Democrats Crush Kamala’s Governorship Dream!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Do Democrats want Kamala Harris to run for governor? EH
feels like kind of no, Like they know she would
win if she ran for governor of California. I think
a cardboard box with the letter D on it would
win the governor's race in California. But they don't seem

(00:22):
very enthused about it. And if anything, they seem to
be like nagging her. It's where like a guy like
kind of tries to flirt with a girl by insulting her.
So there's a piece in National View by Noah Rothman
talking about this. There's still time for Vice President Kamala
Harris to beg off a run to succeed Gavin Newsom

(00:46):
in California's governor's mansion. By the way, do we have
a governor's mansion? I think everyone just says the governor's
mansion because most states have some kind of like white
House equivalent for their governor. I'm not actually sure if
California does anyway. As such, it's hard to assess the
degree to which Harris skeptics in the Golden State are

(01:07):
genuinely terrified by her flirtations with a gummernatorial bid, or
whether they're exaggerating their trepidation to convince her to recalibrate
her ambitions. Either way, California Democrats are rubbing their temples today.
As CNN's Edward Isaac Dovert reported, even Harris's critics confess

(01:30):
that Harris quote would be a favorite to win the
governor's race in quote deep blue California, an observation that
admits her victory would be attributable less to her political
acumen than California voter's bovine Insussians. This is why I
like this article. He uses the phrase bovine Insussians to
refer to California voters and their tendency to vote for

(01:51):
Democrats bovine i e. Cow like California voters, bovine Insussians
upon which local Democrat office holder office seekers have come
to rely. And yet Harris will still quote have to
answer for former President Joe Biden and her role in
the failed but nevertheless attempted to cover up of his

(02:13):
deteriorating condition. In addition, possible ambivalence about her candidacy could
hurt Democratic chances in swing districts if her candidacy fails
to generate enthusiasm among Democrats while irritating and thus activating
Republican voters. Harris could get herself elected while still serving
as a net negative for her party. So this is

(02:34):
the this is the rup Why are Democrats kind of
actually nervous about Harris running for governor in California. It's
not that they're afraid she'll lose. It's almost impossible for
a Democrat to lose, and she herself sort of demonstrated.
I mean, she won California in the twenty twenty four

(02:56):
presidential election. You know, fifty eight to thirty Eightocrats have
built in advantages with how they stack voting laws. They
have a better machine. If it gets close, they can
always cure more ballots than the Republicans can cure. For
those who don't know, ballot curing is the built in
legal way for Democrats to cheat in order to win elections.

(03:18):
Basically after an election. The reason why it takes California
like a month to certify an election is on purpose.
It's not because we're bad at counting votes or something.
It's a choice. Basically, within a month after an election,
if someone has submitted a vote by mail ballot invalidly,

(03:41):
they have like a month after election day during which
they can quote cure they're invalidly cast ballot. And so
what Democrats do in any close race, John Duarte lost
his seat Adam Gray because of this. Basically what they

(04:03):
do is they go to all these voters who had
invalidly cast ballots and they try to get them to
cure their ballots so that all of a sudden, magically
the number of votes for one candidate or the other increases. Now,
both Republicans and Democrats can do this, but Democrats always
will have a bigger machine in California for doing this.

(04:25):
In the John Darte Adam Gray race, they flew Christine
Pelosi down to help make sure that Adam Gray was
going to get more ballots cure than John Duarte was.
Johndarte is out of a job. Adam Gray is now
the congressman for that district anyway, So Democrats have all
these advantages. There's no way they're losing a governor's race.

(04:49):
Not now. But there is this issue that Democrats have.
Democrats didn't do so hot in California, and there's I'm
not saying the tide is turning, the Republicans are coming back.
It's the end of the road for the Democrats. But
the last election, the twenty twenty four election, was the

(05:12):
kind of positive momentum Republicans in California desperately need it.
It's not like we did great because it's so jerrymandered
in California in favor of Democrats that it's not like
there's you know, it's not like we have a ton
of opportunities to pick up a ton of seats. But
it was, you know, I keep saying this. Republicans keep saying,

(05:35):
what are Californian's going to wake up? What are they
going to wake up and realize that these Democrats are terrible?
And I keep saying, maybe they won't, you know, And
also stop acting like it's a one election fix. It's not. Okay,
it took twenty years to get California this solidly blue,

(06:00):
twenty five years. It's gonna take probably twenty five years
of really smart, dedicated, intelligent effort on the part of
California Republicans to reverse the tide and get us back
to a point of being competitive. And that might not
even happen. Okay, it might not. The twenty twenty four

(06:27):
election was the kind of start that you would want
to see for the tide to start shifting. Okay, it's
not like we won a bunch of state wide offices,
not like we you know, even broke the Democrats supermajority
in the state legislature. But Republicans did better. Republicans got

(06:48):
more votes across the state. Counties that had been blue
counties turned red. Okay, Fresno County, for example, had voted
for President. County voted for Joe Biden in twenty twenty
and Hillary Clinton in twenty sixteen. I voted for Donald
Trump in twenty twenty four. There is a right word

(07:08):
trend that's happening across California, Orange County, etc. So it's
not like it's you know, Democrats are still dominant. Democrats
are still winning, but we're starting to see some stuff
change in a positive way. Democrats are not unaware of that. Okay,

(07:33):
Democrat leadership is aware that that's happening, and they are concerned.
They are concerned in twenty twenty six, not so much
with is a Democrat gonna hold onto the governor's seat.
Of course, a Democrat's gonna win, there's no Republican has
a chance. And you can kind of see that from
the field of Republican candidates. Steve Hilton seems like a

(07:56):
nice enough guy. He doesn't have the standing, you know,
he just doesn't really have the kind of standing you
would want from a really, really really serious Republican challenger.
Chad Bianco seems like a very nice guy, seems like
a good dude. Doesn't have the standing for a really
really really serious challenge for the governor's mansion. No one

(08:20):
with that kind of clout wants to jump in because
they know the odds are astronomically small. But so what
Democrats are concerned about is all the downballot stuff, particularly
the House. Democrats need to take the House. The map

(08:43):
is not super friendly for them to retake the Senate,
and they've got to take one of the two houses
of Congress away from Trump. If they don't, if Republicans
can somehow manage to retain the House and the Senate
for the last two years of Trump's term, Democrats are
gonna be ready to commit suppuku. If they can get

(09:05):
one of the two houses, they can stop any reconciliation bills,
they can stop precision bills. They can use their majority
on individual House or Senate committees to subpoena and investigate
and harass the Trump administration. They need to win either
the House or the Senate, and the road to the
House runs through California. There are just a bunch of

(09:27):
swing districts in California that they really really want to
need to win. In particular, I'm sure the first one
circled on their board is David Valdeo's ce okay, And

(09:48):
what they realize is Kamala Harris running might hurt that effort.
If Harris runs in, she brings in all the twenty
twenty four baggage that motivated much better Republican turnout in
California than existed, you know in twenty twenty, she comes

(10:14):
in with baggage. One unnamed state level Democratic lawmaker told Douvert,
the person from CNN who wrote this story about Democrats
not being enthused about Harris running for governor, I think
it would only fire up Republicans and hurt our ability
to win the four to five seats that we need
to win to win the House and hold on to

(10:35):
three seats that we just flipped in twenty twenty four. So,
because that's the thing Democrats have to be on both
offense and defense. They flipped three Republican seats Democrat in
California in twenty twenty four, so Adam Grays and then
there were two other California seats so and they narrowly
hold those, so they're on defense for those, but they

(10:55):
also need to be on offense for again the David
Valadeo's seat and others. And the fear is well, if
Kamala Harris is the face of the Democrats twenty twenty
four twenty twenty six California election efforts, what is that
going to do. It's just going to motivate all of
the Trump people to just get out in droves. Indeed,

(11:22):
Rothman's piece of National View goes on Harris's political star
has faded to such an extent that Douvert didn't have
to rely on anonymous quotes from cow to California Democrats.
Some even bashed her on the record. Once you're the
vice president of the United States, there's only one place
to go, it's president, said Representative Jimmy Gomez. For me,
if I was vice president and all of a sudden

(11:44):
I lose, it would be a fallback to me to
run for governor of California. I hate to put it
so bluntly. So this guy's a member of Congress. He's
on the record saying, hey, she shouldn't run for California governor,
she should run for president. She shouldn't do anything other
run for president. Even if these brushback pitches are part

(12:06):
of a campaign of elementary psychological manipulation, which is insulting enough.
The rebukes Harris has received from her fellow Democrats for
being a drag on democratic prospects generally are especially ruthless.
Much could be said, much the same could be said
of Barack Obama. And then he goes on to talk
about all of the enormous number of state representative seats

(12:28):
that Democrats lost over the course of the Obama presidency.
All right, but this is the dilemma, This is the
dilemma that Democrats face with Harris running. Obviously, anyone with
a D next to their name has a very good
chance of is going to win the governor's race. And
obviously she, if she jumped into the Democrat jumped into

(12:52):
the primary. Rather, she's the instant favorite purely based on
name recognition. People under how few Californians actually know the
name of like the governor, the Lieutenant governor. Probably Gavin
Newsom has decent name recognition at this point, but it's

(13:13):
not as good as Kamala Harris. I mean, Harris would
have the minute she jumps in, every single Democrat in
California knows who she is. I'm guessing a huge number
of Democrats voters in California have no idea who say,
Javier Besara is okay, Javier Besara is running for governor.

(13:33):
Harris jumps into the race just blows him out of
the water instantly as far as name recognition. So the
moment Harris enters the race, she's got it instantly, just
based on name recognition. And that's the problem. It's name
recognition also for Republican voters, who many of whom are

(13:56):
not super motivated to even go to the polls in
California for obvious reasons. It's pretty dispiriting thing to go
to the polls in California. But if Harris runs, there's
a whole host of things she has to answer for
that maybe some other Democrat does not. We'll talk about

(14:19):
those things next on the John Gerardi Show. Things Kamala
Harris would bring up as an issue if she ran
for governor of California versus if anyone else ran for
governor of California. Harris is flirting with running for governor
of California. If she ran, she would obviously win. However,

(14:43):
she would gin up a bunch of arguments and debates
about a bunch of things that some other Democrat wouldn't
and would motivate Republican voters in a way that other
Democrats wouldn't, which is not enough of a threat for
Democrats to actually lose the governor. It is enough of
a threat for Democrats to lose some seats down ballot

(15:07):
House of Representative seats that they have to have to
have to have to have to win if they want
to take control of the House of Representatives. And that's
the key thing for Democrats in twenty twenty six. They
are not very con They are not too worried about
losing the governor's race. They are worried about whether they

(15:29):
can hold on to the swing state Democrats the swing
district seats in California that they took in twenty twenty four,
and if they can take more, there's a couple more
swing districts in California that they desperately want to win.
David Valadeo's being at the top of the list. They
desperately want to win those elections so that they can
take control of the House of Representatives. They can only

(15:53):
do that if they do really well in California, and
Kamala Harris motivates Republicans more than anyone else. So here
are shoes that Kamala Harris brings up that say, Elenni
Cunilacus won't Who's Elenni Cunilacus. You asked, she's the current
lieutenant governor of California. Did you not know that she's
been the lieutenant governor for six and a half years.

(16:15):
She has zero name recognition. That's why Harris would win
over Elenni cunilakus or now here are issues Harris. Here
issues Harris brings up that Cunilacus doesn't one that Joe
Biden age cover up. Of all the people who should

(16:41):
have some blame for covering up the fact that Joe
Biden was senile, really really going through Peelberty on the radio. Really,
Kamala Harris deserves the most blame criticism of anybody. Why, well,

(17:06):
we do have a mechanism for dealing with a president
who's mentally incapacitated. We developed it after the Woodrow Wilson presidency.
Woodrow Wilson had this significant health event I can't remember
if it was a stroke or something, and was bedridden
and his wife was basically sending off orders in his
name and isolated him, wouldn't let him see anybody, and

(17:29):
a lot of people think that his wife was basically
governing the country for the end of his term. And
everyone sort of realized, Wow, that's really bad. We have
impeachment and removal as a mechanism, I guess, but that's
really hard to do if you don't have direct access
to the president. So let's develop some other system for

(17:54):
dealing with an incapacitated president. And we developed this thing
called the twenty fifth Amendment twenty fifth Amendment to the Constitution,
which allows the vice president to initiate with the cabinet
a process for removing the president if the president's mentally incapacitated.
It's something the vice president can initiate, can initiate it.

(18:17):
Get I think it's a majority of the cabinet. I
don't even think it's like a two thirds majority, just
like a majority of the cabinet level officers to decide
to remove the president in the event that they think
that he's mentally incapacitated. The vice president very specifically has
a role within the structure of the twenty fifth Amendment,

(18:41):
and Harris never did it. Harris never came close to
initiating anything with the twenty fifth Amendment. She kept being
a loyal political soldier and refused to say anything about
anything that might possibly be wrong with the president. She

(19:05):
if anyone would have known, she would have could have
should have known. If she suspected it and she was
prevented from seeing the president, she should have published, She
should have demanded it. That's something she has to answer for.
That becomes an issue in California for her governor's race.
That's just not an issue if Lenny Kunilacus is running

(19:27):
for governor. If Lenny Cunilacus runs, it's like, well, I mean,
she doesn't have to answer anything for Baraco for on
behalf of Joe Biden. She had no involvement. She's the
lieutenant governor of California. Javier Bessara might actually have to
answer some questions about Biden because he was the Health
and Human Services secretary presumably he should have been interacting

(19:48):
with Biden, knew about Biden, and you know, maybe some
of those same questions could have gone to him, But
I'm sure that they wouldn't be as intense towards Tavi
or Bessara as they will be. Those questions will be
less intense for Javi or Bessera than they are for
Kamala Harris. Guaranteed, there's all kinds of other issues Harris

(20:09):
as the borders are, who oversaw a terrible disaster at
the California border, at the US Mexico border, all of
her various difficulties, stories about her not being a good manager.

(20:30):
There's just her whole past, her whole political baggage gets
brought in to a California's governor, to a California governor's
race in a way that just doesn't happen for someone
frankly more boring. Elenni Kunlakas is the perfect kind of

(20:51):
person who would just be completely boring, would gin up
know what, would not rev the engine of a single
Republican voter in California, would not animate anybody, and she
would easily win by twenty five points. It's obviously better

(21:13):
for Democrats, if she's the governor candidate rather than Kamala Harris.
If Harris runs, all of these old issues, all the
old litigation of the twenty twenty four election, all of
that stuff is brought to the forefront, and it motivates Republicans,
and that's the last thing they want, all Right, when

(21:35):
we return, I want to talk about a federal judge
in Massachusetts who basically is mandating that even Planned Parenthood
clinics in California somehow are able to continue to receive
federal funding in spite of the fact that Congress passed
a law saying that they shouldn't. That's next on the
John Gerardi Show. A federal judge in Massachusetts, in Deira Tulwane,

(21:57):
who's an Obama appointee, ruled in a lawsuit brought by
Planned Parenthood that actually, Congress is not allowed to take
away federal funding from Planned Parenthood. That apparently laws passed
by Congress don't count unless every single federal judge in
America agrees with them. So let's discuss this. One of

(22:19):
the big issues we've seen in the early days of
the Trump administration that the Supreme Court tried to deal
with is this idea of universal injunctions. A federal policy
gets announced, some executive action by a president, changing policy
by an executive branch office, and what happens, Well, someone

(22:43):
files a lawsuit to stop it doing aggressive forum shopping.
So forum shopping is a thing that lawyers can do
to his certain extent depending on the case, where he
basically say, all right, where am I going to find
a more favorable place to bring this lawsuit? I might

(23:04):
have different options. Maybe it's something where I could bring
it in federal court, or I could bring it in
state court, and I got to determine, all right, or
what are the judges like in federal court versus state court?
What are the juries like in federal court versus state court?
I could bring this case in this county because it
has some connection to this county or that county. Well,
the juries in this county are more sympathetic to plaintiffs,
or the juries in this county are more sympathetic to defendants.

(23:27):
So what should I do? Forum shopping is part of
the work of being an attorney to whatever extent you
can't Now, you don't always have a lot of options. Well,
when you have a nationwide policy, a federal policy. It
applies everywhere in the country. And so this allows you
to have complete luxury. Just to look at the roster

(23:53):
of federal district court judges in a given federal judicial
district and just look at, well, how many were appointed
by Democrats. Okay, I'll file a lawsuit there. So what
happens is Trump would issue an executive policy and Democrats
would file a lawsuit. Usually it would be filed in

(24:13):
the Northern District of California. Why in the Northern District
of California. Because sixty three of the sixty five Federal
District Court judges in the Northern District of California were
appointed by Democrat presidents sixty three out of sixty five.
So the odds of getting a liberal Democrat, the liberal
leaning Democrat appointed judge are extremely good. Democrats did this

(24:36):
in the District of Hawaii. They would file these lawsuits
in the District of Hawaii. Why because all of the
judges were Democrat appointees. Now Republicans would do the same thing,
you know, when the shoe was on the other foot.
Republicans would file these lawsuits in the Northern District of Texas.
Why because there was only one federal judge in the
whole Northern District of Texas, and he was a Trump appointee. Now,

(25:03):
the Supreme Court stepped in a couple months ago with
the Kasa decision, and they basically said, hey, listen, federal
district court judges can't give universal nationwide injunctions anymore. They're
not allowed to do that. You can give an injunction.

(25:23):
So an injunction is a legal order saying stop doing something.
Trump administration issues some change in immigration law. They get
sued saying, hey, uh, we're ssuing you in the Northern
District California that you're unlawfully detaining this kind of person.
We think that violates a constitution somehow, stop doing it.

(25:47):
And the liberal judge says, I agree. Nationwide, the Trump
administration is not allowed to impose this policy anymore, not
just for the plaintiffs who immediately suit us here, but
you're not allowed to enforce that policy. The Supreme Court said,
stop it. No, you're not allowed to do that anymore.
You can give an injunction that applies within your district

(26:10):
that gives total relief to your plaintiffs, but you can't
just apply it nationwide. Okay, so Democrat lawyers had to
think through, well, how do we get around this, and
they've come up with different kind of creative ways. They're
going to try to do more class action lawsuits, where

(26:31):
they try to certify a class action. A class action
lawsuit is basically you get one person suing for some harm,
but you then go to the judge and say, hey,
there's a very very very very large group of people
similarly situated to the plaintiff here who've suffered some harm.

(26:52):
We would like you to certify this as a class
action lawsuit and action that's for the benefit of this
whole class, rather than you getting twenty three thousand lawsuits,
individual lawsuits from individual people who've all been harmed in
this exact same way. You certify those twenty three thousand
people as a class and then this one person sort
of stands in on behalf of all these other people.

(27:13):
The judge has to certify that the interests of all
these twenty three thousand people are aligned, et cetera. So
some liberals are trying to see if they can certify
massive class action type lawsuits to stop Trump executive the
Trump administration executive actions and other kind of workarounds against

(27:35):
the Supreme Court, saying, no, nationwide injunctions are not a thing.
If you can get a class action, a class action
is not a nationwide injunction. You're granting a relief for it.
This entire class who might happen to be spread across
the entire nation. Okay, So liberals are trying to find
a way around the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court doesn't
like the situation of Congress passes law or the president

(27:56):
issues in executive order and it has to be held
up by every single federal judge in the country. One
federal judge can stop the whole thing dead in its tracks.
The Supreme Court doesn't like that situation. They think that
these individual district court judges are abusing their power. So

(28:17):
from there we get the planned parenthood issue. What's going
on with planned parenthood? All right, Congress passed a law.
This wasn't an executive order by the president where there
has to be some determination of You know, what presidents
do with executive orders is basically Congress writes a law

(28:41):
and then the president has to enforce it, and executive
orders are basically executive orders are basically the president saying
I'm applying the law, this law passed by Congress in
this way. That's how I'm enforcing it. I think that
Congress has delineated a field of activity for me that
is yay big, and I am operating within the parameters

(29:04):
of that law in this way. And so anytime a
president issues an executive order, you have to sort of
ask the question, well, did Congress really authorize the president
to act in this way? So that's always attension with
executive orders. Is it in compliance with some statute? With
the defunding of Planned Parenthood, we're talking about a statute
passed by Congress, not an executive action. Congress passed the law.

(29:28):
Congress passed the law saying if you're a kind of
business like this, and they go on to describe a
structure very similar to Planned parenthoods that does abortions, you
are ineligible to participate in the Medicaid program for one year.

(29:48):
That's the law Congress passed. They didn't say Planned Parenthood
by name, but they said, yeah, if you're a business
that structured a certain way and you do abortions, you're
not al eligible to get Medicaid funding. That kind of
thing happens all the time Congress sees some problem with

(30:09):
a certain kind of corporation or maybe one certain corporation, whatever,
they don't write a law saying Exon is no longer
allowed to drill in this way. They'll write a law
saying companies that engage in drilling practices have to do X,
Y and Z. So they don't write laws that. You

(30:31):
can have some problematic issues if you're writing a law
that's specifically targeting one specific person or one specific company, perhaps,
but that's not how Congress does things. They write it
in general. So they write this law saying, hey, if

(30:51):
you're this kind of business, you do abortions, you have
this kind of affiliate structure the way Planned Parenthood does
others do, then you're not eligible to participate in the
federal Medicaid program. Planned Parenthood files a lawsuit. They file
it in again Forum Shopping. They file it in the
District of Massachusetts where I think one of their sitting

(31:19):
non senior status federal judges only one is not a Democrat.
I think George W. Bush got one in there. I
think it's like thirteen out of fourteen of the judges
or Democrats, and they get Indira Talwane, who's this federal
district court judge in Massachusetts who is a radical left winger.

(31:42):
How radically left wing is sheep? She just got smacked
down by the US Supreme Court itself for an immigration issue. Basically,
it was she issued a ruling. Talwane issued a ruling
on some Trump immigration policy. The Supreme Court overruled her,

(32:06):
sent the case back down to her, saying, no, you're
not allowed to rule this way. She basically ignored the
Supreme Court's ruling. She just kind of issued disorder and
tried to make some bs argument that the Supreme Court's
order was different from this new order she was giving
what she just flat out ignored the Supreme Court. It
went back up to the Supreme Court again, who had

(32:28):
to tell her, don't do this, and if you do
this again, we'll remove the case from you. Even Justice
Kagan agreed with it. Justice Kagan who said, I don't
even agree with this policy, but district court judges are
not allowed to disagree ignore our rulings, so you gotta
do this. Justice Kagan, like the one of the three

(32:51):
liberals on the Supreme Court. Justice Kagan is the only
one worth of damn she's the only one clearly far
and away the smartest of the three liberal justices on
the Supreme Court. Anyway, that's how insane Indira Telwani is.
She's ignoring Supreme Court decisions that she doesn't like or

(33:13):
orders that she doesn't like. That's how nutso she is.
So she gets the planned parenthood case. Of course, Democrats
probably could not have found a single federal District Court
judge in the whole country as favorable to them as
Indira Tlwani. So Telwani issues are ruling saying, oh no,

(33:33):
Congress can't cut off this funding for Planned parent it's unconstitutional.
Why it's a bill of attainder? Now, a bill of attainder?
Bill of attainder arguments are usually pretty silly. Basically, a
bill of attainder is a law passed by Congress to

(33:58):
declare a specific person or group guilty of a crime
and imposing punishment on them without a trial. And that's
prohibited by the Constitution. That's not what this is. It's
not a punishment. It's saying it's not giving someone federal funding.

(34:21):
That's not a punishment. Just because you get federal funding,
you're used to getting federal funding, and if you stop
getting it, that's not a punishment. It's a legislative judgment
by Congress about what they do and don't want to fund. Furthermore,
it wasn't even singling out Planned Parenthood. Yes, they described
a structure kind of similar to Planned parenthoods, but I

(34:44):
think there are actually other companies that are fitting that
description that Congress laid out. I believe Family Planning Associates
would fall under, which is another big abortion chain, but
it's other people are falling under this rubric of what
Congress is prohibited from being eligible to participate in the
Medicaid program. So it's a BS argument she's made, this

(35:12):
federal judge is making, where she's issued a temporary restraining order,
now a preliminary injunction, now another preliminary injunction, where she's
also gotten around the problem of universal injunctions by basically
she let every Planned Paranoid affiliate join the lawsuit as
a plaintiff. So now this judge in Massachusetts is saying

(35:32):
that California Planned parenthoid clinics can keep getting money. It's absurd.
I really hope the Supreme Court comes in because it
completely eviscerates this when we return. If Congress can't not
fund things, we might as well close up shop. Next
on the John Gerardi Show, federal district court judge in

(35:54):
Massachusetts said that basically Congress's law that they passed, the
Trump One Big Beautiful Bill Act that said planned parenthood
is ineligible for Medicaid funding for a year, which I
think is gonna have a massive impact reducing abortions and
lessening the footprint of planned parenthood. One federal district court

(36:16):
judge in Massachusetts says, no, Congress can't prohibit it because
it's a bill of attainer, which is a ridiculous assertion
the bills. It's not what this is. Bill of attainer
is a specific law that punishes people like specific groups
of people, imposes punishment without a trial. That's not what
this is. Not Giving someone federal funding is not a punishment.

(36:39):
It's not a criminal punishment. It is not some it's
not even a civil punishment. It's Congress deciding what they
will or won't spend money on. And this is the thing,
the idea that a federal this is the constitutional crisis. Really,
here is a law, not any executive action where you

(37:01):
got to decide if it's compliant within the provisions of
some law passed by Congress. A law, a law passed
by a majority of the House, a majority of the Senate,
and signed by the President, a majority of the House
that the American people voted for, a majority in the Senate,
that the American people voted for, and sign into law
by the President whom the people voted for. The democratic process,

(37:23):
the constitutional set up on which this whole country, this
whole system is based. This is how we make law.
The House and the Senate and the President. That's how
you make a law. And apparently the process is now
the House, the Senate, the President, and the oka of

(37:45):
every single federal judge in America. If Congress can't even
decide to not spend money, this is again a decision
of Congress, not a decision of Congress to spend money
on something. That you might ask, is Congress allowed to
spend money on this or that? Does the constitution allow it?
This is Congress deciding not to spend money. If they

(38:08):
can't not spend money on something, we might as well
close up the whole shop and call this American experiment
experiment over. That'll do it. John dis already show see
you next time On Power Talk