The WOR Saturday Morning Show with Larry Mendte - - 05 - 04 - 2024

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Episode Transcript

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This is a podcast from wor Nowthe wr Saturday Morning Show. Here's Larry
Minty. Good morning and welcome toSaturday Morning. Coming up, anti Semitism
on college campuses is on full displayacross the country, but one group of
crusading attorneys has been fighting anti semitismon campus for years. We'll talk with

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Gerard Filiddi, senior counsel at theLaw Fair Project, and we are entering
the third week of the Manhattan trialthat is the result of Alvin Bragg's campaign
promise to get Donald Trump, andI still can't figure out what law Donald
Trump broke. One of the bestlegal minds I know, Hans von Spakowski

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from the Heritage Foundation, will behere to try to figure it out for
us. But first to look backat the week that was. The week
started with the anti Israel protest atColumbia University turning violent. This is a
movement, an anti war movement.We have sparked similar Gazza solidarity encampments across

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the nation and even across the globe. The protesters smashed windows and locked the
doors of Hamilton Hall, a buildingat Columbia. This after Columbia announced that
the protesters would be suspended from theuniversity. It didn't turn out well for
them. Hamilton Hall is now secure. There is no one else left in

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the building. The blood is notempty. The only thing that's left is
the tents as a property, andthat will all be cleared off by the
school. The NYPD. They werebrilliant taking the building, arresting two hundred
inside, and the next day MayorAdams said they have identified dozens of outside

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agitators that fueled the protests. Therewas no way I was going to allow
those children to be exploited the waythey were being exploited. People thought that
this was just a natural evolution ofa protest. It was not. These
were professionals. The NYPD also madearrest at City College and Fordham University.
The cops had their hands full,especially with a big jump in crime in

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Central Park. That's according to NYPDChief Jeffrey Madri, We're seeing a lot
of evening robberies and it looks likethe primary targets of these robberies are electronic
devices iPhones, the Imax headphones,expensive headphones, electronics. I have a

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theory on the Central Park crime.It comes after a crackdown in the subways.
Maybe the criminals just moved above groundto look for new victims. The
Donald Trump trial continues in Manhattan,but there was a break on Wednesday and
Trump was able to campaign in Michiganand Wisconsin. The judge, by the
way, is the most conflicted personin the history. I don't think there's

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ever been a morelt to judge crookit and conflict it. Trump has already
been hit with a nine thousand dollarsfine for violating a gag order, but
that gag order doesn't include Judge JanMerchant, so he's fair game. In
Washington, Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greenhas it out for Republican Speaker Mike Johnson.

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Next week, I am going tobe calling this motion to ak,
absolutely calling it. I can't waitto see Democrats go out and support a
Republican speaker. The Democrats have alreadysaid that they will vote for Johnson.
Now. Johnson swears there's no sidedeal, but it sure does seem like
it. After Johnson helped push throughthe funding bill for Ukraine and Israel that

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most Republicans were against. Harvey Weinsteinwill be charged in New York for rape
after his first conviction was thrown out, and we're very confident that if he
goes to trial, the only wordswe'll hear at the end of the trial
law not guilty. Weinstein is stillin prison because he was also convicted of

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rape charges in Los Angeles and hegot sixteen years there. And President Biden
finally broke his silence on the campusanti Israel protest and then was criticized for
this. There is no place forhate speech or violence of any kind,
whether it's anti Semitism, Islamophobia,or discrimination against Arab Americans or Palestinian Americans.

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He is so afraid that he willoffend Arab American voters who make up
large constituencies in swing states like Michiganand Wisconsin, that he has to make
certain he doesn't offend them. Allthis guy does is worry about politics.
He's president, why not just lead? Coming up next, many are stunned

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by the anti semitism on college campusesacross the country, but our next guest
isn't surprised at all because he andhis organization has been fighting anti semitism on
college campuses for decades. That's next. Here's Larry Minting with more of the

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WOOR Saturday Morning Show. Welcome backto Saturday Morning. The pro Palestinian protest
at Columbia University, City College andcolleges and universities across the country have dominated
the news. Many are stunned atthe anti semitism displayed on college campuses,
but not the people at the LawfairProject, an organization that provides free legal

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service to protect the civil rights ofJews around the globe. Lawfair has been
fighting anti semitism on America's college campusesfor years. Joining us now is Gerard
Felidi, Senior counsel at the LawfairProject. Girard, thanks so much for
joining us. If we can start, sir, with just your general reaction

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to the protest college campuses, bothhere in New York and all across the
country. It's both shocking and unsurprisingthat we've gotten to the point where these
protests have escalated the violence. Manypeople have been warning about it for months,
that college administrators were not doing enoughto calm the atmosphere and con the
rhetoric of anti semitism, and nowwe've gotten to the point where this has

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become out of control. I haveinterviewed attorneys with the Lawfair Project before,
and although and you said you weresurprised at the violence, but you're not
surprised at the anti semitism on campusesbecause the attorneys I spoke with it at
the Lawfair Project before have been fightingthis for some time. Right, We

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have been and we are not surprisedby the anti semitism on campuses. This
has been systemic for many years now. We have seen this as a problem
at many schools. At Columbia,for example, we filed the Title sixth
complaint with the Office of Civil Rightsback in twenty nineteen about conduct that is
substantially similar to what we see today. Nothing changed in four years, So

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we're seeing this as a deeply rootedissue. Let's deal with Columbia, excuse
me University for a moment. Thereare news stories that these protests originated in
the classrooms and with pro Palestinian professors. Do you know that to be the
case? Is that's what happening acrossthe country and is that common? We

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know that at Columbia for many,many years there were professors like Edward Said
and Professor Masad who have been spewinganti Israel and anti Semitic rhetoric and for
the length of time that this hasbeen going on, it's really had a
profound effect on the students and onfaculty. As the years have gone on,

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these professors have brought in like mindedindividuals and the atmosphere is got me
worth for Jewish students. So it'snot at all surprising to see that this
starts in the classroom because there's thathistory of academia which with some very anti
Semitic professors. Now I know we'retalking about Columbia right now, is that
also the case at universities across thecountry. It is. Lawfair Projects filed

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a lawsuit against San Francisco State Universitymany years ago for substantially the same thing,
where we have had virulent anti Semiticprofessors and graduate students who were spewing
hate. We've seen this at Rutgers, We've seen that at this had quite
a few institutions of higher learning.We're talking with Gerard Fealdi, who is
the senior counsel at the law SeniorCouncil at the Lawfair Project. Also from

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interviews I've done with law Fair,I know your organization has real concern with
the influence that Arab countries, especiallyCutter has on college campuses. Could you
explain that there's a lot of darkmoney that comes into higher learning and this
is money that needs to be disclosedby universities according to federal law. The

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problem is when you have a countrylike Kutar that has values often inimical to
America's not a democratic country, theydon't respect the same US that we do,
and they're providing billions of dollars toUS colleges. There needs to be
accounting of what that money goes tobecause a lot of the time we have
seen that colleges that receive the mostmoney have had a rather dramatic rise in

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anti Semitism. So it's a verylegitimate concern to identify what that foreign money
is doing on our campuses, whatit's buying, what Qatar is getting for
it is the Lawfair Project trying toget that information or some of those financial
documents. We are although again thisis very this is called dark money for
a reason. It's not easy topinpoint where it comes from and how it's

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used. In one of our lawsuitsagainst Carnegie Mellon University, we are looking
to see exactly what that funding hasdone because that is a university that has
received significant amounts of money from Qatarand has a campus presence in Qatar,
and there has seen a tremendous increasein anti semitism that affected our client.
Do you believe that Qatar's influence ispartially responsible for what we've seen now in

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the protest at Columbia and other campusI think the influence collectively of all the
money and all the academic thinking that'scoming in is affecting it. Yes,
I think money is only a smallpart of the problem. The bigger part
of the problem is how we've beenresponding to it or not responding to it
at places like Columbia. And it'snot just the money that matters. It's

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also the people we know, andMayor Adams has confirmed that they're outside actors
who came into campus at Columbia andwe're helping influence things. The question is
are these people being funded by foreigngovernments or foreign terrorist organizations? And we
don't know the answer to that.So you believe, even though you don't
have proof of it, you believethat not only were there outside agitators,

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but this has been coordinated across thecountry and it's been funded that it's been
coordinated across the country. We knowbecause the organizations involved are groups like Students
for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voicefor Peace, the groups that are funded
by the same organizations, groups havethe same communications style, and groups that
ultimately all claim allegiance to the sameradical ideals that are spread by terrorist groups

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like COMMAS and the PFLP. Sothere is certainly coordination in what's going on
across campuses. The deeper question,and one that perhaps Congress or the federal
government need to answer, is whetherthis coordination is being directed by foreign powers
or by foreign terrorists. Yeah,there's going to be house hearings on that,
and that's interesting. I hope LawFair Project is involved in that.

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Are you concerned though, that nowthat the police have moved in and squelled
many of the protests, people mightget the false impression that the problem of
anti Semitism has been dealt with,or at least that it's out of sight,
out of mind. Well, firstof all, we're not really seeing
an end of the situation right now. The fact that police is clearing out
campuses like Columbia or like UCLA onlypushes the problem on to city streets.

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I had a client, Joseph Haddad, who is an Israeli Arab, and
he was assaulted outside of the gatesof Columbia two weeks ago because there was
no control over what was happening onthose city states. So we expect to
see more violence and more escalation outsideof college campuses leading into summer. And
it's questionable, quite frankly, whetherpolice and cities like New York will be
able to keep up with it.But you're right, ultimately, this doesn't

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address anti Semitism. What it hasdone is expos it and it's providing people
with the opportunity to take action tochange the campus atmosphere. Well, it's
been fascinating to talk with you aswe end. Could you just give a
I gave a thumbnail explanation of whatthe Lawfair Project is at the top in
my intro, but I believe it'sworth further explanation. Please tell us about

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the Lawfair Project. The Lawfair Projectis a nonprofit based here in New York
City that focuses on fighting to upholdthe legal rights of the Jewish people worldwide
from discrimination from anti semitism, fromall the horrors that we see and we
do that too, among other things, strategic legal action like we filed on
college campuses and like we follow andsome employers to keep people safe and make

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sure that our civil rights as aminority people are upheld. How can people
get involved in support what you do? People could go online to the Lawferproject
dot org. That's the Lawferproject dotorg, or on social media at Lafer
Project. Wonderful. Thank you verymuch, sir for your time. Thank
you. Gerard Felidi, senior counselat the law Fair Project. Still to

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come on Saturday morning. Have youbeen able to figure out what the crime
is in the so called Donald Trumphush money trial? No, neither of
I. The smartest legal mind Iknow is Hans von Spakowsky, who is
the senior Legal Fellow at the EdwinMees Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.

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We'll see if he can figure itout what's the crime, and then a
little bit later I'll have some finalthoughts on the Democrats clinging to their only
issue they have going for them inthe twenty twenty four presidential Now more of
the WR Saturday Morning Show and LarryMante welcome back. The media loves to

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call the Manhattan DA's fabricated case againstformer President Donald Trump, the hush money
trial because of the payoff he madeto port and star Stormy Daniels. But
that's not illegal, So what isthe crime? It seems nobody can figure
that out. The smartest legal mindI know is Hans von Spakowski. He

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is the senior legal Fellow at theHeritage Foundation's Edwin Mees Center for Legal and
Judicial Studies. Maybe he can figureit out, Hans, Thanks for joining
us today. Look, a lotof people are following this so called hush
money case in Manhattan, and they'researching for a crime. Have you found

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one? I have not. Andin fact, the key the key focus
of Bragg's case in and she's claimingthat this payment to Stormy Daniels in settlement
of potential claim that it was acampaign expense and therefore short of should have
been listed as one. Sorry,but that's not what federal law says.

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And it's federal law that applies.From what I understand, the Feds already
looked at this and passed on itexactly right. Yeah, there are two
federal agencies with authority to enforce thefederal law on raising and spending the money
in federal campaigns. I remember Trumpwas running for president, so it's federal
law that applies. The Federal ElectionCommission has civil enforcement authority, the US

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Department of Justice has criminal enforcement authority. And neither one of them went after
Trump for this. Why because itwasn't a campaign expense. Well, there's
a couple of state laws, right, one about campaign financing, but that's
in the state, and then there'sanother one about for trying to avoid a

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felony. Are either of those relevantin this case? No, in fact,
but Bragg is doing and he's tryingto use this state law that says
that it's a misdemeanor to use unlawfulmeans to promote someone in an election.
Well, the only unlawful means thathe could possibly be talking about is his
claim again that disottment payment was listedas a legal expense instead of a campaign

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related expense. And again for that, you have to look at federal law.
At federal law says it's not acampaign related expense, And both the
agencies that deal with his issues said, look, this isn't what Bragg claims.
Plus, look think about this,Larry, this is a federal law.
It's the fence that enforced this.What is a local prosecutor doing thinking

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that he's got authority to make aclaim to enforce a federal law provision.
No, he's trying to link it, from what I understand, as much
as he can into a state law. No, that just totally failed.
And I'll tell you the problem herewith the Biden administration. I can guarantee
you because look, I used towork at the US Department of Justice,

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and I've been at the FEC.I can guarantee you that if Bragg was
trying to do this to anyone else, a Democratic candidate, somebody who'd run
for president, the Justice Department wouldhave showed up in court on the first
day and said to the judge,your honor, this local prosecutor has no
authority to make claims or try toenforce anything under federal law. That is

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our exclusive jurisdiction. And they wouldhave tried to convince the judge to basically
dismiss the case. But of course, as you know, they haven't done
that. We're talking to Hans vonSpokowski, who is a senior legal fellow
at the Heritage Foundation. Well,they kind of did show up the first
day, didn't they in the formof Matthew Coleangelo, who used to work

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for the Biden Justice Department, tellus about him. That shows you how
this White House has its fingers allover this and is trying to get local
prosecutors to go after their political opponent. He was the acting Associate Attorney General.
For folks are not familiar with theJustice Department, that's the number three

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position at a Justice department. Imean, that's just right under Merrick Garland,
the Attorney General. And what doeshe do. He takes a pay
cut and goes to a local DA'soffice to pursue a case. The only
reason for anyone to do that isis a political partisanship. And this is
the Bide administration sending one of theirguys down to help Alvin Bragg, who's

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not exactly shown himself to be verycompetent as a DA, to get Donald
Trump. I know, the HeritageFoundation as well as Jim Jordan and a
House Investigative Committee is trying to getall of communications between Colenjelo So when he
was at the Justice Department, afterhe was at the Justice Department and DA

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Alvin Bragg's office. But it seemslike both of you have been getting stonewalled.
We have, and the Just Departmentdoesn't have any right to withhold that
information. The Justice Department is subjectto the Freedom of Information Act, that's
the federal law and communications because rememberthe Just Department says, we don't we

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have no case. We're not involvedin this case, so there's no privilege
involved, which means all communications betweenColangelo when he was the Justice Department and
the man in DA's office, theyshould be producing him. But the fact
that they don't want to tells youa little bit that there was something going

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on here. Otherwise, you know, if this is totally innocent, why
would they hide it? Why wouldn'tthey produce it? No, I understand
in most cases like this, whereit's it seems like a flimsy case,
and that's not just you saying itme saying, and that seems to be
a lot of legal analysts who arelooking at this and said, this should
never have been brought. Does ajudge have discretion at that point to throw

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the case out? Yes, thisjudge should have thrown the case out at
the start of the case. Butobviously we're not going to expect that from
judge Merchant because he shouldn't even beon the case. Look, New York's
got some pretty you know, straightforwardstrict rules on when a judge has a
potential personal interest in a case orhis family has a personal interest in the

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case and has to remove himself.And here this judge's daughter is a Democratic
political campaign consultant making apparently her clientsare raising money over this trial. And
Kamala Harris, the vice president,has been one of her clients merchants continued
President in this case to me isa straight out violation of the ethics rules

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governor judges in the state of NewYork. The whole thing seems distinct to
high Heaven. And I guess theonly hope we have is an appeal or
with this jury. But it seemslike, and you tell me, you've
done this for a long time.You tell me if this is his strategy.
It seems like they're throwing everything outthere, Stormy Daniels, past affairs,
Michael Pecker, everything to slim upDonald Trump. So they're hoping the

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jury will ignore the law and justsay, well, he's guilty of something.
Is that the strategy? Yeah,that's exactly it. And In fact,
when David Becker came in, Istarted talking about the settlement payments and
the depression of stories it did forall of these other celebrities. That has

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absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with thiscase against Donald Trump. The only reason
to bring that in is to tryto blacken Trump's character and to bias the
jury. And remember what happened aweek ago part of appeals throughout the case
again Harvey Weinstein. Why because ofprosecution that case did exactly the same thing.

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Brought in testimony about all these otherincidents that had nothing whatsoever to do
with the charges against Weinstein in thecourt of appeals threw it up, here
are the prosecutions doing the same thing. What do you think is going to
happen in this case? Well?Maybe I'm just too cynical, but I
think Alvin Bragg brought this case becausehe assumed that a Manhattan jury which voted

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what did they vote ninety for JoeBiden y Manhattan, Yeah, so biased
against Trump that they'll find him guiltyno matter what the facts or the law
is. And then Donald Trump isfighting this through the courts of appeal to
get it overturned. I'm assuming hethinks I've got a bias jury. I

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have a bias judge, and that'llget me the conviction that I want.
And that's the victory that Bragg islooking for. I will say this,
A few of these jurors have movedhere from other states, and a couple
of them from Red states. SoI guess that's that's the hope for Donald
Trump. I hope some of theseyours do the right thing. It's not

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a matter whether you like or hateDonald Trump, it's doing what's right under
the law. Absolutely, Hans,thank you so much as always for your
time. Thanks for having me,Hans von Spakowski, Senior legal fellow at
the Heritage Foundation. Coming up,when you have nothing else to run on,
what do you do for President JoeBiden? The answer is abortion.

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I'll have some final thoughts on thatsubject. Coming up here again is Larry
Minty with the WOR Saturday Morning Show, and now some final thoughts Paul.
After poll shows that Joe Biden hasthe worst job approval number than any president
since Jimmy Carter. Nothing short ofan absolute disaster. I think we're going

(23:56):
backwards, and I think we needa lot of help. Poll after poll
shows the economy is by far thetop issue, so whopping eighty percent of
voter sayy economy is a major factorin their vote, and the vast majority
of Americans blame one person for thenation's economic problems. Fifty eight percent of

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Americans in this poll say that JoeBiden's policies have actually worsened economic conditions in
the country. Only twenty four percentsay they've improved economic conditions. This is
why we hear him talking about Bidenomicsevery day he's out and about in the
country. On the other top twoissues, immigration and crime, Biden is
also polling terribly. And what aboutforeign policy again, President Biden has lost

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support in his handling of Afghanistan,Ukraine, and Israel. A new CBS
News poll is showing most Americans disapproveof President Biden's handling of the Israel Hamas
war, with few thinking his administration'sactions a bringing things closer to a peaceful
resolution. The recent campus protest overIsrael and President Biden's reluctance to criticize them

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hasn't helped either. So when youare that far behind on that many issues,
what does the Biden campaign do Theytry and make the one issue that
Biden polls well on the most importantissue of twenty twenty four abortion rights.

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And in nineteen ninety two, weall remember Jim Carville said, it's the
economy stupid to Bill Clinton as acandidate. To make them focus on the
economy, even put a sign upin the headquarters. The Biden team needs
to do the same thing. It'sthe abortion stupid, Democratic strategist Jim Obadella.
After the Supreme Court overturned Roe versusWade in twenty twenty two, women

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voters blame the Republicans and surged thepolls to vote for Democrats in the midterm
elections. The AP survey of votersfound that twenty four percent of voters cited
abortion as their top issue, andof those, seventy percent voted for the
Democratic candidate, twenty seven percent forthe Republican candidate. The Republicans were supposed

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to take the Senate and then winthe House overwhelmingly by forty seats. They
lost the Senate and won the Houseby the slimmest of majorities in the twenty
twenty three off year election. Thevery next year, Virginia Republican Governor Glenn
Younkin pushed for a strict abortion ban. Because of that, the entire legislature

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flipped for Democrats. This was abig night for Democrats. They could hardly
have done better. Its abortion,its abortion rights. The Republicans have taken
the unpopular side of the abortion rightscontroversy, no doubt about it. Abortion
was a deciding issue in twenty twentytwo and twenty twenty three, which is

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why when fled Varda recently passed asix week abortion ban, Vice President Kamala
Harris went to the state to campaignfor Biden Harris and then blame who else
Former President Donald Trump did this.Donald Trump hand picked three members of the

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United States Supreme Court because he intendedfor them to overturn Rome, and as
he intended, they did. Asof right now, this is the Democrat's
only issue and that is why theyare trying to get abortion initiatives on the
ballot in twelve states, including swingstates like Nevada and Arizona. Organizers in

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Arizona say they have enough signatures toadd a measure on abortion rights to the
November ballot. Arizona for Abortion Accesssaid that it has more than five hundred
thousand signatures in support of adding anamendment to enshrine the right to abortion in
the state's constant. The important thingto remember is that this is a state
issue. That's what the Supreme Courtruled and the Dobbs decision in twenty twenty

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two that overturned Roe versus Wade.The Court did not ban abortion. They
said it must be decided by thestates, which is what the Constitution mandates.
So when you hear Joe Biden promisedto make the right to abortion of
federal law, here's the promise Imake to you and the American people.

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The first bill that I will sendto the Congress will be to codify Roe
v. Wade. He is beingdishonest because he knows any such bill,
if passed, would be thrown outimmediately by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional.
Just like he's forgiving college loans eventhough he knows the Supreme Court is going

(28:53):
to throw that out too. Heis just desperate and he's lying for votes.
If abortion is important to you,choose your state candidates carefully. You
have every right to do that,and it depends on how you feel about
the abortion issue. But remember whena candidate for the House for the Senate

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for president, promises a federal lawon abortion on either side of the aisle.
Well, it's just a bunch oflies. That wraps up Saturday morning.
Have a great weekend. I'll beback Monday morning with Len Berman and
Michael Riedo in the morning from sixto ten. This has been a podcast from wor