genuine belief in martyrdom very much complicates negotiations as well?
- [24:00]
Mike Pesca
It does. And when you're dealing, for example, I was in the Carter administration, of course, and we had our own hostage crisis. It lasted 444 days. We were dealing with Ayatollah Khamenei and a group of radical Islamists who really had a very different mindset than a normal government. Now, I want to show you at the same time what could have happened. Let's go back to July of 2020. I was then Deputy Secretary of the treasury in the Clinton administration. And I had a dual role of being the leading person on the economic dimension of the peace process in the Middle East. And I went to Gaza, Mike. We had gotten Congress to pass a law.
- [24:42]
Guest Speaker
Can I just interrupt?
- [24:43]
Stuart Eisenstadt
July of. What year was this?
- [24:44]
Guest Speaker
2000.
- [24:45]
Mike Pesca
2000.
- [24:45]
Guest Speaker
2000. Yes, go ahead.
- [24:48]
Mike Pesca
We had gotten Congress to pass a law that allowed any Arab country, like Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority that had a peace agreement with Israel, to create an industrial zone. And within that zone, any company that used as little as 10% Israeli content, like, for example, unprocessed Israeli cotton, could ship back the final product duty free. And I was in Gaza in July of 2000, and here's what I saw. It was beautiful. 30 plants. Not Israeli plants, American, Japanese, European plants employing 1200 Gazans. They took me on a tour to show me the second phase of the industrial park, which was already laying foundations for another 30 plants employing another couple of thousand. And I went into one of the plants, Mike, and I saw the product being loaded onto flatbed truck. It went through the Eretz crossing to the airport. We had gotten the corps of engineers to build to help the Palestinians export their products. Overseeing that entire operation was one unarmed Israeli soldier. That's what could have been. And when I went back to report to Yasser Arafat, the head of the plo, the head of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, what I had seen and how excited we were, and we were going to build on this. And he said to me, Mr. Secretary, before you go on, I have a message that I want you to convey to President Clinton. What is that, Mr. President? I want you to tell him not to invite me to Camp David 2, the second Camp David with Prime Minister Barack and Clinton. And I said, why? And he said, I'm not prepared to make the compromises he needs for an agreement. So he was invited. In any event, it failed. The second intifada happened and so much of what we saw disappeared in 2005. Mike and I wish I could show this to all the kids demonstrating on the campuses. Eric Sharon, who was a hard line Israeli Prime Minister, withdrew every single Israeli soldier from Gaza. And those soldiers in turn took 7,000 settlers out of their homes. I wish we could show the videos on the campus kicking and screaming. There wasn't one Israeli left in Gaza, civilian or military. But what they did leave is the industrial park I just described. They left their greenhouses. They left all the things that were necessary for the Gazans to be self sustaining instead. However, Hamas won the next election in 2006. They took over in 2007 and instead of getting roses, they sent rockets over to Israel. And that is the situation we've had ever since.
- [27:41]
Guest Speaker
Yeah. And you're saying that that's what Arafat wanted?
- [27:46]
Mike Pesca
Yes. I mean it was the lack of courage. Sadat had courage. Mohammed bin Zayed had courage. The King of Morocco had courage. The Emir of Bahrain who negotiated the Abraham Accords under President Trump had courage. But the Palestinian leaders don't. They're afraid that if they give up their so called right of return of a million and a half refugees coming back to Israel that they'll be assassinated and they don't have the courage. I think if they did, they would not be assassinated. I think that the people would welcome having their own state. But. But now we've got to a place where there's such polarization both in Israeli society after October 7th and in the Palestinian areas that finding a common agreement is extraordinarily challenging.
- [28:35]
Guest Speaker
Stuart Eisenstadt was U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, Chief Domestic Advisor to Jimmy Carter. Really too many things to mention. But I will mention that the book we've been talking about is the Art of Diplomacy. How American Negotiators Reached Historic Agreements that Changed the World. Thank you so much, Mike.
- [28:57]
Mike Pesca
Thank you.
- [28:59]
Stuart Eisenstadt
That was great. Of course it was. You're probably wanting more. This man has been involved in a lot of international diplomacy. Well, we have more. And to get more as a Pesky plus subscriber, go to subscribe.mike pesca.com you could sign up for bonus episodes like this one. You could get an ad free podcast or both of them combined as a Pesca plus subscriber that is subscribe.mikepesca.com and now the spiel. A big settlement over opioids came down the other day. Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family have agreed to settle for $7.4 billion. The settlement with 55 states and territories. So I'm going to say at least four territories and probably Washington, D.C. the.
- [29:58]
Unknown Speaker
Owners of Purdue Pharma and Sackler family have reached a $7.4 billion settlement over the OxyContin drug makers role in the national opioid crisis. The settlement stands to solve thousands of lawsuits in all 50 states. If approved by a bankruptcy judge, it would be the largest payout of its kind related to the opioid epidemic. Most of the settlement funds would be dispersed in the first three years. Money would go to states, local governments and individuals that were affected.
- [30:27]
Stuart Eisenstadt
Now, you may recall there was already a deal to settle, but that deal went to the Supreme Court in a case called Harrington v. Purdue Pharma lp. Part of that initial case would have had the sacklers paying about $6 billion, but also escaping personal liability. And the Supreme Court said no throughout the decision. I mean, probably said no in a little more Latin phrase. But they did not allow that decision to stand. Why I raised this today is that a few weeks ago I had lay a Lipman on. She's a University of Michigan law professor, co host of Strict Scrutiny, and she's out with a book called Lawless that argues that runaway conservatism is warping democracy and the judiciary. And ever since I talked to her, examples and counterexamples have presented themselves more and more and more. When you hear a theory, you begin to see if the theory applies to the world, if the world fits that theory. So what Lemon's theory is, what she's arguing is that the big Supreme Court decisions, they're all six three decisions. The three are the liberals on the court, the democratic appointed justices. And these are the worst decisions. And I granted her Dobbs was certainly a very bad decision. We debated that a lot. And I also do not like how far they went with presidential immunity. But her argument goes beyond that. And she says that the most legally indefensible decisions are all these six three decisions. They're illegitimate. We should worry about them. This is what the court does. So even my conversation with Lippman, I had all these counterexamples. I pointed out that the most common decision for a court to have made in the last two decades is 9 0. And she said, yes, but those are mostly procedural. I looked Up a bunch that weren't. That's fine. I also said a lot of the decisions that are in six three are really, really important. And she said, no, I'm not as important as the 63 ones. And then the Sackler family immunity decision came down. And a lot of the coverage, in fact, only Reuters, from what I found of the initial batch of coverage, mention that this was before the Supreme Court. And if the Supreme Court hadn't decided five to four to throw out that initial decision, we wouldn't have this decision now. So who is the five? Who is the four? Perhaps you would guess that it was the conservatives who would side with big business. Perhaps you would say that Alito, Thomas, those guys were attempting to allow the Sacklers to escape liability. This is not the case. So the justice who wrote the decision, who was one of the five, the scribbling one of the five was Neil Gorsuch. And Gorsuch is a particular target of Lippman. She calls him. Well, she calls him stupid on her show. Here's a section of the book assailing Gorsuch, his intellect, for those who think elite credentials are meaningful. Gorsuch graduated cum laude from law school, not summa, not magna, but cum laude, which would now signify that he just managed to crack the 50% mark in his class. All right, so that is Leah Lippman assailing the intelligence or achievement of someone who's just barely in the top half of Harvard Law School. We should point out that Katanji Brown Jackson was also a cum laude, not a summer or magna graduate of Harvard Law School. That fact, for some reason, never comes up in Lippman's book. Who else was with Gorsuch? Well, you got Alito and Thomas, so it's seeming to be a conservative decision. You have Amy Coney Barrett, but you also have Ketanji Brown Jackson. I don't know. Maybe all these middling Harvard Law students just think alike. Maybe she's just as bad at reasoning as all the other ones. But then, wait a minute. That means the four, the ones who disagreed were Kagan and Sotomayor, but also John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh. Now, I didn't get into the reasoning. I didn't get into who was right and who was wrong. It actually reading about the case, it seems like all nine justices applied their fair reading of the law and their intellect, as we would hope would happen to arrive at this conclusion. And so they did. Now, was this 54 decision an asterisk? Unimportant? Well, I would say it's pretty consequential, I would say. I don't want to do the thing. If your family member were addicted to opioids, wouldn't you want the Sacklers to be on the hook? I'm not going to do that thing. I'll just talk about the money. The original settlement was for about 6 billion. This one's for over 7 billion. So a billion more dollars because this 54 decision was made not along ideological lines. That alone is quite consequential. And now I'm going to take you back to a spiel I did a couple of weeks ago where I talked about Shelby county versus Holder, the Voting Rights act case did a long spiel on that. And what happened in that case was according to Lippman's book the Red Wedding, a massacre of voting rights. I had this in the back of my mind and I did some research on it, a lot of research, and I found out it was not a massacre of voting rights. No matter the wisdom of that 6:3 decision, it wasn't particularly consequential. What it did was open up laws around voter ID for people coming to vote. That was the big thing it did. It allowed some redrawing of electoral maps. But you know what? Black participation in elections has gone up in all the Confederate states. But the best study of this, not the one that the Brennan center uses to try to say that this could have affected 4% of the vote, the best study, the most advanced study using the best, best methods, shows that Shelby county versus Holder maybe over the years affected maybe 1% of the vote. And there is a decent bit of scholarship that says because of counter mobilization it might have had a negative effect. Right? Black people knew they were being discriminated against. The Brennan center and all the activist groups knew that too. They told people, people said we are not going to be disenfranchised. And so they made sure they weren't. That could have happened. Then I began to think, well, what's more consequential, this Sackler decision, which barely gets written up in the Supreme Court context or the Voting Rights act, it was treated as such an abandonment of principle and justice, such racism, such an example of runaway right wing judiciary. But the actual consequence, I don't know, the very good study that was done on it, the so called triple difference study, a superior study to the one that NYU's Brennan center constantly cites, says maybe 1%. So I would say try and be very fair about it. It is very hard to say that one of those are unbelievably important definitional landmark cases. One of those six, three cases that proves the point of the conservative, the illegitimate conservative takeover had less real world impact than this 54 case that got some coverage of the at the time, but barely even got noticed when the consequences of that case came into law two days ago. I am not arguing for any outcome, for any ideology. Maybe I'm arguing for one ideology. Let us not allow existing ideologies to lead us to the most dire conclusions, even if they're satisfying to our prior knowledge and how we define justice in the world, often the ideological guide is not the most clear eyed one. I mean, in the Supreme Court and in their rulings, a satisfying, very angering story is that the conservatives are riding roughshod. A less compelling story, but I think a more accurate one is that in Supreme Court rulings there is a lot of conservative thought that maybe doesn't reflect a broad survey of every legal mind in the country. It certainly reflects a lot of decisions that a liberal person would not make. Then again, in some of their affirmative action rulings, the conservative majority is quite aligned with simply the majority of the country. But in general there is so much more noise, randomness, surprise and yes, even respectability that cuts against our ideologies in so many institutions. Often the institutions that we're told are irreparably broken. And we're further told that the reason why they're broken is that our enemies decided to break them. Sometimes our enemies do that and sometimes our enemies aren't even acting like enemies. Sometimes they're acting in the same way our friends might have act. Sometimes our enemies are right and we're wrong and sometimes our enemies are just doing their jobs pretty responsibly, perhaps in a way slightly different than we do it if our quote unquote friends had the job. So don't necessarily despair or do because me, I'm just a dummy who didn't graduate with any degree from Harvard Law School, not even a middling cum laude degree. And that's it for today's show. Cory War produces the gist. Astrid Green does our socials. Kathleen Sykes, she's the editor of the Gist list. Ashley Khan is the production coordinator for the Gist. Michelle Pesca does all that she sees. She sits over that and calls the shots and moves the chess pieces. Leo Baums, our intern, he's very good with coming up with databases. Data's base improve. Thanks for listening.