← The Josh Hammer Show
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- [00:01]
Grainger Announcer
Grainger knows. When you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building, you're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners. Lights about to fail, filters ready to clog. H Vac on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Grainger for quality products, easy reordering and 24. 7 support. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click grainger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.
- [00:30]
Josh Hammer
America, you may have noticed, absolutely rocks the left. They're not here to join in on the fun. They are too obsessed hating just one thing. In fact, they're just hating one person. You guessed it, it's the orange Man. I'm Josh Hammer, and this is the Josh Hammer Show. Welcome back. Hope that you had a great holiday weekend. I know that I had a wonderful celebration of this nation's independence and what a grand celebration it was. Fireworks from sea to the shining sea. Donald Trump was out at Mount Rushmore. He was there on the nation's mall into the wee hours of the morning, really Saturday evening. It was a delayed celebration due to the extreme heat. Donald Trump, incidentally, saying that they actually wanted to cancel all the festivities on the National Mall there on Saturday. And apparently he was the one who overrode that decision. And he came in, and he came in as only Donald Trump can do. He delivered just an absolutely awesome, dripping with patriotism speech. I was entranced by his remarks on the National Mall on a Saturday evening. He was very similar to his remarks on Friday evening at Mount Rushmore out in South Dakota. Donald Trump, say what you will about him. The man just loves America. Okay, you can say a lot about Donald Trump. You can love him, you can hate him, you can disagree with his policies. You can agree the man just bleeds red, white and blue. He does. He has a visceral love of country and instinctive, guttural nationalism that is very hard to describe and is certainly very hard replicate and is, as we'll soon see, very hard for certain people on a certain end of the political spectrum, I. E. The left, to appreciate. So let's begin here. Here was Donald Trump speaking Saturday evening into the wee hours of Sunday morning in Washington, D.C. on the National Mall, talking about how, how the United States, we are one people, one family with one flag. Here was the president of the United States.
- [02:23]
Donald Trump
Across the generations, Americans have fought, bled and died not just to secure those rights, but to expand them to citizens of Every race, religion, color and creed, because we are one people. We are one family. You showed that tonight with one flag. And as our Declaration of Independence tells us, we are all made in the image of one almighty God. And the Communists will never say that, that's for sure.
- [03:05]
Josh Hammer
And that really, ultimately is the difference, isn't it? That we are living in a republic based on the overarching precept. Above all, that man is imperfect. That's why we have checks and balances, separation of powers. But we all are the bearers of the image of the divine. We are all made in his image. That's the spirit of 1776. That's what we celebrated this past weekend. You know, I had a very poignant moment actually, this Saturday evening. So this year it was actually Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath on July 4th. And on Shabbat, really every day, but especially on Shabbat, Jews typically go to synagogue twice a day. And the second part is when is during sunset, from the afternoon into the evening. And I went this past Saturday evening, and it was right during sunset. So the fireworks were starting all around us. And there was one very poignant moment. It was during the recitation of the Kaddish, which is an ancient prayer as a prayer that we say many times over the course of a prayer service. It's a solemn prayer typically said by mourners for the recently deceased. And there was a moment there where the sound of the fireworks around us was just overwhelming. And even this very solemn, serious prayer, everyone there in the room just started chuckling and laughing because we're just surrounded by these booms of fireworks. And I thought of this symbolism. I actually just finished reading Charlie Kirk's book on the Sabbath on Shabbat. And Charlie makes the very astute point that when God explains the reason for the Sabbath in the book of Deuteronomy, especially so he explains the Sabb in Exodus and Deuteronomy. When he explains in Exodus, he's talking mostly about how the world was created in six days and how God rested on the seventh day. But when God explains the Sabbath in Deuteronomy, the language is mostly similar, but he explains it with a slightly different rationale. He talks in Deuteronomy about how you, meaning the Israelites, how you were in bondage, you were slaves. Now you are free, Therefore you will rest. So I say all that because the rationale of the Sabbath, which is multifold, it's mostly about creation, but it's also about being freed from B.O. this notion how we are no longer slaves in Pharaoh's Egypt. But what do you think America was based on? Why do you think Thomas Jefferson, the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence, why did he want the national seal of the United States to be a way for it? Oh yeah. Moses leading the Israelites across the Red Sea out of bondage. Do you see the symbolism? I couldn't help but think about all this this past Saturday, about just the distinctly biblical underpinnings of this country. A theme that we discussed at great length in a couple episod last week with Eric Metaxas and Lehib. Make sure to go ahead and check it out if you miss those two interview based episodes. That is what this nation's about though. We are about this idea. And yes, we're about more than idea. We certainly are. The Vice President, J.D. vance was in New York City on July 4th speaking outside the Statue of Liberty about how this nation is more than an idea and more than a creed. Of course it is. It absolutely is. As John Adams says, this Constitution was written for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to any other. The founders presupposed the morality, the virtue of the citizenry. They presuppose in many ways that a form of ecumenical Protestantism would remain the broader religious civil framework of the country that has attenuated. But at its core, at its core, this country is based on that key, key insight from the first books of the Bible. That we are made in God's images, that we are no longer bonded, we are no longer slaves and therefore we are free. That above all is what I was celebrating. I'm sure that's what you were celebrating this past 4th of July as well. And I want to touc on that and much more coming up shortly. But for now I do want to tell you about a quick word from our sponsor for today's show, which is Angel Studios. We do talk on the show a lot about how modern culture is attenuated. We have unfortunately frayed very far from the founder's vision, a vision that that was based on virtue and morality, modern culture, modern media and frankly American history also is just very often distorted nowadays. And that is why I'm just so pleased to tell you about the brand new blockbuster film that was just released over this holiday weekend from Angel Studios. It's called Young Washington. It is a film that tells you about a young George Washington. Not the man who become president, but the man who was out there on the western frontier, the man who was who was fighting in the French and Indian War and all the various lessons that he learned. And all along, he knew that Providence was guiding him every step of the way. So let's be honest, Hollywood almost never tells these stories anymore. That's why angel studios matter. That's why the Angel Guild matters. So here's the best deal, folks. Go ahead and join the angel guild. For $15 a month, you can get two free tickets to Young Washington, plus streaming access and tickets to all future angel releases. Visit angel.com/you can join the angel for just $15 a month. It is in a theater near you Young Washington. The film is fantastic. I loved it, learned a lot, would totally see it again again, folks. Go to angel.com/angelstudios is a sponsor for today's show. So this really is the theme of Independence Day. This is the theme of America's 250th anniversary. There were many revolutions. There have been many, many revolutions over the course of human history. Think about the French Revolution, whereby you had the Jacobins, Robespierre, these utter radicals who tried to perfect man. They tried to bring the utopia of the heavens, of the kingdom of God, and tried to bring it into the earth. How did that culminate? Well, it culminated ultimately in the guillotine and tyranny and mass murder and ultimately in the rise of Napoleon. You had the Russian Revolution towards the end of World War I, 1917, to give or take what that lead to. Oh, yeah, it led to communism and the Soviet Union and the bloodiest, the bloodiest ideology, the bloodiest gulags, the bloodiest failed ideology in human history. The very communism that you saw Donald Trump just railing against in the video clip from this past weekend. Ditto the Chinese Revolution. The Chinese Communist revolution, a very similar thing. Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist promised that there would be a great leap forward for mankind. Unfortunately, the actual great leap forward that the Chinese Communist Party implemented resulted in the deaths of tens and tens of millions, of starvation and various other problems. These are all failed ideologies. These are all failed revolutions. The reason that the American Revolution is so different is multifold. One, as we discussed at great length, it was based in the Bible and Scripture above all. Two, it was also predicated on a realistic assessment of human nature. The Founders folks were not idealists. They were not utopians. They were realists. They understood human nature. That's why Madison writes in Federalist 51 about how ambition must be made to counteract ambition. Because men are not angels, says James Madison. That's why we have all of our constitutional structures as they are now the left. The left is just totally incapable, unfortunately, of seeing this. We've discussed on our show how patriotism is now these days, an increasingly partisan issue. There are many folks on the left who are not so interested, frankly, in being American patriots anymore. They don't fly the flag. Many of them, unfortunately, say they don't even. They don't even love the country in the first place. Chuck Todd, who, God help us, was the former host of NBC's Meet the Press. The mind reels as to how this man actually got that gig. Neither here nor there, for purposes of today's show. Chuck Todd on his show, the Chuck Toddcast says he's angry because Donald Trump cheapened America to 50. Oh, yeah, right, Chuck. Okay, let's go ahead and watch it. Anyway, here's Chuck Todd.
- [10:48]
Chuck Todd
For some people, the central text in their lives is religious, and I respect that. For me, the Constitution has always carried that kind of weight. So that's why I'm so angry and feel betrayed. I do. I feel betrayed as an American by him. On this Constitution is not perfect, but it gives us a way to keep going. It gives us structure for disagreement. It gives us a method for repair. It gives us the possibility of becoming better without pretending we were always good. It makes some of the same promises that some religious texts do for people. And this is why I'm so pissed off. Not because I love the country less, but because I love the idea of America enough to resent seeing it cheapened by this man. America deserved better at 250. Someday, I believe it will get better, but it's in your hands.
- [11:44]
Josh Hammer
Frankly, the only thing that's been cheapened is Chuck Todd's studio. He went from NBC to whatever the heck we just saw there in that video. But anyway, this is now a broader sentiment on the left. There was an op ed in the New York Times this past Friday on July 3, titled Trump Ruined the Fourth of July for me. But as Caleb Hull notes on X, what that. What that op ed really should have been titled is, my brain is broken. Because that is exactly what's happening. Trump Thoringer syndrome is here, there and everywhere. The great slayer of leftist brains, folks, America rocks. Our country has succeeded like no other. We have the oldest enduring constitution still alive today. It's also the greatest. Perhaps you should read it. Perhaps you should touch some grass, experience the real world, listen to the bird chirp, play with your child, look at the flag and love it. There's no other country like this. Whether the left realizes it or appreciates it. Or not.
- [12:40]
Grainger Announcer
Granger knows. When you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building, you're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners. Lights about to fail, filters ready to clog H VAC on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Grainger for quality products, easy reordering and 24. 7 support. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
- [13:13]
Josh Hammer
Welcome back. By the way, going back to Chuck Todd, who unfortunately I subjected you to listen to a little bit before our break. Chuck Todd talking there about how he is not a religious man, so therefore the Constitution is his de facto Bible. I'm not going to judge any person for not being religious, although you really should believe in Scripture, you really should go to church or synagogue, you really should believe in the Bible and so forth. But I'm not here necessarily to judge you. What I am saying, though, is that that's an illogical statement taken at face value. Why? Because as I just explained, as John Adams explained many years ago, our Constitution was only made for a moral and religious people. Why? Because it understands the fallenness of human nature, the frailties, the vulnerabilities inherent in the human condition. Where do you learn about that? The Bible. It's right there from the Garden of Eden onwards. So you need to understand that in order to understand the Constitution. The Constitution is actually a very thin document. I had a relative ask me one time, josh, if you read the whole Constitution, I'm like, yeah, it takes like 35 minutes, half hour at the most. Actually probably even less than that. It's very thin. There's a lot there, don't get me wrong, a lot there. But it's not long. It's not an encyclopedia. They presupposed that you understood certain things. That's why to quote one of my very favorite Federalist Papers, which we do a lot on the show, that's why Hamilton begins federalist number 31 by saying that it is axiomatic. It is self evident. It's obvious that in all discourses, when it comes to logical reasoning, forming policy, forming opinions, that you start with certain first principles for certain anchoring truths. What are those principles? What are those truths? Well, I submit to you that the answer is obvious. It was the Bible. The Hebrew Bible was the most quoted document of any document or book during the founding generation. The book of Deuteronomy in particular. Which recapitulates, which restates the Mosaic Law. The law, Mosaic, the book of Deuteronomy, was the single most cited book of any book during the founding era, more so than John Locke, more so than Montesquieu, Diderot, you name it, any of them. So that, frankly, would be a very valuable thing for Chuck Todd to do, would be to go ahead and actually read up a little more on that. And maybe then, Chuck, maybe then ch, you will come to appreciate the Constitution a little more. And maybe then perhaps as well, you come to appreciate President Trump a little more. Because President Trump stands for nothing else if not trying to go to great lengths to try to increase religious liberty, which is one of the great tasks of American statesmen for a very long time. A little bit more on that towards the end of today's show as well. But speaking of Donald Trump and the left's complete inability to appreciate our country, to appreciate anything Trump does, sometimes I feel like if Trump says the sky is blue, they'll say, no, it's green. If Trump says the grass is green, they'll say, no, it's purple. We saw that play out in a very, very borderline humorous, borderline frivolous, but nonetheless insightful way over the past few days. So I've been watching the World Cup a lot. Perhaps you have, perhaps you haven't. I really been enjoying it. I'm not a massive soccer fan. I don't hate soccer. I see, I see some folks putting out all these statements and posts and tweets saying soccer is a third world sport. You know, screw that. I'm a basketball, baseball guy. Whatever. Look, I like basketball. I like baseball. There's nothing wrong with soccer. It might not be your cup of tea, but it is the world's most popular sport. And to some extent, it is getting more popular in the United States. The U.S. men's National Team has gone to a more competitive place certainly than they were 20 years ago. And more important, we're hosting it. So you should probably support it. If you love the country, you probably should support it. So I've been watching a lot of it. I actually had a really great time last night on Sunday evening watching that thrilling England Mexico match. England gave Mexico only its third ever lost for the national team in their home stadium, the famed Azteca in Mexico City. So kudos, well, to Norway for pulling off a massive upset on Brazil yesterday. Huge, huge kudos to Norway. That's, that's been the biggest upset of the tournament thus far. But the big controversy in the world cup was the United States last game this past week in the round of 32 against Bosnia Herzegovina. So you had the best striker on the United States, Fulran Balogun, who was given a controversial at best, red card. Frankly, it was a totally crappy call. There was no justification for this call. Again, I'm not going to be signed up by a major network as a soccer commentary soon, but I know a thing or two about sports. I've watched my share of games over the years. This was a garbage, garbage call. It was a totally innocuous contact. Maybe it was a foul, maybe at worst a yellow card, but to issue a red card. And for those who are not fans, a red card gets you kicked out of the game and you lose a player. So you go from 11 players to 10, so you're a man down the rest of the match. Us, by the way, still beat Bosnia Herzegovina despite that. Then that player is also suspended for the next match. It's like it's very unique to soccer. It's a massive, massive slap on the wrist. So the referee pulls out this outrageous red card on America's top goal scorer. Fall run, Baligam. And US still wins. And here's what happened. Donald Trump decides to get involved. Donald Trump has a very chummy relationship with the president of FIFA, Gianni Infantino. And some people speculate when this develops. Is that why America got toward the World Cup? Probably not, because it decided a while ago, but certainly it's helped. Over the course of this World Cup, Trump's announced that he is going to be there for the championship match in New York, New Jersey in just a few weeks now. And he has a chain relationship. So Trump has admitted that he pitted the phone to call Gianni in Infantino. And here's where it gets super interesting. FIFA actually did change the call. They invoked Article 27 of their rulebook, which essentially says that the red card gets reduced to a probationary period. Now, they would have you think that this is just an incredibly rare thing. It actually just happened very recently, the exact same sequence of events. Article 27, FIFA's disciplinary committee invoking Article 27, which allows the full or partial suspension of a disciplinary measure under a probationary period. They actually literally just did this with Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal, who played earlier today. Cristiano Ronaldo, one of the greatest players in the world. FIFA actually just did the exact same thing. So this is not a crazy thing. Your mileage may vary as to whether or not you think this was quote unquote appropriate. I Personally love a president who stands up for his country, especially when that country is playing at their home World Cup. Anyway, don't take it from me. Go ahead and listen to Trump himself. Here was Donald Trump speaking Monday from the White House, talking about this, this whole quote unquote, controversy when it came to him and FIFA. Let's go ahead and listen.
- [20:34]
Donald Trump
So I saw the play and I'm a person that loves sports and was a good athlete, and I understand sports really well, really well. And that wasn't a foul. That wasn't even an infraction. That was two guys running full speed that happened to crash into each other. Guy, you can't take your foot and properly place it on somebody else's foot when you're going, no, these were two great athletes that got tangled up. And this referee, who is a little bit suspect. You check his, if you check his past.
- [21:14]
Josh Hammer
Trump went on to continue.
- [21:16]
Donald Trump
He didn't do anything wrong. And he's our best player or one of our best players. A very. And he gave him a red card. I didn't know what that meant. I didn't think it meant much. Then I started hearing that that means he can't play in the next game. At least in the next game. I said, boy, that's a big. You know, if it happened to another player, it would have been unfair. But when they take your best player, or just about, they have some great players, but. And they say you can't play, that's very unfair. That's, you know, it's one thing to penalize somebody for the game, but how do you penalize them for a game that hasn't been played yet? It's very unfair. You can't do that. So, yes, I asked for a review by FIFA. I spoke to a man who's highly respected and by the way, whose level of respect has gone up tenfold.
- [22:08]
Josh Hammer
Okay, so the left has been melting down of this. How dare Trump get involved? Well, what could he do? He says, can you please review this? What's he gonna do? Make him a Vito Corleone style offer he can't refuse? No, he's not a mob boss. He's a patriot. He's a president who wants to see his country do well on our home soil. As if that's a bad thing. As we already explained on today's show, this is what makes Donald Trump the visceral nationalist and patriot that he is. You see it here as well, the left, what are they rooting for? Belgium. Really? I mean, they're probably already rooting for France and various other historically, in more recent times, anti American countries. Give me a break. Enjoy the soccer touch some grass root for Team usa. And thanks to Trump, Team USA has a better chance of beating Belgium. Folks, we're gonna go to a short break and I'm gonna be joined by Dr. John Eastman. Talk about birthright citizenship and perhaps more. We'll be jo by Johnny's been. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back.
- [23:17]
Grainger Announcer
Granger knows when you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building, you're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners. Lights about to fail, filters ready to clog H VAC on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Grainger for quality products, easy reordering and 24. 7 support. Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click grainger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.
- [23:50]
Josh Hammer
Welcome back. So we spent a lot of time talking about the Trump vs. Barber case at the U.S. supreme Court last week. A travesty when it comes to the issue of birthright citizenship. And there's really no one to bring on to talk about it then. Today's guest, and that is Dr. John Eastman. John Eastman is a long standing senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, all around legal scholar, former dean of Chapman University Law School, and perhaps best known to me when I was coming up through the legal ranks, John, I best thought of you as the birthright citizenship guy. To me, this was actually the Eastman argument, the notion that the Fourth Amendment does not guarantee the children of legal aliens on mass citizenship. In my head when I was in law school, I thought of this as your argument. So, John, I don't want to bury the lead. It's obviously a massive loss what happened in the Barber case. But you must feel at least a bit vindicated that your argument that you made for decades and decades ended up getting kind of sort of four of the nine votes. Is there any solacer or, or vindication that you feel right now?
- [24:43]
Dr. John Eastman
Well, it's a huge vindication. I mean, most legal scholars had long agreed that the case, the issue on whether the citizenship clause applied to illegal immigrants or temporary visitors had never been settled. But when President Trump came down the escalator in 2015 and started hitting the issue, they all shifted their positions as if it had been settled for 100 years when it clearly was not. Ed Mies and I had filed a major brief back in One of the war on terror cases at the beginning of the 2000s called Yasser Issam Hamdi, pointing out that just because he was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, while his dad was on a temporary work visa, didn't make him a citizen. And we have furthered that position for the last 20 years, ever since. Now, we weren't the first modern scholars to settle on that position. A very prominent book in the late 1980s by two Yale professors, Roger Smith and Peter Schuck, independently looked at the historical record and come to the same conclusion that we did. And then of course, my colleagues at the Claremont Institute, primarily Ed Ehler and Tom west and Mike Anton. You know, we didn't sit around a conference table and come to the decision ourselves. We each independently looked at the historical record and came to the same conclusion as a number of other scholars now have. Richard Epstein, Lino Graglia, Richard Posner, Ilan Warman, you know, just the more people look at the issue and the original debates over the citizenship clause, the more they come to the realization that we were right. And that's, I think, what Justice Thomas lays out in his, you know, what is it, 70, 80 page dissenting opinions, 91, 91 page dissenting opinion. Just line by line taking issue with what the majority did.
- [26:31]
Josh Hammer
And to be clear, we've had Richard Epstein and Elon Mormon on this show. I was personally pleased to see Richard Epstein, who in my mind is one of the greatest scholars of the past 50 years. I had him as a professor twice in law school. John, I was deeply pleased to see Richard Epstein arrive at this same conclusion as well. But I think you're actually setting yourself a little short. This theory might have been arrived at by a previous generation of scholars, but you really helped popularize it. And now we are at a situation where we are, in theory, only one vote away, actually from getting a likely correct ruling on the 14th Amendment merits. Nonetheless, there are all sorts of other possible remedies as to where we go from here, which I think is the obvious question that many of us are now confronting. This decision, unfortunately, was. Well, unfortunately for a lot of reasons, but it was made on constitutional grounds that they did not even take the statutory off ramp that Brett Kavanaugh offered in his kind of middle the road, Solomonic baby splitting concurrence, if you will. And the conventional wisdom, John, is that if you constitutionalize an issue, then therefore you need a constitutional amendments to overturn it. But there are a lot of other ideas in play. I want to hear thoughts on a theory that I wrote about in my column this past Friday where I basically argued that if Congress were to legislate, potentially even executive order, at least if Congress were to legislate that illegal aliens and so called birth tortoise are the modern functional legal equivalent of foreign army invaders, I don't think anyone disputes that the children invaders don't get automatic citizenship. Is this a possible statutory remedy to this or am I being a little bit too cute by half, you think?
- [27:58]
Dr. John Eastman
Well, not too cute by half. It's certainly, certainly an area that is people are exploring. Here's why I don't think it works. If the court, Chief Justice Roberts is correct that we've adopted the English rule of use solely the law of the soil, then the invading army theory is based on the fact that the land under their feet is no longer in the sovereign's control. It's hard to make the case that the children of illegal immigrants spread all over the country or on soil that is no longer under our control. And so, you know, Congress has done this with RLUIPA and rfra, the Religious Freedom Restoration act as well. And the Court, you know, then revisited the question because you know, one of the major other branches of government had that decided that what they did was wrong. Now the court can still have the final say, but I think pushing back on that also engages the American people in a conversation. Look, our system of government is not based on this old feudal doctrine of you solely. When you're born on the king's soil, you owe permanent allegiance to the king and can never renounce it. Our Declaration of Independence includes one of the most eloquent renunciations of that doctrine ever written. You remember the last paragraph. We just celebrated this this past weekend. The last paragraph says we declare that these united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states and we hereby absolve all allegiance to the British Crown. That's a repudiation of the doctrine that Chief Justice Roberts says we codified. And he says it transferred over across the Atlantic without any change. That's just demonstrably not true. Our country is not based on either the right of blood or the right of the soil. It is based on the consent of the government. That's a key phrase in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence. And the American people have never consented to granting automatic citizenship to people who are here temporarily or people who are here illegally by definition against our consent. Or people that show up with million dollars and buy babies on US Soil. This birth tourism industry, we've never consented to that. And what the chief Justice's opinion does is basically eradicate that Cornerston, our system of government consent to the governed.
- [30:29]
Josh Hammer
Really. Above all, the horrific symbolic nature of the timing of this John, happening as it did on the eve of the 250th anniversary of our celebration of the Declaration. I think the bitter irony is not lost in anyone, frankly. I'm sure that John Roberts actually was more than aware of that timing and symbolism as well, which leads me to question as to what exactly was going through his head. But anyway, that's a story perhaps for another day. John Eastman Post. You can follow John Eastman on X at Dr. John Eastman. He has been beating this drum for a very long time, and as we discussed, he should feel no small degree of solace and vindication. John, we're going to have you back on another time to talk about your horrific law fair. You've been stripped of your law license in California. I want to bring you back on for a robust conversation about what the left has done to you because it says a lot about their priorities. But for now, God bless you, my friend. Hope you had a great Independence Day, and we'll talk to you again soon. Take care.
- [31:14]
Dr. John Eastman
Thanks so much. Take care.
- [31:16]
Josh Hammer
Folks are going to go to a quick commercial break. We'll be right back with more on the other side.
- [31:21]
Grainger Announcer
Granger knows when you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building, you're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners, lights about to fail, filters ready to clog H Vac on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Grainger for quality products, easy reordering and 24. 7 support. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
- [31:54]
Josh Hammer
Welcome back. So a lot there with John Eastman. We'll bring Jon on at a future time to talk about the horrific lawfare that has been waged against him. It's been outrageous and we've called it out here on the show many times. I look forward to that conversation. There are a lot of possible things that Congress can do when it comes to a response to this atrocity in the form of the Trump versus Barbara decision. As I hinted at there and as I wrote about in my column this past week, one thing that I would like to see Congress do, although John seems like he's a little skeptical, one thing that I would see Congress do is to write a statute declaring that we have been and currently still are in the throes in the midst of an illegal alien invasion. It is well established, it was even under Wong Kim Ark, the 1898 case that was frequently cited by the majority in John Roberts in Barbara. It is even well established under Wong Kim Ark that the children of invaders, in a historically the military context, they don't get, for obvious reasons, automatic birthright citizenship. So who's stopping Congress from declaring that we are in an invasion and saying that the children invaders can and should be treated the way that children invaders have always been treated? That's my proposal. I don't think the Supreme Court frankly would get involved one way or another. There's a thing called the political question doctrine which basically says that when there is an inherently political question for which courts are deeply ill equipped to answer and there is no legal remedy available, they will just not get involved and say, okay, Congress present. You go ahead and figure it out. To get back to our earlier show, this is whole part of that Madisonian brilliance of the separation of powers. Now there's another possible idea as well that I didn't think of, but a very smart friend text me over the weekend, a friend who will remain nameless because he's not really a public person, but a former Supreme Court clerk, a super, super bright legal mind it. Text me another possible suggestion when it comes to one thing that Congress, or actually the president for that matter, might be able to do via executive order. And the idea is this, you could actually treat illegal aliens. And bear with me because it's a little complicated, you could treat illegal aliens the same way that you treat foreign diplomats. So you treat illegal aliens as foreign ambassadors or as foreign council. Now what that means is they get the same immunity that ambassadors get. They get diplomatic immunity when it comes to certain prosecution. But here's the thing. Ambassadorial staff, diplomats, there's a carrot and stick. It's not just immunity. The flip side of that is that you can kick out the diplomats essentially whenever you want to, whenever there is a breach in relations. This happens actually all the time. How many times over the course of this past war with Iran did we see a headline, Qatar kicks out Iranian ambassador, UAE kicks out Iranian Ambassador? This happens all the time. And what's even more, is this the point that my friend made? This seems like it's actually an executive function. It's not even clear that Congress has to get involved here. Why? Well, if you go to the constitution again, Article 2, which is the article about the presidency. Article 2, Section 3 of the Constitution says that the President shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers. What does that mean? He shall receive them? What's implicit in receiving? You can kick them out as well. This appears to be an inherently executive authority action. Now, listen, we're not dealing here with the cleanest possible solutions. We're talking here about living in an unfortunate world where the Supreme Court has ruled the way it did, thereby vitiating and cheapening the integrity, the sanctity of American citizenship. Here on the 250th anniversary of this great declaration whereby we celebrate the consent of the government that we are no longer in bondage and we are free. It's awful.
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Grainger Announcer
It's awful.
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Josh Hammer
It's awful. So we're dealing with the reality situation there. There are multiple possible solutions at this point. Frankly, it's time for the Congress to go ahead and get busy. And also, I think it's time for the great legal minds in the White House Counsel's office and the DOJ and so forth to go ahead and get busy as well, because there actually are some things that the executive branch can do here unilaterally. Congress can and should get involved. And ideally, we pass continual amendment, we overturn this abomination decision. But there are a lot of things that Article 2, I believe, can do unto itself. I've just talked about just a couple of ideas here. So earlier today, Tyler Robinson, who is the, technically, we could say alleged, but really we think we know that he is the killer of Miley's friend of our late friend Charlie Kirk, Ty Robinson was back in court. So Erica Kirk, the widow of Charlie. Erica was in court earlier today, along with Charlie's family, his parents and his sister. The situation, it's hard to believe, frankly, that this happened as long ago as it did. It is now July 6th. This horrific tragedy happened, my goodness gracious, almost 10 months ago. It was on September 10th. I remember it like it was, like it was yesterday. And there are now cameras in the court. There's more public access. Prosecutors are absolutely seeking the death penalty in this case. And there are a lot of folks now trying to talk on both sides about the propriety of the death penalty, the morality of the death penalty, the legality, the constitutionality of death penalty. There actually was a period of time, by the way, there was a brief stretch of about 15, 20 years, give or take, where the death penalty was actually unconstitutional. America. Yet this actually really did happen, and in fairly recent time. It was in the 1970s and 1980s. The Supreme Court made it unconstitutional to do the death penalty at all, which is outrageous, as Antonin Scalia was fond to point out. Why? Because the fifth Amendment explicitly contemplates it. The fifth Amendment reads and relevant part of the due process clause says no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. What does that mean? It means that with due process of law you can be deprived of liberty, property or life. It's entirely possible. So that was insane. The argument that you can not have the death penalty at all, that is totally unconstitutional. Now your mileage may vary as to whether or not you think that death penalty is particularly moral. The Catholic Church teaches that capital punishment is wrong. Interestingly, that is not necessarily the more historical traditional view of the Catholic Church. It's a somewhat more recent innovation. I don't know the exact history, I'm not a Catholic theologian or anything of the nature there, but certainly there was a much older tradition of the Vatican. A lot of Catholic natural law theorists who supported the death penalty. Evangelical Protestants, orthodox, box Jews certainly tend to be more supportive of the death penalty. I have personally never understood the argument. I've never understood the argument that in order to be truly pro life that you cannot support death penalty. I find this utterly baffling, frankly, the notion that if you oppose the deliberate termination of innocent, of innocent human life, AKA in this particular case, the gestating baby in the womb. And by the way, actually in, in synagogue actually this past Saturday, this past Shabbat, we were just reading actually from the prophets, from the Nevi', im, from the book of Jeremiah. What does it say in Jeremiah? Famously, the book opens chapter one, verse five. I knew you in the womb before you were born. One of the great pro life verses in the entire Hebrew Bible of the Old Testament. We actually just read it. Jews around the world read it in synagogue just this past Saturday. So this notion that if you oppose the termination of unborn human life, therefore be consistent, you must also oppose the death penalty for those who have been properly adjudicated through due process and found guilty by a jury of their peers through overruling evidence, et cetera, et cetera, it makes no sense. Frankly, I would actually take the exact opposite approach. I would argue that the really pro life position, if you really, really, really value and cherish human life in a case like this, actually requires the death penalty. Only then, only then can you hope to get some morsel, some morsel of the vindication of the blood of those who were slain, of those who were taken from us by the worst among societies. The death penalty is all throughout scripture. It is all, all, all throughout scripture. Now, from our perspective here in Judaism, the flip side, some people say, oh, if you actually go to the Talmud, you will see that a lot of the rabbis tend to water it down and make the death penalty rarer. And there is some truth to that. I'm not here to deny it. They do make it a little strict, but they don't get rid of it. It's absolutely still a thing. It's absolutely still a thing. So if you believe that our rights are inalienable, that they come from our creator, life, liberty, property, pursuit of happiness, the whole Lockean, Jeffersonian, biblical basket of goods, I agree with that. But through a jury of your peers in the right process, all those including Elias life can and at times should be taken away. Tyler Robinson is absolutely one such individual. If one he is found guilty, I personally sincerely hope that he receives the ultimate punishment. God willing, the prosecution will push hard for this and he will get it asap folks. Have a great rest of your evening. Josh Hammer signing off for now. We will be right back. As always tomorrow,
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