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News broke yesterday that Homeland Security Secretary Christy Nome had three thousand dollars worth of cash stolen out of her purse at a restaurant here in downtown DC. We could put that first element up on the screen. This is a report from CNN.
That lays out exactly what happened.
I'm just going to read from the story Department of Homeland Security Secretary Christinomes fell victim to a thief while eating dinner at a downtown DC restaurant Sunday night. The secretary confirmed Monday, Gnome, who has asked about the theft at the Easter egg roll, acknowledged the incident and said
the matter has not been resolved. The thief got away with Nom's driver's license, medication, apartment keys, passport, DHS access badge, makeup bag, blank checks, and about three thousand dollars in cash.
Now.
A DHS spokesperson explained this to CNN by saying her entire family was in town, including her children and grandchildren. She was using the withdrawal, referring obviously to the three thousand dollars of cash to treat her family to dinner activities and Easter gifts. Now, I do want to also put the next element up on the screen. This is a post from Susan Crabtree, who is one of the
best reporters on the White House Beat period. She says this appears to be yet another significant Secret Service failure. The agent's protecting Noome allowed a man in a medical mask to walk by her table and snatch her purse with three thousand dollars in it. Susan goes on to say the detailed leader of nome secret service team should have been sitting within ten feet of her one or
two tables away according to USSS protocol. Why aren't we hearing that a Secret Service agent tried to intervene or at least chased the man down, Sager, This is such a bizarre story. I don't know if you've ever been to the restaurant. This is Capital Burger, So it's by the Convention Center, across from the Apple Store that's walked by.
The Carnegie Library.
Turned, I know exactly what we're talking about.
You know, it's actually a pretty good restaurant.
But all right, shoutout Capitolah.
Shoutout Capitol Burg.
But so bizarre that you have a cabinet secretary sitting to dinner with Secret Service having her purse snatch. Now there's another layer of weirdness by the fact that you had three grand in CAP's a lot of money, and her passport on her weird to perhaps to get into the White House even though you're a cabinet secretary, may still need something like that. I have no idea, but it's extremely weird that Secret Service should be sitting within
ten feet of her. Yes, again, this is a presidential candidate was shot in the head not even a year ago.
I mean, she's a top law enforcement officer in the county. I don't think people understand this insane. You literally is the boss of the largest law enforcement agency in the United States.
Homeland Security.
They can't secure the Secretary of Homeland Security in the nation's capital about five blocks from the White House.
I don't know.
I mean, look, maybe she was targeted because maybe she was targeted because of her notorious like flashy taste. So we were, by the way, for watch nerds, she was rockin' ofx a solid gold Rolex Daytona, which is for anybody familiar with watches, you're like, whoa, I mean, that's a minimum of twenty five fifty thousand dollars.
That's got to be one of them.
That is one of that is the ultimate rich guy flex is a Rolex Daytona. And then yeah, even the women's ones, they can really climb up there in price. So she's previously worn a Rolex Daytona.
I think no, I mean just traditionally women's watches.
Are not worth this much because people they don't they're no idiots like me, We're willing to pay. But anyways, kars No is Karsy nome top law enforcement officer in the country. The whole thing is just bizarre because it's, like you said, she has a protection detail which is supposed to be immediately within her vicinity, three thousand dollars in cash, driver's license, and apartment keys stolen while she's
eating dinner at the downtown. You also have the department there where there's you know, theoretically, if you think about it, like there's tons of classified information on her phone or possibly in her purse, like notes, other access keys. All cabinet secretaries have like this specific type of phone. I forget the name. I used to know what the name of it is, but it's like a name. It's a phone SPECI typically, which can have like your it's like your outlook for classified information.
But it's heavily restricted.
Like there's only like fifty or sixty of these phones in the whole US government. It's literally only for top cabinet secretaries and I think like one or two other officials. So that I think it's called high side.
That's what it is.
Well, maybe that was taken and we don't know.
Maybe they're not calling in the press, so we're relying on them to tell us what was storn.
Yeah, so the high side is that's like the communication apparatus. And by the way, that's what these people were supposed to be using instead of signal.
Yeah.
I was just going to see actually, and that they're like, so this is in your high side email. That's what I'm talking about here, That's what the high side is. So you can see that clearly there's like a major security like breach that happened here. But I mean, just broadly, it's one of those where the veneer every time of like the veneer of the protection around these individuals gets pierced.
I think is really bad.
That was what we really saw with the Trump attempted assassination, where you're like, dude, like this guy got this close to the president and only by Trump turning his head does his head not explode on line live television. And then you know, we had previous incidents in the Obama administration where people jump the fence and there's just this mystery and like hollywoodization about the professionalism of a lot
of the people who protect these people. But then in reality, you know, of average thief is able to just tell your purse when you're going and you're like, uh, in
front of Secret Service well, don't forget this. Jake Sullivan, the National Security Advisor under Joe Biden, was in his house working at three am in the morning and a guy broke into his house and was in his kitchen completely passed the Secret Service detail, and Sullivan, only because he was awake, came downstairs and he's like, who are you? He's like, what's going on here? I had to call his own detail to come and get this guy out
of there. I mean, that's extraordinary breach. This is just a number of these types of incidents where people get incredibly close to these individuals and you're just like, well, I mean, what's going to happen right as a result. And it's not a joke obviously, because as the top law enforcement officer in the country, you also have I mean, there's so many different figures like this, who are all
about Washington. I just saw a picture of a I saw a video of Kennedy yesterday walking out of Martin's stee with Martin's with the Saratoga water bottle. So a little bit too on the nose for me personally, but yeah, so like he's obviously a very hye profile figure. His father was literally assassinated. I mean, what is the like, what you know, what is the protocol around protecting these individuals.
It's really dangerous.
It's so dangerous. And this is in the middle of a reckoning period for Secret Service. I mean, remember after the Trump assassination attempt, they were hauled in front of Congress and gave all of these testimonies and pledged.
First of all, they blamed local.
Police, but then also pledged to put in reforms and be better. And how this is not this is less than a year from a presidential candidate being shot in the head on live television. Christineolman was not at a rally. She was at a restaurant with Secret Service at least
supposed to be within ten feet of her. And it sounds like from the news report that they didn't know her purse was stolen until they reviewed the security camera footage, that they literally had to go back look at the footage to notice that someone swiped the Homeland Security Secretary's purse in the middle of a busy restaurant when the entire purpose of Secret Service is to have eyes on her and her belongings. Another thing to mention is that
during Signalgate, one of the points. I think it was Jeffrey Goldberg who made this and loathesion to say it, he's completely correct. One of the problems with signal is that someone gets your phone. If someone took Jeffrey Goldberg's phone, he would have had these signal messages on it. If someone took Pete Hecceas's phone, he would have had these,
or Susie Wilds's phone, they would have. Then if they stole their purse and they had a phone in it, for example, they would have had access to the signal
messages about the strikes. Like if you are a bad actor who wants to penetrate the circle of the president, of the decision makers of the US government, of our military, and you see the Homeland Security Secretary having her passport lifted at a freaking Burger restaurant five blocks from the White House, I mean, this is an embarrassment there should be to your point. Is the last thing I'll say
about this. This social fabric can be disrupted very very severely, very quickly by security breaches that they could be assassinations, they could be close brushes with assassinations, they could be access to the classmen.
Whatever it is.
The country already feels like it is teetering on the edge of something.
Very very dark.
I totally agree, it's insane. You're right, top cabinet officials and all that. I mean, who just think about the consequences of a security breach and all. We came close with the Trump attempted assassination, and yeah, ever since then, it's just been a spotlight in this organization.
You would think that they would tighten.
Things up, but it really looks more as if it's because not because of their competence, but because of you know, like nothing has just happened all of that yet.
So anyway, all right, tell us about motherhood. What's happening?
Yes, as the only childless host of breaking points, I thought it would be a not for me to handle.
Still technically childless, I guess, well, it's cooking. It's still got you know, one or two more days. By the way, I would like for it to go ahead and hurry out, but it is what it is.
You get that, right, Yeah?
Yeah, all right.
So let's turn to this big story in the New York Times yesterday that laid out exactly what the Trump administration is planning to do in order to make good on Donald Trump's pledge to create a quote baby boom in the United States of America. We can put this first element up on the screen. The New York Times published a big feature yesterday digging into exactly how the administration is approaching this. You can see the headline is White House assesses ways to persuade children to have just
persuade women to have more children. Emma Waters from the Heritage Foundation is featured in the pho there.
I think we both know we her.
Yeah, old friend of mine.
Yeah, as a real actually really interesting thinker. First graph of the story. The White House has been hearing out a course of ideas in recent weeks for persuading Americans to get married and have more children. And early sign that the Trump administration will embrace a new cultural agenda, which, by the way, I took issue with that line in the story.
By the way, a quote.
Early sign that the Trump administration will embrace a new cultural agenda.
Are you kidding me? There's been so many signs that.
The Trump administration will embrace this new cultural agenda. One proposed one proposal shared with AIDS, would preserve thirty percent of scholarships for the Fulbright program for applicants who are married or have children. Another would give a five thousand dollar cash quote baby bonus to every American mother after delivery.
A third calls on the government and this is saga where I know you have all kinds of thoughts and are excited to weigh in to fund programs that educate women on their menstrual cycles.
Sager specifically pitched the story.
Yeah, that's right, that was what I NO.
I wanted to discuss it with you because we've both been involved in some of these discussions now for quite some time pro natalism, and you know, I think it's difficult for me to It's difficult because I think four or five years ago when I started to hear this stuff and policy like in Hungary right where they're like, oh, we'll pay off your mortgage if you have four kids, you don't have to pay any tax and no income tax. And I was like, wow, this is fantastic. Here's the truth,
though it hasn't worked Hungary. It just it didn't work. And by the way, this is not a knock on Hungry. It's a noble effort. But the truth is is it doesn't work in any form that it takes. It's in every developed country in the world, even with socialized medicine, better health care and childcare than we could ever imagine, it doesn't work. It's like a product of industrial capitalism. It's like industrial capitalism itself is the is the main
engine of this. Yeah, I mean, if you really want me to put my red hat on right now, but.
I mean, even then, let's talk about the Soviet.
Union, like we saw the destruction there of birth rates and of you know, were talking about for example, can.
We put the next element up on the screenplase?
So the producers made this great graphic just sort of talking about the specifics of what has been proposed by people in these circles. So we talked about the five thousand dollars cash baby bonus to every American mother after delivery, fund programs that educate women on their mentrual cycles and parts so they can better understand when they're ovulating and able to conceive. And let me just briefly pause on
that point. The idea behind that is to basically undercut the power of birth control, which people in the circles believe. I think it's a pretty good argument, actually has affected women's fertility. Women get married later, meaning they're on birth control for longer and longer periods of their life, which makes it harder to ultimately conceive when they want to because they've married later in their thirties and that's already harder off the bat. So that's the idea behind it.
You know, is it going to be a tough sell. Absolutely? Is it the role of the federal government. That is a different conversation that we can have, but just to sort of explain some of the.
Thinking, that's where it comes from.
And then three, this gets to what Soccer was just talking about, bestowing a special mother a medal, a special medal on mothers of six or more children.
So basically all the Mormons.
Yeah, well all the Mormons, and this you were about to elude because you were talking about how the Soviet Union looked at policies like these, and particularly that policy.
Yes, the metal like the hero of the Soviet Union, if you had more than four more children, and guess what didn't worry if anything, Actually, the fertility rate fell off a cliff even more after the decline of the Soviet Union and the ushering in of their nineteen nineties like disaster capitalism, so have a run in front of me of all of the programs which have even been moderately successful.
So France's highest.
Birth rate in all of Western Europe one point eight, so still not above replacement. They have up to three years of paternity leave, a parental leaf up to three years. They have monthly child allowances which are not means tested. They have huge tax bet fits. They have massively subsidized childcare, which is actually good like people who are very well trained and they give them very nutritious food. They have
a quote cultural normalization of working mothers. They're still only at one point eight and a lot of that, let's be honest, is because of the immigration pop population number two the Swedish, Swedish and Nordic countries. These places have universal childcare, job security protection. They have parental lead that you're like required to basically take culturally for a year.
Guess what doesn't work parentally hungary? Probably the thing like the one country which threw everything massive cash incentives thirty thousand eurolone for young couples who are for partially forgiven per child, lifetime income tax tax exemption from mothers of four kids, home buying subsidies, free IVF slight increase, only a one point six in the overall birth right need two point two just to be above like I can go on forever. Russia, same thing they tried in twenty fifteen.
It's actually declined so far. War doesn't help. Actually, again, the only country developed in the world that hasn't above replacement fertility rate is Israel, even amongst even amongst their secular Jewish population. Nobody really knows why. I mean, look, they do have a lot of policies, like they've got norms exclude the orthodoxyg.
It's there's an existential fear.
Yeah, there's like existential yes, yeah, that's a good point. It's literally like a civilization. That's like if we do not reproduce, where our land will be taken away from us.
Right, But they have the same thing.
They have state funded IVF, they have generous family allowances, they have universal health care, they've got big you know, cultural norms favoring shows the favor good to Israel's kids everywhere.
Right.
But my point just on all of us is it's not policy, it's just culture. And I hate to say that. I wish if it were a policy problem, we could fix it, but at best you can squeeze. He's like a point three or a point four. I mean that's a lot, exactly, But I mean even then, you have to rewrite the social contract of the entire United States. Now, I'll also be clear, I would be in favor of many of these policies even if it only did point three point four. It is because it makes life easier
for even when you have one or two children. I mean, going through this process right now, Oh, five thousand dollars. Thanks, I'll consider covering a portion of my deductible, which.
Is just gonna be just for childbirth. Right.
I really appreciate you cover it even though I pay like five hundred dollars a month.
Awesome, dad, soccer.
Is gonna be so much fun. I'm to be so much money. It's just like already an old mess.
This is part of my blue magat turn. It's like, oh great, now my strollers more expensive. The car seat is going to be more expensive. I'm lucky I bought all this stuff before the tariffs.
But there's a lot of people out there.
They don't have any money.
Those are investments, right, Yeah, you can flip those.
And oh this shit only lasts for six months. Great, now I have to go Actually a good point. I should probably buy my infant strollers steep right now before the tariffs and all of that go up, because I was gonna wait, guess I can't.
Now I'm just saying, like.
Already getting grumpy text messages from Socger. But the cost of shit, that's true, that's true. You should you know berries.
I mean, these kids, they're like Barry machines the amount that they're buying there, and drum For wants to put a ten percent tariff on them.
I could go on forever joking.
My point is just looking at these policies, I think they're very noble. I think it's a good idea. However, it is not a magic bullet.
It's just not.
And the truth is is that every developed society in the world just has a low birth rate. And there's just something about the comfort of industrial capitalism, of the lack of like need for you know, of the lack of like rural you know, area community and all these other things. The truth is is like even here in America,
the poorest people have the most kids. It's one of the most like it's the craziest thing is that the people who are the most impacted by it, but who largely have not yet absorbed like all of the cultural milieu of like the middle class lifestyle and vacations and all these other things, are the people who are having the most children. The moment that you assimilate to the higher shuns of American society, you have less children.
The only exception is.
When you reach the extreme end of the wealth spectrum of like zero point one percent.
Oh yeah, they don't.
They love to get married and.
To have children, But that's because they've genuinely exited like US society. It's everybody else in between that You're like, well, people are like, yeah, but I want to go to Disneyland or whatever. I'm like, oh, do you have five thousand bucks if you have four kids?
Hope you do? And you're going to be driving? You know you're not. You can't even fly.
And to be honest, I don't even think a lot of the economic constraints affect the question of whether people
end up going above replacement rate. I think it's genuinely just that when you have a career centric society, you just like that's it's very hard to have three children and that's where we see I think one of the saddest, one of the saddest things that Limonstone has researched, He's quoted in this article with Institute for Family Studies, is that American women actually say that they have.
Fewer children than they want.
Yeah, that's true, and it's it's because they start later they want in order to have well, not that they want, but they start later so late that they don't end up being able to have as many children as they want. And that's genuinely one of the sadder things. And it's not really a policy at least not in the structure of the policy structure of the American economy right now or in the American government right now. That's not really a policy question. It's much more of a cultural aquation.
It's a huge cultural question. It's also about what do you even want? Right like?
Yeah, I mean, this gets to the whole two income trap and a lot of the problems with the consumption economy and the driving up of the overall consumptive rate of the average family, which necessitates a two person household that has to work. But there are realities here, I mean, but the counter to what I'm saying, is the Swedish model in all these where.
They have everything every benefit.
That an American could possibly want to make their life easier, leave money, you know, cultural norms and all that, and they still don't have a lot of kids.
Well, so this is really interesting because this is where both the left and the right are predicating their solutions on materialism. That's right, right, So the right solution is a little bit more money. Left solution is a little bit more money, a little bit more childcare. And those things can be good policies totally, whether or not they help the birth rate. They can be good policies, Like a five thousand dollars baby bonus is probably a good policy.
But is it actually going to help the birth rate?
No, because these are not primarily material concerns, they're cultural ones. And just to wrap this all up, Ross Daufa reacted to the New York Times article by posting it on ACX and saying, of course, you know, I think it's good for the administration to consider pronatalist ideas, but right now, nothing would be more pronatalist than avoiding an unnecessary recession.
Yeah, that's right, exactly what we're looking at.
Six months down the road is a Trump administration coming up with a five thousand dollars baby bonus into a horrible economy for families where to your point, they can't buy bananas for their babies. Yes, and or they can buy bananas, they're just exceedingly expensive in their aren as, many of them in stock. So yeah, this is it's on a collision course for the Trump administration.
Wow.
Yeah, I just looked it up.
Birth rate lapsed from class five point five just in two thousand and nine from two thousand and eight. Yeah, just to show you what a recession can do. At the same time, there is an extraordinary showdown with Harvard going on right now between the Trump administration, which is not only putting immense financial pressure on them, basically trying to tell them how to run the university. But it all apparently stems back to a massive mistake inside of
the bureaucracy which kicked this entire thing off. This was broken down in a recent CNN segment and yes, I know it's CNN, but they actually did a decent job this time around.
Mu's take a listen.
Okay, So the White House's position is it was malpracticed by Harvard to not realize that this letter was so outrageous it probably wasn't true. I mean that letter came from I mean, I think that statement actually just sort of gives away the whole game. Essentially. The argument that we're hearing there from may mailman at the White House is they should have known. They should have known there was something wrong. They should have picked up the phone and said to us at the White House, hey, guys,
this looks like a mistake. I think it's pretty obvious where the fault was, though.
I mean, Elli, could you imagine if Harvard had responded to this letter by saying, Okay, we'll meet these demands and actually that they had been sent in error to them.
Yeah, I mean exactly. Look, this is serious stuff. I mean, this is a major showdown that is escalating by the day. You know, if Harvard had acquiesced these demands, that it would have changed the institution and compromised the institution forever. But I'm interested to see now what happens books now, does the White House withdraw this or do they sort of decide, whoops, where we're po permitted now and we're going to have to have this fight through to the ends.
So to recap this entire showdown with Harvard is because let's put this up there on the screen. An official on the quote Anti Semitism Task Force told the university that a letter of demands has was actually now one that was sent without authorization from the government. So the university basically published the letter and said, no, we're not going to agree to these demands. Days later, that Trump administration is like, well, screw you or actually gonna cut
off your funding. But by the way, that letter was actually unauthorized and sent by the Acting General Counsel of the Department of Health and Human Services on the Anti Semitism Task Force, and it was sent in era error. So the letter arrived when Harvard said they still believe they could have prevented a confrontation. Then they get this fake letter and they're like, no, we're not going to
do it. And so then now quote, it was malpracticed on the side of Harvard's lawyers not to pick up the phone and call the members of the Anti Semitism and Task Force who they had been talking to for weeks. Instead, quote, Harvard went on a victimhood campaign that is a direct
quote from the White House. Instead So Harvard's position, as that guy just laid out, or the government's position is that Harvard is stupid because it took a letter that it got from the United States government and then responded to I cannot blame a.
Position in defending Harvard.
This is pain painful to sit here and to defend this ridiculous institution.
But their position is.
That they should have realized that this was a fake letter. And now nonetheless, despite the fact that it was faked by the government.
Signed, but it was always signed.
This is Harvard's stand, like it was.
I mean, listen to if I get a letter from the government and what I'm going If I got a learn from.
The I R S.
I call the I R S and be like, hey, guys, this is a real letter. Or should just do whatever they tell me to do?
Why are they signing draft?
Right?
Yeah?
Good point?
All right, So now you tell me, Emily, based on all this, though, the government's position is still nonetheless, we will still take all of your funding from you. So let's put that up there on the screen. Quote what would it even mean.
For Trump to revoke Harvard's taxes and status?
Well, which by the way, is different. I just want to say this, Yeah, I know.
You're right, You're right, but I'm saying this is all a cascading part of this. So Harvard says no. So the Trump administration goes, even though we sent you this thing in error, we're cutting off two point two six billion dollars in funding. And then a week later there was all coming out that actually, we're going to revoke your entire tax exempt status based.
On all that.
I mean, this is crazy shit, and it gets to the tariff thing. Nobody hates Harvard more than me. Okay, these people should lose their tax sub status. These people should be paying massive amounts of taxes. They're a hedge fund, they're not actually a real university. They admit less students today than they did when the US population was one hundred million less people. Okay, absurd, It's just complete credential washing, inflation, student debt.
I could go on forever, yep, for all of the issues with that.
But as we are going to talk about soon with Greg, there needs to be a little bit of a process. There needs to be a little bit of a principle here, a little bit of an effort by the United States government to say we're doing this because of what I just laid out, Because you are bilking the federal government for the under false pretenses for student loans. You're putting your students in debt, not because of some fake anti viscal case, quite literally, a fake anti Semitism demand.
Of the government.
So the whole thing is insane, and Harvard is now countersuing the Trump administration. Every legal expert I see says Harvard or the government has no chance in this case right now. I mean, they may prevail in the long run if they go through a proper process, but as of where things start right now, Harvard is getting a temporary restraining order like tomorrow based on the way that this entire thing has happened.
When I care obviously much more about the corruption and degradation of higher education than I care about some idiot bureaucrats and the Trump administration botching it. But do you end up actually addressing the problem if you are too incompetent to address it correctly and hurt your ability exactly because you and I are actually probably sympathetic to the argument that if you're making an omelet, you're gonna make going to break a few eggs.
The omelet is reforming higher ed.
Yes, obviously the media is going to pick out a few examples of really bad process work from the Trump administration and blow them up into something that they're not.
This actually is bad. It's no question. This is so stupid.
This is not like common you know, it's like, this is classic stupidity with a capital S, where it's embarrassing to even have to be in a position to be be like, yeah, well they kind of have a point, and this is what they've done with everything, Terri. And that's why I'm like, I'm done with Ri. I am done with this bullshit. It's like this amount of stupidity that you require people to debase themselves to defend your
it iscy is enough. Look, I know that you know there's some mega memas or whatever they're going to stand right or die forever. Fine, okay, you can have them. But you know, for people out here who are actually have to follow this stuff for a living and have you know, actual acquaintance with competence and with people who actually know what the hell they're doing, it's it's it's absurd. It's an attack on intellect itself.
You know, go ahead, Well.
So I mean I think what's interesting here is that we compare Trump one point zero and Trump two point zero and say Trump one point zero was more haphazard. They didn't have their ducks in a row. They hadn't spent four years preparing this detailed policy agenda that they could install immediately when a Republican president, whether it was
Trump or DeSantis, was in office. I think what we're starting to see, whether it's the student deportations, this letter to Harvard, or the tariffs, is that actually they did plan directionally what they wanted to do. They planned who they wanted to put in place, but they just lack the know how to execute well.
Actually, it's a huge dive. I've been thinking about this a lot.
It's a massive indictment of Project twenty twenty five and all of the projects that were ostensibly to professionalize the Trump administration.
It's just not happened at all.
Congratulations, you had some executive orders that were ready to go on day one. Let's look at the actual result of your flagship product dose two trillion to one trillion to one hundred and fifty billion, which is the exact amount that we're going to increase the Pentagon budget Okay, so you didn't cought a single dollar of federal spend. I'm judging you by your own by what you say that you wanted to do. Yeah, dose, you failed. It's
a complete failure. Elon is leaving soon, right literally he has to because of this.
May actually yeah, no, probably if you let Russ Boat start, who is a highly competent.
But if you're a car so we'll look, we're only hundre days in so do deportation. It's like, okay, yeah, I mean you know, I said this previously yesterday. The Bureau of Prison validates gang members every day, every single day. The Bureau of Prisons has thousands of gang members in the United States penitentiary system and knows exactly what they look like and how they do tattoos and everything. Do they make mistakes, I'm sure they do, but I guarantee
you it's a much more professional. So when they come out they go, oh, we're sending these gang members to Salvador, I'm like, oh, okay, you know it makes sense. Did US Department's Justice No, It's like, oh, complete bullshit. The way that you guys did this autism awareness tattooed Mak Mukhali said, Oh, we're going after the student criminals.
Right.
I'm like, oh, okay, so the Hamilton Hall guy, right, No, the guy who handed out a flyer, or this lady who co authored an op ed, or the guy who's married to a lady who's related to someone in Humma what like, and that the tariffs. This fucking formula. It's the same as the first time around. I mean, I remember the census thing. I mean, this is the first thing. This is the first thing I pissed me off of
the Trump administration. As people know, the census currently counts illegal immigrants, which is insane, right, insane, because it basically means that if you have enough illegals in your state that you get more representation in Congress, what more electoral votes?
Nonsense.
Well, the administration had a plan in twenty eighteen to get rid to basically change the senses. It only costs US citizens, great, awesome, would have completely changed the electoral map. Well, they did it in such an incompetent way. The Supreme Court was like, we don't even disagree, but we are striking this down because you did it so stupidly. And then they're like, oh, the twenty twenty election was stolen. I'm like, well, you know, also you can't do the
basic paperwork travel band. How many trivel bands do we have in twenty seventeen do you remember maybe four?
Five? Yeah, it was ridiculous. Actually, that's a really good parallel. I hadn't even thought about that because it's so hard to like pull all of these.
Different references out because there's literally like hundreds of them. That's actually a really good reference point. And I think the difference really now that I'm thinking of it between one point zero and two point zero here is that two point zero to use someone violent metaphor. In one point oh, nobody knew where to aim. In two point zero, everyone spent years figuring out exactly where to aim, but didn't train at shooting right.
They weren't.
They weren't going to the range, and they're not right on the target. They know exactly what target to shoot at, but they don't know how to hit the bull's eye. And that's what's happening in this administration and in ways that are probably undermining their ability to ultimately hit the target, because people are going to pull them out of the range right before they can figure out how to hit the target.
They really get the hell out of here. You don't not use that gun, eddie.
They're already I mean, how many days has it been since January twentieth. Let's see, all right, January twenty first, let's see it has been all right, chat cheept's not working right now? All right, it's been eighty something eighty or ninety days. You run out of political capital only. They only have one piece of legislation they're going to pass for the next two years, the tax cuts and jobs ack.
Good luck with that one.
I hope it works out considering all the things that you guys have said that you want to do.
Well, by the way, you have to lift the debt ceiling.
That's not rense and repeat from that. They're trying to stuff a bunch of stuff in reconcization.
It's not just re.
Upping the tax cuts. It's actually stuffing a bunch of other possible priorities.
But I'm saying, you have one piece of legislation. That's all you guys have left. You burned all your political capital. You haven't deported that many people. If anything, you're actually trailing the Obama and Clinton administration and you're roughly on par with the Biden administration tariff policy disaster. Sorry, it's true, there's been. I mean, maybe you'll get some benefit, you know.
A few months from now.
I'm genuinely doubtful as the I mean, it's this. This is where I'm just going full Richard Hennen like, they do not have elite human.
Capital who are behind Its true.
I don't agree with that.
No, it's true. I don't see it. I don't see a single I don't.
Think anybody has the human capital to accomplish the goals that they've set their sight. Maybe right, they're trying to like radically transform a system that's built up over one hundred years. And I don't think it's a matter of the Trump people being I think there are absolutely some idiots in the Trump administration.
I think we could both say.
More per capita personally.
Okay, But yeah, it's because the Trump It is because Republicans haven't trained up an army of bureaucrats over the course of the last one hundred times Democrats have, and now Republicans are trying to use this sort of like haphazard like Lexington and conquered band of policy amateurs to do something much more difficult than anyone's ever tried to do in the policy space.
Very fair counter and I actually think it's probably a good place to leave it.
So anyway, Harvard, that's what happened. Let's get to the CEO of Fire, Greg Lukanoff.
He's going to break down some of free speech attacks for us, including some on Harvard.
Let's get to it. Joining us now is Greg Lukianoff.
He is the CEO of Fire, one of the most principled free speech organizations in the United States, and we're very excited to be joined by I'm Greg.
It's great to see you. Thanks for joining the show. Thanks for having me so.
Greg, we wanted you to get sound off on some of the extraordinary moves by the Trump administration. First of all, you are the author of several books, and more recently this one, let's put it up there on the screen, the Canceling of the American Mind. But more recently you might look at that and be like, oh, this is
a right wing guest or something. But Greg, you're unique in that you really have stood up against a lot of unprecedented attacks on free speech currently by the Trump administration. We have a list that we can just put here right now, assembled by your team. Let's put it up there on the screen. Relevant in fact, some of the Harvard discussion that we just had here on the show.
Why don't you break down for us why you see this as an attack on free speech with the Harvard situation and for a lot more.
Oh yeah, I mean there is no small irony in my taking so much eight mail of the moment for defending Harvard, because Harvard finished dead last two years in a row on our campus free speech ranking, and I want to be very clear they earned that position. But the answer cannot be the government wildly exceeding its power
to effectively nationalize Harvard using powers it doesn't have. And I'm a civil libertarian, so like I'm concerned about left wing authoritarianism, and I'm concerned about right wing authoritarianism, Like
I'm mostly afraid of the accumulation of power. And what they're currently claiming is that because of the history of anti Semitism at Harvard, which I'd say, like, that's a real concern, they now can restrict what two point six billion dollars in potential funding to Harvard unless Harvard meets demands that control everything from certain departments to what is taught, to who is admitted. And that's what I mean by
effectively nationalizing. It's micromanaging this massive company. And I think that, yeah, could it Is it possible that if you had, if you followed the procedures and did Title six hearings and even Title nine hearings on the way Harvard has behaved over the last five years, that Harvard might lose and be in risk of losing its federal funding. I absolutely
that is absolutely a possibility. But the government does not have the power to completely skip over that entire process and just declare by you cause you know that essentially you now have to do what the government says you do because you receive any federal federal funding at all. And I did write I'm taking some flack for this right now, but I take this, you know, very seriously. The idea that, yes, Harvard has made a ton of mistakes, and you know, I'm first in line and criticizing him,
canceling of the American mind. You know, Harvard does not come out, that does not come out particularly well. But the idea that we'd freeze a massive amount of science funding for things that could actually be you know, groundbreaking.
I mean, this is the one thing that consistently cares me is essentially that, in an effort to deal with very real problems in higher ed we're going to destroy our unique ability to push the frontiers of science, which harms everyone, not just even in the United States and the globe.
Well. And we might disagree on this because I'm more sympathetic to the idea of the federal government exercising some power over federal funding.
And to your point, Greg, I think also there's.
There's Title nine, Title seven, like, all of this could get pretty interesting in the courts, but I have seen I'm curious what you make of this some really interesting
commentary on the question of viewpoint diversity. The federal government asking Harvard to implement different measures to ensure there's viewpoint diversity at Harvard or in its research, and all of that that, I mean, it's the same thing with the anti semitism definition that Fire has been really brave and for years standing up against the overly broad definition of anti semitism.
Those are those seem like.
Problematic answers to a problem in and of itself, And could you just speak to the viewpoint diversity question. Because you've been advocating for viewpoint diversity at the university level for a long time, then when the federal government asks about it, it becomes a different issue.
Exactly, I want viewpoint diversity in higher ed And for example, if Congress, you know, decided to make some of these contingent on federal funding that they have, you have a lot of power to decide what you tie federal funding to in the first place. But you can't work backwards and then say, oh, by the way, we've now decided
that federal funding is contingent on viewpoint diversity. That also poses really serious First Amendment issues, because what you're saying is a private institution has to basically have a political at mis test to make sure that they have greater viewpoint diversity. Now, I want schools to achieve viewpoint diversity, and I think one of the ways they can do that is to have more classes co taught by people
who disagree. I think this would be powerful on multiple levels, and it could be a great way to introduce more viewpoint diversity. But as a civil libertarians, when it's achieved through government coercion, we're rightfully concerned about that.
So definitely.
And to be clear that the government does have power to put strings on its federal funding, and they do and we and that's why I made the point that essentially, could they be found guilty of violating Title six, Title seven, and Title nine. Yeah, I think that's a real possibility. But you can't just do it without proving it, without
going through the procedural steps, because those really matter. That's the difference between you know, a government a republic and something that looks a lot more authoritari.
Well, what you're really talking about here is process through the legal courts, where you have to present evidence, where you have to have a judge who is ruled here. Let's put the next parts up there, guys on the screen. Which Fire has also spoken out against some of the deportation efforts here of students who have criticized Israel and or participated in protests on college campuses. Can you just
tell us why again? You know, in this particular case, the administration is justifying this as a violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act, saying that they're expressing support here for a terrorist organization and thus these students are eligible for deportation.
Fire has spoken out against us tell us why. Yeah, And again people could point out some irony here.
I don't really see it as irony because fire has been one of the ones pointing out actually alone to a degree, pointing out that pro Palestinian protesters are responsible for all but essentially three of the highest number of campus shoutdowns of speakers on record. It's been overwhelmingly a
pro Palestinian movement in some cases. I remember they did a shoutdown, they shut down an event of someone who was just there to talk about black holes, you know, like it was it was ridiculous, and we called it out all the time.
Yeah.
So I think that a lot of these protests have been in some cases a disaster for free spee.
She's not going to be freedom.
However, again, you have to follow process and you have to prove it. So when they first accused Mamood Khalil, for example, I was like, well, you know, Colombia was a disaster, and I'm willing to bet, not willing to bet.
I suspect they might actually have something more serious on him, like he was involved in some of the vandalism, or some of the anti Semitic harassment himself, or some of the really bad in some cases criminal behavior that took place at Harvard, or at least things that they could have kicked him out of school for. But as the case went on, We're like, the government's not making this argument.
They're basically pointing to flyers that a group that he was loosely affiliated with circulated, and I'm like, Okay, that's saying that you're kicking him out just for speech that would be protected by an American citizen, and that's problematic according to the law. There was a weird argument that I keep on getting that people here on a green card, and green card is, you know, one step away from citizenship have no free speech rights, and that's absurd.
Teen forty five.
The Supreme Court was incredibly clear in a place called in a case called Bridges y. Wickson, that resident aliens do have First Amendment rights. Now, what the full parameters
of those rights are is the one remaining question. But it certainly should not be that you can you can be at a protest at a college campus where there are ten protesters, all of it peaceful, all of it protected, and all nine of those protesters are fine because they're American citizens, but the tenth has to show as papers and could be kicked out of the country for being
on the on the wrong side of it. So the Mamoud Khalil case actually just got worse the longer it went on, and the osterric case is even worse because the only thing they're pointing at this tough students, is that she wrote a op ed that was critical of Israel, that was critical, and it was much more it was much more mainstream that it was being presented as. And this is the young woman that they actually, you know, drove a van by and playing closed policemen, you know,
stuffer and take her away for deportation. That that's scary stuff. And it's one of these things where you think about all the great Americans that we are proud to have come to this country and eventually became naturalized or didn't in some cases, who would be horrified if they were deported. I think of, you know, Christopher Hitchins. I don't think Christopher Hitchins. He definitely was here on a green card for a long time. I don't think he ever actually
became a citizen. And the idea or for that matter, what I point this out to conservatives, what about oh my god Peterson or Elon Musk, you know. So, I think that I understand that people are concerned about what happened at Columbia and a lot of these schools. I am too passionately, so I think they shamed themselves during this period. But that's not the same thing as saying these students are responsible for it and that they should
be kicked out because of their opinion. That's much more dangerous.
And Grid, you didn't just write Canceling of the American Mind. That was a follow up to a really great book you wrote as.
Well, called The Coddling of the American Union with John Hyde, and that's a really important book. I mean, I would say that's like a landmark book in the way that we've sort.
Of come to view our culture.
And the reason I want to ask you about that is in the midst of this conversation about quote unquote woke right, one of the things that as a conservative I worried about sometimes pre twenty twenty four is that there were cancels. There were cancelations that did see conservative students being the victims of attacks on free speech. They were really truly being victimized in some cases.
And absolutely that fueled.
Though, a really interesting sense of victimhood on the right, which is something the right critiqued the left for sort of being defined by for a very long time. And I'm curious, as the author of Coddling and Canceling, if you see that sort of instinct, instinctive illiberalism that comes when you end up genuinely being a victim actually starting to fuel right wing encroachments on speech.
Is there something to that?
Oh?
No, I think there absolutely is.
I think I'm reading Mussa Algarby's book We've Never Been Woke, and he really kind of saw James Lindsay's term woke right, you know, coming that essentially when you look at some of the tenets of the right of the heart, the authoritarian left and the authoritarian right, both of which I very much oppose, they have.
Very similar characteristics.
And it goes so far as to have people like Chris Rufo, you know, talking about their admiration for Graham, Sheet and Lenin and like all of these monsters that my family had to flee Russia to fight because they were so good at manipulating the public, oftentimes with an initial sense of grievance that called for centralization of power on the basis of identity, that the woke right and work left are more similar than they're comfortable with, even to the point at which they're citing the same And
I'm going to show my own bias here historical monster to justify their position.
Yeah, and last part here is on these law firms. This is one where I have not yet victims.
Again, this is the victims.
I had around this one.
But go ahead, Greg, we're gonna put it up there on the screen. We haven't even done a full segment just because it is kind of convoluted in a way. You're like, the president is like attacking a law firm and thus saying that he had to do like pro bono work for him personally.
But why is that a free speech problem there?
Oh my god, it's well, it's rob for a free speech organization because we go into court to defend freedom of speech. And we're all lawyers, not all of us. I'm actually really glad that some of us are social scientists as well. But what they're saying is, and it went beyond just people who opposed the administration people, I mean,
but they're going after law firms for example. You know, helped with the January sixth prosecutions or helped oppose some of the attempts for the over the twenty twenty election, the argument that who fought against the idea that the election was stolen, which, by the way, it wasn't. And what they're saying to some of these law firms now is that because you opposed the administration on their position on affirmative action, you know, for example, like that's word,
that's one of our justifications for targeting you. I'm like, so wait. But here's the most important thing. The way they're targeting them is one telling these law firms that they're losing their security clearance, which as a DC lawyer, that's you know, death sentence for some of these lawyers. But more importantly and more horrifyingly, they're telling them that they can't go into federal buildings. And guess what's a
really important federal building for lawyers a court. So like, the idea that the federal government has power to say that lawyers can't enter court rooms is an extraordinary addition to power. And because Fire is currently in court with with Donald Trump's personal lawyer in a case where he's he's suing a polster for getting a poll wrong and
Seltzer back in Iowa. And because we're a nonprofit that goes into court, we're very aware of the idea like, how on earth are we supposed to do our advocacy in this situation in which lawyers can be told that they can't enter a courtroom if you oppose the administration?
Wow, very interesting. Greg.
We can always look to you and your organization. We really really appreciate the work that you guys do over here at breaking points, and we're just really happy to have you on man, So thank you.
Oh, we appreciate it.
It can be it can feel like a really thankless job to constantly be angering both sides the political spectrum. But at least I've had a lot of practice.
That's great.
Well, there are a lot of people out there who definitely see and appreciate the work that you guys do.
So thank you very much, Greg, Thank you so much, take care, Thank you.
Guys so much for watching it. Emily, thank you for being here. It was great fun. I hope the audience got what it needed, what it deserved.
Possibly all we do with dev huh, Yeah, that's where givers. I'm a giver.
I'm forgetting what movie you are from. Anyway, all right, we will see You'll be on tomorrow with crystals.
Right I go. We will see you all later.