Jon Stewart sits with Zanny Minton Beddoes, editor-in-chief of The Economist. They discuss President Biden's second term potential, Trump's lack of knowledge on NATO, and how both candidate's old age should keep them from running for president. Plus, Melissa Murray and Kate Shaw, co-hosts of the "Strict Scrutiny" podcast, join Jon to talk about how the justice system has been handling Trump's cases and the likelihood of him standing trial in the January 6th hearings.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
My guest tonight.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
She's the editor in chief of the Economists. Please welcome
to the program, Zanny Minton Meadows.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Love way to see the chairs move.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
I hope you're all right. It was here nine years ago.
We almost killed Jimmy Carter with the rolling chase. He
almost went all the way back this way. It does swivel.
We have the Economy. This is your magazine. We have it.
We brought it with us. I don't know if you
can see that there. We're out there and it's got
a posted note in there for there. I thought there
(00:56):
was a centerfold that wasn't there. I don't know what
was that. Well, we were a show that we very
much appreciate. I wanted to ask you. You know, The
Economist wrote about some of Joe Biden's issues a year ago.
You wrote, is he going to be up for the
job in the second term? What were the concerns that
(01:17):
you guys had done.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
So we wrote after the midterms that he should not
stand for a second term. And you know he when
he came in, it was he was hoping to be
He said pretty much that he wanted to be a
one term president.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
He was a grown up. He would save the country
for there was the bridge. He was the bridge case
he was the bridge. He didn't say which bridge Wasn't
the bridges one of those bridges in thirty mins?
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Absolutely, And I think we after the midterms, we thought
that it was time for him to kind of make
that clear. He would have been had he said he
was going to be a one term president, he would
have been a remarkable one term president. He's achieved an
unbelievable amount for one term. But now we are where
we are here, and huge majorities of the American people,
including huge majorities of the Democrats, think he is too
(02:01):
old for a second term. It's really alarming that the
only person between us and the return of Donald Trump
is a frail eighty one say that, like.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Baltimore, you said, the return of Donald Trump.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
It really worries me and it may be a little weird.
But for those of us outside the US.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Oh can they say that? If you say I had
a remarkable first term, what's to say I won't have
a remarkable second term.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
He's eighty one years old, what you know? He is
the same age pretty much as my father. I love
my father, dearly. My father's a wonderful man. But my
father should be nowhere near the most important job in
the world.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
He probably never should have been.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
But in an eighty one year old, eighty one year old,
he doesn't watch this thing?
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Does it? Does he watch.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
This?
Speaker 3 (02:48):
May this maybe a little explanation will have to go.
But he an eighty one year old. You know what
they're like at eighty one. You know what they're going
to be like at eighty five. You know, time travels
one way and people go in one direction at that age.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Why are you looking at me like that when you
say it? That seemed awfully personal.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
As you said the show, you're good twenty years younger,
you know you got a long time still it's pretty interesting.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
But let me ask you. So, there is obviously a
press pool, there's a White House press corps. There's a
certain amount of mystery that seems to surround this. All
the people behind the scenes are saying, you don't know,
like we know he's leading these meetings. He's unbelievable. You
I wish you could see it. But certainly there are
press people that travel with the president. Surely I have
(03:32):
not seen people come out with first hand accounts. They
have not come out founding a long f force R
right or just said I follow the president. I'm with
him every day. He is unbelievably sharp. He's just camera
shy or whatever it is. But nobody is making those
It makes it seem conspiratorial.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Yeah, and I think it's what is clear is that
it is quite hard to get access to this president.
He is very carefully shepherded around. He doesn't do very
many press conferences. He doesn't do very many interviews. I
assume that's for and I hear the same thing. You know,
he's very sharp. He talks for a long time. You
can outlast anybody in a meeting. I'm perfectly prepared to
believe that on some subjects, that's true. Joe Biden knows
(04:10):
a huge amount of that foreign policy. He is exactly
the right person to have in the oval office in
the world as it is.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
We have today.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
And I'm sure on certain things he can go for
hours and hours and hours. He can probably be in
negotiations for a long time. But does that mean he
should be president for another two terms. I think it's worrying.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Now when you say one, Yeah, the world order is
changing and there is a part, you know, the economist
is certainly you know it does represent a certain mainstream
point of view or establishment.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Well.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Actually, interestingly, we we stand for good classic English liberalism.
It's not the same as an American liberal, which is
more of a lefty, but the English liberalists.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
I'm going to get tested on this because I don't I.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Missed that with a little lesson Now, we believe in
individual freedom, free markets, limited government. We've kind of believed
in that for a long time. And for a long time,
You're right, our view was the kind of mainstream view,
you know, Reaganism, Thatcherism, even Clintonism. You know, it wasn't
too far apart. That was the mainstream view. But now
we're absolutely not the mainstream view. Now.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
You know I should have said establishment. I think it's
establishment statis qua.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
We're absolutely not the establishment view. And now industrial policies
in big state is in protectionism, is in all manner
of things that we traditionally didn't believe in. And so
our kind of liberalism, I think is very much not
the mainstream view now, and we're championing liberalism in the
face actually pretty concerted resistance to it and people going
in different directions, So the whole kind of trumpest assault,
(05:40):
if you will. There's another in fact, our cover, this
week's cover is going to be about this almost certainly
unless something dramatic happens, which is about national conservatism. It's
this idea which you know the Maga Republicans have, but
also a bunch of conservatives in Europe Victor Auber and
Georgia Maloney in Italy, Marine Le Pen in France. There
(06:01):
are differences between them, but they're united by an idea
that they want to be anti globalist. They're anti trade,
they're very skeptical of migration. They want to push back
against what they see as progressive, woke ideas.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Can you say this is perhaps a new world order
that they are they would love that. Oh no, They're
the ones who always talk about there's a conspiracy to
create a new world order, when if you really look
at it, they're the ones trying to create it. They're shifting.
There was an old paradigm right which was America postwar
aligned itself with liberal Europe against communism. That was the
(06:36):
stability of the world since World War II, was capitalism
versus communism. It looks like there appears to be a
realignment along the lines of not capitalism and communism, but
woke and unwoke. And I know that sounds ridiculous, but
it is what ties Putin to Trump an Orban to Trump.
(06:57):
If you listen to Putin when he talks about orthodox
Christianity and Western society and anti gay rhetoric, he sounds
like an AM radio host.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Absolutely. And there are people in the Republican Party now
who are who wore more to Putin than to Ukraine,
for example. So I think you're right, Well, I think
all of them, No, not.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
All of them, not all well Mitch McConnell, but he
just stops working every now.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
And I think there's a really serious point. There's a
complete you know, one way of thinking about it is
a maga takeover the real Republican Party. But another I
think there's something more profound going on, which is there
is potentially a kind of revolution and conservatism which may
end up being as big as the kind of Thatcherite
Reaganite revolution, which is taking it in a completely different direction,
(07:44):
which is it's a.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Popularism and a nativism, but it's combined with this anti
wokeism that almost seems to be the more powerful unifying
theory than it is. We used to be economic theories
and now it's theories of social culture.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Issue identity, social culture. Absolutely, no, I think there is.
That's definitely a fault line, and the people you cite
are definitely on.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
One side of it.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Whether it's a new World order yet, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
We did not talk about NATO. Donald Trump very famously
came out and said I would encourage Russia, this was
years ago, to attack them so that they would pay
their bills, as though the value of NATO is in
what they can contribute financially.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
What is your He sounded like, he sounded like the mobster. Right,
they got to pay, They got to pay, that's right.
Donald Trump doesn't I think understand what collective security is about,
Like the NATO is basically, if you attack the smallest
NATO country, you're attacking America. That basic deal was understood
by the Soviet Union and then by Russia. That's why
(08:48):
we haven't had an attack on NATO. I think that
is undermined by him basically saying it's a protectionist racket,
which is what he so. I don't think Donald Trump
cares about alliances. But the reason it's so disconcerting and
worrying if you're in Europe right now. Is this is
happening at a time when Vladimir Putin has already done
a full scale invasion of Ukraine. He is rearming much
faster than Europe. Europe is a fundamentally more dangerous place.
(09:11):
So even with Donald Trump nowhere near the White House yet,
him saying it right now is destabilizing. It makes it
much more likely that Putin an aggressive dictator.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
You know, it pushes further.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
And at the same time, you have this aid for
Ukraine held up here in this country. And to be clear,
aid in Ukraine. Giving the money into Ukraine is the
cheapest possible way for the US to enhance its security.
It's just the fighting is being done by the Ukrainians.
They're the people who are being killed. The US and
Europe are supplying them weapons and in doing so we
(09:45):
are pushing back against Putin. I mean, I've been to
Kiev twice and lived there thirty years ago, and you
can't go there and not think this is a European
country that is looking westward and for the US to
abandon it now, if it does, it's always to dropping.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
The unfortunate part for Ukraine seems to be that it
also holds a place in our culture war. I don't
think there's any principled opposition from the right in terms
of sending arms. There might be in terms of the
amount or the money or some of those things. I
think they're really caught in the idea that Putin and
(10:24):
Urban and that illiberal order are their natural allies, and
so Ukraine they have to paint that as notazified or
utterly corrupt, as though Russia is somehow fundamentally, you know,
just this unbelievable Valhalla. But I think that's where I
(10:48):
think that's why, if Russia has done there somewhere else,
Ukraine happens to hold a very strange place in this
whole barisma Hunter Biden illiberal like e is.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Actually Donald Trump doesn't like Voladimir Zlensky because of the
whole issue around the first impeachment and and all of.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
That stuff, and we hold her for grudges.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
And he doesn't like Zelenski, and he likes Pujin because
Putin's tough, that's right kind. Then I think there are
a bunch of Republicans who are genuine what you might
call old fashioned isolationists who just don't think the kind
of us should be involved in this stuff. Then there's
a bunch who have perfectly reasonable concerns about whether the
money is being well spent.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Corruption in Ukraine.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
There is plenty of corruption in Ukraine, whether it's all
well spent.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
And then I think you're right.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
There are these and let's call them the Tucker Carlson
Republicans who who kind of have a sense that there
is somehow the you putin is the hero and Ukraine
is the villain, which is sort of hard to get
your head around, but that does seem to be what
they think.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Right, and that's I do think that's the world order
that they would be pushing towards. But this gets back
to journalists in this country. It's all about the money,
and there's very little talk about even after September eleventh,
when Article five was invoked and they came to our defense, the.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Defense of the United States.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
It's it really does boil down to, oh, is this
just a financial transaction gone awry, or is this, uh,
the valuable alliance that's kind of held together the world,
or and which, by the way, though we have to
be able to criticize what it did in Iraq and
all these other things. But if we can't talk honestly
about it, we end up shutting down all the conversation.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Of course, I think there is discussion about it. I mean,
NATO most of the time for most Americans is not
something that's probably top of mind.
Speaker 5 (12:37):
But I think there is a kind of thing's.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Not been to a party where it's not the first
thing people talk about.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Can we move in serious circles?
Speaker 1 (12:44):
I do generally, it's you go in, it's a little
NATO talk, and then keg stand. Thank you very much
for being here. It's really fantastic ladies. The general for
the economists can forgive.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
That was.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
My guest tonight. All I love them so much. They're
law professors and constitutional experts. Elitist who co hosts the
podcast about the Supreme Court called Strict Scrutiny. Please welcome
to the program, Melissa Murray and Kate Shaw.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Play right now.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Let me first, I want to apologize. So you have
a third Leah Littman, who couldn't be here because of
the delicate configurations of our desk. We would have loved
to have Leah be here as well, but she's in California,
and so I didn't want to let that pass. I
want to start with you, guys, this is a simple question.
John Oliver has offered Clarence Thomas a Winnebago and a
(13:52):
million dollars a year two and this is his words,
not mine. Get the off the Supreme Court will in
your court watchers, your experts on this court, will he
accept this offer?
Speaker 5 (14:06):
I think this is a Harlan Crowe counteroffer opportunity.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
You believe that his benefactor is going to have to
counter But what do you counter with? It's a beautiful
Winnebago and a million dollars year. Is there anything else
to life?
Speaker 5 (14:20):
Not if you enjoy spending time in the parking lots
of Walmart, as Justice Thomas wanted to do.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
He says he does, but apparently he likes to quail
hunt in a robe. I want to ask you, there's
a strategy that's starting to bubble up, which is getting
Americans comfortable with authoritarianism and getting us to not think
critically about the differences between a free society and not
a free society. And in that regard, they are starting
to paint Trump as navalny, that the trials that he
(14:49):
is facing in America are similar or the same as
what Putin did to Navalney. Please explain to me why
that's horseshit.
Speaker 5 (14:59):
Well, we are not experts in Russian criminal procedure, but
I think it's safe to say that Donald Trump is
likely receiving more procedural protections right now in the four
criminal indictments that he's currently subject to than Alexey Navalney
had in his time in Russia. So I think this
is not the same situation.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Would you say that Donald Trump was actually received duer
process than most people in America? I mean, this guy
is clearly on the Platinum Due Process Plan, the Harlan Cross,
the Harland pro due Process like he's getting every the
duist process, the newest of processes. So how is this
even comparable.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
It's not at all comparable. And I do think it
is interesting, as your last segment made clear that Trump
is adverting to the situation in Russia right now and
invoking Navalney, and I think that it's right to draw
comparisons right now. But of course the casting is all
wrong right now in the arguments that Trump is making
in some of the pending criminal cases against him. He
is a sally, casting himself as above and beyond the law.
(16:03):
And you know, we're essentially seeing what.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
He had a state.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Presidents should have complete and total immunity, because if you
can't kill people, then what fun Well, this was actually.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
A hypothetical that came up in the lower federal court
argument in this immunity case, Trump's lawyer was asked, so,
you're saying that a president could order sealed Team six
to assassinate a political rival and the criminal law couldn't
get him for.
Speaker 5 (16:26):
That sounds familiar, it was, And.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
Trump's lawyer basically said, unless he's been impeached and convicted first,
the criminal.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Laws in a political process, So you have to get
our criminal laws are suspended for the president didn't fight
a war about that.
Speaker 5 (16:40):
We not only fought a war, but our whole constitutional
structure is designed to prevent consolidations of power within the
presidency exactly. And so this whole idea you've got an a.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
In our constitutional laws is law.
Speaker 5 (16:57):
But I mean, what Kate is describing is essentially very
authoritarian forward. I mean, the person that Donald Trump is
is not Alexey Navali, It's Vladimir Putin.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Right, that's what he wants to be, that's who he admires.
But in our judicial systems defense, in my mind, over
these past few years, it was one of the few
institutions in America that actually held pretty strong. And you
are frowning at me, you disagree with this.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
Well, on our podcast we take different roles, Kate, is
I think much more amenable to your position. I think
I think, well, okay, well explain like there's something to this.
Speaker 4 (17:38):
I do think that there is a way in which
courts really did stand as a bulwark against some of
Trump's worst instincts and impulses while he was in office,
and even since you know, sixty plus lawsuits he filed
around the twenty twenty election, all unsuccessful. Right, He argued
for different versions of immunity in civil and criminal cases previously,
those have been unsuccessful essentially throughout. But we are in
a real test moment of that proposition, in that the
(18:00):
Supreme Court is right now facing this question of whether
he will ever stand trial for the January sixth events
and the grant.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Him blanket immunity. We don't have a republican anymore. We
don't have a constitutional republic if the head of it
has an immunity. The thing I liked about what the
courts did is they set a standard of evidence. Anybody
can say whatever they want on a basic cable show
wherever they go, or at a rally or anything else,
but when you bring it into a court, as Juliani
(18:28):
famously said, no, we don't have any evidence. But we
got slots of theories and they threw them out.
Speaker 5 (18:35):
So that just suggests that the bar is in hell.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
Yes, of course, the.
Speaker 5 (18:41):
Courts are a bulwark against the most toutalitarian impulses in
our society. But we forget that the court system. We have,
the Supreme Court, we have, the debates we're having about
the Supreme Court are all right now. The product of
what Donald Trump did like this is a person who
not elected by the posts.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Saying these questions would have been utterly unimaginable in preview.
Speaker 5 (19:02):
Right down debating whether or not in the next presidential
term we are going to see a national ban on abortion,
we wouldn't be having that discussion if Donald Trump's six
or three conservative supermajority had not rolled back Roll versus WAD,
we wouldn't have that discussion at all.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
For the immunity discussion or anything.
Speaker 5 (19:17):
All of this, he has created the conditions for the
way we talk about this court.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
And that's the thing that ultimately is at stake in
all this. I want to thank you guys so much
for coming on. You're fabulous. Check out their podcast, Please
Strict Scrutiny. New episodes drop on Mondays. It's a fine
day to drop them. Melissa, Marie and Khall.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by
searching The Daily Show wherever you get your podcasts. Watch
The Daily Show week nights at eleven ten Central on
Comedy Central and stream full episodes anytime on Bear Amount Plus.
This has been a Comedy Central podcast. Yeah.
You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
My guest tonight.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
She's the editor in chief of the Economists. Please welcome
to the program, Zanny Minton Meadows.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Love way to see the chairs move.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
I hope you're all right. It was here nine years ago.
We almost killed Jimmy Carter with the rolling chase. He
almost went all the way back this way. It does swivel.
We have the Economy. This is your magazine. We have it.
We brought it with us. I don't know if you
can see that there. We're out there and it's got
a posted note in there for there. I thought there
(00:56):
was a centerfold that wasn't there. I don't know what
was that. Well, we were a show that we very
much appreciate. I wanted to ask you. You know, The
Economist wrote about some of Joe Biden's issues a year ago.
You wrote, is he going to be up for the
job in the second term? What were the concerns that
(01:17):
you guys had done.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
So we wrote after the midterms that he should not
stand for a second term. And you know he when
he came in, it was he was hoping to be
He said pretty much that he wanted to be a
one term president.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
He was a grown up. He would save the country
for there was the bridge. He was the bridge case
he was the bridge. He didn't say which bridge Wasn't
the bridges one of those bridges in thirty mins?
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Absolutely, And I think we after the midterms, we thought
that it was time for him to kind of make
that clear. He would have been had he said he
was going to be a one term president, he would
have been a remarkable one term president. He's achieved an
unbelievable amount for one term. But now we are where
we are here, and huge majorities of the American people,
including huge majorities of the Democrats, think he is too
(02:01):
old for a second term. It's really alarming that the
only person between us and the return of Donald Trump
is a frail eighty one say that, like.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Baltimore, you said, the return of Donald Trump.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
It really worries me and it may be a little weird.
But for those of us outside the US.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Oh can they say that? If you say I had
a remarkable first term, what's to say I won't have
a remarkable second term.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
He's eighty one years old, what you know? He is
the same age pretty much as my father. I love
my father, dearly. My father's a wonderful man. But my
father should be nowhere near the most important job in
the world.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
He probably never should have been.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
But in an eighty one year old, eighty one year old,
he doesn't watch this thing?
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Does it? Does he watch.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
This?
Speaker 3 (02:48):
May this maybe a little explanation will have to go.
But he an eighty one year old. You know what
they're like at eighty one. You know what they're going
to be like at eighty five. You know, time travels
one way and people go in one direction at that age.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Why are you looking at me like that when you
say it? That seemed awfully personal.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
As you said the show, you're good twenty years younger,
you know you got a long time still it's pretty interesting.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
But let me ask you. So, there is obviously a
press pool, there's a White House press corps. There's a
certain amount of mystery that seems to surround this. All
the people behind the scenes are saying, you don't know,
like we know he's leading these meetings. He's unbelievable. You
I wish you could see it. But certainly there are
press people that travel with the president. Surely I have
(03:32):
not seen people come out with first hand accounts. They
have not come out founding a long f force R
right or just said I follow the president. I'm with
him every day. He is unbelievably sharp. He's just camera
shy or whatever it is. But nobody is making those
It makes it seem conspiratorial.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Yeah, and I think it's what is clear is that
it is quite hard to get access to this president.
He is very carefully shepherded around. He doesn't do very
many press conferences. He doesn't do very many interviews. I
assume that's for and I hear the same thing. You know,
he's very sharp. He talks for a long time. You
can outlast anybody in a meeting. I'm perfectly prepared to
believe that on some subjects, that's true. Joe Biden knows
(04:10):
a huge amount of that foreign policy. He is exactly
the right person to have in the oval office in
the world as it is.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
We have today.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
And I'm sure on certain things he can go for
hours and hours and hours. He can probably be in
negotiations for a long time. But does that mean he
should be president for another two terms. I think it's worrying.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Now when you say one, Yeah, the world order is
changing and there is a part, you know, the economist
is certainly you know it does represent a certain mainstream
point of view or establishment.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Well.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Actually, interestingly, we we stand for good classic English liberalism.
It's not the same as an American liberal, which is
more of a lefty, but the English liberalists.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
I'm going to get tested on this because I don't I.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Missed that with a little lesson Now, we believe in
individual freedom, free markets, limited government. We've kind of believed
in that for a long time. And for a long time,
You're right, our view was the kind of mainstream view,
you know, Reaganism, Thatcherism, even Clintonism. You know, it wasn't
too far apart. That was the mainstream view. But now
we're absolutely not the mainstream view. Now.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
You know I should have said establishment. I think it's
establishment statis qua.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
We're absolutely not the establishment view. And now industrial policies
in big state is in protectionism, is in all manner
of things that we traditionally didn't believe in. And so
our kind of liberalism, I think is very much not
the mainstream view now, and we're championing liberalism in the
face actually pretty concerted resistance to it and people going
in different directions, So the whole kind of trumpest assault,
(05:40):
if you will. There's another in fact, our cover, this
week's cover is going to be about this almost certainly
unless something dramatic happens, which is about national conservatism. It's
this idea which you know the Maga Republicans have, but
also a bunch of conservatives in Europe Victor Auber and
Georgia Maloney in Italy, Marine Le Pen in France. There
(06:01):
are differences between them, but they're united by an idea
that they want to be anti globalist. They're anti trade,
they're very skeptical of migration. They want to push back
against what they see as progressive, woke ideas.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Can you say this is perhaps a new world order
that they are they would love that. Oh no, They're
the ones who always talk about there's a conspiracy to
create a new world order, when if you really look
at it, they're the ones trying to create it. They're shifting.
There was an old paradigm right which was America postwar
aligned itself with liberal Europe against communism. That was the
(06:36):
stability of the world since World War II, was capitalism
versus communism. It looks like there appears to be a
realignment along the lines of not capitalism and communism, but
woke and unwoke. And I know that sounds ridiculous, but
it is what ties Putin to Trump an Orban to Trump.
(06:57):
If you listen to Putin when he talks about orthodox
Christianity and Western society and anti gay rhetoric, he sounds
like an AM radio host.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Absolutely. And there are people in the Republican Party now
who are who wore more to Putin than to Ukraine,
for example. So I think you're right, Well, I think
all of them, No, not.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
All of them, not all well Mitch McConnell, but he
just stops working every now.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
And I think there's a really serious point. There's a
complete you know, one way of thinking about it is
a maga takeover the real Republican Party. But another I
think there's something more profound going on, which is there
is potentially a kind of revolution and conservatism which may
end up being as big as the kind of Thatcherite
Reaganite revolution, which is taking it in a completely different direction,
(07:44):
which is it's a.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Popularism and a nativism, but it's combined with this anti
wokeism that almost seems to be the more powerful unifying
theory than it is. We used to be economic theories
and now it's theories of social culture.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Issue identity, social culture. Absolutely, no, I think there is.
That's definitely a fault line, and the people you cite
are definitely on.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
One side of it.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Whether it's a new World order yet, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
We did not talk about NATO. Donald Trump very famously
came out and said I would encourage Russia, this was
years ago, to attack them so that they would pay
their bills, as though the value of NATO is in
what they can contribute financially.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
What is your He sounded like, he sounded like the mobster. Right,
they got to pay, They got to pay, that's right.
Donald Trump doesn't I think understand what collective security is about,
Like the NATO is basically, if you attack the smallest
NATO country, you're attacking America. That basic deal was understood
by the Soviet Union and then by Russia. That's why
(08:48):
we haven't had an attack on NATO. I think that
is undermined by him basically saying it's a protectionist racket,
which is what he so. I don't think Donald Trump
cares about alliances. But the reason it's so disconcerting and
worrying if you're in Europe right now. Is this is
happening at a time when Vladimir Putin has already done
a full scale invasion of Ukraine. He is rearming much
faster than Europe. Europe is a fundamentally more dangerous place.
(09:11):
So even with Donald Trump nowhere near the White House yet,
him saying it right now is destabilizing. It makes it
much more likely that Putin an aggressive dictator.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
You know, it pushes further.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
And at the same time, you have this aid for
Ukraine held up here in this country. And to be clear,
aid in Ukraine. Giving the money into Ukraine is the
cheapest possible way for the US to enhance its security.
It's just the fighting is being done by the Ukrainians.
They're the people who are being killed. The US and
Europe are supplying them weapons and in doing so we
(09:45):
are pushing back against Putin. I mean, I've been to
Kiev twice and lived there thirty years ago, and you
can't go there and not think this is a European
country that is looking westward and for the US to
abandon it now, if it does, it's always to dropping.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
The unfortunate part for Ukraine seems to be that it
also holds a place in our culture war. I don't
think there's any principled opposition from the right in terms
of sending arms. There might be in terms of the
amount or the money or some of those things. I
think they're really caught in the idea that Putin and
(10:24):
Urban and that illiberal order are their natural allies, and
so Ukraine they have to paint that as notazified or
utterly corrupt, as though Russia is somehow fundamentally, you know,
just this unbelievable Valhalla. But I think that's where I
(10:48):
think that's why, if Russia has done there somewhere else,
Ukraine happens to hold a very strange place in this
whole barisma Hunter Biden illiberal like e is.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Actually Donald Trump doesn't like Voladimir Zlensky because of the
whole issue around the first impeachment and and all of.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
That stuff, and we hold her for grudges.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
And he doesn't like Zelenski, and he likes Pujin because
Putin's tough, that's right kind. Then I think there are
a bunch of Republicans who are genuine what you might
call old fashioned isolationists who just don't think the kind
of us should be involved in this stuff. Then there's
a bunch who have perfectly reasonable concerns about whether the
money is being well spent.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Corruption in Ukraine.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
There is plenty of corruption in Ukraine, whether it's all
well spent.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
And then I think you're right.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
There are these and let's call them the Tucker Carlson
Republicans who who kind of have a sense that there
is somehow the you putin is the hero and Ukraine
is the villain, which is sort of hard to get
your head around, but that does seem to be what
they think.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Right, and that's I do think that's the world order
that they would be pushing towards. But this gets back
to journalists in this country. It's all about the money,
and there's very little talk about even after September eleventh,
when Article five was invoked and they came to our defense, the.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Defense of the United States.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
It's it really does boil down to, oh, is this
just a financial transaction gone awry, or is this, uh,
the valuable alliance that's kind of held together the world,
or and which, by the way, though we have to
be able to criticize what it did in Iraq and
all these other things. But if we can't talk honestly
about it, we end up shutting down all the conversation.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Of course, I think there is discussion about it. I mean,
NATO most of the time for most Americans is not
something that's probably top of mind.
Speaker 5 (12:37):
But I think there is a kind of thing's.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Not been to a party where it's not the first
thing people talk about.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Can we move in serious circles?
Speaker 1 (12:44):
I do generally, it's you go in, it's a little
NATO talk, and then keg stand. Thank you very much
for being here. It's really fantastic ladies. The general for
the economists can forgive.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
That was.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
My guest tonight. All I love them so much. They're
law professors and constitutional experts. Elitist who co hosts the
podcast about the Supreme Court called Strict Scrutiny. Please welcome
to the program, Melissa Murray and Kate Shaw.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Play right now.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Let me first, I want to apologize. So you have
a third Leah Littman, who couldn't be here because of
the delicate configurations of our desk. We would have loved
to have Leah be here as well, but she's in California,
and so I didn't want to let that pass. I
want to start with you, guys, this is a simple question.
John Oliver has offered Clarence Thomas a Winnebago and a
(13:52):
million dollars a year two and this is his words,
not mine. Get the off the Supreme Court will in
your court watchers, your experts on this court, will he
accept this offer?
Speaker 5 (14:06):
I think this is a Harlan Crowe counteroffer opportunity.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
You believe that his benefactor is going to have to
counter But what do you counter with? It's a beautiful
Winnebago and a million dollars year. Is there anything else
to life?
Speaker 5 (14:20):
Not if you enjoy spending time in the parking lots
of Walmart, as Justice Thomas wanted to do.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
He says he does, but apparently he likes to quail
hunt in a robe. I want to ask you, there's
a strategy that's starting to bubble up, which is getting
Americans comfortable with authoritarianism and getting us to not think
critically about the differences between a free society and not
a free society. And in that regard, they are starting
to paint Trump as navalny, that the trials that he
(14:49):
is facing in America are similar or the same as
what Putin did to Navalney. Please explain to me why
that's horseshit.
Speaker 5 (14:59):
Well, we are not experts in Russian criminal procedure, but
I think it's safe to say that Donald Trump is
likely receiving more procedural protections right now in the four
criminal indictments that he's currently subject to than Alexey Navalney
had in his time in Russia. So I think this
is not the same situation.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Would you say that Donald Trump was actually received duer
process than most people in America? I mean, this guy
is clearly on the Platinum Due Process Plan, the Harlan Cross,
the Harland pro due Process like he's getting every the
duist process, the newest of processes. So how is this
even comparable.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
It's not at all comparable. And I do think it
is interesting, as your last segment made clear that Trump
is adverting to the situation in Russia right now and
invoking Navalney, and I think that it's right to draw
comparisons right now. But of course the casting is all
wrong right now in the arguments that Trump is making
in some of the pending criminal cases against him. He
is a sally, casting himself as above and beyond the law.
(16:03):
And you know, we're essentially seeing what.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
He had a state.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Presidents should have complete and total immunity, because if you
can't kill people, then what fun Well, this was actually.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
A hypothetical that came up in the lower federal court
argument in this immunity case, Trump's lawyer was asked, so,
you're saying that a president could order sealed Team six
to assassinate a political rival and the criminal law couldn't
get him for.
Speaker 5 (16:26):
That sounds familiar, it was, And.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
Trump's lawyer basically said, unless he's been impeached and convicted first,
the criminal.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Laws in a political process, So you have to get
our criminal laws are suspended for the president didn't fight
a war about that.
Speaker 5 (16:40):
We not only fought a war, but our whole constitutional
structure is designed to prevent consolidations of power within the
presidency exactly. And so this whole idea you've got an a.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
In our constitutional laws is law.
Speaker 5 (16:57):
But I mean, what Kate is describing is essentially very
authoritarian forward. I mean, the person that Donald Trump is
is not Alexey Navali, It's Vladimir Putin.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Right, that's what he wants to be, that's who he admires.
But in our judicial systems defense, in my mind, over
these past few years, it was one of the few
institutions in America that actually held pretty strong. And you
are frowning at me, you disagree with this.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
Well, on our podcast we take different roles, Kate, is
I think much more amenable to your position. I think
I think, well, okay, well explain like there's something to this.
Speaker 4 (17:38):
I do think that there is a way in which
courts really did stand as a bulwark against some of
Trump's worst instincts and impulses while he was in office,
and even since you know, sixty plus lawsuits he filed
around the twenty twenty election, all unsuccessful. Right, He argued
for different versions of immunity in civil and criminal cases previously,
those have been unsuccessful essentially throughout. But we are in
a real test moment of that proposition, in that the
(18:00):
Supreme Court is right now facing this question of whether
he will ever stand trial for the January sixth events
and the grant.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Him blanket immunity. We don't have a republican anymore. We
don't have a constitutional republic if the head of it
has an immunity. The thing I liked about what the
courts did is they set a standard of evidence. Anybody
can say whatever they want on a basic cable show
wherever they go, or at a rally or anything else,
but when you bring it into a court, as Juliani
(18:28):
famously said, no, we don't have any evidence. But we
got slots of theories and they threw them out.
Speaker 5 (18:35):
So that just suggests that the bar is in hell.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
Yes, of course, the.
Speaker 5 (18:41):
Courts are a bulwark against the most toutalitarian impulses in
our society. But we forget that the court system. We have,
the Supreme Court, we have, the debates we're having about
the Supreme Court are all right now. The product of
what Donald Trump did like this is a person who
not elected by the posts.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Saying these questions would have been utterly unimaginable in preview.
Speaker 5 (19:02):
Right down debating whether or not in the next presidential
term we are going to see a national ban on abortion,
we wouldn't be having that discussion if Donald Trump's six
or three conservative supermajority had not rolled back Roll versus WAD,
we wouldn't have that discussion at all.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
For the immunity discussion or anything.
Speaker 5 (19:17):
All of this, he has created the conditions for the
way we talk about this court.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
And that's the thing that ultimately is at stake in
all this. I want to thank you guys so much
for coming on. You're fabulous. Check out their podcast, Please
Strict Scrutiny. New episodes drop on Mondays. It's a fine
day to drop them. Melissa, Marie and Khall.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by
searching The Daily Show wherever you get your podcasts. Watch
The Daily Show week nights at eleven ten Central on
Comedy Central and stream full episodes anytime on Bear Amount Plus.
This has been a Comedy Central podcast. Yeah.
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