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Hey, everybody, welcome to the Buck Brief. Our friend Josh Hammer with us now. He is senior editor at Large for Newsweek and host of the Josh Hammer Program. And mister Josh, let's start with this, Uh, the situation of law fair as it pertains to Trump. Bring us up to where you think this stands with the various prosecutions. Is any of this stuff gonna win? Because it feels like they're hinging all their presidential hopes the Biden folks on getting a guilty verdict somewhere against Trump.
So I think, guess and no, Buck, I mean part of it is, I think they're just going to start carpet bombing the airwaves with so many TV ads, so many newspaper ads and internet ads. Is trying to fear monger people into saying, oh, he's a criminal, and you know they're gonna try to peddle that message basically before he's even been convicted. So to an extent, I think an actual conviction before November would just be the cherry
on top for them. I'm not sure that their whole game plan necessarily depends upon that, but they obviously want that conviction before November, you know. Unfortunately, like but the way the criminal prosecution works, these things take a long time. I mean, look what's happening in Georgia just this week, where you have this ridiculous situation where Bonnie Willis, the DA has nominated her kind of sort of you know,
illicit lover to be to be the special prosecutor. And now, you know, just today it comes out that a judge in Georgia is now ordering an investigation to this. So quirks like this come up. Mean, not every criminal prosecution has something where a prosecutor has tapped her illicit paramore to be the special prosecutor. But over the course of a prosecution, the point is that that things come up. If I were Trump, I would still be concerned primarily
about Georgia and DC. Those to me have always been by far of the two most dangerous. The situation in New York with Alvin Bragg is a total nothing burger of a case. The Florida thing is interesting, but ultimately I think he's going to be okay there on appeal at the latest, George is very dangerous. You have a very dangerous jury pool there, you have a sweeping Rico statute, and you know, we have to see what happens with
his claim of absolute immunity for presidential acts. When it comes to what's happening in DC right now, we're waiting to hear from this three judge DC panel as retains to the Trump lawyers very aggressive assertion of full presidential immunity. I don't think that's gonna fly there, but it would go a very, very very long way for Trump if that somehow passes muster.
And there's a lot of attention that's been paid in the in the anti Trump media to arguments made by some Trump lawyers recently about essentially total immunity. I don't know what you extreme immunity, whatever you'd call it that a president has. What was the point of making that argument and what do you think of it?
So it has been totally pillory to this argument. But I'll be honest with you, I do not think it's a crazy argument. I really don't. I mean, it might kind of viscerally right people as being illogical, But if I'm a constitutional lawyer, and I'm looking at the constitutional text about if I'm thinking of a constitutional structure, I
actually think it makes a lot of sense. So what they are claiming what John Sower and the rest of Trump's legal team in d C is claiming, and this claim is now before a three judge panel in the US corpeals with DC Circuit. But they're claiming that the former president has absolute immunity unless he has first been impeached. And what that means, and they did tease this outterall argument is, you know, what if you commit a literal criminal app what if you hire an assassin to murder someone?
And I get that it rubs a lot of people the wrong way to say that, oh, you cannot be prosecuted for that. But think about constitutional textbook. Article two, Section one, Clause one of US Constitution vest quote the executive power in the President of the United States. The executive power is not vested in the vice president, is not invested in a cabinet official, it is not vested in a dog catcher. Is literally vested in one person.
And what that means is that that person has the plenary, sole and complete authority to dictate the federal law enforcement apparatus. Now people will say, well, what happens then if the president does something crazy, Well, the Constitution's framers thought of that. They have a remedy for it built in. It's called impeachments. So it's literally right there. And sure enough, when it comes to January sixth, which is basically what the trying to prosecute him for in Jacksmith's DC trial, when it
comes to January sixth, Buck, they tried that. They literally tried to impeach him for January six It kind of went into Biden's term. He was ultimately let off, I think correctly so, but from a legal perspective, from my perspective, I think that that remedy then therefore has been exhausted.
Josh, I'm going to have you tell everybody at home about the Chevron deference doctrine and why the Supreme Court is looking at this and how this matters. You're ready for this, because this is we're we're about to well, we're gonna let Josh nerd out. We're going to enjoy his nerding out here. And that's going to come up in just a second, because it matters a lot. It matters if you think the administrative state and the weaponization
of the government is something to be concerned about. Then you should absolutely care about the outcome of the Supreme Court case on Chevron deference. But you know, there's finally a break in interest rate hikes, and now interest rates for homeowners have dropped. That's the kind of good news we need. Det hills are great for new homeowners. Interest rates are now in the fives, a lot lower than they were last year. So if you've been buried in high interest credit card debt, now is the time to
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zero six percent for well qualified borrowers. Call eight six six eight nine zero nine three nine two for details about credit costs and terms. All right, Chevron deference hammer the lawyer hammer it.
All right. So definitely not the sexiest topic in the world, buck, but it's a very important topic, especially for people who are opposed to a tyrannical administrative state, as I think that all conservatives properly should be. So Chevron Deference goes back to a nineteen eighty four Supreme Court case, as the name implies, called Chevron, and what they basically said is, you know, the modern administrative state is a fairly modern phenomenon, right,
it's really kind of post Woodrow Wilson. So Woodrow Wilson was president in nineteen teen, so Chevron comes out about seventy years later, in nineteen eighty four. What they basically said is that when you have been administrative agency that issues a regulation, if the regulation is deemed reasonable. That's the word. If the regulation is reasonable, it doesn't have to be correct. It doesn't have to be an authentic application of a congressionally passed law of a statute. Only
if the agency's interpretation of the actual congressional law. If it's quote reasonable, then the judges can't do anything. Then Article three, the federal judiciary has no claim whatsoever. The effective or the effect of this buck is that the
administry of State's power is massively engorged. Congress in turn, becomes very lazy because they start just delegating lots of rulemaking and law making to the Ministry of State because they have this massive leeway and discretion to just interpret the laws in any way that might be subjectively deemed reasonable. And most importantly from my perspective, from kind of a structural separation of powers perspective, the federal judiciary is dramatically weakened.
So go back to like, you know, go back to constitutional law one on one buck. Go back to mar Bray versus Mattice in the case from eighteen oh three from Chief Justice John Marshall. John Marshall says that it is the province of the judiciary to say what the law is, period, full stop, end of story. Chevron deference by getting judges out of the picture, by saying that if the law is reasonable, then judges cannot opine what does. Let the administrators say what they will. That is a
total middle finger. I think to Marl Barry's mass and it is an inversion of the separation of powers. And I think it should be overruled.
You think it will be.
I think the votes probably are there for it. It's hard to say. So. You know, we have a six to three nominal court when it comes to Republican nominees versus Democrat nominees. Obviously, John Roberts is not even remotely reliable, although he did the right thing in the affirmative action case. He's been slightly more reliable in some higher profile cases the past two terms than I thought he would be. So if I were a betting man, I would say the votes are probably there. But you know, there was
a case a few terms ago. I mean not to like doubly nerd out here, but there's another form of administrative law deference called our deference. The administrative lawyers don't hate it as much as Chevron defference. The court a few terms ago actually couldn't even overturn our deference. But that was before the additions of amy Cony Barrett to the court and so forth. So the composition. Now, if I were a betting man, I think they probably have
the votes for this. This is a fairly unifying issue when it comes to all the various subcomponents of the broader conservative legal movements, the moderates, the Conservatives, the libertarians. They basically all agree the Chevron deference is bad. So I think it probably will be overruled. But I wouldn't want to bet the ranch on it either.
All right, we're gonna come back Hammer and also dive into any predictions you care to make about how things are gonna go in twenty twenty four. We're gonna make Hammer the prognosticator. But you know there's something out there I want you to be aware of, folks. It's a company called Patriot Defender. It's legal defense for you and me, the kind we need most, no cost legal defense to protect your rights, freedom's reputation, and your way of life.
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They'll provide you with IRS audit assistance. Go check this out. There's nothing else like this out there. Go see their website patriot defender dot com. That's patriotdefender dot com. The only membership that goes beyond just defense for concealed carry weapons. Patriot Defender will cover what others want to protect you, your family, and your livelihood. Josh, anything that comes to mind. I'm wanting your twenty twenty four big swing predictions here.
Biden is the nominee, not the nominee. Trump wins, Trump blueses, YadA, YadA. You tell me.
Look, I think that binds nominee. I'm pretty sure that you and I agree on this. We have some friends that are very much opposed to this, who say, oh, they're gonna swap out Biden at the convention they're gonna I mean, let's think through the logistics as the first of all, the actual filing dates in the primary states at this point have almost unanimously passed. So you basically can swap Biden out in one of two ways. One is, you can somehow orchestrate a grassroots, bloody floor fight on
the floor of the Democratic National Convention. I have no idea how you possibly could whip the actual votes for that to happen. Other than that, you can probably try to pull a Jeffrey Epstein. I mean, you know, make Joe Biden fall down a flight of stairs in a way that could end quite poorly for him in August septemb Brock. I mean, look, I don't put that past
the Democrats. Bock. I mean, you know, still I still have a lot of questions, of course, as to where all the bodies are buried in Clinton World and things like that. But if I were a betting man, I don't see it happening. I think Joe Biden is nominate at this point. I mean, who are they going to replace him with? I mean, the obvious answer will be the Vice president, Kamala Harris, but she's obviously totally unpopped. And then if you try to skip over her to
go with a white man, Gavin Newsome. You know, Democrats are risking a lot of black voters fleeing on the margins, not in total, but on the margins to Trump as well this year. So they're not gonna do that to
Kambala Harris. So I just don't see it happening. I think that Joe Biden is a nominee, and given that, you know, no matter what my misgivings have been about the potential risks of nominating Trump when it comes to these endorsement or when it comes to these prosecutions, no matter how illegitimate they are, no matter what those misgivings are, Biden is so so weak that Trump obviously has a
very strong chance of winning. I would probably say he's probably a slight favorite to this point of anything.
Now, Josh, what gives you optimism these days? You know, I feel like a lot of people are very concerned about the future, and there's a lot of catastrophism out there. Where do you think things are moving the right direction?
It's a great question. I'm struggling to think of it because I tend to be somewhat of a doom and Gloom guy.
Yeah, you're like, you're not a Sunshine and Rainbow's political analysis Skyle. Just to be fair about that, So I get it.
No, I'm definitely not right. Look, I think when you look at some of these so called cultural issues buck that are facing this country, the right genuinely seems to be winning on some of them. I mean, we are currently I think winning, albeit very slowly, the fight against DEI, against critical race theory, against ESG in particular, ESG is
a total winning issue for the right. Right now. We are getting black Rock Vanguard to run away from ESG and many of these major mutual funds or many these many these major pension funds, i should say, across across the state. So there are certain issues where if you look closely enough, we actually really do seem to be winning. On the transgender issue. I also feel constantly optimistic about winning on that one. And you know, look the abortion issue. The right has been losing in a lot of states
on that issue, no doubt about that. And I think the pro life movement has a lot of soul surging to do. I've written about this at great length over the past year. But but you know, let's take solace in the fact that we're still voting on this, that it's still a political question after fifty years where Roe versus Wade was the law of the land. So there were definitely some science for optimism even in our political world.
And also to go back to the Supreme Court, Buck, you know, the Supreme Court is one institution that is controlled by the right now. It is not a far right court. It is not a right wing court. It is a six ' to three nominal Republican nominated majority where John Roberts barely counts. So you know, it is not a scary right court as the New York Times and Adam Liptak and the bloggers like that would have you believe. But it is very clearly controlled by the riot.
They have come up big in most of the big cases over the past two terms. And as long as the right continues to hold the court, you know, that is a very very valuable bulwark in our separation of powers.
Josh Hammer, everybody check out the Josh Hammer Show. Josh, thanks for being here anytime.
Buck