Explaining Hate Speech & Hate Crimes

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
The White House issued a statement todayabout the protests that are going on at
Columbia University. We're basically a bunchof student protesters. Protesters, some of
whom are students, maybe not allof them, whatever, have taken over
campus buildings and at certain campuses.I'm not sure Columbia or Yale or several

(00:21):
of these campuses just basically widespread violationsof the law. You've got basically in
some parts in some campuses, you'vegot these camps being set up on the
campus where basically these pro Palestine protestersare living intents. Which again my constant

(00:45):
question about these pro Palestine protests iswhere do these kids have, Like don't
they have to study? Like whenI was in college, I would not
have had the time to just liveon the quad as finals week was approaching.
It's it's late April, like finalsare approaching in May. Don't don't
you have to like study or something? Anyway, clearly not, it's the

(01:08):
answer. So the White House issuedthis statement, and it leads me to
want to talk a little bit aboutthe First Amendment and this one term that
is used very often, the termis hate speech, and I feel like

(01:30):
that term is used a lot inpolitics, and it's one of these things
where when you hear that as alawyer, which I am, sort of
you're you're sort of almost not surewhat to do, how to handle it.
It's like it's one of these termsthat people tend to use as if

(01:53):
it's a legal term of art whenit isn't. Let me just read the
statement from the White House. PresidentBiden has stood against repugnant anti Semitic smears
and violent rhetoric his entire life.He condemns the use of the term into
fada, as he has the othertragic and he condemns the use of the

(02:15):
term into fada as he has condemnedthe other tragic and dangerous hate speech displayed
in recent days. President Biden respectsthe right to free expression, but protests
must be peaceful and lawful. Forcibly, taking over buildings is not peaceful,
it is wrong, and hate speechand hate symbols have no place in America.

(02:44):
And again it's used. On theone hand, this statement from the
President is obviously trying to respect certainkinds of legal boundaries and legal principles that
we have in America. He talksabout how you know, he President Biden

(03:05):
respects the right to free expression.Okay, So First Amendment principle of freedom
of speech that President Biden is respecting. He's he's acknowledging that there's a tenth
pole of the law here that hehas to respect. But then he has
another tent pole of law that he'srespecting. Protests must be peaceful and lawful.

(03:30):
Okay, So you can have protestdemonstrations, but don't break otherwise applicable
laws geared towards public safety or order. All right. You can be on
the sidewalk, you know, holdinga sign upholding what you believe, but
don't obstruct the sidewalk. You know. You can have a parade, but

(03:53):
go through the city process for havinga parade. Don't just block traffic,
et cetera. Right, these aresort of tent poles of American First Amendment
law that yes, you have theright to freedom of expression, but you
have to comply with otherwise applicable laws. Yes, you can protest in favor

(04:14):
of, you know, I don'tknow, protests against environmental regulation. But
don't throw a rock through the windowof the EPA's offices in Washington, d
C. Okay, throwing the rockthrough the window is breaking other laws,
otherwise applicable laws, and that's whenyou get out of the realm of what

(04:36):
is core protected First Amendment speech.So this statement by the President is fine
for what it is. I mean, it's it's not bad, and it's
clearly respecting these basic legal principles aroundthe idea of American First Amendment law and
free speech. But then it goesin to this rhetoric about dangerous hate speech.

(05:08):
President Biden con condemns the use ofthe term intofada, as he has
the other tragic and dangerous hate speechdisplayed in recent days, forcibly, taking
over buildings is not peaceful, itis wrong, and hates speech and hate
symbols have no place in America.And he keeps using that phrase as if

(05:28):
it's a term of art. AndI think a lot of people think that
that's some kind of legal term ofart, that that's like a category of
speech that can be regulated a certainway, And I'm just here to tell
you it's not. Really, it'snot a real term. What defines something

(05:50):
as hate speech, Well it frankly, it's in the eye of the beholder.
If I hold up a sign thatsays marriages between a man and a
woman. There are people who willlook at that and say that I am
engaged in hate speech by saying thatI don't think I am so. But

(06:19):
another person might hold up a signthat says, I hate these rosary clutching
get your rosary I hate those rosaryclutching Catholics who oppose abortion. You can
literally have a sign that says Ihate them, and someone might say,
well, that's not hate speech,even if it has the word hate.

(06:41):
Literally, hate speech is not reallya category of law. Let me just
put that plainly. Hate speech isnot a category of law. The fact
that speech is offensive to someone doesn'tnecessarily make it somehow outside the parameters of

(07:02):
core protected First Amendment speech. Sowhat kinds of things are outside the parameters
of core protected First Amendment speech.Well, to understand that there's a couple
of things. First, there's certainkinds of examples that have always historically been

(07:26):
deemed something different from protected First Amendmentspeech. So one of these is called
incitement. Incitement is a kind ofspeech that you reasonably anticipate will directly lead

(07:46):
to imminent lawless action, unlawful action. If I am in front of a
ku Klux Klan rally, and it'sa bunch of guys holding pitch forks and
torches and one guy with and baseballbats. And there is an African American

(08:09):
standing in front of this group ofhorrible races. And the guy at the
front, I'm gonna actually, Iam not going to be in this.
I excize myself from this example.This is obviously a horrific example. Okay,
I'm taking myself out of it.Let's say there's a guy at the
front of a group of ku Kluxklansmen and they all want to beat up

(08:31):
an African American, and the guyat the front of the group of ku
Klux klansmen yells, get him boys, and the klansmen rush forward to beat
up the black guy. Well,the guy at the front who yelled get
him boys his words, get himboys. He can't go in front of
the judge and say, your honor, I was engaged and I was speaking.

(08:56):
Therefore I'm protected by the First Amendment. You can't prosecute me for this
man being beaten up. Well,yes we can, because that's called incitement.
Okay. Incitement is again speech thatyou reasonably expect, speech that one

(09:16):
would reasonably expect will imminently lead toimminent unlawful activity. All right, that's
not a protected category of speech.The speech you use to conduct other kinds
of criminal affairs not protected. Okay, if you're engaged in conspiracy to engage
in wire fraud, and you andyour buddy are talking through the plan,

(09:39):
you agree to the plan to specificallyintend to commit wire fraud, you can't
go to the judge and say,well, Judge, we were talking while
we were engaged in this conspiracy fraud. No, that's not protected speech.
So incitement your plans to hatch acriminal conspiracy, you're talking, you're communicating

(10:00):
in the act of engaging in acriminal conspiracy, of hatching a criminal conspiracy.
Other kinds of speech that are notprotected libel and slander, And libel
and slander the different levels that someonewould have to prove in order to hold
you liable or convict you for libeland slander, depending on if you're talking

(10:22):
about a public figure versus if you'retalking about a private individual or a non
public figure. But there are variouskinds of things that are outside the parameters
of what is core protected First Amendmentlaw, because what is really the core
of the First Amendment. What werethe framers of the Constitution doing by including

(10:43):
this protection within the Bill of Rightswithin the first ten amendments to the Constitution.
Well, let's recall that America wascomposed of a group of religious and
political odd balls. Basically, Englandsent all their undesirables, several groups of

(11:07):
their undesirables over to the New World. Religious oddballs like the Catholics who first
settled in Maryland, the Quakers whosettled Pennsylvania, this group, that group,
et cetera, and also as abunch of people who objected to various

(11:28):
kinds of political problems that were wrongin England. And these were also people
very much influenced by Enlightenment ideals aboutfreedom of conscience, etc. So the
idea was, we weren't necessarily concernedabout everyone being able to have, you

(11:50):
know, total leeway to express themselvesabout anything. That the thing we were
most concerned about was speech regarding corequestions surrounding politics, law, culture,
religion, things like that. That'sthe core of the First Amendment. Those

(12:11):
are the sort of, if youwant to use fancier language, the normative
values that are enshrined within the FirstAmendment. We want people to speak freely
about these core concepts. So evenin the way that First Amendment law has
sort of developed over the course ofthe centuries in America, there are different

(12:33):
levels of protection for say advertising commercialadvertising, then there are for me going
on the microphone and talking about politicsor law. Right, we can have
laws banning people from engaging in certainkinds of false or misleading advertising in the

(12:54):
context of selling commercial products. IfI come on here and I'm making an
argument that the government disagrees with aboutJoe Biden. If I think if I
come on here and I say JoeBiden is senile and doesn't know what he's
doing, well, I mean thegovernment basically the government can't prosecute me for

(13:16):
that, all right, Well,John Girardi's maybe, and maybe I would
be maybe I come on here andI'm telling a lie or something, but
it's on a disputed political point.Maybe I come on here and I'm saying
something that's a lie or arguably trueor arguably not true. If it's about
politics, law, or religion,et cetera, there's I'm going to have

(13:37):
a much better constitutional defense then ifI'm lying to you while trying to sell
you know, breakfast cereal or somethinglike that. Okay, why because politics,
law, religion, culture, theseare the things that are at the
core of the First Amendment. Andnotice how I've described all this, and

(14:01):
I've never once used the term hatespeech because it's just not part of the
body of First Amendment law. Ihad a whole class about the First Amendment.
We never said the words hate speechbecause it's not really a thing.
It's only a thing in the mindsof politicians, and people have repeated it
enough that there are people who think, well, well, those liberals they

(14:24):
pass those laws banning hate speech.No they didn't. There are no laws
on the books banning hate speech.You could not do it. It's not
really a definable thing, and itsparameters are seemingly outside the bounds of what
can and can't be regulated. Whenwe return, I want to talk about
the kinds of things in the contextof these student protests quote hateful activity that

(14:48):
I think can be regulated, prosecutedthe subject of lawsuits, and I think
might be and I think some ofthese universities might be looking at some hefty
lawsuits. That's next on the JohnGuardi Show. President Biden issued a statement
saying he was denouncing the hate speechthat was happening at Columbia and other elite

(15:09):
universities surrounding protests in favor of Palestineand against the state of Israel. And
he keeps using this term hate speechas if it's a thing, And I'm
just making the point on this halfof the show that it's not really a
thing. In First Amendment law,people use that phrase hate speech as if
it's some kind of legal category ora term of art that actually means something.

(15:33):
For those of you gun owners,it's kind of analogous to assault weapon.
How Like non gun people will sayassault weapon as if it's like a
meaningful, discrete category of thing.And you, as a gun owner like
that, as you as someone whohas expertise in guns. But what is
an I don't know what. IfI don't know what an assault weapon is,

(15:54):
you certainly don't know what what isan assault weapon? I feel that
way as a lawyer. But whenpeople say the term hate speech, it's
not a thing. What is hatespeech? Is it just speech that you
think is hateful, because it's certainlynot like a legal category that is that
First Amendment law has hashed out overthe last two hundred whatever years to categorize

(16:15):
as like something that can be regulatedthe way like you know, false advertising,
giving or libel or slander or incitement, all these other kinds of categories
of speech that are subject to variouskinds of criminal regulation or civil penalties,
or you could be liable for alawsuit for some different kinds of speech that
we deem to be outside the coreprotections of the First Amendment. Hate speech

(16:40):
is not that there's some kinds ofhate speech that are very much as we've
interpreted the First Amendment over the lasttwo hundred whatever years, there are certain
kinds of speech that are quite hatefulthat are within the bounds of the First
Amendment. You know, if youcome on a radio show, you probably

(17:02):
won't have your radio show for verylong. But if you come on to
a radio show and say, youknow what, they all filler and those
Nazis were pretty good guys, andah, you know, Holocaust was that
real? You can come on aradio show and say that it's very hateful,
it's horrible, it's terrible, it'shate. You can if you want

(17:22):
to say that's hate speech, Iguess I won't argue with you too much.
It's protected under the First Amendment.It's a core protected thing under the
First Amendment, undoubtedly. But thereare certain kinds of hateful conduct that people
sort of interpret as speech or asexpressive that can be regulated that I think

(17:44):
is happening on these campuses. Letme just kind of explain what it is.
So, universities are largely governed byTitle six, which is part of
one of the Federals Civil Rights Acts, And basically what it says is,
hey, universities, if you're gettingfederal money, you can't allow discrimination basically

(18:11):
in any aspect of the university onthe basis of and then we list out
our protected categories race, ethnicity,national origin, this, that and the
other. All right, So collegesand universities can't have like various kinds of
race based discrimination. Okay, ifyou're a college of university and you're like,

(18:33):
hey, we're only going to hirewide administrators, that's not gonna fly.
Your federal funding is going to begone, all right. Your ability
to take students who are receiving federalloans, which is a huge source of
income for university gone, all right. So universities have to toe the line
and We've had this big debate overwhether admissions policies universities that try to you

(18:56):
know, some universities tried to doaffirmative action about whether or not that violates
those strips. Okay, but forthe most part, the generally acceptable,
Prince accepted principle is universities can't discriminateon the basis of race. Now,
I think a big one aspect ofsome of these federal laws requiring universities not

(19:18):
to engage in discrimination is that studentscannot be deprived of the exercise of other
rights. It's another sort of tenpole principle in some of this first in
some of this federal non discrimination law. And I think where these universities are

(19:42):
having problems is you have these peoplesetting up pro Palestine camps on campus,
where the rhetoric against perceived Jewish,perceived Zionist, whatever, students is so
aggressive that it is intimidating, reasonablyintimidating to these Jewish students to the point

(20:07):
where they feel like they can't walkto class normally. They feel like they
are hindered from the normal exercise oftheir life as students at a university.
There are reports of Jewish students fromColumbia's parents were picking them up to get
them out of there. Right.We saw stuff early on after October seventh.

(20:30):
I think it was at some Universityof New York where like Jewish students
were being barricaded in the library withpro Palestinian protesters yelling and screaming to beat
them up. Like, so,here's the thing. It's one thing.
If you go out to a sectionof the quad, you have your pro
Palestine protest, you go home,you go back to your dorm. All

(20:56):
right, that's fine. You're notintimidating. You know, maybe you're holding
signs that have things that the Jewishstudents don't agree with, maybe that are
somewhat offensive to the Jewish students,Okay, but that's different from inhibiting the
Jewish students from their ability just toget from class to class, walk around,

(21:17):
just exercise their normal right to justbe a college kid. In fact,
it might be violating federal law.And the problem for the university is
are you tolerating that? Are yousaying that's okay. That's where some of

(21:37):
these universities I think could be facingsome real legal jeopardy is because it doesn't
seem like in many cases they're actuallydoing enough to effectively stop it, because
it's not just a question of thesepro Palestinian protesters are saying things that are
awful. Okay, I think thephrase on the river to the sea Palestine

(22:00):
shall be free. There's some peopleare saying, well, no, there's
nonviolent way to interpret that. Theyjust mean they don't think that there should
be a state of Israel. Okay, Well, do you want all the
Jews dead? You want them alldriven out? I think there's a very
easily horrible way of interpreting that.Some people say that there's a non horrible
way to interpret that. Some peoplesay there's a horrible way to interpret I

(22:22):
don't know. Given the posture ofHamas, they seem to want the horrible
way regardless. It's not even somuch the saying of horrible things. It's
the intimidation and inhibition, the inhibitingof Jewish students from the normal ability to

(22:44):
live out their lives as college kids. That's what's really I think for these
schools running a foul of federal law. They're going to put these schools in
jeopardy if they don't effectively take thesteps to stop it. When we return
speaking of hate speed, we're goingto talk about hate crimes and an incident
of a hate crime that occurred inFresno recently. That's next on the John

(23:06):
Girardi Show. With all this discussionabout hate speech, it then leads my
attention to, well, what abouthate crimes? Now? Hate crimes,
unlike hate speech, hate crimes area thing an American law. I thought
that was a good analogy to thesethe way that gun owners feel when politicians

(23:30):
use the word assault weapon, whichis not really like a term of art
among gun owners, but people inmedia will use the phrases if it's a
real term of art. I feelthe same way about the term hate speech,
where people will say hate speech hasno place here, even though what
is hate speech? It's not actuallya term of art that's really used in

(23:53):
First Amendment law. Well, hatecrimes are kind of are a thing,
okay. Various states have an active, various different kinds of hate crime legislation,
and it's really kind of what itis. It's more of a sentencing
enhancement than anything else. It's basically, you have some otherwise bad crime and

(24:21):
if you can prove on top ofit that the person was motivated by specific
animus against someone on the basis ofand depending on your state's hate crime legislation,
what categories are protected here, onthe basis of a person's race or

(24:44):
sexual orientation or ethnic origin, andblah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Okay, so you can get ahate crime charge, but it's usually something
that's on top of some other criminalactivity, and sometimes it's not always easy
to prove. If you're a guywearing a NASCAR T shirt and you punch

(25:08):
a black guy in the face,if you're a white guy wearing a NASCAR
T shirt and you punch a blackguy in the face, well you can't
just sort of assume, oh,look at this, he punched a black
person. That's also a hate crime. It's not really like that. You
have to have further evidence on topof that. If the guy yelled out
before he started punching the black guy, I hate all black people and I'm

(25:30):
going to beat you up because ofmy hatred for all black people, and
then proceeded to beat him up,well that might be enough evidence to charge
him with normal battery, but alsoa hate crime on top of it.
So it's hard to it's not alwayseasy to tack on a hate crime charge
on top of a normal charge.You need like some pretty specific evidence to

(25:52):
show it. And it's also athing of Some people have made this point
of racial bigotry is bad bigotry,you know, the unreasonable bigotry on the
basis of sex, unreasonable bigotry onthe basis of sexual orientation. Okay,

(26:14):
I agree that various kinds of bigotryin those ways are bad. Committing violent
acts against those people for those reasonsare very very That is all bad,
all right, I John Giraradi amnot disputing that at all. I guess
what I don't get though, iswhy we sort of feel that it's the

(26:37):
reason why someone beats somebody up isreally all that important at the end of
the day, At the end ofthe day, you're beaten up, And
does it really matter all that muchif it was for some racially motivated reason
or not. Now, maybe insome contexts, maybe in some context it

(26:59):
does matter, maybe race based,whether it's lynchings or assaults or things like
that. You need a stiffer criminalpunishment to disincentivize such conduct in the future,
to deter such conduct going forward.Okay, maybe that's reasonable, maybe

(27:21):
you're not going to get sufficient.But then it's also the thing of,
well, shouldn't our criminal punishment besufficient to deter someone from engaging in that
conduct, regardless of whether it's aracially based motivation versus just a I want
to beat someone up motivation, ormaybe the thought is that, well,

(27:41):
someone animated by racial animus is morewilling to take on punishment, So we
got to make the punishment even moreaggressive to make up for the fact that,
you know, they're out here doingsomething crazy on you know, some
white supremacist lunatic who gets some ideain his head that he needs to protect
the white race by getting in adrunken brawl with someone. Maybe we got

(28:03):
to make him think twice about that, even more so than whatever the criminal
punishment is for normal battery. AllRight, maybe I can see those arguments,
But at the end of like Ithought, though, one of the
examples that sort of made it seemsilly. I remember this. This was
during the two thousand election and AlGore and George W. Bush were debating
each other, and al Gore wasmad at George W. For Texas in

(28:30):
his view, Texas, in hisview, wasn't doing enough to combat hate
crimes, and he pointed to someexample of this horrible example in Texas of
I believe it was an African Americanwho was murdered by guys acting out of

(28:51):
racial racist animus, and George W. Bush made the rejoinder to al Gore
that those men were just convicted andfound guilty of murder and executed. So
in that context, a hate anextra hate crime charge on top of the
normal murder charge wouldn't have done anything. The guys were already executed. That

(29:12):
there is no greater punishment you couldgive someone then ex by definition, there's
nothing more you can do beyond executingsomeone. All right. So anyway,
that's how hate crime legislation works.It's basically it sort of functions as a
sentencing enhancer for otherwise existing crimes.It's not enough to just say this person

(29:37):
is committing a hate crime of notliking African Americans, this person's committing a
hate crime of not liking white people, this person is committing a hate crime
of not liking the Vietnamese. Justnot liking someone doesn't qualify you for a
hate crime. You have to commitsome otherwise existing crime with a racial or
ethnic or whatever animus, and theyhave to show enough evidence beyond a reasonable

(30:03):
doubt that you had that animus.So this leads me to a story from
the Bee from yesterday. A manaccused of a hate crime related to the
conflict in the Gaza Strip was arrestedduring a weekend concert in Fresno's Tower District.
Police said on Monday, multiple womenworking in a booth near Echo and

(30:23):
Hedges Avenue around four pm Saturday duringTower Porch Fest were confronted by a man
who they said was drunk and arguingwith them about Palestine before the confrontation became
physical. The man, identified asFrancisco Salmonego forty nine, fled on foot
after the scuffle with multiple women.Police said. Video going around social media

(30:45):
during the weekend showed samon Diego holdinga woman at arm's length while throwing punches
at her. Two other women alsogot involved as all parties appeared to throw
punches before two others stepped in topull the man away. Police set officers
found some di Diego a short distanceaway before he was arrested on suspicion of
felony robbery and three misdemeanors battery,a hate crime, and vandalism. He

(31:08):
was booked into Fresno County Jail,according to police, but was not in
custody on Monday. Jail records shownone of the women required serious medical attention
immediately, police said. Organizers ofthe musical event that sets up small performances
on the front porches and lawns ofhomes in the Tower district commented Sunday on

(31:29):
their Facebook page about the incident.This type of hateful violence is completely unacceptable
and has no place at Tower PorchFest or in our community. The post
said, we commend the porch hostfor promptly calling the police who arrested the
perpetrator. Hate crimes like this strikeat the heart of the diversity, inclusivity,
and respect that Tower Porch Fests celebratesthrough the sharing of music and culture
from all backgrounds. Now, andI guess this is the thing where I'm

(31:56):
I'm not sure you know is ahate crime. This is to be a
misdemeanor hate crime. So what thatmeans is so just you guys understand the
terminology. I think we hear thewords, you know, felony and misdemeanor
all the time. The difference betweena felony and misdemeanor is a felony is
a crime that is punishable by ayear or more in jail. A misdemeanor

(32:19):
is a crime that is punishable byless than a year in jail. So
that's the difference. So we're gonnahave a misdemeanor hate crime again. I
guess, I just don't know howuseful that. I mean, if this

(32:39):
guy again, this guy was arrestedfor let me, let me just read
his list of charges again, felony, robbery, misdemeanor, battery, misdemeanor,
vandalism. I mean, if hewas doing this while saying that he

(33:05):
loved the people of Palestine and butyou're ugly and was beating these women up,
like like, does that make hisconduct better? I don't. I
mean it is this, I guess. I'm not sure. You know,
we talked earlier in the segment thatI think one of the justifications for hate
crime legislation that I think is legitimatewould be deterrence that maybe someone motivated by

(33:29):
racial animus is more willing to engagein violent conduct than someone who isn't,
and therefore to have an extra thedeterrent factor of that extra sentencing, maybe
that is something that would deter someonefrom engaging in that activity at a certain

(33:50):
point. Though, it's just sortof a thing of do you really need
that kind of education first before youdecide not to you know, throw punch?
Is that a woman? It remindsme of in college, where there
are all these like posters about I'mtaking the pledge to stand up to sexual
assault. You know, I'm takingthe pledge against sexual violence, and I

(34:14):
was like, yeah, sexual violenceis bad. I think taking I don't.
I think taking a pledge? Whatdoes that do. It's not like
anyone who engages in sexual assault goesinto a thinking oh I thought sexual assault
was fine. Oh okay, nowthat I've been educated about this by people
taking the pledge, what does itmatter that someone's committing sexual assault. I

(34:37):
think he's willing to break a pledge. Also, like, it's not like
I don't know, It's like somekinds of conduct are so obviously bad.
It's not like you need proper educationor proper representation in the community showing that
the community is taking a stand againstit. Like, no one takes a
pledge against murder because everyone realizes howridiculous that is. Murderers are going to
murder regardless of clearly there's enough ofa social stigma against murder. Murderer is

(35:00):
gonna murder regardless of the social stigma. Showing that pillars of the community take
the pledge against murder isn't gonna stopthe guy showing that there's a sentencing enhancement
against you know, hate crimes.Is that gonna stop a guy doing something
like this? I don't know,I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong.

(35:22):
I'm willing to be I'm not.I'm not like dead set against this.
I'm willing to be convinced I'm wrong. But I guess I just wonder,
like the dynamics of like is howeffective really is this? Does it just
kind of make us make the politicianswho pass the hand hate crime legislation,
does that just make them feel better? And can they say I took a
stand against hate crimes, I tooka stand against racial Okay, that's great.

(35:45):
But battery was already against law,Vandalism was already against the law,
robbery was already against law. He'salready getting charged with all this stuff.
What do you do you're gonna addsix months to his sentence by saying it
was also racially motivated. Okay,I mean, yeah, that's six months
of his life. He's not gonnaget back. I mean, I guess
that's you know, that's significant.But I don't know. I guess I

(36:05):
just don't know that it's really havingthe kind of deterrent factor that you would
need to stop someone in the futurefrom engaging in this kind of violence.
When we return, Donald Trump andRonda Santis patch things up next on the
John Girardi Show. So it soundslike Donald Trump and Ronda Santis have buried
the hatchet a bit. They metin Miami a couple of days ago,

(36:29):
kind of a clandestine sort of meeting. I was joking on Twitter that the
meeting was Donald Trump asking Ronda Santisif he's ever shot a dog, because
you're not going to be Donald Trump'svice president if you're shooting dogs like Christy
Nome. So it appears they've patchedthings up. Trump issues a very you
know, positive laudatory tweet about RondaSantis. Now the great the future of

(36:55):
Florida looks all right, very nice. Seems like we're kind of in the
hatchet, and I'm wondering, isthis a prelude to Dysantis for a vice
president pick. I don't know.I think it would make sense. Frankly,

(37:16):
as much as Trump was constantly criticizingDeSantis about everything, Listen, people
who were rivals in Republican primaries havesaid worse things about each other than DeSantis
and Trump did. People who opposedeach other more have become allies. You
know, Reagan and Bush ran againsteach other in the nineteen eighty primary,

(37:38):
and Reagan made Bush's VP. Idon't think it would be crazy. And
I think DeSantis is kind of thenaturally, you know, unless Trump picks
someone else for VP, you know, excluding whoever Trump might pick his VP,
DeSantis is kind of the natural Republicanchoice for twenty twenty eight, So

(37:58):
why not just usher that in.If he's the vice presidential pick, then
he's even more so the natural choicefor twenty twenty eight. I don't know.
I just think it would be smart. I don't think the two guys
actually disagree with each other that fundamentallyabout that many things at all, So
I don't know. I'm hoping it'seither jd. Vance or Rhonda Santis.
That'll do it for John Gardy Show, See next time on Power Talk