Well, whiskey coming thing, my pain, the moneys a ray.
Why think alone when you can drink it all? In with Ricochet's Three Whiskey Happy Hour, join your bartenders, Steve Hayward, John You, and the International Woman of Mystery Lucretia where.
They lapped it up and David Hain't you busy? On the show? Happy?
Got to give it? Let me welcome everybody to another episode of the Three Whiskey Happy Hour where I believe it or not, I think President Trump has only been president for what eighteen days? Nineteen days? When nineteen days it seems like it's already year seven. So this is John You and I'm joined by my co hosts Steve Hayward.
Hey, Steve, Hey, John, are you fully awake from your afternoon nap? You don't sound like the you know, the energetic person you are when you're on the Outnumbered on Fox. What's the Yeah.
I'm surrounded by two white bald men and Kusha because we have a lurker with us. Steve, do you want to introduce your a lurker friend or no?
Well I could. It's the it's the person who hosts me frequently in Seattle, Northern command with three whiskey happy hour, who attentive readers or power line will know by his handle hound Dog. That's a name I gave him forty five years ago, a nickname. So I'll just say that I.
Don't even want to know how you came, what that means.
The way I mean, it's such a great You never caught a rabbit, and you ain't no friend of mine.
So there, Elvis. Is that like music from when the phonograph had to be turned by hand? Or what?
Almost?
And then the International Woman Mystery Lucretia, How are you, Lucretia.
I'm well, John, It's very good to see you. Thanks.
Well, we're just passing the time until the Eagles win the Super Bowl. Here, Oh, Steve, so I assume this we'll have to retape with the Philadelphia celebration and all the mayhem that will occur then.
But you're not in Philadelphia, are you don't have to worry about your safety?
Oh? Come on, people, Oh you gotta have Philly street smarts. Come on, give me a break. All these people keep getting attacked and shot in Philadelphia. They just don't know what they're doing. So today, the theme of our episode is the five noisy fights. Trump has started, and so we have five different issues that we're talking about, all just came up in the last week and a half, and we're going to start with Lucretia on the first issue,
birthright citizenship. Although you know, the hosts of the Free three Whiskey Happen are so prescient, we actually had a full episode about birthright citizenship. But there have been recent developments Lucretia.
I don't think anybody expected him to do it on the first day, and so John and I both written articles on this. My argument is that Trump is, you know, pressing the point. He took a bit of what you might call a middle ground on his executive order. Instead of saying anybody who claims birthright citizenship ever automatically has their citizenship revoked or at least can no longer get a passport from the State Department, he made it prospective.
So only those people going forward trying to sneak into the United States to have their baby and thereby claim citizenship for their child and themselves, of all the welfare benefits of America has to offer, it can only we're only stopping it going forward. And of course, you know a stupid ass judge excuse me, sorry, stupid judge has put some sort of injunction on it, as you might might expect.
But the other question is could there be enough of a enough of a movement in that regard that Congress would actually just pass legislation defining what citizenship is under the fourteenth Amendment, something that they've never done host fourteenth Amendment.
They did pre fourteenth Amendment. And I think under the enforcement clause Congress could in fact say what exactly they mean by subject to the jurisdiction thereof, and say, yeah, whatever it might be that your father, the way Trump has done it, the father has to be a citizen, whatever all of those different things are. Congress could do that, and I don't think the would have much to say about it. One kim ark relies on really bad president and it's a dumb decision and it should be overturned
if it gets back to the court. There you go everything you want, you know.
So I'm good turn to Steve because two interesting points have risen. One is John Eastman, the notorious John Eastman, took a triumphant, triumphant extra lap around the track. Upon this there was a story I don't know if you caught it. You guys don't read the Washington Post, but I do. And John granted the Washington Post an interview saying that he felt like a coach that had gatorade poured all over himself when President Trump issued the executive
order on birthright citizenship. Wow, what an image John Eastman covered in gatorade. There'd have to be a boycott of gatorade, I suppose after that. But the reason I bring it up with Steve is because Steve was the roommate of one that John Eastman in graduate school. So I have a question for you, Steve that I actually post when
I did a debate about birthright citizenship this week. Is if Eastman is right, if Trump is right, if Lucretia is right, then isn't wasn't Kamala Harris illegally vice president? Oh and illegally presidential Kennedy because both of her parents were here on student visas, if I remember he is?
Yeah, Well, okay, So by the way you mentioned, you gave a way that we were roommates for a couple of years and the house he rented from the great late Peter Drucker, you know, pretty famous person.
Oh, the business management guru.
Yes, that's right.
I hope he overcharged you on the rents? Capitalist would he undercharged us? He was way below the market rate. And the funny thing was is we would often be deliberately late with our rent, so he would call us up in his great vine actresses.
You are late with your rent. Oh, I'm so sorry. Professor Trucker will drive it right over. So you go over and talk to him a little bit, because he's a very friendly guy. And then some of her time, I'll tell you about John's van catching fire in the back of yourd and burning to the ground. That was a fun moment in nineteen eighty two or so. Oh but Lucretia and I both have lots of paper on John. Look, all I want to say is they are.
You mean more indictments than the ones we already know about?
Oh? God, sorry, I've got lots, although I do remember John. I'm sorry. This is fun, you know, John, Both you and I talked to the Los Angeles Times reporter who we both with reluctance talk to because she said the story was what was John Eastman like before January sixth? And I thought, okay, if you want to know serious background. I'll give it a try. And she said, you guys sound like a bunch of nerds. What did you do for fun? And I hesitate and I said, we went
to grateful dead concerts, which is true. There's this long pause on the phone and you could hear her head exploding because this did not work right. I mean, this is impossible. But there was a whole bunch of US right wing dead heads at Claremont those days. Look, all I want to say, very briefly, is because I can
tell I'm frustrating Lucretia already with this trivia. Is you know Richard Epstein and Elizabeth Foley both came out on our side against you, John so Ha, And you know I'll leave the exact arguments for later, but I think that's interesting. And the broader point is is Trump likes to pick a fight. It's by the way, I said five things, there's more than five, but these are related at the highest level. The birthright citizenship connects with the
question of these nationwide injunctions by district court judges. We may want to talk about that an hour later, but both of these things are up in the air, and I think good for Trump. Look the bushes, the bushwazi as I forever said, they always shrunk from these challenges, and Trump it's like, oh, really there's a challenge.
I yes, I will just say this much, John, that I probably received twenty or twenty five emails from listeners who wanted to know what the heck was wrong with you on your views on birthright citizenship, many of them speculating that your opposition to it is because you yourself are an immigrant.
I am, yeah, and.
Of removing your personal feelings from the issue, and therefore we don't have to pay attention to what you say.
Way, I'm actually I'm unaffected by whatever the rule is because I'm a naturalized citizen no matter what the rules.
Well, and to me, well also, I mean here I have to invoke the Peter Shram slogan. Peter Shram, also an immigrant from Hungary, said I was born American but in the wrong country, and that that kind of fits you. John. I hate to give you that high compliment because it kills me, but it's true.
Well, you know, I'm a citizen of the world. Wherever there's a MCI, I can I can go. I'm I'm at home anywhere I can go to McDonald's. I'm at home.
Do they have McGriff's in Israel?
Actually not going to McDonald's in Israel. I have been in Israel for a whole summer and I didn't go to McDonald's. I didn't see one, actually now that I remember it. But let me address the universal injunction question real quick. We could fit in here because, as Lucretia mentioned, a judge in Washington State has issued nationwide injunction and this is actually something that judges have done against both parties, right, Obama and Biden suffered from these as well as Trump.
There's actually a hard legal question here, and there have been Justice Thomas at least has called for this question to make it up to the Supreme Court. Whether a district judge can actually enjoin the entire federal government. I don't think he can or she can, because the way it works is a district judge is a judge over certain territory, like in there's a Southern District of New York which includes New York City. Of them, yeah, there's
ninety four of them. I think Washington d C. Has Some states are entire districts themselves, and so the way I understand it is the district judge can issue an order to whoever's in their territory, but not outside their territory.
But the question is what if the order is one where it would cause excessive disruption for having the government operate under two different rules, that would be impossible, you know that, So they could you know, the could Trump, for example, deny passports to people in Texas because the judges they agree with them. But then he can't give out he can't give out the passports. He can give out the passports and other parts of it, doesn't that's the claim. I think that's a misreading of the powers
of the judge. I think a judge only has the power within their territory. And that's the question Justice Thomas identified as requiring Supreme Court resolution because there's no clear answer in the cases.
So John, couldn't that question a be answered by Congress because the district courts were created by Congress, so Congress could in fact define what their jurisdiction is, yes or no. And the second thing is, I'll just bring it up because Steve put it in the chat too. We were both curious, how is it accepted practice that a district court judge's injunction et cetera can apply to the whole nation, but a circuit court ruling, the appellate court ruling applies
only to that circuit. And unless you know that the Supreme Court gets involved, you do have in fact different interpretations of laws and constitutional provisions depending on the circuit if the Supreme Court hasn't spoken on the issue.
Oh no, that's another reason why I think judges aren't allowed to do these universal injunctions. But what people on the other side would say is, well, there's universal nationwide injunction. That doesn't mean somewhere else, in another court or another circuit, the government can't go and litigate there and try to get a different outcome. That's still possible. But I think no,
But I agree with that. I think that that's I mean, we have circuits that have their own territories too, and they can't affect I don't think effectively bind a government for this actually came up in the Reagan years, and Reagan actually did try for about two years to try to deny that circuit courts and district courts could do this kind of nationwide injunction. Uh, And they got so much crap from Congress that they kind of caved. It was towards it was in the second half in the
second term, Reagan second term. But look, we have to take a break. You believe this is like gosh, this is just like Trump's time in office. The time is passing so fast. We've already hit the first ad break. So we'll be back after these messages. We're back, and Lucretia has yet another question about these.
Nation promise I promised, John, because you're the expert on this, and I really have been asking many many people, and I don't know the answers to any of this. What you said makes sense. But my last question is a little bit more fun. What if you just mentioned that
Reagan tried to sort of push back on it. What if Trump just said, screw you, excuse my language, Family show, and to any of those judges the ones you know, there's been quite a few of them now, even one that he appointed, I believe, said you can't lay off all of those despicable USAID employees until at least Monday. You know, the whole thing's crazy. But what if Trump just caused a constitutional crisis here?
Then?
What what if he did the Andrew Jackson thing.
I mean he could do that. I mean it would not be a good way to win at the Supreme Court ultimately, but you can effectively get the same outcome I think by just going to like we were talking about, going to another district court or another circuit and litigating for a different outcome. So you know, if you're if one judge you know holds the birthright citizenship clause, I'm sorry, EO un constitutional, go to another judge somewhere else in the country and get them to uphold it, and then
go to the Supreme Court. That way, I think defying the Court. I mean yes, I mean you could follow in Jackson or Lincoln's footsteps, or even FDR's footsteps, but you're not gonna win any friends at the Supreme Court with the people you need to win a case from, which is Chief Justice John Roberts and Breck Cavanaugh, who are big believers in judicial supremacy. But anyway, let's turn to more fun stuff. Unfortunately, this is another Supreme Court issue.
I'm afraid and actually this is I can see how Lucretia's mind works, devilish as it is, which is she's already thinking about how to get Humphrey's Executor overturned. Because the second thing that Trump did is not only has he been removing people within the executive branch agencies, but this week he also fired a member of the National Labor Whereations Board. He's been he's fired people on these what they think of what we call independent agencies, these commissions.
They're a whole bunch of them. They're not run by a single person. They're run by a usually a panel of three to five people. Congress usually requires therapy partisan balance on them. The President, excuse me, does nominate with the Vice and the Consentate of the Senate appoint them. But usually these commissioners, like the FEC, the sec, SEC, all the alphabet agencies, usually cannot be removed unless they've done something illegal. So Trump went ahead and fired a few,
I think two of these types of people. There's a case called Humphrey's Executor from FDR Days, much loved by our listener one Hadley ark.
Is by the way, he thinks it's wrong, does doesn't?
Oh no, No, I think Hadley's a big fan of Humphrey's Executor. But we're we're going to invite him to send an email to let us know what he thinks. But Humphrey's executor might now be on the chopping block.
By the way, I should point out that under the Roberts Court, in a case to called seal a law a few years ago about the Consumer Finance Protection Board, Chief Justice Roberts and the majority of the Court held that for executive branch officers in the agencies like Defense or State or Justice, the president can fire them at will. They Congress can't protect them, even when Congress passes a law saying you can't fire, say, the head of the
CFPB except for cause, except for doing something legal. The Court struck that down and said no, the president must have free will to fire members of those agencies for any reason or no reason. But then the court said, we're not touching yet the case of commissions, Humphrey's executors not overruled. So that's where that's the state of things. Trump is directly contravening Humphrey's executor.
Well, so you know what I would do if I was on the court. I had to take up a case challenging Humphrey's executor. I wouldn't even reach the question of whether or not the President could fire officials on these quasi legislative and quasi judicial administrative bodies. I would strike down the entire apparatus from the get go. I would say, an fec an sec et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, is unconstitutional. We have a separation of powers.
Where it's not separated, it's checks and balances. There's nothing in the Constitution about the stupid quasi whatever bodies. Knock them out and tell Congress figure out a better way consistent with the separation of powers to do what it is you're trying to do with those agencies. That's what I would do if I were on the Supreme Court.
Oh dear, oh see, I was gonna go. I was gonna talk on the point about how independent agency is an oxymoron, and not just in National Labor Relations Board person. But the firing I celebrated most was Ellen Wintromp from the Federal Election Commission, who was appointed to what is the six or seven year terms. That's the weird commission because it's three and three unlike most of the commissions. But she was appointed to a six or seven year term and has been there for twenty two years. Without
without a successive appointment. Right, that's because the FEC is dysfunctional. But the NLRI so, and by the way, I'll just say this, I have a lot of inside knowledge about the FBC and Ellen Wine Trump. She's not well liked by anybody. Let's just leave that aside.
Okay, take a really important point and trivialize it for me. Thanks, Steve.
No, it's fow No. I'm going to come back to your point actually and invoke sorry, you're baiting me, is the problem. So the NLRIB lady, so a week ago, I think we mentioned this or two weeks ago, or maybe he was on Ricochet, but nobody had yet challenged the firings because they thought, oh my god, it's going to open up Humphreys executors and to be struck down and then Trump's off to the races. But the NLRB lady has sued. So now the case is teed up. Now,
Lucretia your point. You know, look, the Supreme Court ruled, i mean way back in the late nineteenth century about the Interstate Commerce Commission. It is an important political science point that it was constitutional. Now I think it's weak. I think i'd be on your side. However, our late friend John Weddergreen made the point that those old commissions, the ICC, the Federal Trade Commission, the Food and certain
other ones you can name the Securities Exchange Commission. They always had the five members, but they had to be, you know, three from the majority party, two for the minority party. What those commissions did was replicate on the administrative level the partisan split in Congress in between the
two parties, so they would fight about things. Then you get to the sixties and you get now the EPA with the administrator and and and the Consumer product, the Consumer Protection and Financial whatever the hell thing the thing is right CFPB. The CFPB, the new model was much more centralized, did not replicate albeit defective but still deliberative body h whose actions and regulations could be appealed through
the defective Administrator Procedure Act. And so anyway, I think you can start unraveling these I don't think you're geting a Supreme Court to appoint you to the court, because that would terrify the whole universe lucretia if you were on the court. But I think you might work back the.
Kid whose name I won't mention, the savantin do.
I won't.
Well, that's not the guy who got rehired. We'll come back to that later. I hope.
Well he never got fired, but he's getting a lot of bad press because you know, Okayonis, I'll say it like that, that's his handle.
Okay, that's that way.
So yeah, come on, this is a whole new era, Steve. We're not pussy footing around at the margins anymore.
Well, I agree, I agree, and.
I think that this is that the court oughtite say. It doesn't matter that you you said it yourself. Independent agencies and oxymoron, but not more than that. We don't want an independent agency. We have to get over that stupid progressive idea that because someone has some expertise in some discipline, some area of policy, that they somehow can be totally public spirited and never self interested or partisan. That's why we have Congress. We don't want independent agencies,
quasi agency, judicial agencies, et cetera, et cetera. Get rid of them all.
Can I just add that for the street fighting that you need for this battle. Look, it was near dear to me because of my past life. Trump has fired the science advisory boards, all of them at the EPA. That's something that during the Bush years we were yelling about and they didn't do it. Okay, so that's not getting a lot of press except for you know, wonky nerds like me.
I don't know if you also saw this, but just just a few hours ago, Trump said he's going to fire the entire board of the Kennedy Center, and to point himself is the chair of the board.
And by the way, Christopher Scalia came out and said, why is it that presidents always want to take things too far? Something along those lines. He got racial so bad.
I'm not sure. I know, Christopher, you do too, John, I'm not sure if he meant that literally. I think he might have been making a joke there. I mean, he might have been being I wrong.
It was not written in any way that looked like sarcasm.
And again, yeah, okay, I'm.
Just trying to imagine the kind of Atlantic City esque acts are going to be in the Kenny Center. Now, I'll just.
Mention that Christopher is a frequent listener of this podcast, I know, and.
I like him very much, but he's wrong on this one. If he was being sarcastic, he was a little too subtle.
About it.
I will say that I didn't read Chris's tweet, but what I would read him to say is why does a president give a ratsass about the Kennedy Center. It's a lot more important things, well the same reason.
It's the same reason that he's doing things. Like I talked to you guys beforehand, all the forms across the DoD are going to be changed, the forms that you fill out, and you know, whatever information you're giving. But when it asks, the usual question these days is gender, and for the most part, DOOD forms at least until very recently, just gave you male and female now. But not only did they change it to simply male and female, but they changed the word gender and replaced it back
with sex. And that means they understand the importance of stopping this manipulation of language that always benefits the left. And Trump understands that the Kennedy Center gets federal money, et cetera, et cetera. And what do they do they should they have, you know, drag shows and on and on. So I'm all in favor of it.
Well, actually I went when I lived in Washington, I used to go to some of the operas at Kennedy Center, and too many of these more.
Lived in Washington two decades ago, Steve.
I know, but I would go to the Kennedy Center and they would have these modernist operas like that awful one we saw in Milan a couple of years ago. But here's the broader point, John, is our team has been fighting the culture wars for decades with one hand tied behind our back. And so Trump now is saying, you know what, We're going to fight a culture war.
It's going to be total war. And I love the idea that you're going to fire the Kennedy Center board because that's really going to upset some people more than I don't know, putting in Jason Schubau at a National Dawmage for the arts, and I think, I look, I'm quite certain that Christopher Scillia understands this, because remember his dad's great comments on culture in some of his descents, in so many of those great culture war cases of
the Supreme Court. And if not, then will beat him up any lunch.
But I think Lucretia is just happy about it, because apparently President Biden had to point to Carene Jean Pierre to the board members as well, as the wife of former Secretary State Anthony Blincoln. So I think this is just Lucretia being vengeful. No, she's never avengeful. And we have to take we have to take another before we have to take another break in the moment, and then when we come back, we will return to Lucretia after
these messages. Lucretia had a heartwarming message for us before I went to the break, but I cut her off.
Lucretia, Yeah, and you were right to cut me off. I talk too much. But a heart attribution for all of our enemies. I have a simple Bible verse for all everyone tonight, for you to memorize forever. Vengeance is mine saith the Lord, and I'm just here to do the Lord's work.
See, you missed the best the better line, which is from Star Trek, which Steve knows, which is Star Trek, which is vengeance is a dish best served, which sounds even better. No, yeah, well no, you killed this again, you say, But it sounds so much better in the original Klingon then, but then there's a need. There's an even better one, which is from the Sopranos, which is where one of the dumber you know, mafia guys goes hey, isn't there some story like vengeance is like a cold meat plate?
You were mixing up two different stars Star Trek movies.
But that's okay, all right there, It's all one big movie in my mind. Okay, Let's go to issue number three, which actually something I wrote about today in National Review but people are much talking about it, which is, can
the present cident freeze all spending? President Trump basically ordered all non mandatory spending, which by which I believe he meant spending that's not Social security, spending that's not medicare medicated, that's not entitlement based, but all discretionary spending to be
halted frozen temporarily. After being attacked, the memo ordering the freeze was repealed, but then the White House pre secretary said, nevertheless, the freeze is in place, where upon a federal district judge used that as the grounds to try to enjoin the White House and force it to spend money, but raise a whole question does a president have what's used to be called the impowment authority, which presidents had exercised
up through until President Nixon. President Nixon tried to reduce spending across the federal budget for inflation reason to reduce federal spanning to get inflation down, Congress passed thing called the Budget Empowerment Control Act forbidding presidents from doing this.
Presidents generally have obeyed until now, until Donald Trump showed up and said, I do have an impoundment authority if some kind Steve, why don't we go to you first, since you are a lover of all things Nixon and Carter and Ford?
Yeah?
What do you think about Trump's claim that there is indeed an impowerment authority and the suggestion of his aide like the head of omb Russ vote vote I think is pronounced. He was just void last night. Who thinks that the Budget and Empowerment Control Act is actually unconstitutional? Yeah?
So, so, first of all, I do want to correct you on a small point. It's not that small. Nixon wasn't impounding money for inflation purposes. He was impounding money because he was serious about getting control of the bureaucracy. Uh, and finding inflation was just a gravy. Now look, uh, look impalment as you know, I mean, you've written about this. It goes back to Jefferson, I pounding money appropriated for Navy ships that he said we didn't need because the
French weren't going to go to war with us after all. Right, Now here's the thing. There's a whole it's sort of John Marine is so brilliant. What's going on with the AID money. What happens is Congress appropriates a bunch of money, it gives us to AID and other government agencies and said, you guys decide how to spend it for these general purposes. And it seems to me it's entirely within the president's constitutional preocative to say, no, we're going to stop those. Now.
In the Reagan years, I know this happened a lot. Oh, and these things all the way, by the way, they had these advisory boards and all these review processes, and that grant applications. It's an insider game, and these things
take two three years sometimes in their grant cycles. And it often happened where Reagan would read in human Events, the Department of Education had given money for what was the version the eighties equivalent of some transgender play in Ireland, which was, you know, a real thing happened right under aid. And he'd say, are we really doing this? And he'd call up Bill Bennett, and Bill Bennet said, oh my god, we really are doing this. It's too late to stop it.
The money's committed as a legal problem all the rest of this, and Trump, with his total district art of convention, said the hell with that, and I'm all for it. The broader question you raised is was the budget impoundment and control that unconstitutional? I think it will depend on whether it is sort of mandated spending like defense, Although even defense, I think you have lots of discretion to say, if lockeat or Bowling is ripping us off on a plane,
we can withhold the money and so forth. So I think there's a lot more room for presidents to exert their executive authority on spending. And you know, good for Trump to whether he thinks of it as a constitutional challenge or just this is common sense. I'm all for it, and I'm not sure what the outcome will be.
You have credit, John, because going after usaid we even talked about this briefly before, and it actually all happened last week. I said he was going to keep it up no matter what. On USA. I d because of course it's so egregious. The expenditures in recent years. And
you know, to some extent. I heard somebody talking today that the you know, it was in fact, at some point used for more what we might call right wing causes, and USI aid, was smart enough to figure out, you know, supposedly helping dictators and things like that, and that you know, bringing in all this transgender stuff got the left to go along with that. I actually think it's more like
the money laundering part. But I'll leave that brilliant to go after them, right because other than Maxine Waters, as Trump called her today, a real low life, I love it. God, I love that true. Who else is going to get up there and scream that somehow Elon musk Is is you know, a dictator because he's stopping payments for turning Guatemalans into transgenders. And you know, god, I didn't even know repeat it. Everybody's heard it, But how brilliant because
it set it. I mean, it actually changed the conversation entirely and forced the idiot Democrats who are already reeling and you know, chasing every little thing they can. They don't even know what to do about it. So there they are out there screaming, we have to keep spending money on all these great things that you Samantha Powers.
Oh, we're gonna you.
Know, dictators are going to take over the world now because we're no longer giving money to African countries to advance their pronoun usage.
You know.
Look, look, if AID had they said it was used for some right wing causes. John and if I if I learned an AID had supplied helicopters to Pinechet, then I warm up to them a little more off to that. But I don't think so. Look, but here's the point, by the way, is the defense of the Democrats right now was well, really, it's such a tiny amount of money, and it's not about the money. And it put it this way.
If you don't call brit Hume said the same thing.
What's not it's not a lot of money.
Yeah, it's Forney.
Well but but but these things are singling out is not much money. It's not about the money, about the money. The point is if you took these as a list of all these crazy grants and put them to the vote of the American people, they would lose seventy five to twenty five. How democratic is that? Threats to democracy? These crazy people say, these systems are set up precisely to avoid public knowledge and public scrutiny, and it's laundering money to leftist groups. This has been known for a
long time. I mean, Grover Northquest thirty years ago is saying, we've got to figure out a way to stop the government from funding the left. And you know, you're you're conventional the boushoisi as I used to call them. They never figured this out and never took it seriously.
I'm much more radical about that than you are. Let's just take I know it's hard to believe Bill Crystal
as an example. It came out because Bill Crystal came out and said, ah, I prefer the deep state to Trump, and immediately some clever reporter or investigator points out that through a whole series of basically shell companies, starting with some philanthropy that got a bunch of money, millions of dollars from usai D, Bill Crystal's what is it again, defending democracy now or us that we did whatever the stupid thing is, which has done nothing, but millions have
been channeled into Bill Crystal's pocket through usai D through this and you can see it on the internet everywhere. Through the different shell companies and so on where he got his money, and so you know they don't get more Bushwazi than Bill.
Crall I have, I have. I have no idea whether that's true. But when Bill Crystal files his first amendment his defamation lawsuit, make sure you only put down Lucretia as a defendant. And that means because I don't actually know what you're talking about. But well, I want to ask you the harder question which is raised by what you're talking about, which is, let's keep it on USA I D. Can Trump not only say I'm not going to spend the money, but I'm going to close the
agency on my own right? The USA i D originally was created by an executive order under John F. Kennedy, but then in Congress passed the statute creating it or establishing it. So it's a it's an agency created by Congress. Congress sets out the number of employees, gives it a budget, tells it what to do. Can a president actually just say as appears Trump has said, or is it in the process doing it? I have the power to close an agency without Congress's approval.
One would think that if you take seriously article two that absolutely, yes, absolutely.
Oh so, well, because the law says that agency, the president executes the law. The agency is created by Congress, it's told to have a mission, and there's personnel, and so we could have argument about well, I'm not going to spend money that's wasteful, or but can the president say I'm going to spend zero.
So you know, John, you're punking us again like you do on natural law and positivism. I can't believe that you, the defender of executive power, is raising this question. I mean I can but look forget the sort of you know, the sort of transgender play san gender opera in Ireland. It ought to be. Well, I'm calling for a separation of media and state. Remember when Rush Limbaugh used to talk about the state run media. Turned out it was
literally right. So here's from the Columbia Journalism Review this week, which is, you know, the Columbia School of Journalism is a very left wing uh.
The trade publication for journalists.
Yeah right. The Columbia Journalism Review has looked through this and they their numbers are unbelievable. AID grants have supported over six thousand journalists seven hundred news outlets and then two hundred and seventy nine of what they describe as media sector civil society organizations, which means leftists in thirty countries. If that, if the fact that there's so much The BBC admitted this week they got eight percent of the revenue the last two years from US AID the freaking BBC.
Really we'rezing the BBC.
We are subsidizing the BBC after making the British taxpayers do it by compulsion. If that to the of millions, yeah, but oh yes, correct, I mean, but but but look, if that John does not fall under the president's authority to be the sole organ let's go back to uh, you know, the new deal case as I'm blanking on that doesn't fall in the.
Presidence, right, Curtis right? In case Curtis right, it's Curtis right, is blanking on it.
If that wasn't If this isn't under the president's authority on foreign policy, I don't know what it is.
You see. I'm with you guys on there on this one. Because it does try to force a certain foreign policy and national security on the president. What if it was something solely domestic without any foreign policy. Suppose it was the EPA ste Steve's favorite agency because it administers those unnamed all powerful statutes. But suppose President Trump said, you know, this environmentalism is out of control, This climate change is
out of control, global warming is out of control. So I'm just gonna tell the EPA to stop doing anything and just to close. You're farming the country.
The executive power, the executive not some of the executive power, not a little bit, not domestic versus foreign. The executive power show invested in a president of the United States. Why, because that's the person you can hold accountable. How do you hold the EPA accountable right now?
You don't.
I mean you don't. How do you hold the sec accountable? You don't, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, until and remember Obama, Oh abominable, gets up there and says, oh, I really didn't have anything to do with that. That was just the irs. Oh I didn't really know anything about it till I read it in the newspaper. The idea that we even accept such a ridiculous, ridiculous, ludicrous concept from that idiot. We need to re educate people. I'm okay with the president doing all of these things,
hold him accountable. You know, hold Trump accountable for what he's doing. Make his case to the American people that the American people judge. Right now, the American people are pretty damn happy with what Trump is doing.
You know.
The biggest thing trending on X that you are not a part of, John and should be is, Yes, this is what I voted for. This is exactly what I voted for. This is exactly what I voted for. Elon Musk is exactly what I voted for. On and on and No, that's how it's supposed to work. It's not supposed to be some nambypmb SEC making this decision and blah blah blah. We can't figure out who to blame. That's the whole point. You hold him accountable for those decisions.
Well, so, John, I will not talk about the problems of the EPA because it would evolve those statutes we can't name. But I'll just say this briefly about it was ten years ago now, I had an article on the Wall Street Journal where I said the EPA should be changed into a commission like the old ICC or FTC, with five commissioners, so it operated like the original model
of Regula okay, now had no way. You know, Wedergreen used to forget the argument about that model the point as they were flooded with letters and I got a million tweets and stuff saying that would cripple the EPA, And of course my answer was precisely good.
Yeah, good, well, thank you. See we have believe it or not. One more ad break and so we'll be right back after these messages. As you can all tell. Being an immigrant, as Lucretia pointed out, we get things done. And so we're way ahead of game plan. We've run out of all the issues that I wanted to talk about, and we still have fifteen minutes left in this show. This is why, you know, as watching Asian comedian there
are some on Netflix. I have to say he wasn't very funny, but one thing he did say was we could solve all the government's problems just by letting Asians run the government, and then everything would be like the podcast episode today, we'd be fifteen.
Minutes early, so and a lot by the way, and so.
And and and everybody got to vent. So the last issue I've come up with is not really an issue at all. But I wanted to ask Lucretia and Steve, what to you was the story of the week that we haven't talked about yet? What is a big thing that caught your attention this week? It has been a delusive issues from Trump these last two weeks. Actually, I think we've done a really good job in the last two episodes covering the important a lot of the important changes.
So Steve, why don't you tell us what is the big issue for you of the week? Well, okay then, and then Lucretia will mock you for yeah, but ahead.
Of course, well that's your job. Look, I think there's a story here late in the week. There's a story late in the week, and then an important subtext to it. The story was that there was one of these young guys that mus Get brought in as part of his doge team, and lo and behold in his past. A few years ago he put some really you know, edgy provocative twet by the way, very much in line with what a lot of young men are saying. And he said I was a racist before it was cool, and
some other stuff. Now, he had taken them down quite a while ago, but of course, everything on the internet lasts forever. In the way back machine, and some reporter who's a left winger at the Wall Street Journal news pages found this, and so they fired him. But in less than twenty four hours J. D. Vancenothers said, hey, wait a minute, I thought we were done with this, and he has been rehired as of the end of the week. And so, in other words, it's sort of over.
And of course my coda to this is, and I actually I'm serious about this. We will know that wokeism is over when blazing saddles can be shown on a college campus, which you know you couldn't do. Right now, there's a subtext here, and I was telling Lucretia this before we got on. I noticed this week, and I've been seeing this for a while, but today there was
one particular person. There's now a community of sort of eminent conservative thinkers friends of ours who have been intransitently anti Trump for ten years, and by degrees some of them have come around to defending him and then acknowledging, you know what, only Trump could do this, only next to go to China. Only Trump could defeat wokism by, as I said earlier, fighting the culture war for real.
And there's one person in particular, and I'm not going to name his name because he's actually hasn't been very public about his dislike of Trump, but I knew privately he was, and he said on social media for the first time in decades, I'm optimistic about the future of the country and rooting for Trump. And so now all the only people who left are people like Bill Crystal and you know, these crazy people who are.
Forty nine percent of the country well against the country.
Yeah, but I'm thinking, but I'm thinking of people in our camp. I mean, I'm thinking for the names that if I mentioned your people, you know that our listeners would know, and I don't, you know, I don't want to be embarrassing them for because I look, I look, I was an anti Trumper ten years ago, right, and I think I came around quicker than most.
But now when I actually Steve Can, I ask you, did you contribute a peace to the infamous Trump issue of the National Review?
I did.
And the funny thing was is they asked me for three They asked me for three hundred words, and I only turned down one hundred and fifty and every one of them was wrong, including including and and the But.
But Okay, I'm gonna those who don't get that, isn't that what Dorothy Parker Parker, Yes, yes, that's Hellman.
Yeah, yeah, he did shortly thereafter. So that was what July maybe that National.
It was it was February of twenty sixteen, so it was very early in the.
Problem, very early.
I didn't realize it was that early. But in October of twenty sixteen, Steve wrote what I think was probably the most prescient, uh piece for the Weekly Standard of all places, about Trump and one of the things, and what he said about Trump has turned out to be truer in twenty twenty what are we twenty twenty five? Then it was even in twenty sixteen, and that is that Trump was successful because he refused to play by
the left's rules. And as I recall, Steve, you even quoted Ted Cruse saying we have to use the language of the left, and Trump refuses to do it. And so so that being said, my story of the weed.
Well, I can I just sorry, Well, I know, but I want to add a footnote to your comment about the Weekly Standard article which was middle of October of twenty sixteen, and of course the mynsterpiece.
I still have that edition.
Yeah, well, good for you, because it doesn't exist anymore excepted never mind, but I wrote that before John Marini and Michael Antonas and the other people said hey, wait a minute, look at this Trump guy. There's something going on here. But the funny thing was I sent that article in and you know, Bill, look at that. I got on with Bill. You know, it's been a Palati
agreed to run the article. Many of the editors wanted it to be the cover story, and he said no. They ran a cover story on NFL referees that week, So there you go.
I have to say I still live on I hope, in Claremont history because I remember back in twenty sixteen. I was shocked, actually that my fete, you know, highly educated Claremont friends who kind of ignore politics and want to talk about Aristotle all the time, we're supporting Trump.
I quickly it's a whole episode by itself.
I will have to have that because I don't understand that.
But yeah, we can do that.
Though. One of my Claremont vnders reminding me that I the New York Times did a story about this, like, why are these people supporting Trump, and they quoted me, quoting me when I found out because I took a whole bunch of Claremont people to a famous Philadelphia Italian restaurant when I learned, because we were in Philadelphia for a political science meeting, and I said something like, when I learned this, I spat my fine Sicilian food all over my shoes because I couldn't believe it.
Right, right, right, Yeah, what.
Is your story of the week.
My story of the week is the the full on attack, full frontal attack on DEI and the the terror that it is putting into university officials. I think I sent you guys from a university in my neighborhood, the confidential from the lawyers. I've got to be careful here about how we are supposed to dig through our entire college.
I am supposed to provide a list of every position that has DEI in its title, in its not partially in its job description, every at activity, every student group, every course, every bit of curriculum, every accrediting body that
demands any kind of sorry, it's DEIA. So it's also accessibility, which is interesting to add that to the mix, because that almost puts the entire you know, what do we call it at my university, the Disabilities Resource Center where they force us to do jump through all these hoops for students who have you know, neurodivergencees and so on. So accessibility brings in something else. But they told us
to think about it broadly. They're trying to figure out what they have to get rid of and what they don't, And go ahead, please that.
I'm just going to follow up on Lucretia's point without naming any universities, departments or friends or teachers. I shared with Steven Lucretian email that I received from a faculty somewhere in the country saying we have to have an emergency faculty meeting so that we can discuss the slide into autocracy and what we can do about it. I mean, and so I wondered how many of these faculty meetings on this subject they're going on this week all around
the country. You know what Trump panic, that's that's been triggered.
You know what Trump want to do? If what he wants to blow up the campuses to say, you know, I think it's time for us to go back to Vietnam. That would be so much fun.
In the South China Sea. I mean we could go back and develop it, find it cam make for great conduct.
Vietnam free Gaza I I. I will say that there are lots of different avenues because Trump is willing to use them that he can use against it. The last thing I got just an hour or so ago was a panicky email from a fellow dean who said, who sent me a story about ni H reducing their indirect
costs to no more than fifteen percent. Now, for just in case there's people out there, if you get a grant from the National Institute for Health, you have something called indirect costs that is overhead overhead overhead basically that goes directly to the university because you're doing this business, so you know, they got to pay for the lights
and things like that. Most recently a university near me who which we won't name, their indirect cost rate was fifty three percent, which means that every grant that you do just to get what you need done or pay the salaries or so on, you just had forty seven percent to spend and the rest of it went to
the university. That's why all of these woke progressive administrators at universities are panicking because if Trump makes good on his promise to stop all of these grants that have anything to do with DEI, they're going to go broke.
They're going to go Actually, Trump could probably go farther and say he will just cut off all federal funding to any university that uses race in any way, and so it'll go well beyond the feet, it'll just go to a.
Federal funding those grants, you know.
But I'm just gonna get everything student loans, any kind of federal dollar that could end up that the university could be cut off completely. I mean, that's I think the next executive order he's going to issue after a few weeks.
And I'm sorry, go ahead, keep ahead.
Well, I mean our pal Jay Batacharia, I'm not sure if he's installed, get it in an age. I'm not clearing all that night.
I think he has to still have confirmation hearing.
Yeah, okay, Well, if he will, he will sail through those I think. Look, he's been saying he's going to condition grants possibly on you know, free speech policies and diversity and some other things. But the overhead question is separate from that. I mean, yeah, nih grants have always been They've always taken a big hair cut for adminuted overhead administration, right, and I think everyone's understood that was part of the game, and those grants were probably padded
for that. That's why universities, of course, you have.
To write them that way or you can't do it.
Okay, I fear that if we're talking about university oversight charges. Yeah, we really lost the audience and they were only down to the last few Straussian PhD candidates who have yet to get their degree are now left listening. Okay, okay, so let me bring it to a conclusion.
Lucretia, I just wanted to say, I was just driving home. I was listening to some news. I was driving long ways today and Trump was taking questions as always I think with the Japanese Prime minister, h is what it was. And some Afghan reporter uh asked him a question, and I mean, I'm driving in the cars coming over the radio. I couldn't understand what he said. But she he says, I'm sorry, I didn't understand a word you just said. And he says, where are you from? And she said Afghan.
He says, well, he says, that's a beautiful place. He says, I can't understand a word you're saying. You have a lovely voice, and I wish you peace. And then he moved on, and I thought maybe that should pierce.
That's good.
Yeah, yeah, Babylon b. Uh, there's so many I'm gonna since we talked to I'm gonna do a few USAID ones World Sorry, World Health Organization, Warrens. Trump funding cuts made these delay release of new pandemic. Sorry, that wasn't the USA. I get the point, same difference, Uh, in keeping with the money that was going to journalists, journalism, Babylon B. There was a big thing all week long
about they were really disappointed. If they'd have known that they could have gotten million millions of dollars from the federal government, the Babylon B. If they'd have just told the government, line would have been happy to do it. Babylon B announces thirty six thousand dollars a month pro subscription for USAID funded government agencies. I guess you since you didn't know about it, John, you probably don't think that's funny.
But I do.
Democrats delay cash PTEL vote as FBI hasn't finished shredding all their documents. One of my personal favorites. All Senate confirmation votes delayed until Mitch McConnell unfreezes again.
Ooh that's nice, love it. That's yeah, it's true.
What a stumback Democrats are sure Americans the millions in usaid they gave Hamas was just for gay stuff. Sorry, this will be my last one, I promise, UH country with record illiteracy, worried what will happen if education system reformed? And it's a picture of that low life Maxine Waters screaming at the poor security guard that wasn't going to let her into the Department of Education today. So that's the end. There's many more, and the Babylon B must just be having the time of their lives.
I actually, if one thing people may not have caught in all the many changes is that Trump is going to start allowing non conventional journalists into the White House Press briefing room. And I believe the Babylon B has filed for credentials to be I mean, imagine if they get a reporter in there and they get to ask questions that would be unbelievable. So our sign off always drink your whiskey. Meet and Steve.
You know, I'll just mention that in twenty twenty, Trump gave a shout out to power Line and had Scott Johnson up on the stage with him. Said, power Line does always great job on iilhan omer and stuff, so we might want to apply for it. Yeah he did. And the other problem is, you know, I had a sign off last week. I don't remember, and I got nothing. I got, I got five years.
I don't care something. Margaret, Oh, that's right, it was the agent fans.
Yeah, okay, frankly, Margaret.
Frankly, Margaret, I don't give a damn Bye bye everybody. We'll see you next week.
Bye.
Ricochet. Join the conversation.