June 12, 2025 • 54 mins
Eric Holder, AG under Obama from 2009 - 2015, has spent most of his life inside the Department of Justice. Now, he’s watching it unravel. He joins Katie to explain how the Trump administration is hollowing out institutions, targeting critics, and eroding democratic norms. He shares what it’s like to see the agency he loves weaponized—and why he believes citizen power, media courage, and legal resistance are more important than ever.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Okay, Well, I don't want to keep you all day,
and we have so much to talk about, so let's
get started. Should I call you ag Holder? Attorney General Holder,
Your highness, your highness?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
You? Hey? You? Eric is fun? Eric is fine? How
about that?
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Hi? Everyone, I'm Kitty Kuric and this is next question.
You probably know Eric Holder is President Obama's Attorney General.
But the question I have is how is he feeling
watching the actions of the Trump administration unfold, especially given
the fact he spent almost his entire career at the
(00:42):
Department of Justice. There was no shortage of things to discuss.
The dismantling of the DOJ, the LA standoff between Gavin
Newsom and Donald Trump, immigration, voting rights, the First Amendment,
Barack Obama, the role of the media, the role of
the public, and protecting democracy. We even waxed poetic about
(01:03):
Eddie Haskell. Yeah, that's right and Lumpy. Hey. I warned
you there was a lot to talk about. Here's my
conversation with former Attorney General Eric Holder. Eric Holder, It's
a real privilege to be able to talk to you
at this very important moment in our nation's history. I
(01:24):
guess the question is where do we begin. We've seen
so many things happen in recent months. I'm just curious
on a personal level, how you have been able to
process what we are all witnessing.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
You know, it's a hard thing to process, and I
don't think that we should process this as we process,
you know, changes in administration, differences in policies that happen
as a result of the outcome of elections. What's happening
now is not normal. It's not normal. I've served in
the Justice Department under Republican as well as Democratic attorneys general,
(02:02):
and what's going on, for instance, at the Justice Department
now is unprecedented. And what you see this administration doing
with regard to a whole range of things, attacking universities,
attacking the media, attacking law firms. These are all the
kinds of things that you would expect to see in
a nation that is moving towards authoritarianism. And it's certainly
(02:23):
inconsistent with who we say we are, you know, as Americans,
and what our system of government is supposed to be like.
So it's a hard thing to process. But to the
extent I've been able to, I put myself in opposition
and I think that's where everybody has to be. Unless
we are forceful in our opposition, visible in our opposition,
this administration will run rough shot over that which defines
(02:47):
this nation and makes this nation exceptional.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
I want to ask you about the Justice Department because
I think for most outsiders it is still kind of
a mystery about how it works and functions and the
people who were there. Can you describe what has been
happening at the DOJ because I report on it piecemeal,
But can you tell us sort of holistically what is
(03:14):
going on there and the impact of what's happening.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Well, you only have to look at kind of, you know,
some specific things to get a sense of what's going
on there. The firing of career employees that never happens.
You know. I started in the Justice Department when I
got out of law school, in the thing called the
Public Integrity Section, which investigates corrupt politicians, and I tried cases,
you know, all around the country. At the end of
(03:38):
the Bida administration, are about thirty people in that section
now there are four four. The voting section in the
Civil Rights Division had about I guess about thirty thirty
five employees lawyers. It now has about five these people
have been fired, moved to other positions, meaningless positions, or
encouraged to take early buyouts, and essentially kind of squeezed out.
(04:01):
So the Justice Department is not doing things in a
way that other justice departments under Republican or Democratic presidents
or Attorney's general you know, have ever done. The Justice
Department has pulled itself away from cases that had already
been filed in Texas with regard to some voting rights issues,
(04:22):
just pulled itself out of a case that had already
been filed and the Justice Department was participating in. Among
the most disturbing things Katie is the fact that this
Attorney General doesn't seem to understand that the Justice Department
has to stand to some degree separate and apart from
the White House. She views herself as Donald Trump's lawyer
(04:44):
and used the Justice Department as an arm of the
White House. And the best ages are the ones who
guard jealously the independence of the Justice Department, given the
ability that the Department has to deprive people of their
liberty of their property, and you can't make those decisions
on the basis of political considerations. And that's my biggest
(05:05):
fear they will remake the department, they will move out
people who are steeped in its traditions, and then simply
do Donald Trump's bidding.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
And all the King's forces and all the King's men
will not be able to put it back together again
even when he leaves office.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Potentially, that's a big concern. There's going to certainly have
to be a rebuilding effort. But I think in some
ways that is for me, the silver aligning. There's the
potential here to not only rebuild, but to try to
reimagine what government could look like, not only the Justice
Department but the other agencies as well. What should a
twenty first century Justice Department look like? You're going to
(05:43):
be coming in in twenty twenty nine, I hope a
new Attorney General looking at the carnage that would be left,
and so maybe you just don't put people back in
the same places, in the same numbers, but you try
to figure out, well, what is it that a twenty
first century Justice Department ought to be about, and you
staff it up, you prioritize it with you know, with
(06:04):
that in mind, that is a That's what I try
to think of as a silver lining. But make no
mistake between now in January of twenty twenty nine, there's
a lot of damage that's going to be done not
only to the Justice Department, but other executive branch agencies
as well.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
And it has already been done, right.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Has already been done. I mean, you know the kinds
of things where you essentially dismantle, you know, the Agency
for International Development. It's kind of like whoa what, you know,
a congressionally mandated and funded agency that they simply close down.
You know, the little knotheads that doge walking around and saying,
for whatever reason, we're going to disband to this agency
(06:41):
which projects soft power for the United States.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Also, the people who are monitoring waste, fraud and abuse,
which is public enemy number one for the Trump administration.
The people who are charged with investigating abuse have all
been fired, right.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
The inspectors general, you know, all but to let go.
And so you can almost see how this is playing out.
We'll remove all of the people who are supposed to
monitor these kinds of things, all the folks who might
be looking either outwardly or inwardly at potential matters of corruption,
and so then we have a free hand to do
that which we want to do.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
You mentioned Pam Bondi's belief that she's Donald Trump's personal lawyer.
I want to read a quote from The Guardian which
sums up I think the current state of the DOJ.
Some say that the Department has in effect become Trump's
personal law firm. Since taking office the second time, Trump
has relied on staunch loyalists Pam Bondi and an elite
(07:41):
group of Justice Department lawyers to investigate critics from his
first administration plus political opponents, and curb prosecutions of US
business bribery overseas. Ex prosecutors point to how Bondi and
the department's top lawyers have halted some major prosecutions, fired
or forced out laws who didn't meet MAGA litmus tests,
(08:02):
and were instructed by Trump to investigate a key Democratic
fundraising vehicle as examples of how Trump and Bondi have
politicized the Justice Department. You know you were President Obama's
Attorney general for six years from two thousand and nine
to twenty fifteen. You know, I think the Justice Department
correct me if I'm wrong. Has often been accused of
(08:24):
being overly political. If you think about you know, RFK
being the Attorney General for JFK or Ed Meese right,
and Ronald Reagan, and I think there's been criticisms that
Merrick Garland was too careful and too a political and
dragged his feet. But this is a whole new level
(08:46):
of the politicization of the Department of Justice. And as
you're watching this, I just wonder what you're thinking and
how angry you're getting and how you're figuring out what
can be done, as you mentioned twenty twenty nine, but
it's a long way until then.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Yeah, it's a harder thing to say politicization as opposed
to what it is that they're doing, because they're politicizing
the department and have done so relatively quickly. But they're
not politicizing the Justice Department. They're weaponize the Justice Department.
They're using the Justice Department to get at the perceived
enemies of the president. And they're not necessarily enemies. There
(09:26):
are political opponents. They're critics or people who potentially might
have the capacity to oppose him in some ways. And
so this is unbelievably disturbing. I mean, this is a
cornerstone of our our system of government, that you have
a justice department that, although a part of an administration,
still maintains a healthy dose of independence. Yeah, ags get
(09:51):
criticized all the time for doing things that are perceived
to be or said to be political, and most of
the time that's just political rhetoric. Justice departments that actually
do do things on the basis of politics are the
ones that get in trouble. Those are the ages who
get indicted, are who are not looked upon favorably by history.
History is not going to be kind to Pambondi. History's
(10:14):
not going to be kind to the people who serve
under her in the Justice Department now, because they're doing
things inconsistent with the best traditions of a department, an
organization that means the world to me. I grew up
in the Justice Department. I grew up in that place,
you know, out of law school line lawyer, US attorney,
deputy Attorney general, attorney general. Most of my career has
(10:36):
been spent in the United States Department of Justice, and
it tears me apart to see what they're doing and
tearing apart that very institution.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Let me ask you about what's going on in Los
Angeles if I could, because obviously that is dominating the
headlines right now. After several days of protest against immigration
enforcement raised by Ice. As you well know, President Trump
bypassed Governor Gavin Newsom and called up four thousand National
Guard troops and a battalion of seven hundred marines to
(11:06):
the city of Los Angeles. Legally and historically, how extraordinary
is this move?
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Legally, it's an interesting case as to you know, I'd
think California has sued, and it'll be interesting to see
exactly how the case plays out. But historically this is
something that runs counter to our traditions and counter to
the practice that past presidents have used. You know, when
a president has called out the National Guard without the
(11:35):
request of a governor. Well, you think back to you know,
the sixties, when I guess President Johnson called out the
National Guard to protect the Selma to Montgomery marchers out
of concern that George Wallace and you know, the state
troopers there who cracked John Lewis's head on the Selma
Edmund Pettis Bridge might not have the marcher's best interest
(11:58):
at heart. So you can see something like that happening here.
There's no basis to believe that the state and local
authorities can't handle what's going on. I think this administration
is itching for a fight. They want to do things
that are going to antagonize people who are using their
First Amendment rights to protest the immigration policies of the administration.
(12:21):
They want pictures to show people in the streets doing
you know, negative things. And to be fair, there are
people who need to be held accountable. You know, people
who are throwing things at cops, people who are you know,
saying negative things to cops, physically confronting.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Them, burning up cop cars, things like that.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Those people ought to be in jail. They're thugs, you know,
they're hooligan. They need to be in jail.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
They're exploiting the situation.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Right, So there is that, But the vast majority of
the people who are protesting are simply doing so in
a peaceful way. Now, so I don't, you know, countenance
people who are doing things that physically harm cops, you know,
block traffic on major thoroughfares. It's also that's counterproductive at
the end of the day. And you know, people waving
(13:07):
flags of foreign nations think about this. I mean, how
if you have you want to get the American people
on your side and I think as regard to these
immigration policies, the American people are appalled at what this
administration is doing. But they're also kind of pushed back
by some of the tactics that are being used by
some of these demonstrators. But this is all political. This
(13:29):
is all political. I mean to put you know, to
call up National guardsmen and then they call up marines. Now,
these marines do a great job at what it is
that they do. I would bet that crowd control is
not something that the United States Marine Corps is trained
to do. And so that's just an incendiary kind of
thing that Whiskey Pete and Donald Trump have decided that
(13:50):
they want to do.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Do you think they're intentionally trying to escalate the tension
and create chaos instead of diffusing it asolutely.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
They want to antagonize, escalate and get the pictures that
they want, which is to show you know, people hurling things,
setting cars of fire, blocking traffic, you know, doing all
those kinds of things to try to convince people. As
Steven Miller said that there's a war of civilizations going on,
(14:21):
what the hell does that mean? You know, really, I mean,
you're trying to you know, we got criticized. President Obama
was criticized of being the deporter in chief. If you
look at what it is that we did. We use
the courts to get people who have recently come to
the United States, the immigration courts get them out, and
then we went after people who committed serious crimes. We
(14:44):
didn't take four year old girls who were in the
potentially going to die and deport them to Mexico. We
didn't take people who've been here. There was a waitress
I think in Missouri, been here for twenty years, pull
her out of her, you know, place of employment, and
try to send her back. This is an administration that
(15:04):
views certain immigrants in certain ways. If these people we're
trying to get in from Norway, from Sweden, from Finland,
from Northern European countries, any problem with that, I bet
you know Afrikaners. Yeah, we're letting those folks in from
South Africa. But if you happen to be Hispanic, if
(15:26):
you happen to be a person from Haiti, from you know,
African countries, we don't want those people. They don't want
those people in this country. And that's what that's kind
of the the underpinnings of their immigration policy, and that's
why Miller talks about this clash of civilizations.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
So you think it's racism pure and simple.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Not pure and simple. But there's a component to that,
I mean racism, ethnicism. I guess that you might call it. Yeah,
I mean you'd have to be reluctant to look at that,
which is fairly obvious, you know. I mean, you send
a plane to get I don't know, was it fifty
sixty Africanas out of South Africa. You insult the President
(16:11):
of South Africa.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
In the show a photo from Congo, from Congo.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
That's got nothing to do with South Africa. It's all
laying up predicate for the kinds of things that they
want to do with our immigration system, again inconsistent with
how America has always said it is and by and large,
how we've always conducted ourselves when it comes to immigration.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, you know, it
(16:36):
was Italians and Irish who negative things were set about,
and they would try to try to keep them out
of the country. Chinese Exclusion Act. Now, these are not
great moments in American history, and I fear that we're
replicating that in the twenty first century under this administration.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Hi everyone, it's Katie Curic. You know I'm always on
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(17:43):
or book your own free personalized fitting. What's frustrating to
me is it shows the inability of our government to
actually tackle a problem. There should have been comprehensive immigration
(18:07):
reform long ago, and yet time and time again it
never is able to gain traction. And we need a fair,
humane immigration system in this country. And why can't Congress,
Why can't they come up with a better plan that
(18:27):
is fair to people but also involves laws.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
I mean, you know, President Bush, George W. Bush certainly tried, right.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Kennedy and McCain tried there.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
You know, Congress Senator Langford from Oklahoma came up with
a bill that you know, made people on the other side.
Democrats swallow hard, but said, you know, we'll support that.
And what happened. Donald Trump said, no, don't vote for that.
He wants the issue. He wants the issue. This is
a central part of his administration. It's been a central
part of his campaigns. When he wrote down that old
(19:00):
and escalated to announce his candidacy back in August twenty fifteen,
he talked about, you know, Mexicans are rapists. They're not
sending us their best. This has been a part of
his stick and he'd rather have the issue than the solution.
But you're right. I mean, we have got to come
to grips with the fact that we have millions of
(19:20):
undocumented people here who have contributed, you know, mightily, who
pay taxes, who pay Social Security taxes, who are part
of the fabric of this nation. They need to be
treated fairly. But at the same time also recognize that
borders mean something, and we can't take all of El
Salvador and all of Guatemala and all Upondors into the
United States. There are processes that people have to go through.
(19:43):
If they don't follow those processes well as we did
in the Obama administration, they need to be removed. But
there is the need for and there has been the
need for comprehensive immigration reform for decades.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
At this point, having said that, this is not the
solution to just in a very draconian an inhumane way,
take people who have been in this country, as you said,
who are paying taxes, you know, money's going into the
Social Security system, who are actually really important for our economy.
Forty eight percent of agricultural workers are undocumented, and you know,
(20:18):
look at the nation's hotels and you look at all
kinds of workers. I think I heard there are a
million undocumented workers in Los Angeles. You know, if all
of these people are forced out of the country, it's
going to have a huge impact on the economy, is
it not.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Yeah, I'm going to have a huge impact on the economy.
There are certain industries that rely a great deal on
immigrant labor, from meatpacking in Iowa to people who are
picking crops in Florida and in California. But you know,
we're also turning our back on our immigrant past. And
here's the deal. Everybody who's listening to this, watching this,
(20:57):
You know you're an immigrant stock unless you are descended
from the Native American people. If you're the waspiest person
in the world, if you can trace your roots to
the Mayflower. Guess what those folks who came over here
were immigrants. They were fleeing religious persecution. And it's just
the question of how you got here and when you
got here. And it's always seems to be that the
(21:18):
latest are the ones who get villified and then they become,
you know, assimilated into our society, and then you know
they're fine. And so you know, Trump and his folks
are trying to recreate an America that really never existed
in nineteen fifties America. You know where June Cleaver was
was vacuuming in high heels and in pearls, their white
(21:41):
picket fences, no gay people, no.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Black people, making an after school snack for Beaver Rally
and Lumpy and Lumpy.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
And Eddie Haskell is Eddie Haskells not.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Forgetting thank you, missus clean.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Missus clever. He's my man. I love that guy.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
We're clearly the same generation.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Eddie was the man, definitely the me.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
He was such a kiss ass. I couldn't stand him.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Oh I love that guy.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
I was a lumpy girl.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Oh ump, lumpy Rutherford.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Okay, all right, anyway, we digress.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Oh there's important stuff, you know.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
I wanted to ask you Eric about Kilmar Obrega Garcia,
who was wrongly deported to El Salvador earlier this year
despite a court order barring his removal. So finally he
comes home, right, and now he's facing these newly unsealed
federal charges. I am so confused by this. Can you
(22:36):
help me out?
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Well, I think we're all a little confused by that.
The administration was confused by that when they said that, well,
we deported this guy whoops by mistake, and they.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
They showed a photoshop picture of his fingers.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Right, Well, the supposed he had tattoos that tied him
to a gang. You know. Trump looked at it and said, no, no,
that's not that's not doctored. And it's like, uh, yes
it is, but all right, So yeah, they were confused,
and they removed him without due process.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Well, I wanted to ask you about due process, but
first before I do, and jump ahead, what is going
on with this man?
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Well, he's finally back in the United States, there are
now he's now facing charges that appear to have been
uncovered relatively recently. I read that a prosecutor has resigned
in the Justice Department as a result of the actions
that have been taken against this now defendant.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Mister Garcia, is this a face saving measure in your review?
Speaker 2 (23:35):
I don't know about the strength of the case, but
it does seem a little suspicious that these charges are
now brought and they use that as the basis to
get him, you know, from that hell hole in l Salvador,
back to you know, the United States, when they could
quite simply have told, you know, President Mukeley, you know,
give us this guy. And if the American government had
(23:58):
said that, he would have shown up in in the
United States. So we'll see, I mean, we'll see what
this how these charges go, and we'll have an ability
to judge whether or not this was a pretext or
whether there is a real basis to conclude that he
violated the law in the ways in which the government
has delineated in an indictment.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Why is due process so important?
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Due process is one of the foundational parts of our society.
Government power can only be used against individuals in prescribed ways.
Due process means that you have the ability to challenge
a governmental action that's directed at you, whether it's an
attempt to take property from you, to imprison you. The
(24:39):
government has to be put to its proof before it
can actually act. And what we've seen with so many
of these deportations is that people have simply been snatched
off the street, put on airplanes and then move to
El Salvador, South Sudan, Libya, you know, without any ability
for these people to say, well, wait a minute, what
why am I being taken away? Proved to me, what's
(25:02):
the basis for the legitimate basis for this action? And
people need to understand governments make mistakes, you know. I
think about that, that that game makeup artist, that guy.
I mean, it's best I can tell. He's taken because
of tattoos that he had on his hands that apparently
(25:23):
were misinterpreted. I don't know where this poor man is
at this point, and I know got to El Salvador.
I don't know what has happened, you know, to him,
there's really no basis for his deportation, is best I
can tell. And yet because he didn't have due process.
He didn't have the ability to challenge that which the
government wanted to do to him. He was simply picked up,
(25:43):
put on a plane and then taken down to you know,
that that place in El Salvador.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
And then I think about how sort of capricious it
is when someone is is basically let go like that
way in Missouri, when there was that community outcry, or
the four year old girl who needed life saving medical care.
But how many people are out there like them, who
(26:10):
don't necessarily have a community or a citizenry rising up
and defending them.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Yeah, I mean, that's both the concern I have. How
many other people are like that? And that's also the
thing gives me some degree of optimism and shows the
power of the American people. When that community in Missouri said, no,
you're not taking her. What happened? Lo and behold she reappears.
When the media does the great job that they did
(26:39):
to publicize the case of that four year old, that
poor four year old girl, cute as a button, cute
as a button, what happens, Well, suddenly, okay, she can
stay here, you know, for medical treatment that basically keeps
her alive. The power of the media, the power of
the American people cannot be underestimated, and you can't overestimate
the power of government when those two forces are in opposition.
(27:04):
And that's why it's incumbent upon the American people to
be conversant with what's going on, to be active, to
be engaged, and be committed to defending our values. And
the media can't be cowed. The media can't be coued,
is it then? To some degree? I think so, you know,
there's a desire, it's a human thing to look at
(27:25):
situations and to try to look at both sides, normalize things,
be fair, be fair, and sometimes you've got to, you know,
call them as they are. I mean, if I'm sitting
here with you, I'm a Democrat, you're a Republican, and
we're in the middle of a hurricane, and I'm a
Democrat and I says, look, you know, it's raining outside,
(27:46):
and you the Republicans say, no, it's sunny outside, but
there's a hurricane going on. The reporters there has got
to say. Can't simply say, well, the Republican said that
there was no rain, the Democrats said that there was rain.
End of analysis. No, you got to say the Republican
was unbelievably wrong because in fact, there was a hurricane
out there, and I think that probably makes someone in
(28:07):
the media a little uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Well, I think when you try to search for the truth,
and I can talk about this, you know better than me,
very personally, that you're often accused of being biased. And
if you actually just want to present facts and you
are searching for truth, that is not being biased. I
have so many people saying to me, Eric, what happened
(28:31):
to you? And I said, nothing happened to me. Maybe
it's what has happened to our country.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Yeah, And that's the deal. You've got to be prepared
to deal with those charges of bias if what you
are carefully reporting is truth in the same way that
I was talking about before. You know, those congressmen, you've
got to be acting a way that's consistent with your oath,
even if that means you're going to be charged with
(28:56):
being disloyal. Time are you going to be I'm married,
you're gonna be called a rhino or whatever.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Your musk is going to support your opposition. Although that's
kind of a mess too now right.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
I mean, in universities have got to be prepared, you know,
to take on forces that are doing things inconsistent with
the way in which universities are supposed to conduct themselves.
And it may cost your money, you know. Okay, you
got to be prepared for that. You know, opposition, effective
opposition does not come without a price. The reporting of
(29:30):
truth frequently does not come without a price. We've seen
this throughout our history, where you know, brave news gatherers
have lost their lives reporting the truth, and we dishonor them.
People in the media dishonor them if we are not willing.
Members of the media are not willing to report truthfully now,
(29:53):
and we've got to be supportive. We the American people,
have to be supportive of people in the media. We
have the guts to do exactly that focus on truth.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Getting back to Los Angeles, I wanted to ask you
about this Posse Commatatis Act. You know, I feel like
I've gotten a law degree in the last few days.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Eric.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
It's an eighteen seventy eight law that generally bars the
US military from engaging in civilian law enforcement, and a
lot of people are saying, hey, Donald Trump, you cannot
deploy the National Guard or Marines to do the job
of law enforcement. This is not right. So does this
law or this act not have any teeth.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Yeah, well, that's why they're trying to characterize it as
the use of the military for national security purposes. I mean,
the understand that Passecommatadis makes is a big problem if
they are to be if the military is to be
engaged in domestic law enforcements. So they're trying to characterize
it as anything but that, and so they have to
you know, say negative things about the protesters, that they
(30:55):
are not only protesting inappropriately, but they're also a threat
to national security, and in that way they think they
can justify the use of the military.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Are they also claiming that of the undocumented people who
they're apprehending, that they're a threat to national security?
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Yeah, I mean that's that's certainly the claim, and that's
why they try to make use of the military there
to the extent that they possibly can.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
How did you like the fact that these protesters are
being called insurrectionists, a word that was never used on
January sixth.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Right, Yeah, you know it. There's a whole bunch of
stuff here that's a little hypocritical. You know, you call
these folks, insurrectionists, these protesters, and they're doing that which
the vast, vast majority. Now they're exceptions, but the vast
majority are simply doing that which is guaranteed by our
First Amendment. The people who stormed our capital on January
(31:47):
the sixth were worthy of pardons. And when I hear
people in this administration talk about how they want to
protect the police, I think, well, wait a minute, what
were you all doing when you pardoned all those people
who beat the hell out of cops on the capital
steps and in the Capitol on January the sixth, What
we try to do with the blue theya, what we're
trying to do with regard to police officers? When you
(32:10):
decided that those true insurrectionists were deserving of pardons.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
So is he using that terminology to set himself up
to use the Insurrection Act? And can you explain what
that means?
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Well, that's a concern that I have that the possibility
exists that that which we've seen now is really just
a prelude, a foundation for the imposition of the Insurrection Act,
which gives a president really broad ranging powers to do
a whole range of things, but to declare an insurrection
(32:42):
means you've got to meet a number of their number
of requirements. I don't think those are met. I suspect
they probably will not be met.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Will he use it anyway?
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Well, that's what worries me, you know. I mean, if
you'd ask me that question even six seven months ago,
I would have said, you know, Katie, you're being a
little alarmist here, hyperbolic. And now I can't dismiss that.
I mean, I really can't. David from wrote a piece
in The Atlantic, I think last week or so where
he talked about the possibility that the Insurrection Act might
be used to somehow tinker with the twenty twenty six midterms.
(33:16):
And again, that's the kind of thing that I would
have read five six months ago and thought, you know,
that's just nuts. And now I think we have to
be prepared. I still don't think it happens, you know,
I think that twenty twenty six elections will go on
and they'll be fine. But I think we have to
at least be prepared for the possibility, the possibility that
some attempt might be made to fool around with elections
(33:38):
in certain parts of the country. And the fact that
I even say that as a former Attorney general that
we have to be prepared for. That possibility is something
that's extremely alarming.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
If you want to get smarter every morning with a
break down of the news and fascinating takes on health
and wellness and pop culture, sign up for our daily newsletter,
Wake Up Call by going to Katiecuric dot com. You
(34:18):
talked earlier about the Justice Department being gutted, and I'm
wondering who is there or who will protect the rights
of these protesters to exercise their First Amendment rights, the
right to assemble, the right to free speech. If this
civil Rights division of the Justice Department has been you know,
(34:42):
dismantled essentially, who will stand up for these people?
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Yeah? Well, I mean I think there are a couple
of sources. You've certainly got state attorneys general and state
lawyers who can protect the rights of these folks. And
then there's the private bar, which is why you know,
when law firms cut these deals with the administration, that's
why that was so troubling. It sends a chill out
among other law firms who might decide to be the
(35:08):
lawyers for these protesters, and now they know, well, if
we get crosswise with this administration, maybe we will be
the subject of an executive order, and so that is
one of the reasons why you go after the law firms,
because you reduce the possibility that your opponents will have
adequate legal representation. So, yeah, the Justice Department is not
going to help an awful lot, but there are still
(35:30):
lots of lawyers in different places, both in government and
on the private side, that you can come to their assistance.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Having said that, is the legal system been effectively weakened
or diminished as a result of Donald Trump's actions?
Speaker 2 (35:47):
You know, I would say it's been diminished or weakened
in certain ways. I worry about what's happened to big
law firms and their reactions to some of these executive orders,
and I think there's been some weakness shown there. I
think the courts have generally been done extremely well. You know,
he has lost the overwhelming number of cases that have
(36:09):
been brought before federal judges, So I think the system
is held there. My concern there is that that's we're
at the district court level, courts have held I think
at the Court of appeals level, the courts will hold
questions what ultimately is going to happen at the United
States Supreme Court, and there I get a little concerned
about with their view of their expansive view of executive power.
(36:32):
And you know that you look at that immunity decision
from you know, from the last term. Will that view
of executive power allow the Trump administration to do the
kinds of things that they are trying to do? Will
the Supreme Court give them, you know, the authority to
do things that I think they are clearly inconsistent with
(36:53):
our traditions, our norms, and and our laws.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
Do you think the Supreme Court, I mean, have you
got in any kind of encouragement by some of their decisions,
by some of the justices seeming to not walk lockstep
with the president?
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Yeah? Yeah, I think I don't want to paint with
too broad a brush. I mean, I think I'm concerned
about and you know, see what the Supreme Court does.
But I think that there is certainly a basis for
hope that the Supreme Court will act in the way
that Court appeals judges are acting, the way district court
judges have been acting. But it's not the sure thing
(37:32):
that I think, you know, it ought to be that
immunity decision can't be undervalued, you know, to make up
out whole cloth the notion that an American president is
above the law, is above the law, you know, can
violate the law, can direct you know, people in his
administration to do certain things without any kind of criminal liability.
(37:54):
I mean that's where that come from. I mean, where's that.
You know, they talk about originalism, tech stualism. Where's that
in any of the texts? You know?
Speaker 1 (38:04):
And then the question is what will keep the administration
from ignoring any decisions made by the courts. You know,
I was disturbed to see that part of this budget
bill there was a provision that would prevent judges from
issuing contemptive court orders, forcing people to basically obey their
(38:31):
decisions in essence, right, And that is in the small
print of this budget bill. That is adding to this
whole notion of immunity in a significant way, is it not.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Yeah, And that's why this well go. I think, well,
the big beautiful bill has got to be examined page
by page. You know. I have problems with, you know,
the continuation of the tax cuts, which were I think unnecessary,
but you also have to look at those those kinds
of provisions though they're just kind of tucked away there.
They recognize the power that the courts have and the
(39:07):
power the district court judges have, and they're trying to
decrease that power. They're trying to systematically eliminate all those areas,
all those places where they might run into opposition. And
that's the thing that worries me. What's the endgame here?
You know, if you take lawyers out of the mix,
if you take the media out of the mix, if
you take universities out of the mix, if you take
(39:28):
power away from.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
Judges, there's no guardrails.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
This is all to what end at the end of
the day. What is it that you are you're trying
to do?
Speaker 1 (39:37):
And that's uh, well, you tell me what do you
think they're trying to do?
Speaker 2 (39:42):
You know, I worry are they trying to find ways
in which they perpetuate themselves in power in ways that
are inconsistent with our constitution? Are they trying to make
sure that, you know, elections can be conducted in such
a way that they can guarantee result regardless of what
(40:04):
the American people, you know, want to do. One of
the things I've been fighting is this whole question of
racial and partisan jerrymandering. Do they want to somehow, you know,
use jerry mandering knowing that they've flattened the opposition, and
then gerrymander things in such a way so that they
can guarantee Republican domination of our state legislature's Republican domination
(40:27):
of the United States House of Representatives because they're no checks.
So that's at least one of the ways in which,
you know, I get concerned about what it is they
might do.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Tell us more about the work you're doing to address
your concerns.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
Yeah, I mean, as Barack and I President Obama and
I were leaving office, we tried to yeah, he's my
good by, my good buddy bo. As we were leaving office,
we try to figure out what is we want to
do in our post government lives. What is the thing
that we thought was most pose some of the greatest
problems that we had to confront, And we pointed to
(41:02):
the issue of jerrymandering, and so we formed up with
the National Democratic Redistricting Committee that really looks at the
way in which the lines are drawn for state legislative
seats as well as the United States House of Representatives.
And said, you know what, here's the deal. Let's just
make that process fair. Let's do away with jury mandering,
which guarantees that Republicans are going to win in certain districts,
(41:23):
Democrats are going to win in certain districts. Let's just
make it fair so that politicians are not picking their voters,
voters are choosing who their representatives ought to be. And
so we've had a fair, a pretty good amount of success.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
Well, how do you stop jerrymandering.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
Well, there's a number of things. You bring lawsuits where
you find jerry manders. You put in place these independent
commissions to draw the lines instead of interested politicians, and
then you also support candidates who will stand for affair process.
And I mean to give you a sense kat of
how bad it was. You look at the election right
after the the jerry manders will put in place in
(42:01):
twenty eleven and twenty twelve congressional elections. Democrats got one
point four million more votes for the United States House
of Representatives in twenty twelve and ended up with a
thirty three seat deficit. And it's all a function of
the way in which the jerry manders were put in place.
When we started out Democrats to have a fifty to
(42:22):
fifty US House of Representatives had to overperform by eight percent.
Now we wiped that out, and we had the most
fair elections in terms of jurymandering, the lack of jury mandering,
I guess in twenty twenty two. But there's still, you know,
a lot of work that needs to be done. Twenty
twenty two, twenty twenty four. You know, we saw things
(42:42):
much better than they were in twenty twelve, but there
are still a lot of places Texas, Georgia, Wisconsin, Florida,
you know, Louisiana still places where his work to be done.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
There's also a Supreme Court case, Louisiana versus Calais, which
asks whether creating a second majority black districts, something ordered
under the Voting Rights Act, violates the Equal Protection Clause.
Critics say this case could gut what's left of Section two. Okay,
I just said that, I have no idea what that means.
(43:13):
Do you explain?
Speaker 2 (43:14):
Yeah, I mean, you know, Section two of the Voting
Rights Act allows private parties as well as Justice Department
to challenge unfair voting practices, you know, on the basis
of race. If you look at the way in which
the lines have been drawn in southern states where there's
a history of racially polarized voting, that's a critical thing.
(43:36):
There's a history of racially polarized voting. Those parties that
have substantial African American support have been discriminated against. That's
the Democratic Party, say in Alabama. And so we brought
a lawsuit there. This very conservative Supreme Court said, you
know what they make up. Black folks make up about
twenty seven percent of the population. Based on a number
(43:56):
of congressmanment you have, there should be two Black opportunities districts.
There was only one. We won the case.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
A Black opportunity district.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
It's a district that is created so that the African
American population in a particular area has the ability to
express its political will, so that there's if you want
to elect a black person as a congressman, as a congresswoman,
you have that ability. The lines are not drawn in
such a way that precludes that possibility and undermines the
(44:25):
ability of that twenty seven percent of the population to
fully express their political desires. And so after our successful suit,
that's a Supreme court upheld surprising to me, but got
to give them credit they help we were. We have
now for the first time, two black congressmen from Alabama,
consistent again with the population demographics of the city of
(44:49):
the state and also taking into consideration something people have
to keep in mind that history of racially polarized voting
without that Section two is not necessarily a tool that
we can use. And so we've used that now in
Louisiana as well. And now the Louisiana folks who didn't
like the result are claiming that white people are being
(45:09):
discriminated against by the Voting Rights Act of nineteen sixty five,
and they wanted to have that declared unconstitutional, rip away
from the Voting Rights Act, the constitutionality of section two,
using some of the same arguments that we use when
the Act was put in place back in nineteen sixty five.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
You warned that what we're seeing in the US today
is quote remarkably similar to what happened in Europe in
the thirties, and you've drawn comparisons to places like Hungary
and Turkey. Do you think Americans grasp what serious trouble
we are in and how the future may in fact look.
(45:51):
I mean, I worry about that all the time. Too.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
Yeah, people don't get it to the degree that they
should now, and that concerns me a great deal. But
I think there's a growing awareness among people. As you
see these demonstrations breaking out not only in Los Angeles
but in other parts of the country, and you see
the size of them growing. I think there's a growing
awareness of that. The American people are generally slow to rouse,
(46:15):
but once aroused, they are a mighty force, and that's
something that we can never forget. All the great movements
in this nation came about not because politicians decided it
was time for women to get the right to vote,
it was time for a system of American apartheid to
be taken down. It was because the American people said,
you know what, it's not fair women can't vote. This
(46:37):
system of segregation. That's just not fair, and that needs
to be torn down. That's the power of the American people,
and I think there is a growing awareness that fundamental liberties,
fundamental rights, fundamental notions of who we are as a
people and how we should be governed are being trampled.
(46:58):
And so I am optimistic that at the end of
the day of the American people will get to the
right place, and I think do so, you know, in time,
that's that's the thing that gives me optimism.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
There's no guarantee that democracies last, is there no? No.
Speaker 2 (47:13):
Democracy is an extremely fragile thing. You know, if you
look at Europe in the UH in the twenties and
the thirties, fascism communism didn't arise because they were strong.
They rose because democracy was weak. You know, the Weimar
Republic week, Kerensky, you know, in Russia week, so Lenin
(47:36):
takes over, Hitler takes over. And I think unless we
make sure that our democracy is strong, the possibility, the
possibility that something similar to what has happened in Europe
in the thirties, well more recently in Hungary and in Turkey,
you know, could happen here in the United States as well.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
Do you think your good friend Barack is speaking out
enough and warning enough people? And what about former presidents
like George W. Bush? He cannot be happy with what
is going on, and yet he's been pretty much silent.
And I know there's a great tradition of former presidents
(48:15):
not criticizing or opining on current presidents. But have you
been disappointed that Barack Obama isn't saying and doing more,
and that George W. Bush isn't saying much either. I'm
not mentioning Bill Clinton because I think he's been speaking
out a little bit more, but I'm not sure. But
(48:38):
could they get together and in a bipartisan way talk
about the dangers we're facing here?
Speaker 2 (48:45):
Yeah, you know, in some ways that would be an
ideal situation. But I do think that the criticism of
President Obama is not necessarily well founded. I mean, he
gave a great speech at Hamilton College. He's worked with
us at the NDRC. I've gotten him to endure or
candidates at the state and local level to try to
make sure that the underpinnings of our democracy get the
(49:06):
appropriate amount of attention. He has used the power that
he still has, I think in a judicious way. You
speak out too much and then you just become part
of the noise, and so I think he's got to
pick his spots, and I think he has done so
quite well. The thing that gets me, though, is that
people always saying, well, why are the Democrats not doing this?
Why is Obama not doing this?
Speaker 1 (49:26):
People?
Speaker 2 (49:27):
He dascy, where the hell are the damn Republicans? You know,
they're the ones with the power. It's their president. They
control the Senate, they control the House. They've got you know,
you might argue control of the judiciary. Where are the
Republicans here? Where's the opposition from the Republicans that I mean?
I know, I know these folks don't think that the
(49:49):
things that the Trump administration is doing, the things that
they're doing are appropriate, constitutional, consistent with our values. And
it's crickets from them. You know, they're afraid, politically afraid,
some say physically afraid.
Speaker 1 (50:04):
Is it really that much fun to be a member
of Congress that they just can't part with their jobs
to actually do the right thing?
Speaker 2 (50:13):
You know, it seems to me that you got to
be take these jobs and be prepared to separate yourself
from the job if it means that you're asked to
do something inconsistent with your oath. When you're Attorney General,
you get to put up the portraits of four of
your predecessors in the big conference room, and one of
the people I put up was Elliott Richardson. Had him
(50:34):
off to the left so i'd always see him, and
he was there to remind me that, you know, you
may have to do something that goes contrary to it
didn't have I didn't expect this to happen, but contrary
to what somebody in the White House wants you to do,
and it may cost you your job. But that's why
Elliott Richardson was a hero to me, because when Richard
Nixon told him, you know, to fire the Watergate special prosecutor,
(50:57):
I'm not doing that, and as a result, you know,
he lost his job. That's the kind of attitude that
people in Congress need to have. Take actions that may, yeah,
may cost you your seat, but maybe it won't cost
you your seat if enough of you come together and say,
you know, we stand for principle over party, We stand
for patriotism over the concerns of the Republican Party.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
And maybe the American people appreciate and respect elected leaders
who feel that they're doing the right thing. Maybe they'll actually,
to your point, be rewarded for that, not penalized.
Speaker 2 (51:32):
See. I think that's right. I think people underestimate the
sagacity of the American people.
Speaker 1 (51:38):
You know, I like that word sagacity.
Speaker 2 (51:40):
Yeah, I hope I use it right.
Speaker 1 (51:42):
I think you did. They are wisdom.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
Yeah, there we go, there we go. And if it wasn't,
we'll just do this part over. But no, I mean,
you know, the American people I think respect authenticity, they
respect strength, they respect people who are willing to take chances.
And yeah, that's what maybe Republicans would have to do.
But the chances they have to take our political ones.
(52:05):
And that's not too much to ask. You know, you
swore an oath to the Constitution, not to a man.
Speaker 1 (52:11):
Eric Colter, I am so appreciative of your time. Thank you.
This interview was a long time coming. We had a
difficult time scheduling.
Speaker 2 (52:19):
Well, your schedule was such, you know you you're a
busy woman. Oh I'm like semi retired. I could have
been here almost anything.
Speaker 1 (52:25):
You know, our schedules just weren't aligning. But I'm really
I'm so grateful that they finally have. Thank you so
so much.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
Thanks for having me. This was fun.
Speaker 1 (52:38):
Thanks for listening everyone. If you have a question for me,
a subject you want us to cover, or you want
to share your thoughts about how you navigate this crazy world,
reach out send me a DM on Instagram. I would
love to hear from you. Next Question is a production
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(52:59):
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and our producers are Adriana Fazio and Meredith Barnes. Julian
Weller composed art theme music. For more information about today's episode,
or to sign up for my newsletter, wake Up Call,
go to the description in the podcast app, or visit
(53:20):
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(53:41):
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Okay, Well, I don't want to keep you all day,
and we have so much to talk about, so let's
get started. Should I call you ag Holder? Attorney General Holder,
Your highness, your highness?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
You? Hey? You? Eric is fun? Eric is fine? How
about that?
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Hi? Everyone, I'm Kitty Kuric and this is next question.
You probably know Eric Holder is President Obama's Attorney General.
But the question I have is how is he feeling
watching the actions of the Trump administration unfold, especially given
the fact he spent almost his entire career at the
(00:42):
Department of Justice. There was no shortage of things to discuss.
The dismantling of the DOJ, the LA standoff between Gavin
Newsom and Donald Trump, immigration, voting rights, the First Amendment,
Barack Obama, the role of the media, the role of
the public, and protecting democracy. We even waxed poetic about
(01:03):
Eddie Haskell. Yeah, that's right and Lumpy. Hey. I warned
you there was a lot to talk about. Here's my
conversation with former Attorney General Eric Holder. Eric Holder, It's
a real privilege to be able to talk to you
at this very important moment in our nation's history. I
(01:24):
guess the question is where do we begin. We've seen
so many things happen in recent months. I'm just curious
on a personal level, how you have been able to
process what we are all witnessing.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
You know, it's a hard thing to process, and I
don't think that we should process this as we process,
you know, changes in administration, differences in policies that happen
as a result of the outcome of elections. What's happening
now is not normal. It's not normal. I've served in
the Justice Department under Republican as well as Democratic attorneys general,
(02:02):
and what's going on, for instance, at the Justice Department
now is unprecedented. And what you see this administration doing
with regard to a whole range of things, attacking universities,
attacking the media, attacking law firms. These are all the
kinds of things that you would expect to see in
a nation that is moving towards authoritarianism. And it's certainly
(02:23):
inconsistent with who we say we are, you know, as Americans,
and what our system of government is supposed to be like.
So it's a hard thing to process. But to the
extent I've been able to, I put myself in opposition
and I think that's where everybody has to be. Unless
we are forceful in our opposition, visible in our opposition,
this administration will run rough shot over that which defines
(02:47):
this nation and makes this nation exceptional.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
I want to ask you about the Justice Department because
I think for most outsiders it is still kind of
a mystery about how it works and functions and the
people who were there. Can you describe what has been
happening at the DOJ because I report on it piecemeal,
But can you tell us sort of holistically what is
(03:14):
going on there and the impact of what's happening.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Well, you only have to look at kind of, you know,
some specific things to get a sense of what's going
on there. The firing of career employees that never happens.
You know. I started in the Justice Department when I
got out of law school, in the thing called the
Public Integrity Section, which investigates corrupt politicians, and I tried cases,
you know, all around the country. At the end of
(03:38):
the Bida administration, are about thirty people in that section
now there are four four. The voting section in the
Civil Rights Division had about I guess about thirty thirty
five employees lawyers. It now has about five these people
have been fired, moved to other positions, meaningless positions, or
encouraged to take early buyouts, and essentially kind of squeezed out.
(04:01):
So the Justice Department is not doing things in a
way that other justice departments under Republican or Democratic presidents
or Attorney's general you know, have ever done. The Justice
Department has pulled itself away from cases that had already
been filed in Texas with regard to some voting rights issues,
(04:22):
just pulled itself out of a case that had already
been filed and the Justice Department was participating in. Among
the most disturbing things Katie is the fact that this
Attorney General doesn't seem to understand that the Justice Department
has to stand to some degree separate and apart from
the White House. She views herself as Donald Trump's lawyer
(04:44):
and used the Justice Department as an arm of the
White House. And the best ages are the ones who
guard jealously the independence of the Justice Department, given the
ability that the Department has to deprive people of their
liberty of their property, and you can't make those decisions
on the basis of political considerations. And that's my biggest
(05:05):
fear they will remake the department, they will move out
people who are steeped in its traditions, and then simply
do Donald Trump's bidding.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
And all the King's forces and all the King's men
will not be able to put it back together again
even when he leaves office.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Potentially, that's a big concern. There's going to certainly have
to be a rebuilding effort. But I think in some
ways that is for me, the silver aligning. There's the
potential here to not only rebuild, but to try to
reimagine what government could look like, not only the Justice
Department but the other agencies as well. What should a
twenty first century Justice Department look like? You're going to
(05:43):
be coming in in twenty twenty nine, I hope a
new Attorney General looking at the carnage that would be left,
and so maybe you just don't put people back in
the same places, in the same numbers, but you try
to figure out, well, what is it that a twenty
first century Justice Department ought to be about, and you
staff it up, you prioritize it with you know, with
(06:04):
that in mind, that is a That's what I try
to think of as a silver lining. But make no
mistake between now in January of twenty twenty nine, there's
a lot of damage that's going to be done not
only to the Justice Department, but other executive branch agencies
as well.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
And it has already been done, right.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Has already been done. I mean, you know the kinds
of things where you essentially dismantle, you know, the Agency
for International Development. It's kind of like whoa what, you know,
a congressionally mandated and funded agency that they simply close down.
You know, the little knotheads that doge walking around and saying,
for whatever reason, we're going to disband to this agency
(06:41):
which projects soft power for the United States.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Also, the people who are monitoring waste, fraud and abuse,
which is public enemy number one for the Trump administration.
The people who are charged with investigating abuse have all
been fired, right.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
The inspectors general, you know, all but to let go.
And so you can almost see how this is playing out.
We'll remove all of the people who are supposed to
monitor these kinds of things, all the folks who might
be looking either outwardly or inwardly at potential matters of corruption,
and so then we have a free hand to do
that which we want to do.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
You mentioned Pam Bondi's belief that she's Donald Trump's personal lawyer.
I want to read a quote from The Guardian which
sums up I think the current state of the DOJ.
Some say that the Department has in effect become Trump's
personal law firm. Since taking office the second time, Trump
has relied on staunch loyalists Pam Bondi and an elite
(07:41):
group of Justice Department lawyers to investigate critics from his
first administration plus political opponents, and curb prosecutions of US
business bribery overseas. Ex prosecutors point to how Bondi and
the department's top lawyers have halted some major prosecutions, fired
or forced out laws who didn't meet MAGA litmus tests,
(08:02):
and were instructed by Trump to investigate a key Democratic
fundraising vehicle as examples of how Trump and Bondi have
politicized the Justice Department. You know you were President Obama's
Attorney general for six years from two thousand and nine
to twenty fifteen. You know, I think the Justice Department
correct me if I'm wrong. Has often been accused of
(08:24):
being overly political. If you think about you know, RFK
being the Attorney General for JFK or Ed Meese right,
and Ronald Reagan, and I think there's been criticisms that
Merrick Garland was too careful and too a political and
dragged his feet. But this is a whole new level
(08:46):
of the politicization of the Department of Justice. And as
you're watching this, I just wonder what you're thinking and
how angry you're getting and how you're figuring out what
can be done, as you mentioned twenty twenty nine, but
it's a long way until then.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Yeah, it's a harder thing to say politicization as opposed
to what it is that they're doing, because they're politicizing
the department and have done so relatively quickly. But they're
not politicizing the Justice Department. They're weaponize the Justice Department.
They're using the Justice Department to get at the perceived
enemies of the president. And they're not necessarily enemies. There
(09:26):
are political opponents. They're critics or people who potentially might
have the capacity to oppose him in some ways. And
so this is unbelievably disturbing. I mean, this is a
cornerstone of our our system of government, that you have
a justice department that, although a part of an administration,
still maintains a healthy dose of independence. Yeah, ags get
(09:51):
criticized all the time for doing things that are perceived
to be or said to be political, and most of
the time that's just political rhetoric. Justice departments that actually
do do things on the basis of politics are the
ones that get in trouble. Those are the ages who
get indicted, are who are not looked upon favorably by history.
History is not going to be kind to Pambondi. History's
(10:14):
not going to be kind to the people who serve
under her in the Justice Department now, because they're doing
things inconsistent with the best traditions of a department, an
organization that means the world to me. I grew up
in the Justice Department. I grew up in that place,
you know, out of law school line lawyer, US attorney,
deputy Attorney general, attorney general. Most of my career has
(10:36):
been spent in the United States Department of Justice, and
it tears me apart to see what they're doing and
tearing apart that very institution.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Let me ask you about what's going on in Los
Angeles if I could, because obviously that is dominating the
headlines right now. After several days of protest against immigration
enforcement raised by Ice. As you well know, President Trump
bypassed Governor Gavin Newsom and called up four thousand National
Guard troops and a battalion of seven hundred marines to
(11:06):
the city of Los Angeles. Legally and historically, how extraordinary
is this move?
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Legally, it's an interesting case as to you know, I'd
think California has sued, and it'll be interesting to see
exactly how the case plays out. But historically this is
something that runs counter to our traditions and counter to
the practice that past presidents have used. You know, when
a president has called out the National Guard without the
(11:35):
request of a governor. Well, you think back to you know,
the sixties, when I guess President Johnson called out the
National Guard to protect the Selma to Montgomery marchers out
of concern that George Wallace and you know, the state
troopers there who cracked John Lewis's head on the Selma
Edmund Pettis Bridge might not have the marcher's best interest
(11:58):
at heart. So you can see something like that happening here.
There's no basis to believe that the state and local
authorities can't handle what's going on. I think this administration
is itching for a fight. They want to do things
that are going to antagonize people who are using their
First Amendment rights to protest the immigration policies of the administration.
(12:21):
They want pictures to show people in the streets doing
you know, negative things. And to be fair, there are
people who need to be held accountable. You know, people
who are throwing things at cops, people who are you know,
saying negative things to cops, physically confronting.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Them, burning up cop cars, things like that.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Those people ought to be in jail. They're thugs, you know,
they're hooligan. They need to be in jail.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
They're exploiting the situation.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Right, So there is that, But the vast majority of
the people who are protesting are simply doing so in
a peaceful way. Now, so I don't, you know, countenance
people who are doing things that physically harm cops, you know,
block traffic on major thoroughfares. It's also that's counterproductive at
the end of the day. And you know, people waving
(13:07):
flags of foreign nations think about this. I mean, how
if you have you want to get the American people
on your side and I think as regard to these
immigration policies, the American people are appalled at what this
administration is doing. But they're also kind of pushed back
by some of the tactics that are being used by
some of these demonstrators. But this is all political. This
(13:29):
is all political. I mean to put you know, to
call up National guardsmen and then they call up marines. Now,
these marines do a great job at what it is
that they do. I would bet that crowd control is
not something that the United States Marine Corps is trained
to do. And so that's just an incendiary kind of
thing that Whiskey Pete and Donald Trump have decided that
(13:50):
they want to do.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Do you think they're intentionally trying to escalate the tension
and create chaos instead of diffusing it asolutely.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
They want to antagonize, escalate and get the pictures that
they want, which is to show you know, people hurling things,
setting cars of fire, blocking traffic, you know, doing all
those kinds of things to try to convince people. As
Steven Miller said that there's a war of civilizations going on,
(14:21):
what the hell does that mean? You know, really, I mean,
you're trying to you know, we got criticized. President Obama
was criticized of being the deporter in chief. If you
look at what it is that we did. We use
the courts to get people who have recently come to
the United States, the immigration courts get them out, and
then we went after people who committed serious crimes. We
(14:44):
didn't take four year old girls who were in the
potentially going to die and deport them to Mexico. We
didn't take people who've been here. There was a waitress
I think in Missouri, been here for twenty years, pull
her out of her, you know, place of employment, and
try to send her back. This is an administration that
(15:04):
views certain immigrants in certain ways. If these people we're
trying to get in from Norway, from Sweden, from Finland,
from Northern European countries, any problem with that, I bet
you know Afrikaners. Yeah, we're letting those folks in from
South Africa. But if you happen to be Hispanic, if
(15:26):
you happen to be a person from Haiti, from you know,
African countries, we don't want those people. They don't want
those people in this country. And that's what that's kind
of the the underpinnings of their immigration policy, and that's
why Miller talks about this clash of civilizations.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
So you think it's racism pure and simple.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Not pure and simple. But there's a component to that,
I mean racism, ethnicism. I guess that you might call it. Yeah,
I mean you'd have to be reluctant to look at that,
which is fairly obvious, you know. I mean, you send
a plane to get I don't know, was it fifty
sixty Africanas out of South Africa. You insult the President
(16:11):
of South Africa.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
In the show a photo from Congo, from Congo.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
That's got nothing to do with South Africa. It's all
laying up predicate for the kinds of things that they
want to do with our immigration system, again inconsistent with
how America has always said it is and by and large,
how we've always conducted ourselves when it comes to immigration.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, you know, it
(16:36):
was Italians and Irish who negative things were set about,
and they would try to try to keep them out
of the country. Chinese Exclusion Act. Now, these are not
great moments in American history, and I fear that we're
replicating that in the twenty first century under this administration.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Hi everyone, it's Katie Curic. You know I'm always on
the go between running my media company, hosting my podcast,
and of course covering the news, and I know that
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(17:23):
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(17:43):
or book your own free personalized fitting. What's frustrating to
me is it shows the inability of our government to
actually tackle a problem. There should have been comprehensive immigration
(18:07):
reform long ago, and yet time and time again it
never is able to gain traction. And we need a fair,
humane immigration system in this country. And why can't Congress,
Why can't they come up with a better plan that
(18:27):
is fair to people but also involves laws.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
I mean, you know, President Bush, George W. Bush certainly tried, right.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Kennedy and McCain tried there.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
You know, Congress Senator Langford from Oklahoma came up with
a bill that you know, made people on the other side.
Democrats swallow hard, but said, you know, we'll support that.
And what happened. Donald Trump said, no, don't vote for that.
He wants the issue. He wants the issue. This is
a central part of his administration. It's been a central
part of his campaigns. When he wrote down that old
(19:00):
and escalated to announce his candidacy back in August twenty fifteen,
he talked about, you know, Mexicans are rapists. They're not
sending us their best. This has been a part of
his stick and he'd rather have the issue than the solution.
But you're right. I mean, we have got to come
to grips with the fact that we have millions of
(19:20):
undocumented people here who have contributed, you know, mightily, who
pay taxes, who pay Social Security taxes, who are part
of the fabric of this nation. They need to be
treated fairly. But at the same time also recognize that
borders mean something, and we can't take all of El
Salvador and all of Guatemala and all Upondors into the
United States. There are processes that people have to go through.
(19:43):
If they don't follow those processes well as we did
in the Obama administration, they need to be removed. But
there is the need for and there has been the
need for comprehensive immigration reform for decades.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
At this point, having said that, this is not the
solution to just in a very draconian an inhumane way,
take people who have been in this country, as you said,
who are paying taxes, you know, money's going into the
Social Security system, who are actually really important for our economy.
Forty eight percent of agricultural workers are undocumented, and you know,
(20:18):
look at the nation's hotels and you look at all
kinds of workers. I think I heard there are a
million undocumented workers in Los Angeles. You know, if all
of these people are forced out of the country, it's
going to have a huge impact on the economy, is
it not.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Yeah, I'm going to have a huge impact on the economy.
There are certain industries that rely a great deal on
immigrant labor, from meatpacking in Iowa to people who are
picking crops in Florida and in California. But you know,
we're also turning our back on our immigrant past. And
here's the deal. Everybody who's listening to this, watching this,
(20:57):
You know you're an immigrant stock unless you are descended
from the Native American people. If you're the waspiest person
in the world, if you can trace your roots to
the Mayflower. Guess what those folks who came over here
were immigrants. They were fleeing religious persecution. And it's just
the question of how you got here and when you
got here. And it's always seems to be that the
(21:18):
latest are the ones who get villified and then they become,
you know, assimilated into our society, and then you know
they're fine. And so you know, Trump and his folks
are trying to recreate an America that really never existed
in nineteen fifties America. You know where June Cleaver was
was vacuuming in high heels and in pearls, their white
(21:41):
picket fences, no gay people, no.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Black people, making an after school snack for Beaver Rally
and Lumpy and Lumpy.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
And Eddie Haskell is Eddie Haskells not.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Forgetting thank you, missus clean.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Missus clever. He's my man. I love that guy.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
We're clearly the same generation.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Eddie was the man, definitely the me.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
He was such a kiss ass. I couldn't stand him.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Oh I love that guy.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
I was a lumpy girl.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Oh ump, lumpy Rutherford.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Okay, all right, anyway, we digress.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Oh there's important stuff, you know.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
I wanted to ask you Eric about Kilmar Obrega Garcia,
who was wrongly deported to El Salvador earlier this year
despite a court order barring his removal. So finally he
comes home, right, and now he's facing these newly unsealed
federal charges. I am so confused by this. Can you
(22:36):
help me out?
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Well, I think we're all a little confused by that.
The administration was confused by that when they said that, well,
we deported this guy whoops by mistake, and they.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
They showed a photoshop picture of his fingers.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Right, Well, the supposed he had tattoos that tied him
to a gang. You know. Trump looked at it and said, no, no,
that's not that's not doctored. And it's like, uh, yes
it is, but all right, So yeah, they were confused,
and they removed him without due process.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Well, I wanted to ask you about due process, but
first before I do, and jump ahead, what is going
on with this man?
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Well, he's finally back in the United States, there are
now he's now facing charges that appear to have been
uncovered relatively recently. I read that a prosecutor has resigned
in the Justice Department as a result of the actions
that have been taken against this now defendant.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Mister Garcia, is this a face saving measure in your review?
Speaker 2 (23:35):
I don't know about the strength of the case, but
it does seem a little suspicious that these charges are
now brought and they use that as the basis to
get him, you know, from that hell hole in l Salvador,
back to you know, the United States, when they could
quite simply have told, you know, President Mukeley, you know,
give us this guy. And if the American government had
(23:58):
said that, he would have shown up in in the
United States. So we'll see, I mean, we'll see what
this how these charges go, and we'll have an ability
to judge whether or not this was a pretext or
whether there is a real basis to conclude that he
violated the law in the ways in which the government
has delineated in an indictment.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Why is due process so important?
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Due process is one of the foundational parts of our society.
Government power can only be used against individuals in prescribed ways.
Due process means that you have the ability to challenge
a governmental action that's directed at you, whether it's an
attempt to take property from you, to imprison you. The
(24:39):
government has to be put to its proof before it
can actually act. And what we've seen with so many
of these deportations is that people have simply been snatched
off the street, put on airplanes and then move to
El Salvador, South Sudan, Libya, you know, without any ability
for these people to say, well, wait a minute, what
why am I being taken away? Proved to me, what's
(25:02):
the basis for the legitimate basis for this action? And
people need to understand governments make mistakes, you know. I
think about that, that that game makeup artist, that guy.
I mean, it's best I can tell. He's taken because
of tattoos that he had on his hands that apparently
(25:23):
were misinterpreted. I don't know where this poor man is
at this point, and I know got to El Salvador.
I don't know what has happened, you know, to him,
there's really no basis for his deportation, is best I
can tell. And yet because he didn't have due process.
He didn't have the ability to challenge that which the
government wanted to do to him. He was simply picked up,
(25:43):
put on a plane and then taken down to you know,
that that place in El Salvador.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
And then I think about how sort of capricious it
is when someone is is basically let go like that
way in Missouri, when there was that community outcry, or
the four year old girl who needed life saving medical care.
But how many people are out there like them, who
(26:10):
don't necessarily have a community or a citizenry rising up
and defending them.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Yeah, I mean, that's both the concern I have. How
many other people are like that? And that's also the
thing gives me some degree of optimism and shows the
power of the American people. When that community in Missouri said, no,
you're not taking her. What happened? Lo and behold she reappears.
When the media does the great job that they did
(26:39):
to publicize the case of that four year old, that
poor four year old girl, cute as a button, cute
as a button, what happens, Well, suddenly, okay, she can
stay here, you know, for medical treatment that basically keeps
her alive. The power of the media, the power of
the American people cannot be underestimated, and you can't overestimate
the power of government when those two forces are in opposition.
(27:04):
And that's why it's incumbent upon the American people to
be conversant with what's going on, to be active, to
be engaged, and be committed to defending our values. And
the media can't be cowed. The media can't be coued,
is it then? To some degree? I think so, you know,
there's a desire, it's a human thing to look at
(27:25):
situations and to try to look at both sides, normalize things,
be fair, be fair, and sometimes you've got to, you know,
call them as they are. I mean, if I'm sitting
here with you, I'm a Democrat, you're a Republican, and
we're in the middle of a hurricane, and I'm a
Democrat and I says, look, you know, it's raining outside,
(27:46):
and you the Republicans say, no, it's sunny outside, but
there's a hurricane going on. The reporters there has got
to say. Can't simply say, well, the Republican said that
there was no rain, the Democrats said that there was rain.
End of analysis. No, you got to say the Republican
was unbelievably wrong because in fact, there was a hurricane
out there, and I think that probably makes someone in
(28:07):
the media a little uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Well, I think when you try to search for the truth,
and I can talk about this, you know better than me,
very personally, that you're often accused of being biased. And
if you actually just want to present facts and you
are searching for truth, that is not being biased. I
have so many people saying to me, Eric, what happened
(28:31):
to you? And I said, nothing happened to me. Maybe
it's what has happened to our country.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Yeah, And that's the deal. You've got to be prepared
to deal with those charges of bias if what you
are carefully reporting is truth in the same way that
I was talking about before. You know, those congressmen, you've
got to be acting a way that's consistent with your oath,
even if that means you're going to be charged with
(28:56):
being disloyal. Time are you going to be I'm married,
you're gonna be called a rhino or whatever.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Your musk is going to support your opposition. Although that's
kind of a mess too now right.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
I mean, in universities have got to be prepared, you know,
to take on forces that are doing things inconsistent with
the way in which universities are supposed to conduct themselves.
And it may cost your money, you know. Okay, you
got to be prepared for that. You know, opposition, effective
opposition does not come without a price. The reporting of
(29:30):
truth frequently does not come without a price. We've seen
this throughout our history, where you know, brave news gatherers
have lost their lives reporting the truth, and we dishonor them.
People in the media dishonor them if we are not willing.
Members of the media are not willing to report truthfully now,
(29:53):
and we've got to be supportive. We the American people,
have to be supportive of people in the media. We
have the guts to do exactly that focus on truth.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Getting back to Los Angeles, I wanted to ask you
about this Posse Commatatis Act. You know, I feel like
I've gotten a law degree in the last few days.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Eric.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
It's an eighteen seventy eight law that generally bars the
US military from engaging in civilian law enforcement, and a
lot of people are saying, hey, Donald Trump, you cannot
deploy the National Guard or Marines to do the job
of law enforcement. This is not right. So does this
law or this act not have any teeth.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Yeah, well, that's why they're trying to characterize it as
the use of the military for national security purposes. I mean,
the understand that Passecommatadis makes is a big problem if
they are to be if the military is to be
engaged in domestic law enforcements. So they're trying to characterize
it as anything but that, and so they have to
you know, say negative things about the protesters, that they
(30:55):
are not only protesting inappropriately, but they're also a threat
to national security, and in that way they think they
can justify the use of the military.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Are they also claiming that of the undocumented people who
they're apprehending, that they're a threat to national security?
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Yeah, I mean that's that's certainly the claim, and that's
why they try to make use of the military there
to the extent that they possibly can.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
How did you like the fact that these protesters are
being called insurrectionists, a word that was never used on
January sixth.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Right, Yeah, you know it. There's a whole bunch of
stuff here that's a little hypocritical. You know, you call
these folks, insurrectionists, these protesters, and they're doing that which
the vast, vast majority. Now they're exceptions, but the vast
majority are simply doing that which is guaranteed by our
First Amendment. The people who stormed our capital on January
(31:47):
the sixth were worthy of pardons. And when I hear
people in this administration talk about how they want to
protect the police, I think, well, wait a minute, what
were you all doing when you pardoned all those people
who beat the hell out of cops on the capital
steps and in the Capitol on January the sixth, What
we try to do with the blue theya, what we're
trying to do with regard to police officers? When you
(32:10):
decided that those true insurrectionists were deserving of pardons.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
So is he using that terminology to set himself up
to use the Insurrection Act? And can you explain what
that means?
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Well, that's a concern that I have that the possibility
exists that that which we've seen now is really just
a prelude, a foundation for the imposition of the Insurrection Act,
which gives a president really broad ranging powers to do
a whole range of things, but to declare an insurrection
(32:42):
means you've got to meet a number of their number
of requirements. I don't think those are met. I suspect
they probably will not be met.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Will he use it anyway?
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Well, that's what worries me, you know. I mean, if
you'd ask me that question even six seven months ago,
I would have said, you know, Katie, you're being a
little alarmist here, hyperbolic. And now I can't dismiss that.
I mean, I really can't. David from wrote a piece
in The Atlantic, I think last week or so where
he talked about the possibility that the Insurrection Act might
be used to somehow tinker with the twenty twenty six midterms.
(33:16):
And again, that's the kind of thing that I would
have read five six months ago and thought, you know,
that's just nuts. And now I think we have to
be prepared. I still don't think it happens, you know,
I think that twenty twenty six elections will go on
and they'll be fine. But I think we have to
at least be prepared for the possibility, the possibility that
some attempt might be made to fool around with elections
(33:38):
in certain parts of the country. And the fact that
I even say that as a former Attorney general that
we have to be prepared for. That possibility is something
that's extremely alarming.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
If you want to get smarter every morning with a
break down of the news and fascinating takes on health
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Wake Up Call by going to Katiecuric dot com. You
(34:18):
talked earlier about the Justice Department being gutted, and I'm
wondering who is there or who will protect the rights
of these protesters to exercise their First Amendment rights, the
right to assemble, the right to free speech. If this
civil Rights division of the Justice Department has been you know,
(34:42):
dismantled essentially, who will stand up for these people?
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Yeah? Well, I mean I think there are a couple
of sources. You've certainly got state attorneys general and state
lawyers who can protect the rights of these folks. And
then there's the private bar, which is why you know,
when law firms cut these deals with the administration, that's
why that was so troubling. It sends a chill out
among other law firms who might decide to be the
(35:08):
lawyers for these protesters, and now they know, well, if
we get crosswise with this administration, maybe we will be
the subject of an executive order, and so that is
one of the reasons why you go after the law firms,
because you reduce the possibility that your opponents will have
adequate legal representation. So, yeah, the Justice Department is not
going to help an awful lot, but there are still
(35:30):
lots of lawyers in different places, both in government and
on the private side, that you can come to their assistance.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Having said that, is the legal system been effectively weakened
or diminished as a result of Donald Trump's actions?
Speaker 2 (35:47):
You know, I would say it's been diminished or weakened
in certain ways. I worry about what's happened to big
law firms and their reactions to some of these executive orders,
and I think there's been some weakness shown there. I
think the courts have generally been done extremely well. You know,
he has lost the overwhelming number of cases that have
(36:09):
been brought before federal judges, So I think the system
is held there. My concern there is that that's we're
at the district court level, courts have held I think
at the Court of appeals level, the courts will hold
questions what ultimately is going to happen at the United
States Supreme Court, and there I get a little concerned
about with their view of their expansive view of executive power.
(36:32):
And you know that you look at that immunity decision
from you know, from the last term. Will that view
of executive power allow the Trump administration to do the
kinds of things that they are trying to do? Will
the Supreme Court give them, you know, the authority to
do things that I think they are clearly inconsistent with
(36:53):
our traditions, our norms, and and our laws.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
Do you think the Supreme Court, I mean, have you
got in any kind of encouragement by some of their decisions,
by some of the justices seeming to not walk lockstep
with the president?
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Yeah? Yeah, I think I don't want to paint with
too broad a brush. I mean, I think I'm concerned
about and you know, see what the Supreme Court does.
But I think that there is certainly a basis for
hope that the Supreme Court will act in the way
that Court appeals judges are acting, the way district court
judges have been acting. But it's not the sure thing
(37:32):
that I think, you know, it ought to be that
immunity decision can't be undervalued, you know, to make up
out whole cloth the notion that an American president is
above the law, is above the law, you know, can
violate the law, can direct you know, people in his
administration to do certain things without any kind of criminal liability.
(37:54):
I mean that's where that come from. I mean, where's that.
You know, they talk about originalism, tech stualism. Where's that
in any of the texts? You know?
Speaker 1 (38:04):
And then the question is what will keep the administration
from ignoring any decisions made by the courts. You know,
I was disturbed to see that part of this budget
bill there was a provision that would prevent judges from
issuing contemptive court orders, forcing people to basically obey their
(38:31):
decisions in essence, right, And that is in the small
print of this budget bill. That is adding to this
whole notion of immunity in a significant way, is it not.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Yeah, And that's why this well go. I think, well,
the big beautiful bill has got to be examined page
by page. You know. I have problems with, you know,
the continuation of the tax cuts, which were I think unnecessary,
but you also have to look at those those kinds
of provisions though they're just kind of tucked away there.
They recognize the power that the courts have and the
(39:07):
power the district court judges have, and they're trying to
decrease that power. They're trying to systematically eliminate all those areas,
all those places where they might run into opposition. And
that's the thing that worries me. What's the endgame here?
You know, if you take lawyers out of the mix,
if you take the media out of the mix, if
you take universities out of the mix, if you take
(39:28):
power away from.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
Judges, there's no guardrails.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
This is all to what end at the end of
the day. What is it that you are you're trying
to do?
Speaker 1 (39:37):
And that's uh, well, you tell me what do you
think they're trying to do?
Speaker 2 (39:42):
You know, I worry are they trying to find ways
in which they perpetuate themselves in power in ways that
are inconsistent with our constitution? Are they trying to make
sure that, you know, elections can be conducted in such
a way that they can guarantee result regardless of what
(40:04):
the American people, you know, want to do. One of
the things I've been fighting is this whole question of
racial and partisan jerrymandering. Do they want to somehow, you know,
use jerry mandering knowing that they've flattened the opposition, and
then gerrymander things in such a way so that they
can guarantee Republican domination of our state legislature's Republican domination
(40:27):
of the United States House of Representatives because they're no checks.
So that's at least one of the ways in which,
you know, I get concerned about what it is they
might do.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Tell us more about the work you're doing to address
your concerns.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
Yeah, I mean, as Barack and I President Obama and
I were leaving office, we tried to yeah, he's my
good by, my good buddy bo. As we were leaving office,
we try to figure out what is we want to
do in our post government lives. What is the thing
that we thought was most pose some of the greatest
problems that we had to confront, And we pointed to
(41:02):
the issue of jerrymandering, and so we formed up with
the National Democratic Redistricting Committee that really looks at the
way in which the lines are drawn for state legislative
seats as well as the United States House of Representatives.
And said, you know what, here's the deal. Let's just
make that process fair. Let's do away with jury mandering,
which guarantees that Republicans are going to win in certain districts,
(41:23):
Democrats are going to win in certain districts. Let's just
make it fair so that politicians are not picking their voters,
voters are choosing who their representatives ought to be. And
so we've had a fair, a pretty good amount of success.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
Well, how do you stop jerrymandering.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
Well, there's a number of things. You bring lawsuits where
you find jerry manders. You put in place these independent
commissions to draw the lines instead of interested politicians, and
then you also support candidates who will stand for affair process.
And I mean to give you a sense kat of
how bad it was. You look at the election right
after the the jerry manders will put in place in
(42:01):
twenty eleven and twenty twelve congressional elections. Democrats got one
point four million more votes for the United States House
of Representatives in twenty twelve and ended up with a
thirty three seat deficit. And it's all a function of
the way in which the jerry manders were put in place.
When we started out Democrats to have a fifty to
(42:22):
fifty US House of Representatives had to overperform by eight percent.
Now we wiped that out, and we had the most
fair elections in terms of jurymandering, the lack of jury mandering,
I guess in twenty twenty two. But there's still, you know,
a lot of work that needs to be done. Twenty
twenty two, twenty twenty four. You know, we saw things
(42:42):
much better than they were in twenty twelve, but there
are still a lot of places Texas, Georgia, Wisconsin, Florida,
you know, Louisiana still places where his work to be done.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
There's also a Supreme Court case, Louisiana versus Calais, which
asks whether creating a second majority black districts, something ordered
under the Voting Rights Act, violates the Equal Protection Clause.
Critics say this case could gut what's left of Section two. Okay,
I just said that, I have no idea what that means.
(43:13):
Do you explain?
Speaker 2 (43:14):
Yeah, I mean, you know, Section two of the Voting
Rights Act allows private parties as well as Justice Department
to challenge unfair voting practices, you know, on the basis
of race. If you look at the way in which
the lines have been drawn in southern states where there's
a history of racially polarized voting, that's a critical thing.
(43:36):
There's a history of racially polarized voting. Those parties that
have substantial African American support have been discriminated against. That's
the Democratic Party, say in Alabama. And so we brought
a lawsuit there. This very conservative Supreme Court said, you
know what they make up. Black folks make up about
twenty seven percent of the population. Based on a number
(43:56):
of congressmanment you have, there should be two Black opportunities districts.
There was only one. We won the case.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
A Black opportunity district.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
It's a district that is created so that the African
American population in a particular area has the ability to
express its political will, so that there's if you want
to elect a black person as a congressman, as a congresswoman,
you have that ability. The lines are not drawn in
such a way that precludes that possibility and undermines the
(44:25):
ability of that twenty seven percent of the population to
fully express their political desires. And so after our successful suit,
that's a Supreme court upheld surprising to me, but got
to give them credit they help we were. We have
now for the first time, two black congressmen from Alabama,
consistent again with the population demographics of the city of
(44:49):
the state and also taking into consideration something people have
to keep in mind that history of racially polarized voting
without that Section two is not necessarily a tool that
we can use. And so we've used that now in
Louisiana as well. And now the Louisiana folks who didn't
like the result are claiming that white people are being
(45:09):
discriminated against by the Voting Rights Act of nineteen sixty five,
and they wanted to have that declared unconstitutional, rip away
from the Voting Rights Act, the constitutionality of section two,
using some of the same arguments that we use when
the Act was put in place back in nineteen sixty five.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
You warned that what we're seeing in the US today
is quote remarkably similar to what happened in Europe in
the thirties, and you've drawn comparisons to places like Hungary
and Turkey. Do you think Americans grasp what serious trouble
we are in and how the future may in fact look.
(45:51):
I mean, I worry about that all the time. Too.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
Yeah, people don't get it to the degree that they
should now, and that concerns me a great deal. But
I think there's a growing awareness among people. As you
see these demonstrations breaking out not only in Los Angeles
but in other parts of the country, and you see
the size of them growing. I think there's a growing
awareness of that. The American people are generally slow to rouse,
(46:15):
but once aroused, they are a mighty force, and that's
something that we can never forget. All the great movements
in this nation came about not because politicians decided it
was time for women to get the right to vote,
it was time for a system of American apartheid to
be taken down. It was because the American people said,
you know what, it's not fair women can't vote. This
(46:37):
system of segregation. That's just not fair, and that needs
to be torn down. That's the power of the American people,
and I think there is a growing awareness that fundamental liberties,
fundamental rights, fundamental notions of who we are as a
people and how we should be governed are being trampled.
(46:58):
And so I am optimistic that at the end of
the day of the American people will get to the
right place, and I think do so, you know, in time,
that's that's the thing that gives me optimism.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
There's no guarantee that democracies last, is there no? No.
Speaker 2 (47:13):
Democracy is an extremely fragile thing. You know, if you
look at Europe in the UH in the twenties and
the thirties, fascism communism didn't arise because they were strong.
They rose because democracy was weak. You know, the Weimar
Republic week, Kerensky, you know, in Russia week, so Lenin
(47:36):
takes over, Hitler takes over. And I think unless we
make sure that our democracy is strong, the possibility, the
possibility that something similar to what has happened in Europe
in the thirties, well more recently in Hungary and in Turkey,
you know, could happen here in the United States as well.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
Do you think your good friend Barack is speaking out
enough and warning enough people? And what about former presidents
like George W. Bush? He cannot be happy with what
is going on, and yet he's been pretty much silent.
And I know there's a great tradition of former presidents
(48:15):
not criticizing or opining on current presidents. But have you
been disappointed that Barack Obama isn't saying and doing more,
and that George W. Bush isn't saying much either. I'm
not mentioning Bill Clinton because I think he's been speaking
out a little bit more, but I'm not sure. But
(48:38):
could they get together and in a bipartisan way talk
about the dangers we're facing here?
Speaker 2 (48:45):
Yeah, you know, in some ways that would be an
ideal situation. But I do think that the criticism of
President Obama is not necessarily well founded. I mean, he
gave a great speech at Hamilton College. He's worked with
us at the NDRC. I've gotten him to endure or
candidates at the state and local level to try to
make sure that the underpinnings of our democracy get the
(49:06):
appropriate amount of attention. He has used the power that
he still has, I think in a judicious way. You
speak out too much and then you just become part
of the noise, and so I think he's got to
pick his spots, and I think he has done so
quite well. The thing that gets me, though, is that
people always saying, well, why are the Democrats not doing this?
Why is Obama not doing this?
Speaker 1 (49:26):
People?
Speaker 2 (49:27):
He dascy, where the hell are the damn Republicans? You know,
they're the ones with the power. It's their president. They
control the Senate, they control the House. They've got you know,
you might argue control of the judiciary. Where are the
Republicans here? Where's the opposition from the Republicans that I mean?
I know, I know these folks don't think that the
(49:49):
things that the Trump administration is doing, the things that
they're doing are appropriate, constitutional, consistent with our values. And
it's crickets from them. You know, they're afraid, politically afraid,
some say physically afraid.
Speaker 1 (50:04):
Is it really that much fun to be a member
of Congress that they just can't part with their jobs
to actually do the right thing?
Speaker 2 (50:13):
You know, it seems to me that you got to
be take these jobs and be prepared to separate yourself
from the job if it means that you're asked to
do something inconsistent with your oath. When you're Attorney General,
you get to put up the portraits of four of
your predecessors in the big conference room, and one of
the people I put up was Elliott Richardson. Had him
(50:34):
off to the left so i'd always see him, and
he was there to remind me that, you know, you
may have to do something that goes contrary to it
didn't have I didn't expect this to happen, but contrary
to what somebody in the White House wants you to do,
and it may cost you your job. But that's why
Elliott Richardson was a hero to me, because when Richard
Nixon told him, you know, to fire the Watergate special prosecutor,
(50:57):
I'm not doing that, and as a result, you know,
he lost his job. That's the kind of attitude that
people in Congress need to have. Take actions that may, yeah,
may cost you your seat, but maybe it won't cost
you your seat if enough of you come together and say,
you know, we stand for principle over party, We stand
for patriotism over the concerns of the Republican Party.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
And maybe the American people appreciate and respect elected leaders
who feel that they're doing the right thing. Maybe they'll actually,
to your point, be rewarded for that, not penalized.
Speaker 2 (51:32):
See. I think that's right. I think people underestimate the
sagacity of the American people.
Speaker 1 (51:38):
You know, I like that word sagacity.
Speaker 2 (51:40):
Yeah, I hope I use it right.
Speaker 1 (51:42):
I think you did. They are wisdom.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
Yeah, there we go, there we go. And if it wasn't,
we'll just do this part over. But no, I mean,
you know, the American people I think respect authenticity, they
respect strength, they respect people who are willing to take chances.
And yeah, that's what maybe Republicans would have to do.
But the chances they have to take our political ones.
(52:05):
And that's not too much to ask. You know, you
swore an oath to the Constitution, not to a man.
Speaker 1 (52:11):
Eric Colter, I am so appreciative of your time. Thank you.
This interview was a long time coming. We had a
difficult time scheduling.
Speaker 2 (52:19):
Well, your schedule was such, you know you you're a
busy woman. Oh I'm like semi retired. I could have
been here almost anything.
Speaker 1 (52:25):
You know, our schedules just weren't aligning. But I'm really
I'm so grateful that they finally have. Thank you so
so much.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
Thanks for having me. This was fun.
Speaker 1 (52:38):
Thanks for listening everyone. If you have a question for me,
a subject you want us to cover, or you want
to share your thoughts about how you navigate this crazy world,
reach out send me a DM on Instagram. I would
love to hear from you. Next Question is a production
of iHeartMedia and Katie Kuric Media. The executive producers are Me,
(52:59):
Katie Kirk, and Courtney Ltz. Our supervising producer is Ryan Martz,
and our producers are Adriana Fazio and Meredith Barnes. Julian
Weller composed art theme music. For more information about today's episode,
or to sign up for my newsletter, wake Up Call,
go to the description in the podcast app, or visit
(53:20):
us at Katiecuric dot com. You can also find me
on Instagram and all my social media channels. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Hi everyone, it's
Katie Couric. You know I'm always on the go between
(53:41):
running my media company, hosting my podcast, and of course
covering the news. And I know that to keep doing
what I love, I need to start caring for what
gets me there, my feet. That's why I decided to
try the Good feed Stores personalized art support system. I
met with a Good Feet arch support specialist and after
(54:02):
a personalized fitting, I left the store with my three
step system designed to improve comfort, balance and support. My feet,
knees and back are thanking me already. Visit goodfeat dot
com to learn more, find the nearest store, or book
your own free, personalized fitting.
Host
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