How close are we to armed conflict between states? | Oklahoma Memo

[rock music] Well, once again, it's that time of week when we talk to national podcaster Grant Herms. You might remember Grant. He was a political news reporter in Oklahoma City with Griffin Media with News 9, but now he has a national podcast called Make It Make Sense. I don't know why I describe it as a national podcast. Any podcast is national. It's international even. It's inter, uh, it's intergalaxial. [laughs] Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm, I'm blasting it out into the Milky Way, right. Right.

A, a, a lot of important things happening this week that would impact the entire galaxy, uh, including one that I saw in an episode that dropped last night of Make It Make Sense with Grant Herms, and you gotta put the with Grant Herms in there. And just to make sure everybody knows, it's H-E-R-M-E-S when you're looking this up. There are a lot of podcasts called Make It Make Sense, but yours makes the most sense, and it, frankly, it was kind of scary.

Uh, the episode- Yeah... that you, that dropped last night about, uh, the possible invocation of the Insurrection Act of 1807. Uh, w- we wanna talk about that, but I also wanna get your thoughts on Governor Kevin Stitt's interview with The New York Times that dropped yesterday. Surprised a lot of us in Oklahoma, but now that I've thought about it, I'm thinking it's more of a federalist quibble, uh, over the deployment of Texas National Guard troops in Illinois. But let's- Yeah...

let's just start at the beginning. Let's talk about your episode from yesterday and the Insurrection Act of 1807, and does this mean we're close to civil war? So I, I think it's important to start here by saying, and I said this in the episode too, is that, like, on a scale of one to 10 about how freaked out you should be right now, where 10 is the most freaked out, we're at, like, a seven.

So is that great? No. But is it a 10? No. Like, should you be putting a go bag together and, like, driving to the border? N- no. That, we're not there yet. There are a lot of things that have to happen here. But we are as close to an armed conflict between two uniformed members of two states as we've ever been since 1865, since the end of the Civil War. We just, we just are.

Uh, this is closer than anything that happened during the Civil Rights Era. This is closer than anything that happened, uh, you know, thinking about things like Kent State. Uh, we are closer now than we have been for most of living memory. I mean, I don't think there's anybody alive right now who remembers the Civil War, and so anybody alive now has no frame of reference for this thing.

So what we're talking about, we talk about the Insurrection Act, because the president and the White House have been having serious discussions about when and how they could invoke this thing.

And what it allows them to do is to send in federalized National Guard troops or the military, uh, depending on what they choose, it would generally be National Guard, um, into a state that does not want them there because of a perceived insurrection or rebellion or that the g- federal government can't carry out the laws, and that is different than carrying out a policy.

So, like, in this case, a judge twice in Portland, where the president has been trying to send first California, or first California troops, yeah, and then second Texas troops, uh, it, it seems right now that the judge, the first judge that heard that said that there is no rebellion happening. That got moved up to a three-panel, or a three-judge panel up there of an appeals court.

This is kind of weedsy, but it, that panel seems to be sort of receptive to what the Department of Justice and Homeland Security are saying. That will get kicked up to the next court, however. Uh,

in Chicago, there was a hearing yesterday in which the judge was nervous about what the Department of Homeland Security was saying, and then ultimately last night said that she found what they were saying and their perception of what was happening on the ground as an insurrection or a rebellion or that ICE was unable to perform its duties in carrying out the law. She said that they were just unreliable, which is judge-speak for, "I don't believe you." And

what that means is we have Texas troops that had been allowed to be under federal control by Texas Governor Greg Abbott standing just outside the city limits of Chicago. And it is frightening, I will say, to know that the president is having real conversations, has said publicly that he may invoke the Insurrection Act, uh, which would allow those troops to move into Chicago if, he said first, if people are dying, uh, which hasn't happened.

Uh, and then he said, "If judges get in our way," which is a weird thing, because there's a provision in the Insurrection Act, and, and I, the way that I describe the Insurrection Act, too, is that these three things, they're the conditions that have to be met for this. They're not really important to go into here, but they're just vague enough to be specific, which means they, they give a bunch of deference to the president and, and up to his discretion for these things.

And one of those things that is not up for his discretion, though, is whether judges are able to do their jobs, and so far they have been. So for him to say, you know, "If judges don't like what we do, then we'll send in these troops," that is explicitly against what's in the law, uh, as it's plainly written. Now, and I'm not an attorney. I'm not a judge. I don't interpret these things. I'm just reading and then looking at what's being said.

And the last thing he said is that, "If mayors and governors get in our way," and that is also really interesting, because there's a lot of court precedent that says it's really important to keep states... It's the idea of state sovereignty. Basically, states control what happens within their own borders. And for him to say that, "I'm gonna go in because in the case of Illinois, it's J.B.

Pritzker or Brandon Johnson, the mayor of Chicago, don't want me there, but I think I need to be there. I think federal troops need to be there," that is stepping way over the bounds of state sovereignty. And the court cases that say states that don't help a president carry out federal law, uh, isn't actually impeding them. It's not stopping them from carrying out the law. It's just not helping them.

That's why sanctuary cities are a thing, and why that they're, they're legal, and they have been legal over and over and over again, regardless of how you feel about those policies. Um-I, I think that's a good place to sort of stop it for now, because things are literally stopped, and the courts are still working. And yes, there are a lot of people who are saying, "Well, it's been pretty clear that this administration doesn't seem to care about some of those things."

I mean, you had the vice president a few months ago, you know, invoke President Andrew Jackson in history and say things like, you know, "The Supreme Court ruled on a law, now let them enforce it," which is basically sort of a come and take it, uh, or, you know, come at me, bro, sort of a w- way [laughs] of looking at this thing. Right. But, but those things still matter. Judges' rulings still matter.

This White House only has so much political capital i- in, as we call it in, in the biz here, uh, to spend to overrule judges before a lot of people, including the president's own supporters, are gonna be like, "Hey, what's going on here? Like, we voted for you, but we didn't vote for lawlessness," meaning, like, uh, being against the law. Right. You know? Right. So a couple of things here come to mind as you're describing this.

I think about the moment with Stephen Miller on CNN, and he let- Yeah... plenary authority slip out, and everybody's going to their dictionary, "What's plenary mean?" Um, you know, and so I, I think about that, but I also think about Eric Swalwell, who, uh, intimated, uh, earlier this week that the clock was ticking on President Trump's support among his own- Mm-hmm... his own faction. I mean, like- Yeah... within weeks, like, Republicans may be done with him.

And I don't know what happens then, but let- let's, you know, are these things canaries in the coal mine, um, with, uh, Stephen Miller alluding to what he really thinks the administration has in terms of power, and also what Eric Swalwell said in terms of how President Trump's own fellow Republicans are actually thinking about him?

I actually think that those are two sides of the same coin. So you've got on one hand Stephen Miller going on CNN saying the president has plenary authority, meaning he's got unchecked power.

In this case, he was talking about sending federal troops into different states. Uh, and then he paused for quite a long time because i- it- it seemed like he realized that he had said a thing that was an internal conversation that was happening about the Insurrection Act, and that wasn't supposed to be public.

But he was angry at the CNN host, who rightfully pushed back on him saying, you know, pointing out that they're not sending troops into Texas, where a sniper actually fired on an ICE detention center, and that has not happened in Chicago or Portland. Uh, and so there's that. But him saying that is, I think, the White House sort of sensing what Eric Swalwell is saying, that their time is running out here, and they're trying to push as far as they can forward before their bottom falls out.

Because right now, when you look at approval poll ratings, the president has sort of a basement at about 40%, and those are the people who, there's about 20% or so people who will do whatever he wants and think that he should go as far as he can go, uh, regardless what the courts say, regardless of, of the rule of law or any of those things.

There's, like, 10, 5% of people who are on board with most of that, and then the rest of the people sort of filter out in less, less supportive ways to hit 40%. This stuff that's happening, both with the tariffs right now, because things are getting more expensive, uh, because of the shutdown that's happening right now, Republicans are not fairing well.

The president is not fairing well in public approval when it comes to whose fault the shutdown is, uh, although most Americans do believe, according to a, a, a Harris Poll earlier this month, a Harvard/Harris poll, that said that they think, people think Democrats should fix it even though they're not in power, which is an interesting thing about how we approach the parties.

But right now, the president's party and the president himself are losing in the shutdown, and people do not like the image of masked, uniformed, armed law enforcement or troops on American streets. They just don't. Uh, regardless of the city, people, you know, a lot of people across the country like to thumb their noses at Los Angeles and California.

Um, you know, the w- I think it w- was it Abbott or was it Rick Perry in Texas who said, uh, you know, "Don't California my Texas" or whatever? Uh- I'm not sure which one, but it sounds like it come- I-... it could've come from either. Yeah, yeah. I don't think that was an Oklahoma governor. I don't think that was... But I- I think it was, it was either Abbott or, or Perry.

And, you know, so that sentiment is across the country. And so when troops or Marines go into Los Angeles, there are some people who are kind of like na-na-na-boo-boo about that, but they're uncomfortable with it. When those troops start showing up in DC, uh, which DC's a little bit different than the states, but they start showing up outside of Chicago or outside of Portland, and now it seems like they're gonna be in Memphis, which is a blue dot, much like Oklahoma City, in a red state,

that changes perception of these things, and the White House knows that, and Republicans across the country know that. And that support basement at 40% might drop. And once that starts, then the White House is in real trouble, especially as we look towards the midterms, but also just in terms of how they have to respond to public sentiment, because the president is very receptive to that.

It's why he floats little test balloons all the time. He's always gauging the temperature of whatever room he's in and the public. And I think, like I said, Stephen Miller blurting this thing out is a sign that they're trying to move as fast as possible, and Swalwell is the other side of this thing saying they're trying to move as fast as possible because they know that their time is running out with how much support they will have.

And that is, I think, a good way to segue into what Governor Stitt said too. Right. I mean, he, he, he... I mean, there's Marjorie Taylor Greene, but then Governor- Mm-hmm... Stitt, uh, taking a more, uh, I would say, uh, nuanced disagreement, talking about how he wouldn't have federalized Texas troops to go to Illinois because what if Pritzker sent Illinois troops to Oklahoma?

We wouldn't be standing for that under the Biden administration. What do you think Governor Stitt was actually saying here, uh, and, uh, is it, is it real fundamental disagreement?I think it is, I think it's about as fundamental as he can get without, uh, turning the sort of like eye of Sauron of the White House on Oklahoma.

Uh, and, and knowing that there might be a lot of support for that, uh, for, you know, being punished by the president among Oklahoma Republicans against Kevin Stitt. So I think he was... I think quibbling is almost, um, too, too nice. Like he was as sharp as he can get in politics here for this.

But what he said, if, if, you know, you haven't read this yet, uh, for your viewers or listeners here, is basically that this, like I said earlier, states have a right to control what happens in their borders, and the people who do that as the chief executives are governors.

And Stitt, uh, for, you know, whatever you can think about him and his tenure as governor has been in his terms, has been somebody who has cared deeply about Oklahoma determining its own future. And it is really interesting to hear him say this, and he's, was very clear that he was speaking as Oklahoma's Republican governor and not as the chairman of the National Governors Association, which governors work together

to make sure that their states can work together, but also that they are all on the same page when it comes to making sure the federal government doesn't overreach into states, because these governors want to be able to keep their power. And so I think Stitt is genuine when he says this. Um, and I think that, you know, him calling out Abbott by name is really interesting. Um, I also,

I, I, I tend to agree with him from a like sort of understanding civics sort of sense- Mm-hmm... that it's very strange that Abbott would let this happen because it does open this door. Uh, but also that it opens a door into which you've got governors at each other's throats. There's a real possibility that J.B. Pritzker has to call up his own National Guard to meet Greg Abbott's National Guard

just outside Chicago, and that's a thing that no governor wants to do. They just don't. Uh, so for Stitt to come out and say this is, is really something. I also, in a, you know, taking off some of the reporter hat and putting on some of the, the political analytics hat here, this is a pretty good way for Kevin Stitt to raise his national profile. Mm-hmm.

As we look towards, you know, um, this is far off at this point, it feels very far off, but it's really only three years away, a 2028 election in which Kevin Stitt's sort of up- setting himself up to be a, you know, rock-ribbed conservative, but also somebody who is not this thing that's been happening lately.

And that, uh, he might be right in thinking that once there's a post-Trump world because Trump can't run again, uh, he- that them craving for someone like what Stitt's saying here among Republicans might return.

And to set himself up this way is, is probably a pretty smart political move, and I think also shows quite a bit of, of political growth for Kevin Stitt. I remember meeting him on his first campaign- Mm-hmm... talking to him pretty extensively, both publicly and privately, during his first campaign and his first term. Um, and probably, I mean, like, he would come in and we would have 20 minutes before an interview kind of a thing, not like I went to dinner [chuckles] dinner with Kevin Stitt.

I don't wanna in- I don't wanna intimate a thing that didn't happen. Um, but you know, in those things, he was very, you know, rough and ready and was very, you know, always kind of ready up, up for a fight. And you can see that being in office has tempered him to a certain degree here, and this is case in point of that thing. It's very much this interview, if you want to look at it in a different way, is very much a, a study in how much change Kevin Stitt has undergone here.

Um, and I also think you see that, and I'm, I'm sure you talked about this with Scott. Uh, you also see that in the choice for the new Secretary of Education, uh, i- in the State of Oklahoma too, that it's not some new firebrand. It is somebody much more stable, much more conventional.

So I think a couple things are happening there. Uh, and, and it's a really, really fascinating read. Yeah, he's positioning himself as a capital C conservative. Uh, not exactly like Dr. No, uh, Dr. Tom Coburn- Yeah... the late, great Dr. Tom Coburn. Yes. But a, a tried and true, uh, conservative. I've had a lot of people tell me that, "Well, Kevin Stitt's out the door. He can say whatever he wants." And I'm like, "No, he's not.

He has eyes on bigger things," whether it's- Yeah... running against James Lankford in a couple of years, I assure you he's looking at that, but also a run for president, a test balloon, because I will tell you, runs for president aren't just about whether or not you win or lose. They're about building up coffers, about building up big bank accounts. And I'm not saying that he's just self-interested. I do believe that he, uh, espouses a more conservative brand of politics.

Uh, and I think it just surprised a lot of Oklahomans. And courage is contagious, whether it is the people who are... I watched a lot of MSNBC coverage. I have the YouTube TV up with the four screens, and there was a lot going on in Chicago this week where ICE- Yeah... they were arresting just random people that they would find and say, "You know what?

You look like you don't belong here. We're gonna take you into detention." Mm-hmm. And, and the reporter out there, I believe his name is Jacob, he was out there talking to families. I think doing, just doing a great job. But there are a lot of people in Chicago who are standing up to ICE right now in very individual ways and putting themselves at personal risk. Right.

Kevin Stitt's putting himself at political risk here. Courage is- Yeah... contagious. I don't know where this goes, but, um, I, it just, I found it all very, very interesting. Real quick, before, before we get out of here though, let's... We're still shut down. Yeah. Yeah. So the, the, real quick on the shutdown is there's been no movement. Um-Part of that is because the White House has been focused on what's happening in Chicago and Portland.

Uh, the attention span of the administration has sort of moved on, but Republicans in Congress don't really wanna do anything without the president's blessing, and so they're in a hold pattern here. Last week, we talked about Russ Vought, the guy in charge of the Office of Management and Budget, wanting to fire tens of thousands of federal workers.

That has yet to happen, um, partly because there's a lawsuit and things have kind of been held up, but also partly because it does seem like this is... It would be illegal to do that for the, the reasons I talked about last week, which j- basically means, like, if you fire these people, you pay, you gotta pay them, and there's no money right now to pay them 'cause Congress hasn't said who can get what money.

Uh, then there's the thing that the White House is flirting with this idea that they might just not pay workers after the shutdown is over, which is explicitly against a law that was passed in 2019 after the last shutdown we had, which was also under the first Trump administration. It was also the longest shutdown we'd ever had. It was 35 days. Uh, right now we are at, what is it, uh, 16 days, uh, shutdown here.

So we're inching towards the, I think, second-longest shutdown, which I think is 19 days in 2013, I, I think. Um, so there's that. Democrats are winning on the healthcare issue. They, like I said before, people are blaming the White House for this. Um, although they want Democrats to fix it, they are still thinking that Democrats are in the right because people are looking at the news.

They're hearing about their health insurance premiums that are gonna go up, not just for people who are on the Affordable Care Act or Medicaid or Medicare on November 1st, but for the rest of us because of how insurance pooling works. So most of us private-insured people are going to see our premiums go up next year. Whether it's by a little bit or a lot is up to the plan you have and the insurance company, but they're gonna go up regardless if the Democrats don't get what they want here. Um,

I also think the clock is ticking on that. Um, I, I think it was also Swalwell who said this week that the clock is ticking on the shutdown as, as he's been having conversations with people because as people go home for the weekend from Congress- Mm-hmm... like, uh, many of them are today, they are hearing from people who are worried about leaving or, or having to leave their healthcare.

Marjorie Taylor Greene was on CNN of all places this week talking about people who said that they just will have to walk away from having health insurance because they can't afford it 'cause their premiums are gonna go up. You've got WIC checks, Women, Infant, and Children money, that are supposed to keep new mothers, babies, and kids from going hungry. Those checks are running out.

We are gonna see the end of SNAP benefits, so food stamp benefits, and, um, needy family benefits. Those checks will start to run, run out, and dry up from the states, along with Social Security is right after that. And now the White House floated an idea this week that said they might try to use some of the tariff money that we've been bringing in to bolster the specifically women, infants, and children account.

It is not clear if any of that is legal or if there's actually even money there, if that money is sort of on paper looks like we're bringing in a ton of money, but really what we're doing is sort of just shifting the spreadsheet around. So things are still shut down.

There isn't a lot of movement, but it really does seem like the longer this goes on, the more people are like, "Hey, Republicans, you're the ones in charge here. How come you can't cut a deal with four Democrats?" Because that's all they need in the Senate, so w- what's going on here?

And that really does seem like this thing, uh, and that I think actually is a nice little bow for our whole conversation today, is that the White House knows that time is running out for all these things they wanna do because they're so drastic.

Mm-hmm. And they're gonna try to push this thing, and if they push too hard too fast, and which is generally their speed, they're gonna break it, and we're closing in on that threshold really fast. Grant Herms from Make It Make Sense with Grant Herms, I've got just a, a quick, um, uh, a thought on the shutdown. A- Yeah... it's the wrong time of year to be doing it. The fourth quarter's the worst time. Yeah.

People get into holidays, and, uh, you start messing with people's Christmas, Hanukkah, whatever the holiday might be- Mm-hmm... and the, the gifts that they give, um, it, that's even more powerful, uh, in terms of core memories than whether or not you went hungry for a couple of nights. And also- Yeah... these congresspeople going home, well, maybe you're stuck in an airport this weekend.

I, I, I get the feeling that when actual Congress, you know, elected representatives start to feel this, then it becomes a lot more real to them. Yeah. Can I add one thing here before we- Of course. Yeah... before we say, on, on that idea? A lot of members of Congress right now, wherever you live, are holding town halls. They go, or they, they have little, like, have a cup of coffee with your congressperson. Go to those.

I, I said it in the episode yesterday that right now if you're worried about what you're seeing, whether it's because of the shutdown or whether it's because of what we're seeing in Chicago and Portland, we still have lots of civil rights and freedoms, and we should use them. If you're upset about these things, go talk to your member of Congress. Go talk to your senator. They want to go do those things most of the time.

Uh, and go talk to them and force them to be responsive to you through words and peaceful actions. Mm-hmm. There, it takes so few people to get members of Congress to be responsive because so few people actually go talk to them. So there is no harm in looking up where they're gonna be. Those events are public. They usually say they're public. They usually blast them out. They want the photo op. Go talk to them. Yeah.

Go tell them what you're feeling and thinking because this is the moment in which we need to say those things and tell these people how we feel to tell them to do their jobs. That's, uh, uh, very interesting that you mention that, and it would be great if Oklahoma, uh, congressmen would do that.

And I, I saw Kevin Hern at one, but I will tell you, here in Oklahoma City, Representative Stephanie Bice has been notorious for not doing these and finding ways to get out of them at the last second. Yep. Commentary aside, but her opponent, uh, Gina Nelson, has really made that a big deal. And of course, there are- Yeah... safety concerns and whatnot. I totally get it.

Uh, but, uh, even if you held a giant Zoom, uh, and allowed people to ask questions one at a time, people just wanna be heard. Yeah. You know, that's the, that's the thing. People just wanna be heard. Yep. Yep, there are lots of ways to be heard. And if you're not feeling heard, call your congressperson's office. Call your senator's office. Uh, they're also responsive to that thing.

If they hear a bunch of people say, "You know, Stephanie Bice, we need you to come down and do a town hall at," I don't know, "Fastler Hall," right? W- whatever. Uh, then it... Which is not a plug. I haven't been there in years. Um, but the [laughs] like, I'm just thinking of a big place. Like, if enough people say that, she's gonna have to respond to that or have to face answers for not being in the public eye.

And, and again, like, use those freedoms and civil rights that we have right now. They are very powerful, and we should treat them as such. 100%. And speaking of, uh, being heard, you are heard everywhere you can find your podcasts, on YouTube, all the places. We'll have this video up, uh, on the Oklahoma Memo YouTube channel with all the appropriate links to Make It Make Sense. As always, it's a pleasure, Grant Herms. It's always a pleasure to be here, Ryan. Thank you so much. [outro music]