Is Trump Snoozing on Iowa?

Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau.

I'm back from the playa, Jon Lovett.

You made it.

That would have been funny if you went. I'm Tommy Vitor.

On today's show, Biden shakes off concerns about his age with a five-day trip around the world. Kevin McCarthy may shut down the government to keep his job. Republicans in Wisconsin may try to overturn last spring's state Supreme Court election. Legal scholar Lawrence Tribe talks to Lovett about the gambit to keep Trump off the ballot using the 14th Amendment.

Yeah, that's what we're calling it.

Yeah, that's what we're calling it, but first, Trump and DeSantis both went to the Iowa vs Iowa State game this weekend. It was only Trump's seventh visit to Iowa this year. Where NBC News reports that some of his supporters are getting a bit nervous about his campaign operation, including, apparently, Don Jr, if you believe the story. Before taking his seat in a luxury box with his casino magnet donor, Trump stopped at a frat house on the way to the game and noted the crowd's enthusiasm.

All these students here, this is some turnout, yeah.

I guess the youth likes Trump.

The youth likes Trump.

And I'm actually starting to hear a lot of people saying, because you're showing up, I'm supporting you, because that's the way you got to do it.

Iowans don't want the campaign to be about the past or to be about the candidate's issues. They want it to be about their future and the future of this country. And that's what I represent.

I have to say I hadn't heard Ron DESantis voice in a while and just hearing it. Now, it's like, Oh, that's why he's losing by 40 points.

Yeah, that's why there's so many people he's meeting coming around.

Does DESantis have a point there? is Trump taking Iowa seriously enough, or is this just wish-casting from DESantis? And, I guess, to a lesser extent, the media, both of whom want a closer race.

Look, if the media wanted a closer race. There's a lot of ways they could be covering Ron DeSantis. Other than constantly asking the question over and over again, Can Ron DeSantis save his foundering campaign?

That's true. Yeah, I think it's wish-casting, with a kernel of truth. Showing up does matter. Does it matter enough to close a 23-point deficit in the last Des Moines register poll? I don't know.

Yeah, there's also, I think the other piece of it is, could Trump be going to Iowa more? Yes, I think it's the difference between seven visits versus 11 visits by this point, something like that.

Well, so Trump's only done 12 campaign events in Iowa and five in New Hampshire 42 total. When you add up the whole country, I think his opponents are in the states a lot more often, the early states at least.

Right, but I'm talking about Trump this campaign versus the last campaign.

Right when he lost Iowa.

Right, well, that's a good point.

Touche.

Well, but the point I was going to make is that it seems like there is more truth to the fact that. It seems like his staff is probably pretty fucking terrible. And he had nothing compared to the other campaigns he had on the ground.

A source close to Trump was reported to have heard Donald Trump Jr. on a call saying. They really got to get some adults in the room. The Iowa staff is amateur for Trump. And yadda, yadda, yadda.

I know because I have them in any room.

Yeah, I was going to say, Yeah, which room are the?

I was doing coke with eight of them and they were terrible.

I mean, could DESantis mount a surprise comeback? Yes, absolutely, but people keep making this Obama-Iowa caucus comparison from 2008 that I think is silly one. We were never down by two to one to Hillary Clinton or John Edwards two. Obama had something called a message that distinguished him from his opponents.

You don't think I represent the future is the right message.

Yeah, or I hate Disney more, or whatever it is. I mean, it could happen. But the cynic in me read that story and wondered if this was Trump's team lowering expectations for themselves in Iowa.

Speaking of lowering expectations, did you see the story where DESantis camp is now saying that a strong second in Iowa could be good enough?

Yeah, I couldn't tell which camp was trying to lower expectations because it seems like DeSantis camp is going around saying, Oh, look, it's basically a two person race. There'll be two tickets out of Iowa and we'll be one of them.

It was the quote is just great from the DESantis campaign operative, who asked to remain anonymous.

Because he wants to go work for somebody else.

Right? A strong second place showing gives us an opportunity to go into New Hampshire and show success.

It's so silly, the expectations game is so dumb. I mean, we did this all the time. In 2007 in Iowa, we were not allowed to say Obama's going to win Iowa. Because you want to position yourself to just exceed expectations, whatever that means, and the expectations are set by the press corps. But strong second place DeSantis. And then you're going to go to New Hampshire and lose to Chris Christie, and then you go to South Carolina, where Trump's got more than half the vote.

And then you're also potentially still facing Nikki Haley and Tim Scott if they haven't dropped out yet. I mean, it's like, what is happening? I mean, I just.-.

It was also like, one of the lessons of 2007 2008 is all this sort of narrative around? The timing? And the momentum fell by the wayside to the demographics in each state as they came up.

Yeah, and Jeff Rose was on audio talking to donors, saying, like, Well, Iowa's just a great state for us because it's highly educated and super conservative. And we think we're going to do good there. We think we're going to win. Blah, blah, blah. And then New Hampshire's a terrible state for Trump, he'll only get 28 there, and suddenly he loses the first two states.

A little wish because Jeff Rose, the guy running the Super Pac for DESantis, the other quote from the DESantis team I saw was on caucus night. Every Republican caucus goer will have had the chance to meet the governor, and probably the First Lady, at least once. And that's a big advantage.

Is that a good thing? Yeah, it was good.

Yeah, we've seen the video.

They're saying, that's positive, it's positive.

It's like, Yeah, I met Ron DeSantis. He insulted my kid for getting-.

Well, what they're also saying is like, oh so, underneath the polls, there's some strengths that you can't see. But like, how many points is that worth? Okay, let's say it's worth three or five, it's not 20..

Well, so, and you mentioned the des Moines Register poll, which is obviously the gold standard. Not only in Iowa, but like one of the best polls in the country. There wasn't a poll from Iowa State on Friday that came out just before they both were at the game. Trump 51, DESantis 14..

And it was at Iowa, not Iowa State, right?

I think it was Iowa State.

It was in Ames. Either way, it's like those are more liberal towns.

Yeah, so they both got some middle fingers, but it's like, right, they're, you know, Desantis and Trump. And then I also liked that. There was a plane that flew overhead with a banner that said, Where's Melania?

Who paid for that?

Who cares? She doesn't like them? That's where she is, She doesn't like her husband, yeah.

What a funny thing to pay for.

Melania is not showing up at the campaign events. With them. We got them. It's like, Yeah, guess what, she fucking hates them, yeah.

Right, right, I don't think she'll like you either.

I thought that was so funny.

I thought that was funny, too. Where's Melania? Where's Melania?

You've got this big budget line, you're gonna drop like, what 10 grand on a plane to drag a message you pick? Where's Melania?

There's also people with like, there's two people with inflatable, uh. They were wearing Trump and Fauci costumes, both with like masks on them, because, like, Trump listened to Fauci, I guess.

Well, they're all they're all hoping. DESantis is hoping that the lockdowns will come back, the masks will come back so he can make the whole campaign about his, you know, anti-Covid.

Two of them, two of them bending over backwards as like prove, they tried to kill more elderly. It's unbelievable. What a country.

But it's just like it shows what they're like, they're just grasping at straws. The Desantis people are like, Where's Melania? Let's get Fauci and Trump with masks on.

But even in that moment, like, I'm hearing from more and more people that my being here might be a reason to make me president.

There was also a New York Times story over the weekend with a headline and lead that really could have been written in 2016.

I really was like, I was like, Wait, I read this story before, we've all read it many times. April 2021 Trump lashes his enemies anew as GOP dances around his presence. A gathering of Republican leaders and top donors in Florida this weekend is less a reset of priorities and more a reminder of the tensions that Donald J. Trump instills in his party.

Literally, no one more useless than rich Republican donors at this point.

You had some Democratic donors.

That was the only part of this story that was like fun was just being just a appreciating that this was a story about hand-wringing. Among Republican donors, we read the Democratic one so much.

I mean, one thing it highlights, too, is that these people. It's pathetic that they're not doing anything with all of their money and influence. But they also just don't have the power that they used to. Because grassroots fundraising is such a big deal now, both on the Democratic side and the Republican side, so it's like the grassroots. The base just loves Donald Trump, and if a bunch of rich assholes don't agree, it doesn't really matter at this point.

They're all pulling different directions and wondering why they're not moving, right? Larry Ellison gave $10 million to Tim Scott's Super Pac. Desantis has $100 million Super Pac. Nikki Haley says she got a big fundraising bump after the last debate and reportedly has become the donor favorite. That means you're splitting the vote still.

And the reason, as Bill Kristol says in the piece, is he's like, I think. All because he told everyone, all these donors and whatever at the beginning of the year, they've got to all spend their money. Actually, persuading Republican voters not to vote for Trump instead of just throwing some money at Tim Scott and Nikki Haley or whoever. And he said, I don't think they're going to, because ultimately they tell themselves they could live with him, and it's right they could. You're a rich Republican donor and Trump's president.

He's sending signals today that he's going to do another round of tax cuts, he becomes president, sort of softens the opposition. There's also, by the way, a lot of money that's just on the sidelines. And even in that piece, there's somebody in there saying, I'm just waiting to see what happens to these indictments. Once somebody weakens them, then I'm coming in with all my cash.

And then they're hoping for Glenn Youngkin, which is like, give me a.

That's a pretty guy, ridiculous. My favorite part of that New York Times article was it mentions that Trump's super PaC got a $1 million check from Charles Kushner, Jared Kushner's dad. Trump pardoned him, by the way, on the way out the door. In the final days of the administration, that piece of data is mentioned, the fact that there was a pardon. But the donation was broadly framed as quote how some big donors have stuck with Mr.

I read that line and I was like, I've never seen such Tommy bait than this part of the story about.

The only difference between that and how Jared Kushner got into Harvard is Kushner promised the Harvard money in advance. Though, maybe in this case, he did too.

I think it was two mil. Yeah, you're right, he probably did.

So Joe Biden did not get to enjoy any Iowa football this weekend. The president took a quick trip around the world, with stops at the G20 in India. A few meetings and events in Vietnam, and an event with U.S. service members in Alaska to commemorate the 9-11 anniversary. During his press conference in Hanoi, the president was a little bit punchy, a little bit wonky, and extremely Biden. Let's listen.

Good evening Mr. President. how are you?

Well, thank you.

Good.

These five-day trips around the world are no problem.

I can imagine it is evening, I'd like to remind you.

Well, there's a lot of lion-dog-faced pony soldiers out there about global warming, but not anymore. But I tell you what I don't know about you, but I'm going to go to bed.

Now, look, I read the whole transcript, I watched some of the clips. He held forth for 40 minutes, he got right into the weeds on all these foreign policy issues. And the fact that even Joe Biden's critics, like Peter Doocy from Fox News, had to admit that Joe Biden really put in a lot of time on that trip.

So, I mean, just on the trip itself, they are absolutely brutal. The time change to India is nine hours from Washington, that's 11 hours to Hanoi. So you're basically like, you flip the A.m p.m.

Yeah, you and Dan had a good conversation about this, but you also were talking about how. Some of the hardest people to reach are the young, disaffected, not particularly political, young people who Biden is going to need. And I can't think of a group of people. Less likely to see anything substantive or good out of the trip, and more likely to see 30 or 40 seconds. Taken out of context, I first heard about that press conference because a friend of mine texted me the one minute excerpt that the GOP War Room sent around.

Which one did they pick?

That was the dog face pony soldiers. And I then went and looked at the transcript. And then I have to say to them, there's nothing wrong with the actual, I mean, there's things wrong with the anecdote. But not that he's too old.

I think I said this to you guys while I was on vacation, I said to someone. But when I watched the Tucker Trump interview after the Republican debate, I was like, someone should forget about. I realize there's a lot of important ads that we need to create that are about message and policy and what the Republicans are going to do, what Trump's going to do. All that, right?

No, and if you look, and there's a lot of, I think, Democratic apparatus, sort of finding the worst moments of Haley and Trump and Chris Christie and putting those out. But to our detriment, they're just about how they'll hurt the country and do such a bad job on policy and really on the substance. Great covered.

I mean, it's shown, I tell, just like Tommy, said Biden, but yes, on the Trump side, too.

Yeah, I think, like, taken as sort of an abstract question, like, can you, if you're convinced that a candidate is too old, can you be unconvinced of that? I don't know, you know what I mean, I think that might be a decision you make, and it sort of hardens.

That's funny.

And that's when you really realize, like, how out of just completely insane gibberish. But in languages.

But it also speaks to Trump's energy and charisma, and like that is what is carrying him through. And just the fact that we're a bit inured to it. And the reality is that Joe Biden, he's not as fast as he used to be, he's not as loud as he used to be.

I will say that I was looking at the coverage as well. And I know that the White House press team is just like furious over the coverage of the press conference. And I think they have a right to be with a lot of it. Because when you I did the same thing, I was just like, I'm just a just a news consumer. Googling about the press conference, see what happens and what you got, was the Joe Biden saying he wants to go to bed the lying? Which is why we played that, by the way, not because we were trying to add to it. For for this discussion, the dog face pony thing. And then, to Biden's credit, the opening line about, Oh, these five day trips around the world are no problem.

Yes, but like on TikTok, there are so much Joe Biden is old floating around on the other side of it. We need people that make fun of millennials to make fun of Donald Trump, too. Just we got to get some of that in there.

Yeah, I did.

I watched the whole press conference. I mean, the questions were all like it was like four to five. Or like, you know, fastballs about the U.S.-China relationship. You know, it wasn't. It wasn't easy stuff, and he handled it very deftly. The dogface pony soldier thing is, look, God help me when I'm reaching for a cultural reference point when I'm 80..

I will also say I was saying raptors checking the fences till 2075.

Another thing he did well in that press conference is like having read the Frank Ford book and interviewed him last week. Like Obama, and some of these foreign policy press conferences could get like, really, really wonky. Biden knowing that he's always trying to figure out, even with foreign policy. Like, how can I make this easily accessible for the average American, right? And not sound like I'm using all these terms. And you can see him doing that with a complicated issue like the United States relationship with China. Like on the fly, in the middle of a press conference. When he hasn't slept for 10 hours, you know, like, of course, he's there, you know, like it was, it's almost like the opposite, you watch that.

It's the opposite of the transfer problem. Joe Biden seems older. You look at what he's saying. He is able to walk you through the intricacy of policy in a way that Donald Trump never could. On his best day, with all of them at peak, for his best coursing through his veins.

Tommy.

Well, so it was the G20, and then this visit to Hanoi, to Vietnam, so you guys remember the G20 was? It still is the premier forum for economic cooperation globally for the biggest economies in the world. In 2009, it was a super important venue for dealing with the financial crisis. It was lots of Obama fighting with the Germans over spending versus austerity, right?

And it's supposed to put some pressure on China too, or not.

China is the backdrop of the whole thing. The whole idea is to reassure allies in the region that we're going to be there, that we're a Pacific power and that the Chinese aren't going to steamroll them. And I think they accomplished that.

Did you see that some Republicans are already attacking Biden for commemorating 9-11 by being in Alaska?

Who's attacking him, really?

Yeah, they were on Fox News saying, like, it's just a stop in Alaska with some troops. That's not how you commemorate 9-11..

No, you invade the wrong country.

Like, you know.

I think anyone our age, obviously. That was a horrifying day and something will be seared into our memory. We should also probably remember that 9-11 at the center of our politics, led us to do a lot of really terrible things and make a lot of bad decisions over the last 20 years. And maybe commemorating it, not at ground Zero or in the Pentagon or in Shanksville, is a good thing, yeah.

All right, back in Washington, Congress has finally returned, with just 19 days until the government runs out of funding. And even people close to Kevin McCarthy say they're doubtful the speaker will be able to avoid a shutdown and still keep his job. The MAGA hardliners are demanding some combination of a border crackdown, cutting off support for Ukraine, defunding the Department of Justice's Trump prosecutions and an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden. Of course, the White House and the Senate would never agree to any of that.

There's always one way out for Kevin, but the....

Yeah.

Right, and they all want different things. I mean, I think this could be a really rough ride for him, for the country, for anyone who wants the government to function and remain open. But I keep coming back to, what's the alternative to McCarthy, who's running against him? Who's going to put their hand up and say, Okay, I'll compete with you, yeah?

Yeah, so he doesn't have many votes to spare. I think he's down four votes because of absences, plus health and family. And then there's a fifth where Chris Stewart, I think, is resigning for something, so he doesn't really have any votes to spare. He would have to basically get all the Republicans on board that he has, which is going to be really tough for anything that the hardliners want.

Well, that's what happened with the debt ceiling, yes.

So it is what happened with the debt ceiling, and now they're pissed because they think the debt ceiling was a betrayal, which is why we're in this spot.

And part of what they want to do is use their leverage now to renegotiate that deal and no longer be on the spending levels of that deal.

Yeah, they want $120 billion more in cuts than Biden and McCarthy agreed to.

And so it's crazy, so it doesn't seem like there's any like the government will shut down. Or there will be something that can pass in a bipartisan way in the Senate and in a bipartisan way in the House. Because it doesn't seem like anything that can pass, with all Republican votes that you need has any chance of in hell and passing in the Senate. And so then you look at the list. And it is this mix of normal and abnormal politics. The part that's like, normal in this day and age, right? Which is the border stuff, right?

I mean, that's a he has to kind of deal with Democrats. But I mean, it does raise the question, who, if not McCarthy? But I think you at least go through something where someone all it takes is one asshole to trigger the motion to vacate. And then now they're voting right.

And the other, the other part of it too, is like, some of this is like the debt ceiling. Fight was a fear of this fight, this fight is the fear of the next fight. What Republicans in the House have said for a very long time, and actually I think fairly, is, hey, the way we've been funding the government is ridiculous. We've been doing these giant bills that if we say no to because we don't want to fund the State Department, we're also not funding the Pentagon. What have you? The Senate and the House have both now been doing individual appropriation bills, which is something that hasn't happened for a really long time.

It's like, and you know what assholes, you are gonna get jammed again and again and again, because you only control one House of Congress and you don't control the presidency assholes.

And the 20 of you causing this don't even do that right. And by the way, in the Senate, the Democrats and Republicans have been steadily producing bills together to fund the government in a way that House Republicans claim they want.

Senate Republicans don't want the shutdown.

No, and they also support, they support the disaster relief money. For Ukraine, of course, Mitch McConnell is like a stalwart defender of Ukraine.

Which is why, again, I would look to the border stuff as the only possible area of some kind of movement on this. Because I think that the impeachment stuff, the defunding DOJ and the Ukraine stuff are just like dead on arrival, it's not happening.

I'll tell you something I love a fun invite, I just love, I just like. It's just a little bit of normal politics. Because if you look like some of these, even like these, like these far right wingers. They keep saying, they keep, they throw out all these these threats and everything's on the table. And then they say, we won't do a clean CR, right? Well, that leaves a lot of room underneath for a lot of things.

I also think that, by the way, Biden and the Democrats are in a great position heading into this fight, too. Because it's like, it's going to look like Republican chaos, you're going to have a split between McConnell and McCarthy. The House and Senate Republicans are going to have a campaign going on. Where these guys want to make it about Joe Biden. And instead, he's going to be making it about crazy Republicans who are trying to shut down the government over they don't even know what.

Yeah, the like. Both, like McConnell and Thune have, like, referred to this problem. Like, we don't have a mess, they have a mess. Yeah, they don't say we, which is which tells you something?

And the White House is lifting up very popular parts of the spending, like money to deal with the fentanyl crisis. Yeah, like, you want to shut down the government over this, this is your priority.

Right, and by the way, a lot of House like, I think that the Republican Party is changing on questions about, like, whether we should support allies like Ukraine. But a lot of those Republican politicians haven't been voted out by. They're still a size of, I don't know what the exact number would be. But a lot of those House Republicans want to support Ukraine too, and they don't want to be in this fight.

I think more money for Ukraine is probably far more popular among members of Congress of both parties than the broader electorate. Which, you know, could be a down the road problem. For right now, I feel pretty good about it.

One last item before we get to Lovett's Larry Tribe interview, I briefly mentioned this on Thursday. But Republicans in the Wisconsin legislature are threatening to impeach newly elected state Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasewicz. I still don't remember how to say the name.

We both, we both, we both, we both on our separate pods, said it and then took a little moment to say, Look what we did.

It took a long time, we went to Wisconsin for days to figure that out.

You got to be a pro, you got to be a Protasewicz, okay?

Uh, anyway, they want to impeach Justice Janet unless she recuses herself from any cases involving gerrymandering. Because she accurately pointed out during the campaign that the maps are rigged for Republicans, actually the most rigged maps anywhere in the country, and because the maps are rigged for Republicans. They have a super majority with which to impeach the new justice if she is convicted, Democratic Governor Tony Evers could appoint her replacement. So the plan is for the General Assembly to impeach her, and then for the Senate to do nothing. Which would leave her in limbo, unable to hear any cases or rule on anything, and thus would leave the court. Split three, three, so there would be no majority on the Supreme Court, and the Republican legislature would just do whatever the fuck it wanted.

If Wisconsin was a foreign country, the State Department would be putting out a press release. Like attacking their democracy and saying, these elections are a sham. And what's going on here?

I mean, it is wild. What is going on right now?

I remember when we were in, we were in Wisconsin, like knocking on doors and sort of. In that final run. And Ben Wickler, who's always got his head on a swivel.

Yeah, and just so everyone you know, they're like, Oh well, it's because she talked about this in her campaign. First of all, the actual rules that Republicans have set in. Wisconsin says that, like, it doesn't matter if you, uh, say anything during a campaign, uh, about an issue. If you're running for judge, that's not only true in Wisconsin. Um, there was a Supreme Court opinion written in a majority opinion, the U.

Not big fans of recusals, and hypocrisy is so galling. So. The Chief Justice in Wisconsin became the first sitting Supreme Court justice in the state's history to be reprimanded by her colleagues for not recusing from a case. And as a circuit judge, she presided over 11 cases involving a bank for which her husband was a board member. That's incredible. The Republicans, led by by Robin Voss, the speaker of the Wisconsin State Assembly, are the ones who changed campaign finance rules to allow political parties to make unlimited donations to the state Supreme Court candidates.

One conservative justice on the court right now in Wisconsin has compared abortion to the Holocaust, and another one has accused Planned Parenthood of being a wicked organization that kills babies. Neither has recused themselves from any of the abortion cases that have come to the Supreme Court. Can you believe it?

That's unbelievable.

So here, so let's talk about what's what's happening here. So, um, uh. Ben Wickler and the Democratic Party have launched a website, Defend Justice..com. We mentioned this on Thursday and they are trying to get a pressure campaign going so that, um, people can call your legislators to find out where they stand. They already had one defection, one Republican in the in the General Assembly, who has already said, I don't think I want to do this. I don't think it's fair to impeach a justice before for not doing anything. Uh, literally.

I mean, it's just let's say they're, they're, they want to play games. Tony Evers He likes to, he likes to play games.

He did that thing where he crossed out all the letters.

They will take it to the extreme. Did you guys know there's a great New Yorker article about all of this that everyone should read? That Robin Voss, the crazy Republican speaker of the Wisconsin State Assembly, was college. Roommates with Reince Priebus talk about a room you want to avoid. You know what I'm saying, what's going on there?

Oh, sorry, that makes more sense. Oh yeah.

DefendJustice.

As if 91 felony counts weren't enough, former President Trump's legal troubles keep mounting. Last week, voters in Colorado filed a lawsuit seeking to remove him from the state's election under the 14th Amendment. Here to help make sense of this legal theory is a preeminent constitutional scholar who believes states should boot Trump from their ballots. Professor Larry Tribe, thank you for being here. thank you, John.

Is ineligible for federal Office. Well, first of all, it was not just my article, it was an article with Judge Michael Ludwig, a very well-respected conservative former judge. The reason we both concluded that he is ineligible is that, although he is 35, actually a good bit older. And although he's a natural-born citizen and meets those qualifications, there is one he does not meet, and it's quite explicit in the 14th Amendment. One of the qualifications is that you not engage in or give aid and comfort to an insurrection against the Constitution of the United States after taking an oath of office to uphold it.

So obviously it hasn't been used in the case of a president before. But other than immediately after the civil war, has this argument been invoked? Has this been used to ever keep someone from the ballot?

Yes, it's been invoked several times in modern times. The most important probably was that of a county commissioner in Minnesota, not a very high office. But he was actually arrested for trespass, not insurrection, but trespass on the Capitol, and he was removed from office. They didn't catch him in time, and actually, when he took the oath, he hadn't yet committed insurrection. But he was disqualified, he was removed from office, and because he was removed and then he lost his attempt to be elected again, the whole thing became moot.

So Donald Trump hasn't been convicted of any crimes as of this recording. He also hasn't been charged with insurrection or rebellion or treason or anything like that. You and Judge Ludwig say that you don't need a conviction, that that's actually a separate matter because this is self-executing.

Well, it is much harder. It's not a simple mechanical thing. That's what makes this an interesting and difficult lawsuit. In the first instance, as the Colorado voters who have standing in Colorado to sue the secretary of state. To tell her to do her job in the first instance, she's supposed to decide, and if she won't. The state court in which it has been filed in Colorado will hold a hearing and it will render a decision and that will be appealed. The reason that it doesn't matter whether he has been criminally charged with insurrection, much less convicted, is that this was deliberately put in the Constitution. At a time when we couldn't trust the chief executive and the Justice Department to charge people.

Leader of an insurrection, what is your mind? Is the insurrection? is the insurrection? What happens at the Capitol on January 6??

Case, because insurrection usually means force and violence, but here the insurrection was the whole plan from the beginning to the end. Fake electors, pressure on Raffensperger, pressure on the Vice president. The gallows that threatened him, and then if he didn't give in, the mob that almost got to him and threatened his life. That whole course of conduct was an insurrection against the Constitution of the United States. It's hard to draw lines. Maybe if it had been a much less elaborate plan, maybe if it hadn't included attempts on, you know, to kill the vice president and pressure on him, maybe it would have fallen short of an insurrection. But wherever the line is, the argument that is going to be considered by the courts of Colorado is that this falls on the insurrection side of that line.

I guess the reason I ask that is because, look, someone is 35 or they're not 35. And that could be under dispute. But it's not a subjective question whether somebody was a member of the confederacy or not, that could be disputed. But this was written to address the civil war. I took the LSAT, that was the end of my legal career.

Made who didn't want Section 3 to be in the Constitution? They basically said, you know, this might be a close call, although this one doesn't seem close. Why not leave it to the voters? And the answer was, the voters are entitled, in a democracy, to have the rule of law prevail, and they are entitled to have only those who are eligible. And the answer that was given was that if the power is abused, we have to build in a safeguard.

Things the exact text is about those who have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the country, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. There are Republicans who say that the Obama administration gave aid and comfort to America's enemies through the Iran deal. Or that the Biden administration gave aid and comfort to our enemies when it left Afghanistan. Do you think a Republican secretary of state who sincerely believes those statements is on, firmly legal?

Ground to remove Joe Biden's name from the ballot. Oh, the reason is that those are not insurrections against the Constitution of the United States. They may be policy decisions that one can disagree with. But I think it's very clear that if someone tried to leave Joe Biden's name off the ballot on that basis, that the U.S Supreme Court wouldn't agree. And in any event, I think even two-thirds of the current Congress would regard that as an abuse of power. But the fact that a power in the Constitution can be abused, which is something that people say about the impeachment power and almost everything else, the indictment power can be abused. Doesn't mean that we get rid of the rule of law and simply take a poll of the national electorate.

This is novel, right? You've introduced this in a piece that became news because it was, to many people, a completely novel theory. You recognize, there's a lot of people that disagree with this point of view, that see this as anti-democratic, that see this as a slippery slope. Towards people trying to use the legal system to prevent their opponents from being on the ballot. People that aren't just Trumpist or MAGA, people with a genuine disagreement and a genuine fear about what this would do. That this introduces yet another way in which people can abuse their office and use their subjective judgment to try to undermine a democracy. And given that we have a 6-3 conservative Supreme Court, which is, it seems to me, and I don't want to make a prediction. You're a lawyer, I'm just a schmuck. Unlikely to decide that Republicans can't vote for Donald Trump, that this will only result in simply a new way for Republicans to make trouble. Without getting to the result that you think is so important to protect our democracy.

Well, first of all, if I thought we could prevent Republicans from making trouble, whether it's with Benghazi or with the impending impeachment of Joe Biden. By disregarding the Constitution, then I really don't belong in the business of constitutional law. I think if you appease people in order to prevent them from making trouble, you are well on the way toward chaos. We can't decide selectively which parts of the Constitution might make too much trouble. If you ask me to put on my gambler's hat, I don't like gambling. I wouldn't gamble that the current U.S. Supreme Court would keep Donald Trump off the ballot.

In the course of that enterprise, given that this is so unlikely to succeed, I just worry that we're giving fodder to the people that believe. All these legal efforts, all these legal endeavors, the criminal cases, the civil cases, that all of them are about damaging Donald Trump politically. When this to you is about upholding the rule of law. But it is so explicitly about using the law to stop Donald Trump from ever being able to go in front of.

The electorate again, well, you know, if we lose, we lose, but it seems to me that the alternative is a kind of appeasement, the idea that weaponizing the law for political purposes is terrible. It's hard to square with the idea that the guy who is running on a program of revenge, saying that if he becomes president, he'll go after all of his enemies, that's his program.

What is the strongest legal argument against invoking the insurrection?

I suppose the strongest legal argument is a very technical one, which I don't buy at all. It's one that former Attorney General Mukasey made and the Wall Street Journal made, and that is that for strange grammatical reasons. The presidency is not an office. That's crazy. But it is legally stronger than some of the other arguments, like the arguments that this provision expired somehow because it was all about the civil war.

Trump Thank you so much for your time. Thank you John.

I am in the flesh. Where's your Fonny Willis candle? I bought you? Oh, it's burning, it's.

Going to be burned in an eternal flame, probably, gentlemen. Last week, Oklahoma announced a partnership with Prageru, approving educational videos from Prageru kids to use as part of a classroom curriculum in the state's public schools. This comes after Florida made the same announcement, basically in August. What's Prageru?

From how to embrace your masculinity, I know the answer how, because I'm a freak.

I think the fake one is the.

Okay, I'm going to say, hair in strange places is fake, which I think is the masculinity one.

Okay, great, I haven't seen this.

They really want to teach the femininity the masculinity is fake.

Right, exactly.

I thought it was just two.

No, but they're. Unfortunately, these could all be real. That is, of course, the joke of this. Is it funny? No, it's terrifying. On to the next one. Renewable energy sources don't contribute that much energy, unlike coal or fossil fuels.

I think the Germany one is fake me too, I agree.

Okay, you're right, all right.

It's too funny, it's too funny, yeah.

Oh, damn it.

I mean, Rainy Day dilemma was too funny. I'm simply too funny to do this.

Other than rainy day dilemma, I wasn't sure. It is a true statement that flooding is the most real. It did go back to the Bible. I'm convincing Favreau, he's like.

Wait a minute, these are good. I need to show this to my kids.

They got a point, they got a point.

Yeah. In one Prageru for Kids video, the narrator criticizes Rosa Parks for quote grandstanding during the Montgomery bus boycott.

No, no.

But, concludes In the end, Parks was able to work with her white neighbors to resolve their differences over bus seating.

I mean, Rosa Parks, it's got to be the fake one.

Oh my gosh, I kind of think the Rosa Parks one is real.

Love it.

Where did the word grandstanding come from?

The grandstanding is in quotes.

I can't believe, I can't believe what you're saying, but OK, I think that the George, I think that Rosa Parks one is fake.

Yeah, the George Floyd one is right, and it's from a video called Los Angeles.

I mean, it's all horrible.

The video is called Los Angeles, called Mateo Backs the Blue. And it's like, Oh, no, of all the things you want them to teach you about your kids about. It is not, of course. George Floyd. Without fossil fuels, humanity never would have created so many wonderful things like jet fuel, asphalt and heating oil. This is, of course, from Leo and Leila. Meet the dinosaurs.

I think here's my. I think the dinosaur one is fake, because I don't think they want to say that dinosaurs are old enough to become fuel.

That's true, I agree. Love it on that one.

I think you're twisting this and they're both real.

Good guess the real one is. Leo and Leila meet Leo Bakeland, who is the Belgian chemist who is known as the father of plastics.

Also, they probably, like, have money from big plastics.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, big Dinos, not coming up with much.

So I know they have, I know. Prageru has a video with Frederick Douglass in which it's basically like, America imperfect but awesome. So that's why I think that's the real one.

I think that's the real one, too, same.

They are, of course, both real.

I twisted it too early, twisted too early, twisted too early.

Real quick for all of you, guess how many views on YouTube Prageru's account has?

The total of the account.

Total since 2009.

2009, No.

A hundred million?

Yeah, I'll say 200 million.

300 million.

1.

That's no good, that's no good.

All right, we got to start making some content for kids, that's a lot. Oh, yeah, let's do that, let's get it in the....

Back the Bluey.

Paw Patrol. But with some criticism, with some salient criticism. Gentlemen, thank you for letting me come on here and bum you out, we had a laugh.

You did it in a jovial way.

But the other thing about this is it's like, finally, a way for schools to really thrive. By showing kids videos the famous way teachers who have given up make the class time go away.

Oh, you got to think they're just not even going to be hiring teachers, it's just going to be those videos.

Yeah, that's true. Yeah, because they fired all the teachers.

Oh, no, I gave them a genius idea.

It's just chat GPT welcoming the kids, putting on the Prageru vids.

One of the little robot dogs comes out and presses the play. They don't even need a person anymore.

Thank you Hallie Kiefer, thank you for having me. thank you to Lawrence Tribe and we will talk to you soon. Bye everyone.