Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Unpacking Court Packing

Transcript

Unpacking Court Packing · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: We have got the latest from the Supreme Court confirmation
0:03
Speaker 1: hearings on Capitol Hill with someone who has sat through
0:07
Speaker 1: all of it. But before we get to that, let
0:10
Speaker 1: us turn to the Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden in
0:14
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three, on a topic very very important to
0:18
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. President Roosevelt clearly had the right to
0:21
Speaker 1: send to the United States Senate the United States Congress
0:24
Speaker 1: a proposal to pack the Court. It was totally within
0:27
Speaker 1: his right to do that. He violated no law. He
0:31
Speaker 1: was legalistically absolutely correct, but it was a bone head idea.
0:36
Speaker 1: It was a terrible, terrible mistake to make, and it
0:40
Speaker 1: put in question for an entire decade the independence of
0:46
Speaker 1: the most significant body, including the Congress, in my view,
0:49
Speaker 1: the most significant body in this country, the Supreme Court
0:53
Speaker 1: of the United States of America. Bone headed. Indeed, this
0:57
Speaker 1: is verdict with Ted Cruz. Welcome back to Verdict with
1:05
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz. I'm Michael Knowls, Senator. I do want to
1:08
Speaker 1: get to the Supreme Court hearings. You've just come from
1:11
Speaker 1: Capitol Hill. But I have to ask you, because you
1:13
Speaker 1: actually know the guy, You've you've served with the guy,
1:18
Speaker 1: what happened to that Joe Biden. I think I find
1:20
Speaker 1: myself agreeing with that. Joe Biden in nineteen eighty three,
1:23
Speaker 1: then the one today I don't know about. Well, look
1:26
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty three, I mean I was thirteen, and
1:31
Speaker 1: were you even a sparkle in your daddy's eyes? Not
1:34
Speaker 1: for a number of years after that. Actually that Joe
1:40
Speaker 1: Biden is wandering in Iowa cornfield somewhere, you know. I
1:47
Speaker 1: like that he gave a clear answer on this, and
1:51
Speaker 1: today we're getting a clear answer from the other side
1:53
Speaker 1: of the left. I mean, there are people explicitly advocating
1:56
Speaker 1: for court packing, and Joe Biden he has said that
2:00
Speaker 1: voters don't deserve to have an answer on where he
2:04
Speaker 1: stands on the issue. But this is a significant issue.
2:07
Speaker 1: I mean, this could radically shift the balance of power
2:09
Speaker 1: in the country. Well, look that that's exactly right. It's
2:12
Speaker 1: not accidental that Biden won't answer this question. It's not
2:16
Speaker 1: accidental that Kamala Harris won't answer this question. I think
2:20
Speaker 1: the reason they wan't answer it is their answer is yes,
2:23
Speaker 1: their hardcore base wants them to pack the court, and
2:28
Speaker 1: I think they recognize that's a really unpopular idea, So
2:33
Speaker 1: they're refusing to answer it, and they pretty much assumed
2:35
Speaker 1: the press will give them a pass. I mean you mentioned,
2:38
Speaker 1: you know, so Biden was asked a couple of days ago,
2:41
Speaker 1: do the voters deserve to know the answer on your question?
2:43
Speaker 1: And his response was no, the voters don't deserve to
2:46
Speaker 1: know that, Like what, what in the have you ever heard?
2:51
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a bizarre thing for a candidate for
2:55
Speaker 1: president to say, and it's I believe if Biden wins,
3:00
Speaker 1: if there's a Democratic majority in both houses, they will
3:04
Speaker 1: pack the court. I think that's the path we're on.
3:07
Speaker 1: And I actually think so. We finished the hearing today,
3:10
Speaker 1: the second round of questioning. It was kind of a
3:13
Speaker 1: snooze fest. It went, you know, nine ten hours. It
3:19
Speaker 1: was shorter than yesterday. Yesterday it was about twelve hours.
3:22
Speaker 1: And the interesting news about today as the Democrats surrendered,
3:27
Speaker 1: they just gave up that they have decided. Amy Cony
3:32
Speaker 1: Barrett is going to be confirmed. And you know what,
3:35
Speaker 1: the American people watching her are really impressed. I mean,
3:37
Speaker 1: this is a remarkable woman. She's an impressive woman. I
3:41
Speaker 1: think the people turning on the TV see her calm, cool, collected.
3:45
Speaker 1: See here sitting there at a table with not a
3:47
Speaker 1: single note in front of her answering the questions, and
3:51
Speaker 1: I think the Democrats realized, Okay, we're getting the crap
3:53
Speaker 1: beat out of us right now, and the word came
3:57
Speaker 1: out essentially runaway. It was striking by this afternoon, and
4:02
Speaker 1: I guess I had my round of questioning right about lunchtime.
4:08
Speaker 1: Hearing room was almost empty, but there were two Democrats
4:11
Speaker 1: left in the room that they had fled. And I
4:13
Speaker 1: actually started started my questioning by pointing out that they
4:17
Speaker 1: had given up. That the good news is we now
4:19
Speaker 1: know for a fact Judge Barrett is going to be
4:22
Speaker 1: confirmed as Justice Barrett, and I pointed out there were
4:24
Speaker 1: only two Democrats in the room and Dick Durban from Illinois,
4:29
Speaker 1: he just about lost it. He exploded. He jumped in
4:31
Speaker 1: and interrupted me, which rarely happens at hearings. I mean,
4:34
Speaker 1: you don't see that very often. And he jumped in
4:37
Speaker 1: and he said, well, well there's a pandemic. And I
4:41
Speaker 1: couldn't help but responding, well, yeah, that's true, there is
4:43
Speaker 1: a pandemic. But yesterday you were all here and you
4:47
Speaker 1: had all the Democrats lined up. Pat Lay he didn't
4:49
Speaker 1: show up, and Kamala Harris. Those are the only two
4:51
Speaker 1: Democrats who didn't show up to the hearing. Everyone else
4:53
Speaker 1: was physically present today. They literally they would show up
4:57
Speaker 1: for their little round of questioning, but nobody. There were
5:00
Speaker 1: really no fireworks, and I think they realize they can't
5:06
Speaker 1: stop it. They've got to put on enough of a
5:09
Speaker 1: show that their hardcore activists aren't mad at them, but
5:16
Speaker 1: it is clear they're dialing it in. Every time they
5:21
Speaker 1: try to throw a fastball at her, she just smiles,
5:25
Speaker 1: and she she knows the substance a lot better than
5:28
Speaker 1: they do, and she's not going down like the traps
5:31
Speaker 1: they tried to lay. She's not falling into. But part
5:35
Speaker 1: of I think they're objective. At the beginning of the
5:38
Speaker 1: hearing was to lay the predicate that the nomination and
5:42
Speaker 1: the confirmation itself is fundamentally illegitimate, because that's the predicate.
5:47
Speaker 1: Their endgame is court packing in a few months. So
5:50
Speaker 1: I think they're willing to say, Okay, we lose now.
5:53
Speaker 1: They think they're going to win a couple of weeks.
5:55
Speaker 1: Maybe they're right, maybe they're wrong. I don't know who
5:57
Speaker 1: wins on election day, but they think they're to be
6:00
Speaker 1: in power. And I think their answer next year is
6:04
Speaker 1: packed the court. I don't know if they plan to
6:06
Speaker 1: go to eleven or thirteen. But one of the interesting things, so,
6:12
Speaker 1: what does packing the court mean? What does that term mean.
6:16
Speaker 1: It's a term that everyone is understood for a hundred years.
6:20
Speaker 1: It is expanding the number of justices in order to
6:26
Speaker 1: put your political supporters on there. So it's changing the
6:28
Speaker 1: number of justices in the court. Yea. So a couple
6:32
Speaker 1: interesting things on this number. One, the number of justices
6:34
Speaker 1: in the court is not specified the constitution. Well, this
6:37
Speaker 1: is something that the left wingers have been bringing up.
6:39
Speaker 1: They say, look, there's no constitutional requirement that it be
6:43
Speaker 1: nine judges. So come on, we've changed the number of
6:45
Speaker 1: judges before. What's the big deal. You're making a mountain
6:48
Speaker 1: out of a molehill. And it has varied anywhere from
6:52
Speaker 1: five justices to as many as ten. And for the
6:56
Speaker 1: first one hundred years or so of our country's history,
7:00
Speaker 1: the number of justices largely followed the number of Court
7:05
Speaker 1: of appeals circuits there were. The idea was each Supreme
7:08
Speaker 1: Court justice was the circuit justice for that particular court
7:12
Speaker 1: of appeal. So as Congress added another court of appeals,
7:16
Speaker 1: they added another justice. It's been at nine though for
7:20
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty years, so really kind of Civil
7:24
Speaker 1: War era forward. It hasn't moved, and nine has been steady.
7:29
Speaker 1: Now they're thirteen courts of appeals, but there's still only
7:31
Speaker 1: nine justices. It's been steady. And the most famous instance
7:35
Speaker 1: of court packing as the one Joe Biden was talking
7:38
Speaker 1: about in the clip we played a few minutes ago,
7:40
Speaker 1: which is FDR so FDR four termed dominant Democratic President,
7:48
Speaker 1: Great Depression, pushing, trying to push through his new deal,
7:51
Speaker 1: and he was finding different components of the new deal
7:54
Speaker 1: struck down by the Supreme Court, and he was really frustrated.
7:57
Speaker 1: He was really angry, and he proposed to pack the court.
8:03
Speaker 1: His plan was for each justice over a certain age,
8:08
Speaker 1: I forget if it was seventy or seventy five, I
8:10
Speaker 1: think it's seventy or thereabout, but that there would be
8:13
Speaker 1: a new justice appointed, so you wouldn't kick the old
8:16
Speaker 1: ones off. You'd just appoint a new one for all
8:18
Speaker 1: the old guys. And that would have immediately taken the
8:22
Speaker 1: court up to I think fifteen. And it was interesting.
8:27
Speaker 1: Number one, the Democratic Congress, there were big Democratic majorities
8:31
Speaker 1: of both houses. They said, this is too much. We're
8:34
Speaker 1: not going that far. We're not going to do it
8:37
Speaker 1: now history and so they resisted. They said it would
8:41
Speaker 1: destroy the independence. They actually agreed with what Joe Biden
8:43
Speaker 1: just said, that it would destroy the independence of the court,
8:45
Speaker 1: it would politicize the court. One interesting thing about that fight, though,
8:51
Speaker 1: is actually history in many ways FDR may have won
8:55
Speaker 1: that fight anyway. So at least the good news here
8:59
Speaker 1: is though FDR try to stack the courts and pack
9:02
Speaker 1: the churts rather, and he loses, So then the issue
9:05
Speaker 1: goes away for a while. Right, Well, yes, and no, um,
9:09
Speaker 1: he lost the fight to pack the court. But but
9:12
Speaker 1: actually history shows in many ways he won the political fight.
9:16
Speaker 1: So there had been five justices who were striking down
9:20
Speaker 1: multiple New Deal programs, and when he introduced the court
9:25
Speaker 1: packing legislation, one of those justices, a justice named Owen Roberts,
9:32
Speaker 1: switched his vote and it's it's referred to as the
9:40
Speaker 1: switch in time that saved nine because he had Justice
9:46
Speaker 1: Roberts had been voting with four other justices. The four
9:50
Speaker 1: others were known as the four Horsemen, which was not
9:54
Speaker 1: meant to be a compliment, and and Roberts switched his
9:59
Speaker 1: vote in nineteen thirty seven in a case that upheld
10:03
Speaker 1: the minimum wage laws from the state of Washington State.
10:07
Speaker 1: And there's some dispute among historians about whether Robert switched
10:15
Speaker 1: his vote because of the court packing plan or not,
10:19
Speaker 1: but whether he did or not, before the plan, there
10:22
Speaker 1: were five justices ruling regularly against FDR. Once FDR launched
10:27
Speaker 1: a full on assault on the court, it switched and
10:31
Speaker 1: they began rolling over for a whole lot more so,
10:34
Speaker 1: either way, the independence of the Court was I think
10:39
Speaker 1: substantially jeopardized even by the proposal of court packing, and
10:44
Speaker 1: I think that lesson has a lot of powerful significance
10:49
Speaker 1: for where we are today. I think part of the
10:52
Speaker 1: reason Democrats are threatening court packing is a. I think
10:56
Speaker 1: they mean it and they'll do it, But B I
11:00
Speaker 1: think they're also perfectly happy to try to intimidate the
11:03
Speaker 1: current justices. You know, we've seen John Roberts flipping his
11:08
Speaker 1: votes in a bunch of cases lately in voting with
11:11
Speaker 1: the liberals, and and in fact, Sheldon Whitehouse, a colleague
11:16
Speaker 1: of mine on the Judiciary Committee, wrote a letter to
11:20
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court in in a gun control case, basically
11:24
Speaker 1: threatening the Court that if they didn't do what he wanted,
11:26
Speaker 1: they would have to. I think the phrase he used
11:28
Speaker 1: was restructure the court, but it was a threat of
11:33
Speaker 1: court packing. And what's interesting, and part of the reason
11:36
Speaker 1: I believe that this threat is real, this is not
11:39
Speaker 1: you know, there's some folks in the media, some folks
11:43
Speaker 1: who think, gosh, they really wouldn't do that. That seems
11:46
Speaker 1: really radical. The biggest indication to me that they really
11:50
Speaker 1: mean it is there is a concerted effort among Democrats
11:53
Speaker 1: and the media to redefine what it means to pack
11:57
Speaker 1: the court, right right. So you know, we've talked about
12:01
Speaker 1: before the incredible message discipline that Democrats have. About a
12:06
Speaker 1: week ago, the talking point went out that every Democrat
12:08
Speaker 1: began repeating, which is, well, the Republicans have been packing
12:11
Speaker 1: the court for four years. Well, that's not actually what
12:15
Speaker 1: packing the court means. Filling vacancies when there's a vacancy,
12:19
Speaker 1: appointing a justice, confirming the justice. That's not packing the court.
12:24
Speaker 1: Packing the court is expanding the number of justices to
12:28
Speaker 1: put your cronies on there. It's a very different thing,
12:31
Speaker 1: and they're trying to You're seeing the media exercise this theme,
12:35
Speaker 1: and I think it's all set up to have it
12:38
Speaker 1: be the predicate for next year to say, well, judge
12:41
Speaker 1: Barrett was illegitimate. Trump packed the court already, so we
12:45
Speaker 1: just need to actually ap that. They recently wrote an
12:50
Speaker 1: article where they said to depoliticize the court. So so
12:55
Speaker 1: you want to talk about an Orwellian term packing the court,
12:59
Speaker 1: adding new left injustices and growing it beyond nine to
13:03
Speaker 1: I don't know, eleven thirteen. Wherever they go is, according
13:06
Speaker 1: to the Associated Press, is depoliticizing the court, the AP
13:11
Speaker 1: wrote this week, and it went on to say, which
13:15
Speaker 1: some critics have referred to as packing, Well, no, actually
13:21
Speaker 1: everybody referred to it as packing. Of course, the term
13:25
Speaker 1: court packing is much older than the term depoliticizing. So
13:29
Speaker 1: what you're telling me, because I was just about to
13:31
Speaker 1: celebrate when you told me there was a Democrat surrender
13:34
Speaker 1: on Amy Coney Barrett today, I thought, oh gosh, this
13:37
Speaker 1: is good news. We finally got to win here. But
13:39
Speaker 1: what you're suggesting is this may have been a tactical surrender.
13:43
Speaker 1: They've got no dirt on Barrett. They're not going to
13:45
Speaker 1: stop this nomination. It would maybe hurt them if they did,
13:48
Speaker 1: but they are going to use the confirmation of Judge
13:51
Speaker 1: Barrett as another excuse for court packing, which you know
13:56
Speaker 1: we played it earlier. Joe Biden in the nineteen eighties
13:58
Speaker 1: may have said that he thought it a bone headed scheme.
14:01
Speaker 1: But don't forget Joe Biden has changed his views one
14:04
Speaker 1: hundred eighty degrees multiple times over the course of his career.
14:08
Speaker 1: You saw this actually during the George HW. Bush administration,
14:12
Speaker 1: where he said it would be a terrible idea to
14:15
Speaker 1: nominate and confirm a judge, a Supreme Court justice in
14:17
Speaker 1: an election year. Then fast forward to twenty sixteen, he said,
14:20
Speaker 1: it is absolutely essential that we nominate and confirm a
14:23
Speaker 1: Supreme Court justice in an election year. Fast forward to
14:25
Speaker 1: twenty twenty. He's flipped on this again. So I see
14:28
Speaker 1: there's no reason not to suspect something similar would hold
14:31
Speaker 1: for the question of court packing. Well, it's not just
14:33
Speaker 1: Joe Biden that's changes views. Practically every Democrat has. I
14:38
Speaker 1: read a number of these statements today at the questioning
14:40
Speaker 1: Pat Lahey in twenty seventeen. Quote, the Judiciary Committee once
14:45
Speaker 1: stood against a court packing scheme that would have eroded
14:48
Speaker 1: judicial independence. That was a proud moment. Dick Blumenthal twenty eighteen,
14:54
Speaker 1: commenting on the nineteen thirty seven Judiciary Committee statement that
14:58
Speaker 1: it is a measure which we should be which should
15:00
Speaker 1: be so emphatically rejected that its parallel will never again
15:05
Speaker 1: be presented to the free representatives of the free people
15:09
Speaker 1: of America. That was two years ago. Dick Durban twenty eighteen.
15:14
Speaker 1: Seventy five years ago, we went through this, and I
15:17
Speaker 1: think the Congress was correct in stopping this popular president
15:22
Speaker 1: named Franklin Roosevelt from that idea. And Ruth Bader Ginsburg
15:26
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen, just last year, here's what Justice Ginsburg said.
15:30
Speaker 1: She said, if anything would make the Court look partisan,
15:33
Speaker 1: it would be that one side saying we're in power,
15:37
Speaker 1: we're going to enlarge the number of judges. Notice she
15:40
Speaker 1: knows what packing is, so that we would have more
15:43
Speaker 1: people who would vote the way we want them to.
15:45
Speaker 1: And she went on to say nine seems to be
15:48
Speaker 1: a good number. It's been that way for a long time.
15:51
Speaker 1: I think it was a bad idea when President Franklin
15:54
Speaker 1: Roosevelt tried to pack the court. They all agreed with
15:59
Speaker 1: this until they got very unhappy with the president's judicial
16:06
Speaker 1: nominations for the vacancies. That he had, and at this point,
16:10
Speaker 1: I think it is all about power, and it's all
16:14
Speaker 1: about you know, we talked yesterday in the podcast about
16:16
Speaker 1: I went through the litany of constitutional rights that are
16:20
Speaker 1: hanging in the balance, that are one vote away, a lot,
16:23
Speaker 1: all the different rights that I talk about in my
16:25
Speaker 1: book one vote away, religious liberty, free speech, the Second Amendment,
16:28
Speaker 1: and I explained in the hearing how every one of
16:31
Speaker 1: those rights was hanging in the balance. You know what's amazing, Michael,
16:35
Speaker 1: both yesterday and today, not a single Democrat disagreed with me,
16:39
Speaker 1: Not a single one of them argued on the merits,
16:41
Speaker 1: not a single one of them made the case for
16:44
Speaker 1: what their radical justices actually want to do taking away
16:48
Speaker 1: those constitutional liberties. Instead, this is about brute power. I
16:52
Speaker 1: think they recognize they can't stop it now. So their
16:56
Speaker 1: plan and their hope is they win in November and
16:58
Speaker 1: then they use brute power to just grow the court
17:01
Speaker 1: and force in radicals who will mandate their view of
17:06
Speaker 1: policy from the court. Well, I want to ask you
17:09
Speaker 1: about one particular example of the exercise of brute power,
17:13
Speaker 1: which today frankly completely overshadowed the confirmation hearings. That was
17:18
Speaker 1: the matter of big tech censoring. A new report just
17:21
Speaker 1: came out from the New York Post. It showed emails
17:25
Speaker 1: between Hunter Biden and one of his oligarch pals over
17:29
Speaker 1: in Ukraine. We've talked at length on this podcast about
17:33
Speaker 1: the shady business connections between Hunter Biden and these Ukraine
17:36
Speaker 1: energy companies and oligarchs. An email suggesting that Hunter Biden
17:41
Speaker 1: not only discussed this issue with Joe Biden, but actually
17:45
Speaker 1: introduced the Ukrainian oligarch to Joe Biden. This is very
17:49
Speaker 1: explosive stuff during a presidential campaign. Big tech platforms Facebook
17:54
Speaker 1: and Twitter censored the New York Post report. They offered
17:59
Speaker 1: no evidence to the contrary, They had no reason to
18:02
Speaker 1: suggest that this was not real. They simply said this
18:06
Speaker 1: could be damaging information, damaging to whom, damaging of course,
18:09
Speaker 1: to the Biden campaign. And the craziest part of it
18:12
Speaker 1: all is it worked. It didn't work to stop the conversation,
18:16
Speaker 1: but it worked to stop the spread of this particular
18:20
Speaker 1: link throughout big tech. I you know, we've criticized big
18:24
Speaker 1: tech on this show before. I did not know that
18:28
Speaker 1: those companies would take election interference to this kind of
18:32
Speaker 1: a dangerous extent. I don't know if this New York
18:35
Speaker 1: Post story is true or not, but it was really
18:37
Speaker 1: quite stunning. This afternoon. Both Twitter and Facebook just decided
18:41
Speaker 1: we're going to block this story. And by the way,
18:44
Speaker 1: so they would block it a if you tweeted it,
18:47
Speaker 1: if you tweeted it, if I tweeted it, and you
18:49
Speaker 1: linked to the story, if you tried to click on
18:51
Speaker 1: the link, you'd get a warning on Twitter that that
18:54
Speaker 1: this link has content that may be harmful. Well maybe
18:59
Speaker 1: harmful to Joe Biden's political prospects, but it's not. And
19:03
Speaker 1: not only that they did something which which I don't
19:06
Speaker 1: recall seeing them have the cajoness to do before that
19:11
Speaker 1: being a Cuban term, I'll look it up, which is
19:17
Speaker 1: they banned the New York Post itself, so the New
19:19
Speaker 1: York Post published or the Post was, and the Post
19:22
Speaker 1: has one of the largest circulations of any newspaper in
19:25
Speaker 1: the country. I mean, this is not you know, Bob's newsletter.
19:30
Speaker 1: This is the New York frigging Post. And they blocked
19:36
Speaker 1: the Post from tweeting out their own story. And mind you,
19:39
Speaker 1: neither Twitter or Facebook say it's false. Neither of them have.
19:42
Speaker 1: They don't have any evidence that it's inaccurate. They simply
19:46
Speaker 1: made the unaccountable decision, the arrogant decision. We will not
19:53
Speaker 1: allow this to be shared discussed, and you, the press,
19:57
Speaker 1: can't even put out your own stories. And it was
20:00
Speaker 1: so brazen Senator staffer in communications at Facebook who made
20:06
Speaker 1: this decision to suppress the information. He ended up tweeting
20:09
Speaker 1: about it. I looked up his bio. Do you know
20:11
Speaker 1: what his jobs were before he started working at Facebook.
20:14
Speaker 1: He worked for Democratic political action committees, He worked for
20:18
Speaker 1: Democratic elected politicians. He is a Democrat operative at a
20:22
Speaker 1: supposedly neutral tech platform, using that neutral tech platform to
20:28
Speaker 1: suppress damaging information about Democrats mere weeks to an election.
20:32
Speaker 1: How can we permit that to continue? So he has
20:35
Speaker 1: on his Twitter bio that he is an alum of
20:39
Speaker 1: California Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer's office, So not just any Democrat,
20:44
Speaker 1: but one of the most partisan left wing Democrats to
20:46
Speaker 1: ever serve. And he's also an alama of the d
20:49
Speaker 1: Triple See, which is the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. It
20:52
Speaker 1: is literally their political arm who exists for one purpose
20:56
Speaker 1: to elect Democratic members of Congress. That's the Facebook spokesperson
21:01
Speaker 1: explaining their decision. We're going to silence that nothing to
21:04
Speaker 1: see here. So I sent today letters to the CEOs
21:07
Speaker 1: of both Facebook and Twitter as chairman of the Constitution
21:11
Speaker 1: Subcommittee the Senate Judiciary Committee, setting out a series of
21:15
Speaker 1: questions asking them who made the decision, what was the
21:18
Speaker 1: basis for it? What other news sites you have you
21:22
Speaker 1: blocked and silenced? Have you ever blocked the New York
21:24
Speaker 1: Times or even blocked the Washington Post? Have you ever
21:27
Speaker 1: blocked anything damaging and Donald Trump? Or is it only
21:30
Speaker 1: stories that you think are damaging of Joe Biden that
21:32
Speaker 1: you're going to block? And what's interesting about this? You
21:36
Speaker 1: said a minute ago, Well, you know they were able
21:39
Speaker 1: to succeed in this. I actually think they screwed up.
21:41
Speaker 1: I think their arrogance is their pitfall, because this is
21:46
Speaker 1: now a ten times bigger story because they blocked it.
21:50
Speaker 1: Then if they just ignored it, if they'd let people
21:52
Speaker 1: tweet about it. Look, one of the challenges and we
21:56
Speaker 1: find this, you know, when we did the podcasts talking
22:00
Speaker 1: about James Komi and you know, all the Russia Gate
22:06
Speaker 1: and everything, people are tired of it. They're just there,
22:09
Speaker 1: all the names and Brennan and Coomy, and it's complicated
22:12
Speaker 1: and people want to tune it out and it's noise,
22:14
Speaker 1: and I get it. I look, I do this for
22:17
Speaker 1: a living, and it's hard to follow all this stuff.
22:20
Speaker 1: I think this story could very easily have faded into
22:24
Speaker 1: that kind of mist of noise. I'm not sure what
22:27
Speaker 1: Bisma is anymore, a Ukraine or Biden whatever, hunter Biden,
22:32
Speaker 1: and I'm not sure it would have gotten a whole
22:33
Speaker 1: lot of attention beyond right wingers who are already are
22:36
Speaker 1: going to vote for Trump. But I'm not sure it
22:38
Speaker 1: would have gotten a lot of attention beyond that except
22:41
Speaker 1: for Twitter and Facebook. Sensory it where you're sitting there
22:44
Speaker 1: going okay. If they can block a major newspaper a
22:49
Speaker 1: couple of weeks before presidential election publishing what purports to
22:53
Speaker 1: be evidence of corruption at the very highest level of politics,
22:58
Speaker 1: that's a big, frigate deal, and I think it actually
23:00
Speaker 1: backfired on them. And it's frankly that itself is a
23:04
Speaker 1: bigger story, perhaps even than Joe Biden's potentially corrupt dealings
23:09
Speaker 1: with Ukraine. The idea that a few oligarchs in Silicon
23:12
Speaker 1: Valley are now going to control effectively the public sphere,
23:16
Speaker 1: the control of information around the Internet, interfering in an
23:19
Speaker 1: election in a way that the Russians could only have
23:21
Speaker 1: dreamed of. They would never have been able to interfere
23:23
Speaker 1: to that regard. Is there something that we can do?
23:27
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously the Democrats control the House, the Republicans
23:30
Speaker 1: have the Senate and the White House for now, hopefully
23:33
Speaker 1: that continues. Is there anything that we can do or
23:35
Speaker 1: are we basically at the whims of these Silicon Valley
23:39
Speaker 1: masters of the universe. So there's a lot we can do.
23:41
Speaker 1: As you know, I've been leading the charge on this
23:43
Speaker 1: for several years. The most of the action that can
23:47
Speaker 1: be done on this is in the executive branch. So
23:49
Speaker 1: I have met and talked with on this topic, President Trump,
23:53
Speaker 1: Vice President Pence, the White House Chief of Staff, the
23:56
Speaker 1: White House Council, Attorney General Bill Barr, the Deputy Attorney General,
24:00
Speaker 1: Sistant Attorney General for the Anti Trust Division, the chairman
24:02
Speaker 1: of the Federal Trade Commission. I've urged all of them
24:05
Speaker 1: to use the enforcement power of the executive branch. Look,
24:09
Speaker 1: in Congress, we don't have the ability to impanel grand jury.
24:13
Speaker 1: We don't have the ability to bring indictments. The authority
24:19
Speaker 1: to enforce the law is with the executive branch, and
24:23
Speaker 1: so I've shared multiple hearings, I shine a light on it,
24:26
Speaker 1: but at the end of the day, the executive has
24:28
Speaker 1: to move. And one of the challenges at DJ is
24:33
Speaker 1: it tends to be very siloed, where the Antitrust Division
24:36
Speaker 1: thinks about anti trust issues, the Civil Division thinks about
24:39
Speaker 1: civil issues, and each little silo. This challenge of tech
24:43
Speaker 1: censorship is a new creature and it doesn't fit neatly
24:48
Speaker 1: into any of those silos. And so I've been I've
24:53
Speaker 1: had multiple conversations with bar about it. I hope DOJ
24:57
Speaker 1: is willing to press forward, but I'm frustrated. We're four
25:00
Speaker 1: years into it, and I know the President's frustrated with it.
25:02
Speaker 1: I've had multiple conversations with him. I also think Section
25:06
Speaker 1: two thirty, the special immunity from my ability that Congress
25:10
Speaker 1: has given big tech, is plainly failing. That that was
25:13
Speaker 1: based on the notion that these big tech entities would
25:17
Speaker 1: be neutral public flora. They're not anymore. They're not pretending.
25:20
Speaker 1: Just today alone, I think obliterated that pretense. There is
25:25
Speaker 1: no way that you can argue when you are interfering
25:27
Speaker 1: weeks before an election for one political party over another
25:30
Speaker 1: there is no way that you can argue that you
25:32
Speaker 1: are a neutral tech platform. Yeah, although I will say
25:36
Speaker 1: it all comes down to the election, because if if,
25:39
Speaker 1: if we start next year with Biden, Schumer, and Pelosi,
25:43
Speaker 1: they're not going to do a damn thing about big tech. Huh.
25:45
Speaker 1: They want big tech to censor your speech. So not
25:48
Speaker 1: only are they going to go after your speech through
25:50
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court, but they're also going to go after
25:53
Speaker 1: your speech through a big tech You know, we had
25:56
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago Mark Zuckerberg testify before Judiciary,
25:59
Speaker 1: Can and Commerce Committee, and it was this monstrosity of
26:03
Speaker 1: a joint committee meeting where there were forty some odd
26:06
Speaker 1: Senators and it was it was striking in that virtually
26:14
Speaker 1: every senator, Democrat and Republican was critical of Zuckerberg and
26:18
Speaker 1: big tech. And it should have gotten the nervous weight.
26:20
Speaker 1: Why is everyone pissed at us? This is dangerous. But
26:23
Speaker 1: if you listen to what they were saying, the two
26:26
Speaker 1: sides were pissed for very different reasons. Republicans, at least
26:33
Speaker 1: some of the Republicans, were upset at the censorship, at
26:36
Speaker 1: the abuse of power, at the silencing of dissenting views.
26:40
Speaker 1: The Democrats were upset that they didn't censor more. The
26:44
Speaker 1: Democrats were upset on the other side. And basically, if
26:47
Speaker 1: I were to sum up the democrats argument at that hearing,
26:50
Speaker 1: it was, how the hell did you let Donald Trump win?
26:53
Speaker 1: How could you possibly let these crazy conservatives communicate on
26:57
Speaker 1: your platform? Next time? Censor more? That's what the Democrats want.
27:01
Speaker 1: So if they win, there's not going to be any
27:04
Speaker 1: DJ enforcement. There's not going to be any enforcement of law.
27:06
Speaker 1: If the Democrats win, Big tech is unchecked and it
27:11
Speaker 1: is the oligarch's running things until another election changes things.
27:16
Speaker 1: And so that's one of many reasons why I hope
27:20
Speaker 1: we have a good election and Trump gets reelected, because
27:22
Speaker 1: we need to address this is the biggest concentration of
27:26
Speaker 1: power in the world of the median communication that the
27:31
Speaker 1: world has ever seen. That's right, and it's an important
27:35
Speaker 1: point you make that the election is the key here.
27:38
Speaker 1: The twenty sixteen election is the impetus for so much
27:41
Speaker 1: of this censorship. Now, this new censorship is coming down
27:44
Speaker 1: to the twenty twenty election. If we want to control
27:48
Speaker 1: our public sphere again, our public square again, we're going
27:51
Speaker 1: to have to focus on those elections as well. Before
27:53
Speaker 1: I let you go, Senator, I know you've worked now
27:56
Speaker 1: what a twelve or fourteen hour day? But before I
27:58
Speaker 1: let you go, I have to get to the mail back.
28:00
Speaker 1: There's one question in particular that popped up that I
28:02
Speaker 1: really want to hear your answer on This question is
28:04
Speaker 1: from Steve Senator Cruz, what did you think of Jim
28:09
Speaker 1: Carrey's portrait of you as a demon entering hell? It
28:16
Speaker 1: was pretty surreal. Um, Look, Jim Carrey is a funny guy.
28:20
Speaker 1: I love his movies. You know, Mask was hysterical. What
28:27
Speaker 1: is the one where he plays the new newscaster becomes
28:29
Speaker 1: god for for a period of Yes, Bruce Almighty, Bruce Almighty,
28:33
Speaker 1: I mean Bruce Almighty is side splittingly funny. He's a
28:38
Speaker 1: talented guy. He's gone hard, hard lefty, and he's actually
28:43
Speaker 1: a pretty talented artist. He paints, but he paints the
28:48
Speaker 1: sort of hard lefty, nasty. So he actually, back when
28:54
Speaker 1: I was in my reelection campaign against Beto, he did
28:56
Speaker 1: a painting of me that was really horrible, attacking. So
28:59
Speaker 1: this is the second time he's painted me, which is
29:01
Speaker 1: very odd that Jim Carrey is like So this this
29:04
Speaker 1: second one, I'm like, bright red and looked like a
29:07
Speaker 1: demon out of hell. And actually, I'll tell you I'll
29:10
Speaker 1: answer this question by telling you the story as I
29:13
Speaker 1: had the conversation with Caroline last night. So Caroline is
29:16
Speaker 1: my twelve year old and she is a spirited girl,
29:23
Speaker 1: and she was explaining she said, she said, Dad, I'm
29:29
Speaker 1: really sarcastic. You wouldn't understand it because you're not sarcastic. Like, wait,
29:33
Speaker 1: what do you mean? I'm not sarcastic. I'm a smart
29:35
Speaker 1: alec all the time. Like what, like twelve year old, like,
29:39
Speaker 1: you're not sarcastic? It actually kind of hurts. And she's
29:42
Speaker 1: like when when have you ever been sarcastic? And then
29:44
Speaker 1: you're just like, okay, all my like, dad, efforts here
29:48
Speaker 1: are not succeeding. And I said, well, all right, I'll
29:51
Speaker 1: give you an example. Caroline. I said, you know Jim
29:53
Speaker 1: Carrey is. She's like, yeah, everyone knows who Jim Carrey is.
29:56
Speaker 1: Of course I do. And I said, well, this week
29:58
Speaker 1: he painted a picture of me as a devil and
30:00
Speaker 1: a demon. She's like, what why would he do that?
30:03
Speaker 1: So I actually texted her the demon devil thing, and
30:06
Speaker 1: then what I tweeted the picture out and I said, hey,
30:10
Speaker 1: Jim Carrey, can I get a copy this from my office?
30:13
Speaker 1: And it was just kind of you know, I figured
30:15
Speaker 1: embraced it, half fun and she's like, Dad, that's not sarcastic.
30:18
Speaker 1: That's not that's not sarcastic at all. You're she was,
30:24
Speaker 1: if you know how to impress the twelve year old,
30:26
Speaker 1: please tell me my nine year old I can do
30:29
Speaker 1: no wrong. My twelve year old I can do no right.
30:32
Speaker 1: So so you know, Senator, everybody is a critic, from
30:37
Speaker 1: the twelve year old girls all the way up to
30:40
Speaker 1: former comedic actors who I have to tell you, I
30:43
Speaker 1: agree with you. Jim Carrey's very funny. Me and Myself
30:45
Speaker 1: and Irene is one of my favorite films. I think,
30:47
Speaker 1: though these days Jim Carrey is funnier when he's being
30:50
Speaker 1: serious than when he's in these comedy films. I don't know,
30:53
Speaker 1: that's my view. Look Hiss, Joe Biden and S and
30:55
Speaker 1: L's pretty funny. I mean, he's he's a talented actor.
30:58
Speaker 1: I just wish he would do a little less politics
31:00
Speaker 1: a little more acting. I will tell Verdict listeners something,
31:04
Speaker 1: so I'm already planning. Don't tell anyone else this, but
31:09
Speaker 1: but on Halloween. I'm going to make his painting my
31:11
Speaker 1: avatar on Twitter. Well, luckily this conversation is just between me,
31:17
Speaker 1: you and I don't know a million or so people,
31:19
Speaker 1: so no one will know. And I look forward to that.
31:23
Speaker 1: That's I'm sure. I'm sure Jim Carrey will be very honored.
31:28
Speaker 1: We've got a question on court packing that actually we
31:30
Speaker 1: didn't touch on. This is a more more of a
31:33
Speaker 1: tactical question. I guess for Republicans is from Chris. If
31:36
Speaker 1: Democrats win in November and actually do pack the court,
31:39
Speaker 1: do Republicans then respond in kind when they return to power?
31:43
Speaker 1: You know, Democrats grow the court from nine to twelve
31:46
Speaker 1: and then Republicans grow at twelve to fifteen. Who knows?
31:49
Speaker 1: I think we do. I think, of course we do.
31:51
Speaker 1: I think that'd be terrible for the court and terrible
31:53
Speaker 1: for the country. So I don't want to go down
31:54
Speaker 1: that road. But I think if they go, I think
31:57
Speaker 1: I think whatever happens, it would go to an odd
31:59
Speaker 1: number just so that you have you don't have the
32:03
Speaker 1: possibility of a tie. But if they go to eleven
32:06
Speaker 1: or thirteen, I think we go to fifteen or seventeen,
32:08
Speaker 1: and I think it becomes tit for tat and you
32:12
Speaker 1: end up having the Court as this super legislature with
32:17
Speaker 1: a bunch of politically appointed people, And it's an escalation
32:21
Speaker 1: that I think would be a terrible idea. Now, by
32:25
Speaker 1: the way, there is a chance that Republicans are too
32:28
Speaker 1: wimpy to do it, that we let democrats pack the
32:30
Speaker 1: court and then when we take control, we like are
32:31
Speaker 1: scared of our own shadow and don't do anything. I'm
32:35
Speaker 1: hopeful we wouldn't do that, because, frankly, if we find
32:39
Speaker 1: ourselves in that picture next year, even though I think
32:42
Speaker 1: they're going to do it, I'm going to fight as
32:44
Speaker 1: hard as I can to stop it. And then one
32:45
Speaker 1: of the main arguments I planned to do you use
32:47
Speaker 1: is if you do it, will respond in kind, and
32:52
Speaker 1: if you can't even incredibly respond to that, then you
32:56
Speaker 1: might as well just give up, right now, right. It's
32:58
Speaker 1: a sort of political version of peace through strength. You know,
33:02
Speaker 1: if you have strength, that will hopefully encourage your opponents
33:07
Speaker 1: and not to be so aggressive. But I think you're
33:09
Speaker 1: absolutely right. The idea of unilateral political disarmament is just
33:14
Speaker 1: absolutely mad, and it will only invite more political aggression.
33:17
Speaker 1: It's worth noting that Republicans the first two years of Trump,
33:23
Speaker 1: we had the presidency, we had the Senate, and we
33:25
Speaker 1: had the House. We could have packed the court then. Yeah,
33:30
Speaker 1: we could have expanded it from nine to eleven or
33:33
Speaker 1: thirteen and just immediately stuck on justice. We didn't do that.
33:36
Speaker 1: I mean that, and I would have opposed it. It
33:38
Speaker 1: would have been and no one even suggested. It was
33:41
Speaker 1: such a bad idea that no one even suggested it.
33:45
Speaker 1: And so the level of escalation, the fact that the
33:48
Speaker 1: Democrats are going down this road, the fact that Joe
33:51
Speaker 1: Biden is saying the voters don't deserve to know his answer.
33:54
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a really scary escalation. And and it's
33:58
Speaker 1: you don't have to look back to ancient his treaty
34:00
Speaker 1: to say Republicans didn't do it. You have to look
34:02
Speaker 1: back two years ago. We didn't do it when we
34:04
Speaker 1: could have. It was the right thing not to do
34:07
Speaker 1: it then. And I hope we don't find find it
34:10
Speaker 1: happening a few months from now. And it is scary
34:14
Speaker 1: to see even just that redefinition, the normalizing of that idea,
34:17
Speaker 1: as you said earlier, of court packing changing the meaning
34:20
Speaker 1: of the term. You actually just saw this yesterday, as
34:22
Speaker 1: a result of the hearings, Senator Hirono was lambasting Judge
34:26
Speaker 1: Barrett for using the term sexual preference. She said this,
34:30
Speaker 1: which has been an innocuous term for as long as
34:32
Speaker 1: one can remember, she said, this is offensive, and then
34:35
Speaker 1: over the course of the day everyone seemed to get
34:37
Speaker 1: on board, the media, leftist politicians, even the dictionary online.
34:42
Speaker 1: I think Mariam Webster's changed the definition of sexual preference
34:46
Speaker 1: to say that it's now an offensive term. That kind
34:50
Speaker 1: of power all in one place is obviously a great threat,
34:55
Speaker 1: and it just shows you what the normalization of a
34:58
Speaker 1: term like court packing could lead us to. So Webster's
35:02
Speaker 1: dictionary in one day, when the Democrats criticize the term
35:05
Speaker 1: sexual preference, they change the dictionary definition the next day.
35:10
Speaker 1: That's a little terrifying. Noah Webster's got to be twirling
35:14
Speaker 1: in his grave right. A final point, that's just kind
35:18
Speaker 1: of an interesting observation on that sexual preference issue. So
35:23
Speaker 1: both Maizie Horrono and Corey Booker lambasted Judge Barrett for
35:27
Speaker 1: using the phrase sexual preference, which I don't think Judge
35:30
Speaker 1: Barrett meant to convey anything but just an interesting observation.
35:34
Speaker 1: Both Herono and Booker insisted that sexual orientation is immutable,
35:43
Speaker 1: which I thought was actually a fascinating point. I was
35:46
Speaker 1: genuinely not aware that it is a position of the
35:48
Speaker 1: far left. Immutable means not capable of changing, always constant,
35:54
Speaker 1: never changing. I wasn't aware that the far left maintains
35:58
Speaker 1: that sexual orientation never can change, that it is unalterable,
36:02
Speaker 1: and it's it's an odd position to have when they
36:06
Speaker 1: simultaneously insist that gender is capable of continuously changing. So
36:12
Speaker 1: I mean, it's and I don't know that that is
36:16
Speaker 1: the position of the left, but both Herono and Booker
36:19
Speaker 1: insisted upon it, and I think it's a vestige of
36:22
Speaker 1: some of the arguments that used to be common between
36:25
Speaker 1: left and right about whether whether sexual orientation, whether being gay,
36:30
Speaker 1: is genetics and or a choice. And so when they
36:34
Speaker 1: say immutable, what they mean is innate. But innate is
36:38
Speaker 1: different from immutable to say you can never, at any
36:41
Speaker 1: point change your orientation. I just thought it was a
36:45
Speaker 1: fascinating observation about the lack of introspection and the incoherence
36:54
Speaker 1: of the left's views on sexuality. More broadly speaking, well,
36:58
Speaker 1: of course, I mean, just to put it in very
37:00
Speaker 1: simple terms. If a gay man has a homosexual orientation
37:07
Speaker 1: that can ever change. If he then transitions and identifies
37:11
Speaker 1: as a woman, but his preference or orientation doesn't change,
37:15
Speaker 1: then then is he still he's not a gay man anymore?
37:20
Speaker 1: He can't. You can't have those two things at once.
37:24
Speaker 1: Who knows. It's it's not reasoned, it's it's ideology that
37:28
Speaker 1: they stated as a virtue signal. So when they said immutable,
37:32
Speaker 1: I don't know that they're actually focused on what that
37:34
Speaker 1: word even means. It just was sort of a I
37:36
Speaker 1: sent out a tweet yesterday just being like, this is curious,
37:39
Speaker 1: this is this is odd. Oh well, I think if
37:43
Speaker 1: they don't know what the word means, they might very
37:45
Speaker 1: likely redefine it very soon. That does seem to be
37:48
Speaker 1: You know, we have much more mail bag to get to.
37:50
Speaker 1: But alas Senator, we are out of time. I can't
37:52
Speaker 1: make you work a thirteen hour work day to day.
37:55
Speaker 1: So we will be back again on verdict. We will
37:57
Speaker 1: save questions until next time. Please, to everybody, do send
38:01
Speaker 1: your questions in. We love reading them, we like bring
38:04
Speaker 1: them up on the show. Thank you, of course to
38:06
Speaker 1: everyone for subscribing. If you haven't subscribed yet be sure
38:10
Speaker 1: to do it. You can subscribe as you know, on
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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify. You can subscribe on
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Speaker 1: YouTube until the big tech overlords shut us down, but
38:19
Speaker 1: until then we will be on all of those platforms.
38:22
Speaker 1: Thank you as always for listening. Senator, I will see
38:24
Speaker 1: you next time. I am Michael Knowles. This is Verdict
38:27
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