Bragging Rights

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That’s bolen branch, b o l l a n d, branch dot com promo code, beg to differ. Welcome to BED to Beg to Differ, The Bulwark weekly round table discussion featuring civil conversation across the political spectrum. We range from center left to center right. I’m Mona Charen, syndicated columnists and policy editor at The Bulwark, and I’m joined by our regulars, Bill Galston of the Bookings Institute in The Wall Street Journal Linda Chavez of the Nebskinen Center and Damon Linker who writes the Substack newsletter, eyes on the right. Our special guest this week is Ken White, former federal prosecutor and currently defense attorney who also writes a sub stack newsletter called the POPAT Report and who until recently was a I think it’s fair to say a Twitter star. Mhmm.

A follow that was kind of essential if you were in that world, but can you resign from that? Before we get into our first topic, which is gonna concern Trump’s legal troubles, sort of tour dory zone. I cannot help but ask with the origins of popat. What does that come from?

Well, it’s actually not a religious reference. It’s an old inside joke among friends. There was a friend who was very good at origami and would make a Pope’s hat out of a dollar bill. And when he wore it, he was pretty much undefeatable in poker. And so I thought that just as popes speak with infallibility and he played with infallibility, People on the Internet tend to speak as if they have infallibility, so it seemed appropriate.

Excellent.

Okay. Well, this week, we have, you know, bubbling up on a number of fronts Trump troubles, legal troubles. So we have The Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, seems poised to issue an indictment. We have news also from Fannie Will Saletan Georgia that she’s perhaps getting ready to issue an indictment regarding interfering in the election. In Georgia.

But let’s begin, can with this Manhattan case, first of all, can you just clear up one quick thing The fact that they invited Trump to testify is being widely portrayed as evidence that they’re on the verge of an indictment. Is that right?

Well, it’s evidence, but it’s not irrefutable evidence. So it’s true that their policies say that before you indict somebody, you’re supposed to invite them and give them a chance to, if they’re foolish enough, appear and testify to the grand jury. But that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily going to do it. And DA’s all over the United States routinely run cons on unsuspecting or suspecting targets and tell them things like, well, we’re about to indict you. You better come testify or you know, well, you know, we’re gonna charge you tomorrow, you better plead guilty today before the statute of limitations runs out, only to have nothing happen.

DA’s bluff as much as anyone else. And so, could they be about to indite? Absolutely. Is it absolutely true just because they did this? No.

Okay. So this is a person, a a

prospective defendant who attempted a coup, who attempted to over turn our democratic system. And the Manhattan District Attorney is fixing to charge him with a misdemeanor under New York State law, which is falsifying business records, vis à vis the payoffs to Stormy Daniels, so this wouldn’t even really be a felony unless he adds something, can you clarify?

Sure. So New York law has provisions that it can be a misdemeanor to falsify business records. And the theory is that Trump was involved in falsifying records to show that money paid to Michael Cohen of former Trump lawyer fame was for Cohen’s legal services instead of a way to hide a payout to Stormy Daniels. So the theory is that’s falsifying business records. You’re right.

It starts out in misdemeanor to make it a felony that have to show. It was being done to promote or conceal a different crime. And that’s very hard to do because not only has a lot of time passed, but a lot of the tent requirements for some of the crimes you might think of here are very

tricky to prove. Mhmm. Like, for example, he could say, right, that he wasn’t doing this payoff to the porn star in order to make a contribution to his campaign. He was doing it to avoid embarrassment or to keep it from Melania. Well,

exactly. And that’s the narrative. His lawyers are going with the idea that no, this wasn’t some sort of campaign money skullduggery. You know, the affair didn’t happen at all. He was simply avoiding unpleasantness with his family and embarrassment to them and that sort of thing in using his own money to do it —

Yeah. —

which isn’t a crime. It’s generally the closer you get to something that a white guy in a blue suit does the

harder it is to prove intent. That’s the

way the criminal justice system is set up. So campaign finance crimes are incredibly difficult to prove. The intent requirements are often as high as knowing that you’re breaking a law and tending to do so. And so it’s a very heavy lift. That’s why it doesn’t get charged a lot.

And, you know, it would be very difficult for the DA to prove that felony. I’m sure though he’s tempted because it’s not very satisfying if you’re gonna take a shot at the present

in the United States former or not to do what with a misdemeanor seems kind of anticlimactic. So the the sky Homerantz was on the prosecution team with the Albembrag’s predecessor, Sid Vance. And then he wrote a book criticizing, I guess, brag for not bringing Charlie Sykes, and now brag is bringing Charlie Sykes. What’s what’s going on with that?

Well, first of all, it’s it’s unethical for anyone who was an attorney that situation to be spilling a tea to to to be revealing confidences from inside discussions that applies to prosecutors as much as it would to a lawyer in the private sector. I don’t know whether brag is specifically responding to that pressure. I think there’s a lot more pressure out there. To do something. Although the question is is whether there’s pressure to be seen, is trying to do something to actually do it?

You know, the saying is that if you come at the king, you best not miss, it’s probably a lot worse reputation wise to take an unsuccessful shot at Donald Trump than it is. Not to take a shot

at all. So, you know, I’ll believe it when I see the actual indictment. Didn’t we do something similar with John Edwards, but that was federal prosecution, right, not a state one. For payments to his mistress and campaign finance violations,

There was a campaign finance federal prosecution against John Edwards in which he prevailed. So it demonstrates how difficult it is to go after somebody. And Edwards was arguably easier to go after because and he doesn’t have a reputation for being a hothead who probably doesn’t really go around forming specific content very often, which is probably the way people see Donald Trump. So, yeah, the record is it’s very hard to do, and it’s it’s often unsuccessful. The feds rarely lose criminal cases but they do lose campaign finance cases.

Howard Bauchner:

Damon Linker, I’m going to bring you in here because I know you are deeply skeptical of the idea that shooting Trump for anything is the way to go. I imagine you’re even more dubious about this New York City case.

Well, I you’ll recall my my argument was mainly about federal prosecution. Yeah. The idea that the justice department under Democratic president would seek to indict and throw in jail the former Republican president. Seemed to be a really bad precedent and one that would kind of queue up Donald Trump to basically run for president again in twenty twenty four are directly against the rule of law. Like like the deep state has now infiltrated absolutely everything, including federal law and enforcement top to bottom and look, they’re trying to crucify me.

I am your savior, my voters, against the the rule of law itself. That I thought would be extremely corrosive and and quite bad. Neither of the cases, either the Georgia case or the the New York attorney general’s investigation into the Stormy Daniels payoff. Rise to that level. I said even at the time that I didn’t really have strong opinions about subfederal prosecution.

Although, I will say that now that it appears that we are queuing up exactly that, there is a way in which just in terms of prudence again, not legally. I mean, legally, if he broke the law and there’s evidence he broke the law and they think they can make a case and convict him, then you know, I sort of feel like, alright. Fine. Let them do what they need to do. But in terms of politics, the the Stormy Daniels case is is almost absurdly trivial given the actions of this man.

I mean, the guy tried to overturn an election lead or provoke a coup that would have overturned American democracy and he might be under indictment for paying off a porn star for an affair. It it feels it feels like it will be a kind of sideshow in triviality in the midst of the Trump campaign. And so in that respect, a a little unfortunate. I think the Georgia case is is actually the one that that carries more weight that I’m more interested in because it actually involves one facet of the self cool attempt. And you know, we’ve read those transcripts, at least parts of them of what Trump was saying to Ravensburger on the phone trying to get him to basically, like, you know, falsify the counting of the vote so that Trump would win.

And so the implications there are far more directly tied to the worst of his actions. And so that’s the one where I, you know, kind of put all these considerations together. It’s not the attorney general of the United States appointed by a Democratic president who is leading the charge, but it’s in Georgia, which is at least, you know, a purple state borderline red state Republican appointees involved in it, Republican governor. I mean, this this is a a case that as I think road tested to kind of get more traction and be more worthwhile pursuing it. So that’s the one I’m a little more interested in.

So Will Saletan, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported this week that the special grand jury, in that case, heard additional evidence, another taped call, which was a Trump call to the then Georgia House Speaker David Ralston demanding that he call a special or asking that he call a special session of the legislature to declare him the winner. So that one, I mean, you know, everybody’s saying this is the strongest case, but honestly, I’m worried about that one too just because, you know, is that illegal for the president to say, I’d like you to call a special of the legislature and David Relson said, no. It’s not like asking him to find eleven thousand seven hundred and eighty votes as he did with Ravensburger. Granted.

And I’m not going to pretend to be an expert, you know, on Georgia law. But just looking at the Georgia case the way I think most ordinary citizens would, it’s going to be hard to justify not inditing. Trump, you know, for whatever version of election tampering the Georgia law for bids. I think that that case has gone too far. To turn back, and that is the case that changed my mind about the wisdom of prosecuting Trump.

Generally, as you’ll recall, Mona and my Facebook listeners, my original stance is one of deep skepticism towards the idea of prosecuting Donald Trump for anything, but the attempt to pervert the course of the election in Georgia is so manifest, so palpable, and so shocking, that if The Georgia prosecutor decides at this point not to proceed. She’s going to have a heavy burden of public justification to bear. In my opinion?

Linda, I think you are a prosecute and be damned person. Yeah.

I plead guilty. Okay.

Okay. So when you consider the magnitude of the crimes Trump has committed against the country, the big things attempting to subvert the rule of law and democracy. The worry is that the Manhattan case trivializes the offenses that Trump has committed by going to this Dormy Daniels story and trivializes the law. And you can make a case, I think, that the Trump people will say, this is so political. They trolled through everything in his history, looking for something to prosecute, and they picked up this old thing.

And Ron DeSantis, that’s gonna get traction with a lot of people, and thereby possibly bring the law into

dispute. Well, I I do agree with you that of all of the cases that might be brought against Donald Trump, this is, in my view, the weakest for lots of reasons, including that people don’t generally end up serving jail time for SEC violations illegal contributions to campaigns. There are some exceptions to that. It has happened, but it’s pretty rare. My biggest worry is if this is the first prosecution that is brought.

And it doesn’t go well or it even if, you know, it won’t it won’t have come to trial by the time other decisions have to be made. But nonetheless, having it be the very first one risks the chance that even people who are not entirely in the Mago world just tune out after that, that they just say, well, there’s another one. And that was one of the things that that made Trump so difficult to deal with when he was president in his various outrageous. You know, if it was just one outrage that he committed, if it was just saying that he likes people who don’t get end up as prisoners of war when he was really saying terrible things about John McCain. But he always makes it multiple infractions.

So he does one terrible thing and we all get very agitated about it. And then two days later, he does another terrible thing. And that sort of takes away from the first, and that’s what my worry is. So I’m in the camp with Damon, and I have been for a long time that the Georgia case is a much more substantive serious case in the sense that it is dealing with an infraction against democracy, that he was trying to subvert a free and fair election. And he was using his power in his authority from the Oval Office to try to bend people to his will.

Now some of the reason we’ve, you know, been hearing more about Fulton County this week is this fact that it turns out there’s not just one or two recordings. There are actually three recordings and the the last one that’s come to light is the one you referred to where David Ralston received a call, and there is a problem with that. Butting Willis is not gonna be able to call David Ralston as a as a witness in the case because he died. And so, again, you know, everything that could go right for Donald Trump. Continues to be able to go right for him.

And we are so overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the number of offenses that he is committed. The sheer braisiness of his continuing to do terrible things that ultimately it makes it all seem instead

of more dangerous, less dangerous, even if that sounds counterintuitive. Linda, you know, you may just have described the essence of the Trump genius. Usually, when people commit bad acts, they respond by attempting to compensate with good acts. Right. Right.

He just says something worse the next day. Worse. And boy, it’s worked well for him. But Coming back to you, Ken, so comment on anything you’ve heard so far if you’d like, but then I also want you to discuss the timing of these cases. Because even after indictment, I mean, things don’t rush along on a lickety split schedule.

I mean, trials take forever. So the idea that we’re under some sort of timeline here where Trump will face justice before twenty twenty four at this point seems a little remote, but you please tell us. It does seem remote. And Trump, if he’s been successful legally, it anything has been

very successful in delaying both civil and criminal litigation Ron DeSantis. He’s been successful in delaying congressional investigations, criminal investigations, civil cases, and those delays wind up having meaningful impact because, you know, the political calendar is very different than the litigation calendar. You’re used to federal criminal investigations lasting years, but that’s not very helpful if the your hope is that a federal criminal investigation will have an impact on an election. So you can never really count on anything legal involving Trump hitting and taking effect before in a given election or political event, you you’re hoping it will influence. And I think that will continue to be the case.

I also agree with what seems to be the consensus that the the New York case is unimpressive in terms of importance and is going to be widely perceived that way. I I think there’s this danger of people thinking, you know, well, sooner or later, he has to face consequences. And this is a case and therefore he ought to face this case. But this isn’t a case that the DA would normally charge if it weren’t Donald Trump. The DA, like any DA, has limited resources normally they would not spend it on whether or not a hush money payment gotten misclassified seven years ago.

So I think the public will widely perceive that. There’s this risk that because people have been looking to do something for so long, it clouds their judgment

about whether they can or should do it this time. Mhmm. And what do you make of the Fannie Willis case in Georgia? First of all, the the procedural posture that they have to convene yet a different grand jury if they’re gonna indict there. Right?

Because first one was not an indicting jury. I don’t understand the whole Georgia system. Well,

like many states, they have special investigatory grand jury that you can convene for a specific reason, a specific investigation that can take care of gathering all the evidence so that later a decision can be made about charging by a a charging grand jury. You know, I I’m more reluctant to delve into Georgia law than I am federal law, but it certainly seems to be vastly more substantive, and as people have suggested, the sorts of misconduct involve much more significant not only for Georgia, but for the country. I I don’t think we can discount the the extent to which Trump’s allies in Georgia may be able to interfere with process through various political moves they’re already trying, things like, you know, increased oversight of DAs and things like that. I think there’s a real risk that any charges that are brought there are going to be derailed through political means one way or the other. Uh-huh.

But the the other thing is that you have to understand is that the fact that a grand jury is being used again doesn’t necessarily mean there will be Charlie Sykes is fairly common for DA’s to use Grand jury’s as cover for something they don’t want to do. And you see this I think most often in the case of violence by police officers. DA’s will take the case of the grand jury when a cop shoots an unarmed person and Grand jury predictably doesn’t indict and the DA throws up their hand to say, well, what can I do? So as Grand jury’s can be tools to use to investigate and indict. They can also be used tools for political cover.

Basically, to to give you an excuse for why you’re not doing something.

But I thought the prosecutors in Grand jury’s are are all powerful and they can indict a ham sandwich. Are you suggesting that the prosecutors don’t make powerful cases to indict the police in these grand jury? Oh, absolutely. As a prosecutor, I hand

dyed cases in front of a federal grand jury, and you can absolutely determine what’s gonna happen. And if it, you can signal to the grand jury you know, the cop was just doing his job and and no one sees the transcript and and it’s done. So I’m not saying that’s what’s happening in Georgia. I’m just saying that you can’t confidently derive an opinion about what’s gonna happen in the end just based on the fact that the grand jury is being used. Okay.

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And we will now turn to Rhonda Santos, which I, you know, because I believe that what he did this week could very well be an important hinge moment for the Republican Party, and therefore, tension for the country in the world, namely, he was asked by Tucker Carlson, who is the chief putin propagandist in this country about his positions on a number of issues and about specifically about Ukraine. Ron DeSantis said that while the US has many vital national interests and he listed securing our borders, dressing the crisis of readiness within our military and other things and the military power of the Chinese Communist Party, he said getting involved in what he called territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them. Linda, I’m gonna go to you first on this. First of all, Calling this a territorial dispute is sort of like saying what Nazi Germany did to Poland in nineteen thirty nine, September first was territorial dispute. But arguably, you know, DeSantis had an opportunity here to carve out a position of leadership in the Republican Party, and he made a catastrophic decision to just be magna.

Did he I’m not sure he did, Mona. I wish I could say that it was a catastrophic decision, but

I don’t know that it’s a bad decision on his part. Because it helps him with the base of the party. I mean, let’s just recognize right now. That this is not the party of Ronald Reagan anymore. This is not the party that believes in a robust foreign policy and defense posture that includes making sure that we stop aggression when we can before it metastases.

And, you know, the idea that Ukraine is not central to American interests. Ignores the fact that Ukraine will only be the first of the countries that putin will go after. But that is not where the Republican Party is these days. The Republican Party is returning to its old roots to the roots of isolationism. This was one of the reasons that, you know, people like me were democrats at one point is that the Republicans were seen as far more isolationists.

And I don’t know that it’s a mistake for Rod DeSantis. I think it’s a horrible thing that he did. I think it shows him to be totally imprinted because there is actually video out there of him talking about Ukraine and it’s important previous times. So he clearly When

Obama was president.

When Obama was president. Right? He was very unhappy about Russia’s move into Crimea. Thought, you know, Obama should have done something about that, which I agree with by the way he should have. Maybe we wouldn’t be here in this position.

Had Obama acted more forcefully. But this is probably a good thing for him. I am happy to say that Mike Pompeo pushed back, and Pompeo also has ambitions to win the nomination.

But I see this is probably a very popular move within the Republican Party. Ken White. One of the things that you’ve heard DeSantis say, and this is something that does bubble up on the right is that they want to be really tough on the Chinese they say. But, you know, by being weak on Ukraine, that would send the exact wrong signal to the Chinese arguing.

I think so. I mean, the the the Chinese are a a major geopolitical foe and sort of indicating to to them that we’re not gonna defend weaker nations invaded by stronger ones is probably a not way to stand up to them. But I would only say not opining geopolitically, but domestically, politically. That to the extent this scientist is trying to get caught up in some somehow triangulating and maneuvering positions around Trump towards the primary. It seems pretty dumb to me.

Seems like basically trying, you know, carefully preparing for a fist fight with a drunk kangaroo. You know, it’s just the the whole enterprise is a bad idea to begin with. It doesn’t matter how carefully you prepare. So if if he’s if he’s trying to think, you know, what outrageous thing Trump will say or accuse him of, you know, he’s getting too far into his head and really preparing for something he can’t prepare for?

Will Saletan, I’m going to posit that maybe Linda over stated it a little bit that the Republican Party is now returning to its isolationist. I think the Republican Party actually is, at the moment, kind of soft and unformed. There is, of course, the Maga wing. But there are also lots of people still in the Republican Party, lots of sort of stigial Ron DeSantis who like an American defense of democracy and of the weak against the strong and against aggressors. And besides, Rhonda Santos already has the affection of the MAGA wing.

They like him. He didn’t really need to double down on that. He could have said, listen, you know, Tucker, I agree with you on x, y, and z. But you’re wrong on Ukraine. This is an important moment for American leadership.

This is about the, you know, security of the world and the, you know, etcetera. And it’s an important part of American leadership to see this through. And I think he would have looked like a leader if he had done that. Instead of like a Trump mini me, what what say you?

Well, you’ve read my mind, not that it’s time. Oh, It is certainly the case that the Republican base has drifted away from its earlier posture of support for large aid, significant aid to Ukraine, not long after the war broke out, and we began aiding Ukraine significantly. About eighteen percent of the Republican base said that we were doing too much to help Zelensky and Company. Most recent poll a couple of weeks ago, that eighteen percent had increased to fifty percent That’s consistent with other survey research, but if fifty percent have come to feel that way, you’re absolutely right. You have the other half of the party that either feels differently or remains unformed on the question.

And Mitch McConnell and the Republican senators who are staunch supporters of aid to Ukraine are not out of touch. They’re not just talking for themselves. The leaders of the Republican leaders and the various house defense committees who have remained staunchly in Ukraine’s corner, are not just talking for themselves, And I believe that by doing what he did, DeSantis has opened up space for another candidate in the Republican Party who is prepared to take the opposite side of the issue and articulate in very forceful and principled terms why both Trump and DeSantis are wrong And so he has perhaps helped himself with a portion of the party, but he has made life much more called with the other piece of the party. And I would point out that DeSantis’ support is much more heavily oriented at this point towards college graduates as opposed to the Trump base. And people who describe themselves as moderate or even liberal despite all of his efforts to commandeer the conservative base on cultural issues.

As he helped himself with those people, I don’t think so. So I’m not sure whether the guy to pick up the mantle of Regan two point o will be Mike Pompeo or somebody else, but that slot is now wide open. And it’s a huge opportunity for someone who genuinely believes that the isolationist wing of the Republican Party is wrong and dangerous. To articulate the contrary, case, and emerge as a real leader.

Well, Damon, what worries me is that I doubt very much that there is anybody in the Republican party with the stature and the credibility with the MagO wing to be able to do what Bill says. I I’m afraid that if it’s Nicki Haley or Mike Pence or Mike Pompeo, all of them will be dismissed out of hand by many Republicans as being weak or establishment or or not mad enough. And I feel that the, you know, the only one who could have done it and soared with it was DeSantis. What do you think?

Yeah. I I do tend to agree. And and there’s also, of course, that if it’s very very early, we’re, like, eleven months almost still from voting, but it’s it’s also the case that at the moment, Trump and DeSantis are eating up about seventy five percent of the polling points. And the others are taking up the rest. And even at this early date, we have only Haley, but as you noted, if anyone else is going to jump in, it’s going to include probably pence and maybe Pompeo, then that would be three dividing that much smaller piece of the pie, which means that the wall to climb for the non eyes allegionist position is gonna be very, very steep indeed.

You know, you have to convert a lot of those people in the seventy five over to the twenty five. But I actually wanna make up a point that, you know, may lead to some Beg to Differ here. I actually think if you look at DeSantis’ remarks, they are not as clear as I think a lot of people, a lot of his critics, among conservatives, are saying. He actually is being very cagey here. In a way, it is very clear.

He is trying to antagonize the more hawkish wing of the party with lines like the one about how the primary goal should be peace. He doesn’t say victory, that’s clearly, like, designed to make the more hawkish wing of the party go nuts and they have predictably gone nuts in response. Very very upset about it. I understand why. But if you actually parse what he’s saying here when he said the line about how It’s not in our vital national interest.

What he was saying was, quote, becoming further involved. That does not say being involved at all is not in our national intros. Similarly, among the things he opposed sending f sixteen’s and long range missiles. Well, okay, we haven’t done either of those things yet. And Also, regime change, which nobody in the Biden administration is advocating and even kind of in the broader civil society debate among policy intellectuals.

There aren’t even that many people really pushing for, like, overthrowing Putin. It’s something that’s talked about. There is nobody with any power in American government who who has that as our stated goal. So if you actually line up the specifics of what the scientist is supporting here, it’s not that different. Than what Biden is doing.

He’s definitely leaning in the magic direction. He wants to pick up the Trump’s support. But he’s sort of like tilting against the direction that Biden is moving, but Biden is also kind of in the middle. He’s not he’s not directly in putting American troops in the battle. He’s trying to send weapons to Ukraine so Ukraine can do its own fighting.

It’s kind of an in between position, between doing nothing, which is I think what Trump would like to do, pull out entirely and the other extreme which would be American and NATO forces directly intervening in the fight and taking on Russian troops. In the war. And so I think Ron DeSantis is trying to both pick up the magna support the more isolationist support while leaving himself maximal flexibility for later. And given the alignment of forces in the Republican Party, I think that’s very shrewd politics.

Well, I would just add that it may be shrewd politics. I’m not sure but it is contributing to shaping opinion within the GOP and having it congeal in a place of hostility toward helping Ukraine that will then have consequences further on and may not let him have the kind of flexibility that he imagines he will have later.

I I agree with you, and I I would wanna add just as Kavya, that the fact that DeSantis put his criticism in terms of vital national interest sort of queues up a perfect response which I know Linda gestured toward in her response a few minutes ago, which is Biden once again needs to do, I think, more even than he is despite his great speech in Poland and the visit to to keep and so forth in the last month or so. Biden Democrats and Republicans need to repeatedly make the case for why, in fact, it is in our vital national interest to be there and doing

this. Mhmm.

And to to take on and turnal debate that is going on on the right, at least among policy intellectuals, about whether, actually and this is I actually think where DeSantis is trying to place himself, not in the camp of Trump saying, let’s pull out of this. I’ll end the war in twenty four hours, a ridiculous thing to say, But I think he’s placing himself where a writer like say, Albert Colby is placing himself, which is very much not with isolationism, but which is American forces and will are not sufficient to both be as this committed to defending Ukraine and to be preparing for the bigger threat, which is China and Taiwan. And those folks are saying, in the name of being tougher with China and Taiwan, we must back away from defending Ukraine. Now, I don’t agree with that at all. I think that’s strategically foolish but it is a serious argument based on national interest.

And I think DeSantis wants to sort of be entering that debate on the other side, on the Colby side. And that’s I think where I would love to hear the kind of the argument go forward from here rather than sort of lamenting the turn of the GOP toward pure isolationism, which I think Trump still has a corner on that market alone.

Yep. Well, we’ll close this discussion by recalling a tweet. Said, you know, Ron DeSantis, tough on drag queens, soft on Putin.

There

have

been a lot of things like that. I mean, actually, Bill Crystal has a a good tweet this morning saying, yeah, you’ve got a Democratic president taking on Putin and then the leading Republican who only wants to fight Mickey Mouse. Yeah. Exactly.

Great. Let us turn to a free speech matter in our roiling culture wars We had several new episodes in the past few weeks, and one of them concerned an appearance at the Stanford Law School by a sitting federal judge. Kyle Duncan, he was invited by the Stanford Law Schools, Federal Society, and it turned into a debacle. He was shouted down he was subjected to vile vulgar sniping from a large group of protesters who mobbed the event. And, worst of all, an administrator Terence Steinbach, who is their associate Stanford Law’s associate Dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Was present and stood up and basically gave a speech saying she wasn’t sure that it was worth that she kept saying the juice is not worth the squeeze, meaning that his right to speak should not be upheld despite Stanford’s policies on the subject because it upset so many students. Ken White, you had something to say about this this week?

Yeah, I I mean, people were saying my current judgment is my default stance, but everyone in this made me mad. First of all, judge Duncan clearly came there hoping for this result. He came in, you know, videotaping what was going on with his phone, he was ready to charge right into the trading insults with the people insulting him, and he immediately went on the inevitable Vectomology tour on on right wing media. Look how these terrible progressives are mean to me, a mere this circuit judge. On the other hand, the students were part of a culture that says basically, not only do we have the right to protest and excoriate you, we we have a right to shut you down and stop you from speaking.

We decide who talks and who listens here. So and the administration, again, the sentiment described is completely unsuitable for a university. It was basically, if you say things that upset people, then we shouldn’t have you talk, all around just a terrible performance by every segment that participated in this?

And by the way, Ken, I mean, these are going to be the leading attorneys in the country. They’re graduating from Stanford Law. I mean, aren’t they supposed to be able to engage in argument rather than shouting people down?

Well, yes. I mean, their point and it’s fair would be that you can protest a lot of different ways. And that when you’re protesting someone with an immense amount of power, like a federal appellate judge, you may use rough attention seeking language. And sort of the notion that we’re gonna sit down and have this platonic dialogue with a judge is is not necessarily realistic. On the other hand, when you take that a step further to say, and therefore, you know, we’re not even gonna let them talk.

We don’t think that people who say things we don’t like should be allowed to talk. Well, I don’t have any respect. For that. They’re going beyond the reasonable, which is that they’re gonna find ways to protest and express themselves that are effective in getting their point across to saying the inner person doesn’t have a right to get their point across.

Yeah. This keeps happening, Bill. The law schools Dean did later apologized to judge Duncan, though I don’t think she apologized to the federal society’s students who probably deserved an apology as well since it was their event. And intolerance of dissent is very much present on both sides. I mean, we have seen Ron DeSantis attempting to pass laws saying that you cannot discuss certain things in universities in Florida that that’s being challenged as unconstitutional, which it plainly is.

So there is a threat Now some people say, well, look, yeah, you can have some bad behavior by students and by people and on Twitter. Though, Bill, I know you’re not on Twitter. But, you know, that’s not the same. It’s much worse when it comes from the state because the state is more powerful. Do you agree with that

argument? The state shouldn’t be using its power to suppress speech. But neither should the students. And if I look at the prospects of long term harm to the system, I’m not prepared to downplay the significance of what’s going on at premier institutions of higher learning around the country. The students are a problem, but the administrators are the real problem.

If there

were

administrators with Spines who are prepared to articulate the principles on which universities stand or fall and certainly law schools stand or fall, we wouldn’t be having this epidemic. So what you have in many cases, most cases, I would say, is the middle management of universities and places like law schools who are entirely committed to the principles on the basis of which students are allowed to shout down people they don’t agree with. And then senior administrators like law school deans and university presidents who are unwilling to use their authority to restore order and principle in their domains. It’s one thing for the Dean of the Stanford Law School to apologize to the judge. It is a very different thing for the dean of a law school to discipline or dismiss administrators who stand up in the middle of chaos and basically defend the people who have created the chaos.

So, you know, Now ask me what I really think

about. Yep. So, Linda, do you agree or disagree with any of that this Steinbach person, the Stanford Law Associate Dean for Diversity Equity and Inclusion, basically said that the university’s position on free speech really needed to be re examined and reconsidered? Well, I sort of had a little episode of PTSD. When I watched that

clip. As you have, Mona, I have had really horrific kinds of protests. When I have spoken in the past, including one in which I was physically assaulted, actually punched when I went to speak at a community college, a hostess community college in New York. So watching this and watching this administrator, brought back all of those memories. And by the way, this was in nineteen ninety one.

So this phenomena has been with us a very long time. And I absolutely agree with Bill that until there are consequences for the actions of the administrators, who essentially Ron DeSantis. The woman who spoke, who was the diversity and inclusion, specialist at the department. She clearly wasn’t about diversity or inclusion because she didn’t want to include anybody whose views on certain issues differed from the students who were protesting. And she wasn’t for, you know, including groups like the federalist society in the community.

Somehow, the federalist society had no right to do this. But these anarchic students who came holding up signs and and protesting did. But until administrators start saying, look, we believe in free speech and we believe in it so much that if you interfere with a speaker, if you prevent someone, from being able to speak his or her mind, then you are the person who’s gonna be removed. We’re not gonna punish the speaker. We’re gonna punish you.

I don’t think it’s gonna change. And, unfortunately, I don’t see that happening. I especially don’t see it happening if the protesters tend to be students of color or students who, you know, have different gender identifications, etcetera. If they are the coddled group on campus. I don’t see administrators standing up to this.

And I think it’s really a

danger. It’s a danger to our education system. Damon, in line with what Ken was saying about, you know, the behavior of the judge who was, you know, says, came loaded for bear without commenting on that because I don’t know whether he did or not. But but I did write a piece this week about Amy Wax, who is a professor of law at an East Coast University University, Pennsylvania, and she is a fairly obnoxious figure who almost cries out for cancellation. She seems to be courting it so that she can then be a martyr.

And and she says outrageous, terrible things. But she has tenure. And I argued that look, what she says is awful. But don’t punish her speech, you know, refute it, debate her because the danger of eroding the norms that Linda just talked about is very real.

Oh, I ain’t even

wax.

I

I mean, I have ties to Penn. My wife teaches there. I might be teaching there in the fall. So, like, it’s it’s a little awkward for me, but I don’t really mind. That’s fine.

I mean, she’s a tough case because it is tenure tenure should be inviolable as kind of I mean, it’s not an issue of the first amendment when it comes to tenure because this is a kind of internal private organization. And and it has certain norms and those include setting up rules that permit the widest possible leeway for thinking and public speech for the sake of academic freedom and the advancement of knowledge. Like this all. But

academic freedom and political freedom are not unlinked. They’re

not unlinked, but but it’s like an extra layer of concern. This isn’t somewhere based on a soapbox. In ranting and raving, and then the cops come and try to make them shut up. Like, this is this is within the bounds of a university that has its own separate additional layer of protections that should make it doubly and viable that she be have her speech quashed by the same token as you say. And this applies because I think Ken is right about the judge’s intent at Stanford is the right now has internalized a sort of jujitsu effort to always provoke maximal outrage on the left for the sake of advancing its own profile on its own side.

So you sort of want to be the victim of I don’t know, woke student accesses so that you can then present yourself as a martyr and advance the hatred of the other side among your allies. It’s really toxic. And and wax definitely contributes to this. I mean, she basically only speaks and writes now for right wing outlets, deliberately tries to be as provocative and even in salting and frankly pretty stupid. And the thing she says, like, just sort of and she sounds like a cranky person like Rand and raving Archie bunker style about, you know, the culture and the kids these days.

And there’s really no empirical basis for what she says. She just sort of throws numbers and figures around with any about any kind of rigorous immigrants. Literally. Exactly. Like, I got it.

I I saw some Asian lady dumped her trash on the street scene. They’re bad citizens. It’s it’s really low level. Stuff. And so if I were in in a position of authority at the University of Pennsylvania, I would not try to get rid of her tenure and fire her.

I would tell her in private. Look, you have tenure. We’re not gonna get rid of you, but you will not ever teach a course that is required. You will be teaching the minimum amount that is allowable for your salary grade. You will never be promoted to full professor.

You will receive the minimum raise per year as long as your only contributions to, quote, scholarship are going on right wing programs. And Yeah. In the study, you You will have the least — Yes. — in every way short of firing, you will be you should be informed that your career here is at a standstill. You’re contributing nothing to the advancement of the law school.

And that’s I think that it should end there. Because she’s not gonna be able to file a lawsuit against the law school for having an unpleasant office. And she’s not gonna be able to be the martyrs she clearly craves to be. So that’s how I would approach it if I had any power, which let me be very clear. I do not.

Okay. We’re running long, but I think we would be derelict we did not at least mention the banking crisis of this week. And Will Saletan, I’m just gonna ask you to quickly recap some of the points that you made in your column this week and anything else that you wanted to add.

I think the facts of the case are pretty well known at this point. Silicon Valley Bank, here in after SVB, violated banking one zero one in all sorts of ways. And ended up going under. And this evoked a reaction by the federal government which some have characterized quite plausibly as guaranteeing deposits of whatever amount despite the fact that the FDIC limit is two hundred and fifty thousand per person, five hundred thousand for for married couples. But clearly, the Fed and the Biden administration and others felt that there was no choice that the alternative was insecurity throughout the financial system and the possibility of that insecurity spreading across national borders, which regrettably is now happening.

And it’s raised all sorts of retrospective questions about the relaxation of regulations on midsized banks that occurred on a bipartisan basis in twenty eighteen. It’s also raised questions that I think deserve a lot of future inquiry into the supervisory neglect by the Federal Reserve Board in general and the San Francisco Fed in in particular. And so there’s going to be one of the military calls and after action review, which is not going to be flattering to a lot of people who have been involved in in this sorry episode. It also points out, I think, something deep about the current economic situation, and that is that the Fed’s war on inflation is a double edged sword because it inevitably reduces the value of the assets that banks hold that secure its capital so that they can meet their obligation when depositors want their money, and you can’t have it both ways, unfortunately. And so the Fed has now received a message which it is processing to the effect that it better slowed down its fight on inflation.

Because to continue at the previous pace would be to weaken the U. S. Financial system further. I have no idea of how they’re gonna balance the equities there, but there’s no way of spinning this as good news. It’s one further problem.

For economic regulators and policymakers on top of all the other problems that they’re now wrestling with.

Indeed, you know, anybody who thinks that the job of the Fed is easy or straightforward, I think got a different lesson this week. I mean, obviously, you have to raise interest rates to fight inflation, but then whoops, then the US treasury bonds lose value and that can implicate the banking system. And, wow, I am glad that I don’t have to make these decisions. But anyway, okay. Thanks, Bill.

Alright. With that, we will now turn to our final segment

highlight or low light of the week Linda Chavez. Well, I’m actually gonna be a looking into a crystal ball because the article I’m gonna talk about has not quite appeared, but there has been a little snippet that I will point to. It’s an article by Richard Sanders. And for those not familiar with that name, he is a UCLA law professor who almost twenty years ago published a really important study. There was a critique of affirmative action, but not a critique from the point of view of using race to make decisions about who gets into school, who doesn’t, or applying different standards to people based on the color of their skin.

Is morally wrong and when it’s done by government is constitutionally wrong. Rather, his point was it hurts the intended beneficiaries. And I’ve always considered that one of the most powerful arguments against such programs. So he has got a piece that is going to be coming out in the Journal of Legal Education, which is published by the Association of American law schools. He writes about it online at the James G Martin Center for Academic Renewal.

And he’s got a new study of six thousand five hundred students at four different schools law schools. And what he attempts to do is to point out that when you are admitted with lower LSA T scores and lower grade point averages to a school that you are not able to compete with students who are majority students are with students who get in the normal way. The chances are you are not going to do well. And in fact, there’s a huge effect in terms of dropout rate. There is a even more significant effect of students who go all the way through law school, assume a whole lot of debt in some cases, and then cannot pass the bar exam.

And what professor Sandra did was to go back and look at the data for the six thousand five hundred students And what he determined was that the gap in passing rates for the bar exam, which blacks and Latinos fail at a much higher rate, could entirely be explained by the fact that they tended schools for which they were not prepared. And he was able to determine that about two thirds to three quarters of the gap in pass rates between blacks and whites was explained by this mismatch and about half of the gap. Between whites and and and Latino students. So it’s an important study, it should get some attention. And if we are doing something that we think is helping people and it turns out, know it’s actually making things worse, and we have fewer black lawyers and fewer Latino lawyers because of the misguided attempts to put them in schools.

For which they’re not prepared, then maybe we ought to rethink

that. Just a quick question, Linda, did he compare students with the same grades in LSA T scores who went to different schools, some went to schools for which he says they were not prepared and some went to schools where they were more in the middle of the pack. Did he then find that the ones that went to the more matching school did better? They passed. Okay.

Right.

The pass rates of students who attended schools where they were properly matched were identical more or less to the pass rates of white students. Okay. So it basically wiped out this gap. And I

think that’s very important. K? Thank you. Damon Linker,

Well, I wanna actually go back to the Silicon Valley Bank story to highlight a very good blog post by Kevin Drum. I believe I’ve I’ve pointed to him at least months before on the podcast. He has a blog titled Jabber Walking and it’s an actual independent blog, not a sub stack. It’s rare these days that there’s still bloggers, but Kevin’s one of them. He’s very good.

And he has a piece titled Silicon Valley Bank was fine. It’s Silicon Valley that’s broken. And he actually digs into to some financial documents about SP. These finances, its investments, its the mortgage bonds that it held the long the long dated treasuries that became the problem once people started to ask for their their deposits back because they the the bank was unable to have enough cash to meet those requests. That’s what led to the collapse.

And he as far as he can tell, this bank was in a fine state and should have been able to cover these requests. Had it not been for a bank that was started. It appears intentionally by one Peter Deel and his founder’s fund, which is the venture capital fund that he co founded, they are the ones that sent out sent out messages to the people they invest with Ron DeSantis, get out of SVP before there was any evidence that there was a major problem with them covering the deposits. And that is why the bank collapsed. And really, very few banks could survive a concerted effort to have a bank run once it stops, it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy because then others become scared and they wanna pull their money out too and and then then the game is over.

So the real question I think here that I hope investigators start looking into is what was Peter yield doing. Was he being foolish? Did he actually become scared when, you know, Moody’s downgraded them a click? In their ratings in this in that immediate period because there were these problems with the the the long held securities and so forth. But but that was totally appropriate to the situation and should not have been judged any kind of catastrophic threat.

So did he totally misread that and start this by mistake? Or did for some reason he decide he wanted to flex his muscles and see if he had the power within a couple of days to destroy a major Silicon Valley institution because in the in the end, whatever his motives were, that is exactly what he and really he alone ended up doing. That’s the implication of Kevin’s piece. And, you know, it’s entirely possible on subjects like this that I failed to understand it sufficiently well to judge the quality of the argument, but I find it a very powerful and well researched short piece. And I hope people will read it and ponder it as well.

And that’s not just because I spent a lot of my time focused on the right and remain fascinated the case of Peter Teal and the mess that he wants to make of our political system. Okay.

Thank you. Ken White,

Well, I carefully avoided talking about Silicon Valley Bank because I’m functionally innumerate, but I will say that there was a Wall Street Journal, a op ed piece to me sort of exemplified how unserious we are as a nation during very serious times. Andy Kessler in this wrote more or less that, well, you know, what went wrong? We can’t help but notice, but they talk about having a diverse board. And he writes, I’m not saying twelve white men would have avoided this mess, but company may have been distracted by diversity demands. That to me is this emblematic of this this absolutely ridiculous, useless, poisonous discourse that we’re mostly enmeshed in where we just go for all the the hot button topics and vent our spleen and really don’t address serious issues.

So that was just sort of pandering the people who think that the woke people or the problem with everything in America and the responses to it. There will be plenty of pandering on the other side. So that type of discourse dominating us is really very much a low light for me. Donald Berwick:

Thank you. By the way, there was also some reporting by Judd Legum and others showing that the data on which some people on the right were basing this claim of wokeness about the Silicon Valley bank were actually false, so people can look that up too. Okay, Bill Galston.

Well, as far as this wealth bank, you know, business goes, it’s just one more vindication of the old Maxim that if all you have is a hammer. Everything looks like a nail. I mean, it is just it’s just it’s just preposterous. I’m going to abandon my previous low light and simply say for the record that I don’t think Kevin Drum is right. And I’m not saying that simply because I have a native informant, namely my son, the founder of Two Venture Capital Funds, and most of his investments were firms that were themselves holding substantial assets in SVB I’m not just saying that drum is almost certainly wrong because of that, but also because the crucial question Is the ratio of insured to uninsured assets among the deposit?

And Silicon Valley Bank was way out at the right tail and the percentage of its deposits that were not covered by FDIC insurance. And so if you’re a small firm that has managed to raise, let’s say, a million and a half dollars to get you through the first eighteen months of an early start. And only two hundred and fifty thousand of that is protected then you’re not in the same situation as a bank where you have eighty or eighty five or even ninety percent of the deposits. Under the FDIC ceiling. So SVB’s depositor portfolio was homogeneous in a dangerous way.

And that is what made the run on the bank inevitable. And I really think that we have to be very, very cautious of efforts at false originality in the understanding of this effort. I yield no one in my loathing for Peter Till. But I think it was the basic structure of the situation and not the intention of any one man that brought this about.

Okay. Ken White says he’s enumerate. I have to join his confession, and I would also just say that what I know about banking was summed up for me many years ago by a banker who said, well, we borrow it, we lend at three. We’re on the golf course by four. But, okay, I would like to draw attention to two pieces somewhat different perspectives, but on the same subject, namely a look back twenty years on on the Iraq War.

One piece appeared on the suspect, the Liberal Patriot, and it’s by Peter Juul, and it’s a highly, highly critical piece saying that it was, you know, really a a catastrophe for the United States and the world that we entered upon this misguided adventure in Iraq, and he makes that case. And then David Frum has a piece in the Atlantic the Iraq War reconsidered. And and David says that while it was clearly a grave and costly error and he pleads guilty to having been one of people who was enthusiastic about it at the time. He does say that the picture is mixed and but it’s important to go back and learn the right lessons. And one thing that I would just add is that it is easy to forget when you rewrite history how bipartisan many of our national mistakes are.

Right? I mean, it’s hard to do huge things with just one party. And the fact is that Democrats and Republicans were both very spooked by nine eleven and very spooked by the prospect or what we we convinced ourselves was was the high likelihood of terrorists getting nuclear weapons Ron DeSantis so, you know, both Democrats and Republicans allowed ourselves to be led into a a very terrible mistake in the Iraq War. Anyway, it’s both pieces have lots of interesting observations, and it is important to look back and consider lessons learned and remember the dangers of groupthink. With that, I would like to thank our guest Ken White, a k a pop hat, and I wanna thank our producer, Katie Cooper, I want to thank our sound engineer, Jonathan Siri.

And of course, I want to thank our wonderful listeners and I would thank you even more if you would rate and review us on whatever platform you are getting this podcast because it does help tremendously besides we go and read the comments. So please, comment, rate, review, and we will return next week as of

We’re all juggling life, a career, and trying to build a little bit of wealth. The Brown Ambition podcast with host Mandy and Tiffany but Janice can help. Brandy and I are the same age. So she came out, she really popularized natural hair via braids, and so all of us had braids. It’s written into dress codes and like school tools and even some workplaces where braids, locks, are not considered appropriate, and needs to be like written into the law.

You cannot discriminate and says for her hair, brown ambition,

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