September 20, 2023 • 35 mins
In this episode, Tudor welcomes Julian Epstein to discuss the division between political parties in the United States and the increasing use of impeachment as a political weapon. They express concerns about the impact of constant impeachment inquiries on the country's power and ability to address important issues. They also discuss the lack of meaningful discussions and debates in today's political climate, the role of politicians in staying true to their authentic selves, and the importance of resolving issues like the UAW strike. The Tudor Dixon Podcast is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Monday, Wednesday, & Friday. For more information visit TudorDixonPodcast.com
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to the Tutor Dixon Podcast in the Clay
and Book podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Welcome to the Tutor Dixon Podcast. Today should be a
very interesting conversation as we dig deep into the division
between our nation's political parties. I'm joined by a man
who knows a little bit about impeachments. Julian Epstein was
the chief counsel to the House Judiciary Committee fighting Bill
Clinton's impeachment. Now we're two impeachments, two impeachments and one
(00:30):
impeachment inquiry later, some of us are asking if this
justice system is becoming a political weapon, and if so,
where does that lead. Julian Epstein, thank you so much
for joining me, Tudor.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Thanks for having me on the podcast. And it's a
delight to meet you. As I was just saying a
few minute ago, I watched you on the campaign trail
last year, and I was very impressed with a lot
of what you said, and I actually thought you were
going to be one of the upside candidates that was
going to win and the last but I enjoyed watching
(01:04):
you very much and I was very impressed by your candidacy.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
I appreciate that well you've been in this political world
a lot longer than I have. I obviously lived through
watching the Bill Clinton impeachment from the outside, and you know,
I'm probably at that point, I think in college, thinking
what does this all mean? I'm at that point, I think,
just a few years younger than Monica Lewinsky. And I
(01:28):
don't think I could see it then for what I
see it as now. But I mean in the midst
of what I look at back then. Gosh, I just
saw John Fetterman tweet something that I would think would
get most people impeached back in the nineties. Now, you know,
like things have changed. Let's just say that things have
(01:48):
really changed. But we also see we had two impeachments
of President Trump and now we have an impeachment inquiry
into President Biden. Is that going to be the new normal?
And how much does that take away from our power
as a country, our preparedness as a country, our ability
to protect our own citizens and make sure that we're
keeping control over national security and all the things that
(02:10):
you have to do as a US government if you're
constantly embroiled in some impeachment inquiry.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
I think it's an excellent question, and I worry that
it is becoming the norm. I remember giving an interview
to The New York Times during the first Trump impeachment
saying that impeachment was going to become increasingly a political
weapon rather than a tool of legal accountability, sort of
like the War of the Roses going back a few centuries,
and it would just be this sort of unending payback
(02:39):
that was going to go on. And you know, I
think there's some of that going on here, and I
think in general it is our system of accountability, whether
you talk about impeachment or whether you talk about Justice
Department enforcement of laws against political figures, is becoming way,
(03:00):
way too politicized. And I think there are probably sins
on both sides, But to your point, it is as
it did during the Trump presidency. It sucked up all
the oxygen. Russia Gates sucked up the oxygen for all
four years of the Russia of the Trump presidency. You know,
(03:21):
notwithstanding the fact that the Durham Report found there really
wasn't the quotion of evidence to begin the investigation in
the first place. I think the Democrats grossly overplayed their
hand on the whole Russia Gate matter, and arguably impeachment
as well, and I think it is. It is becoming
(03:42):
the political norm. You look at just the and I
know you spoke about this is one of the reasons
I was so impressed with your candidacy last year. You talked,
you spoke about educational performance in the public schools and
how poor our performance in the public schools, and how
few high school are proficient in math and English, and
how those numbers are getting worse. And I thought you
(04:04):
made if I remember correctly, I thought you made a
pretty good case on school choice, which I'm uscled for.
And we sort of don't have that debate. We're not
having the debate. I know you've been a big champion
of manufacturing, and the Biden administration likes to talk about
all the manufacturing jobs that are coming back, when in fact,
very few manufacturing jobs have actually come back into the country.
(04:25):
If you look at the trend line over the last
ten years of manufacturing jobs, we're gaining maybe one hundred
two hundred thousand a year, not that many. For the
last ten years, the trends have been the same. The
Biden administration basically has seen some of the rebound jobs
from COVID comeback, but overall, the manufacturing sector has been
(04:46):
hurting for a long time, and the growth in manufacturing
has not been very substantial in the last two years
or in the last ten years.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
You said something that we're not having the debate. I
think that that's the case in so many places. And
this seems like when you see people say the country's
so divided right now, we can't have a conversation. And
I don't know if this is the fact that you
have social media and you have so many loud voices
out there that just proclaim something and everybody takes that
(05:17):
as okay, that's where the party stands. But if you
look at what we're seeing with education, we can't have
the debate, and there are outside controlling factors that are
taking over the debate. You have the teachers' union, you
have the parents' groups. So those are the ones that
are clashing. But nobody's sitting down and saying, well, I mean,
come on, guys, is there something that we can actually
(05:40):
talk about here and say, okay, we're going to agree
that we can't accept a five percent reading proficiency rate.
This is robbing these kids of an education and future,
and it's filling our prisons. Those two facts are intertwined.
So let's say we have to have a solution here.
But if we're a Republican, we're on one side. If
we're a Democrat, we're on the other side, and we're
(06:01):
not coming together. I mean, we can talk about this
when it comes to the border, when it comes to abortion,
when it comes to all of these different discussions.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
We don't.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
We as humans live in the gray area. As politicians,
you live in the black and white area. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Well, I mean that's one of the reasons I liked
your candidacy because you spoke in terms like this, which
I think people relate to. I think you could take
you know, you could get ten Americans in a room,
any ten random Americans, and eight out of ten would
agree with what you just said. That we don't have
a serious discussion going on about education, and our public
school systems are going to hell, and you can just
(06:37):
see it in the performance standards, and it's getting worse
and worse all the time. Immigration has been a disaster
under this administration. There's I mean, you can be as
pro immigrant and as welcoming as you want, but the
idea that we can absorb seven million folks without sort
of any seven million migrants without any meaningful plan. Look
(07:00):
at the chaos in New York right now. Yeah, I mean,
I think your basic point is there's a lot of
issues out there. Education, I think is the best example,
but you know, retooling our economy so we're ready for
what they call the fourth Industrial Revolution is an issue
that no one talks about, and I don't think we're
well enough prepared for. And I think it hits the
(07:21):
middle class and the working class with huge numbers. But yes,
I think your general thesis that you were your question,
which is that we are becoming so ensconced in this
political scandalization and the payback one administration after the next,
(07:41):
we are not dealing with sort of these issues. And
I think social media, to your point, has also had
so many ill effects on our society. It is tearing
apart the fabric of our society and in our politics,
it is all it is doing is empowering the extremes
on the left and the right, so that though eight
and ten people that I think you speak to are
(08:03):
not having their voice heard in the every day in
our everyday politics, and it's so it's it's a shame
that politicization is crowding out the debate. Social media, which
empowers the extremists on the far left and on the
far right, is crowding out the debate, and everyday people
are not having their essential needs address.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on
the Tutor Dixon Podcast. I'll tell you something that I
thought was funny when I first started running for office,
because you have all these people that come in and
they're giving you advice, and they're all your consultants, you know,
And there are some people that are like, you got
to do you know, Whitmer's doing TikTok videos get out
(08:47):
there on social media. And I said, guys, I'm never
going to do that because it's just not who I
am and it would be very faked. And then someone
said to me, well, you can't do that anyway, you're
not running for congress. And I remember that striking so
hard because I thought, are you allowed.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
To be a clown if you run for Congress?
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Like when did running for Congress become really different than
running for any other office? Like you can just be
you're a celebrity if you're running for Congress. And I
think that that has become a part of the problem.
We got away from a sampling of people from all
different parts of the country, and you started to get
this group of actors. And I mean, we've heard people
(09:26):
call Washington, d C. The Hollywood for ugly people, but
really you have a lot of people playing a part.
And I would argue that even Joe Biden has played
a part for many years because he's never been a
working man. He's never actually he's never actually driven an
eighteen wheeler. You know, he's talking about the unions right now,
the UAW strike right now from a place of absolutely
(09:48):
no personal knowledge on it.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
And I'm looking at our guys here.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
You know, I supplied the automotive industry for years, and
I'm talking to the shops here and they're going, this
is devastating to us to have these auto workers out,
because every plant that's shut down means we shut down,
and then somebody in the next state shuts down, and
somebody in the next state shuts down, and all of
those folks that are making fifty to sixty thousand dollars
(10:13):
a year, they're not getting the five hundred dollars strike
rate every week they're off. They're getting nothing. And so
these guys that are all playing the part, they're not
actually they have no idea of what the background is
of what's actually happening in the country.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
I think that's right. I mean, I think one, I'm
glad that you say things, and I wish more candidates
and politicians would say that, I am going to stay
true to my authentic self, and I think very very
few people do that. I mean, Christen Cinema is another person,
an Arizona senator, who has just said, I don't believe
in the orthodoxies of the left or the right. I'm
(10:49):
going to be an independent voice and I'm going to
call it as I see it, and I'm not going
to be sort of dictated to by the you know,
by the sort of the chieftains of the party as
to what I have to think or what the orthodoxy
should be. And I love that. I like that about you.
I love that about Kristen Cinema, and I like that.
So I think that's good. I think your second point
(11:11):
about these politicians playing the clown game to get elected
into office, I mean, I think that is the world
that we are living in on social media, which is
you are playing to a very small and vocal extreme minority.
You know, Progressives, for example, in this country represent probably
five or six percent of the voters. But the Democratic
(11:33):
Party is sort of you know, genuflecting and cow taling
to a lot of the presisive activists because they are
so disproportionately active on social media and they will try
to cancel and berate people that depart from the orthodoxies.
And this is part of the thing that I think
is is destroying our country. And I also agree with
(11:57):
you on the multiplier effect the strike and the all
of the surrounding communities and sort of the need to
you know, hopefully see some resolution on that soon. So
so yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Wonder what it is with you. Well, I wonder if
these conversations where you have folks coming out. I mean,
that was really Gretchen whitmer Ran on the unions. I
support the unions, you know, I support the Teachers' Union.
Of course, she was getting millions, so of course she's
supporting them. They're supporting her.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
It's a team. They're a team.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
And she's coming out and saying that like they can
do no wrong. And I'm not saying that she should
do something different, but I'm saying there is a conversation
to be had. This is something independent from politics. And
so when you empower people like that, just like politicians,
sometimes those people take it too far. And you've got
(12:48):
Randy Weingart and going over to Ukraine, and we're like,
why is the teachers union leader going over to Ukraine,
you know, holding the flag upside down? But whatever, you know,
she's over there talking to these people, and she's now
so important. But I have to say that she also,
Gretchen Whitmer immediately came in and said we're going to
get rid of right to work in the state of Michigan,
(13:10):
which was pretty devastating to a lot of our employers.
And I think that you are not really reading the
tea leaves. I mean, you see, we just saw Ford
put eleven billion dollars into Tennessee and Kentucky. Ford is
Ford is Michigan. You know, you look at these auto companies,
this is what Michigan was built on.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
We built wheels.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
I mean that we put the country on wheels, and
they were looking at other states because it's a heck
of a lot easier to pay for energy in Tennessee,
where they make sure that they keep their energy costs low.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
And where they don't have unions.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Let's just be honest, it's easier to not fight with
your union bosses every day. And then she gets rid
of right to work and lo and behold a few
months later a historic strike where they strike against all
three auto makers. I mean, and now she's just gone.
She took her millions, she's run, she's not running again.
(14:03):
Why are we having politicians dabble in the private sector
and then get out when it's uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Well, I take your point, and I think, you know,
I wish more politicians would spend more time in the
private sector. I think they would learn a lot more
about how businesses work, and particularly the press of small
businesses trying to make ends meet. Before you know, they
make a lot of policy changes, whether it's raising taxes
or or or you name it. I think as to
(14:33):
the right to work, you know, I think there are
a lot of sort of blue state governors that are
starting to rethink, you know, the loss of jobs and
the right to work states. And I think that's sort
of something that a lot of people are giving some
some more thought to. You sort of, at the end
of the day, have to look at the data, and
and I think, you know, I think there's some examination
(14:55):
of that right now. I would also separate the teachers'
unions out from sor some of the other unions. I mean,
I think at some point the teacher unions are going
to have to say, there's accountability. You know, we have
to accept some accountability. If the criticism is that you
(15:16):
allow too much incompetence into the system, it can borrow in.
You can't fire bad teachers, and that is showing up
in poor test scores in math and English across the board,
particularly for black and brown students. At some point, the teachers'
unions are going to have to say we take responsibility.
(15:37):
I mean, if they were if Randy Weingarten were in
another profession, if you were the CEO of say Ford
and Ford were performing just to circle back, and Ford
was performing as poorly as the public schools are performing
in terms of results, I mean, she would be fired
in the blink of an eye. And I just think
(15:59):
this is an issue. A school choice is an issue
that is growing in popularity. You saw what happened in
Pennsylvania with the governor, Governor Shapiro, who was for it,
and then he got muscled by the unions and sort
of backed down, and they found this sort of middle
ground position, which I don't think is a real middle
ground position, But that is an issue that is changing.
It's changing in favor of school choice, and at some
(16:24):
point the unions, I think are the teachers' unions, You're
going to have to face the music on this issue.
Their performance has just been abysmal and unacceptable. And I
think voters, including Democratic voters in significant numbers, are seeing
that now. And imagine that's the case in Michigan in
part because of your campaign last year. But I think
(16:46):
they're seeing it, and I think, you know, change is
within the next decade on that.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
That's something that we struggled to get across to people,
but you know, we tried really hard. And that was
one of the examples I would use. Look, if I
had a production line that was making five percent good
product and everything else had to be scrapped and I
had to remelt it and report it and I only
got ever five percent good product, I wouldn't be in business.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
So how do we allow the schools?
Speaker 2 (17:13):
How do we allow our taxpayer dollars to go toward
ruining these children's lives, and let's be honest. I mean,
we can't mince words here. You have robbed them of
an education. They will not have a future because of this,
and it absolutely is disproportionately black and brown children.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
But if I if I.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Fight for that, I don't necessarily have a lot of
support from certain Republicans. You've got Democrats who will never
say it. And again, I don't believe it's because these people,
regardless of what side they're on, don't want these kids
to have a good education. No way, That's not what
it is. We have become so politically divided that you
are afraid to come out and have a strong stance
(17:52):
on anything. And if you are afraid to have a
backbone on certain issues like good child's education, then maybe
you're not the right person to be in office.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
But what have we done to politicians to make.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
It controversial to talk about every kid succeeding?
Speaker 3 (18:09):
I think it's outrageous.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
But I mean, look at where we are right now
with Joe Biden. I think that there are a lot
of Democrats who watch his performance on a daily basis
and they go, man, this is a problem. I mean,
the man is aging before our eyes. But he is
an older person. He's clearly suffering. He's had a lot
of gaps. He's said a lot of weird things, whether
(18:31):
it's aging or not. He keeps making up these stories
about his personal background that simply aren't true. Democrats have
to be in fear of how he performs in twenty four.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
So you said a lot of things there, which I
think I agree with a lot of them. First, with
respect to the teachers' unions, they are extremely powerful. They
are a huge union. They organize voters on election day,
they have huge war tests, and I think a lot
of Democratic politicians and just think it's not worth having
a public fight with them, even though the performance is
(19:05):
so poor in the public schools and they are losing
support all of the time from voters. I think. Secondly,
your point is which I again agree with, and I'll
tie it back to the Biden question, is we are
living in an age of intimidation because of social media,
where the loud, extreme voices intimidate the common sense center,
(19:28):
the eighty percent of us who want common sense solutions
to everyday problems like education that you speak about. And
this is a terrible thing, and I don't know what
the answer is to it, but it is really ripping
apart our social fabric and our political fabric. I agree
with you on that. On a good example of that,
which you tied it to, and I would tie it to,
is the Biden question. I wrote a piece for The
(19:52):
Wall Street Journal in March of this year saying that
Biden should not run that the primary reason is because
I think, with all due respect to him and his career,
he's not mentally competent to be president. I mean, you
watch him in any any extemporaneous interchange between him and
(20:17):
a reporter, and he inevitably gets facts wrong, or he
stumbles his way through a question, and it's embarrassing. And
that is not the kind of mental competency you expect
for the most powerful man in the world, the commander
in chief of our country. And it's it's plainly obvious
to everybody, including Democratic voters, two thirds of whom don't
(20:40):
want him to run for reelection. So when I wrote
that piece in March, I had dinner that night with
a lot of political strategists, some of them Democrat, and
all of them said to me, I completely agree with you,
And I said to them, don't you say anything about them.
(21:01):
Why don't you say so publicly? Oh, no, I can't
do that. I'd get squashed. And I'm sure I got,
you know, exed off for the White House Christmas Party
list for writing that piece. And then in the course
of the next week or two, I had different events.
I hosted a couple of events at which Democratic elected
officials were there, and to a t all of them
(21:24):
said to me, I completely agree with what you said.
Completely agree with what you said. And I said, we
why don't you say that. We can't come out and
say that, can't cross the president. It would just be
bad for the party, it would be divisive. And so
there is we are living in this situation. And I
think that the teachers the teachers' unions is one good example.
And I think also this question about whether Biden should
(21:45):
run is another example where people don't say what they
really think and they'ren't scared and they're intimidated. You know.
Cato did a survey a couple of years ago which
which found that somewhere between sixteen and seventy percent of
them Americans were scared to say what they really think
about everyday political issues for fear of the reaction that
they would get, the sort of the outrage, the sanctimony
(22:09):
of the extremes on the other side who would disagree
with them, the contempt, the politics of contempt, which Arthur
Brooks has written at AEI has written about very very beautifully.
So we're in agreement that most I think Americans reside
in the common sense center and want to hear common
(22:31):
sense solutions and are being drowned out by the extremes,
in large part because of social media and sort of
the dysfunction that has become our politics.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
When you see these indictments, I mean, currently we're looking
at this impeachment hearing in DC, but we've got for
indictments against the former president. Oddly enough, those are the
two people running for president again that seemed.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
To be in the lead.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
What do you think that the country sees when they
see these indictments? Do are there any folks on the
Democrat side. I think a lot of Republicans feel like
this is in many cases, in many of these indictments,
these are outrageous. But do you think that there are
Democrats who are also saying, I don't know, maybe this
is going a little too far. Because I've had people
on our side say, who's ever going to run for
(23:19):
president again?
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Who wants this?
Speaker 2 (23:20):
And I got to tell you it makes you nervous,
you know, I wrote.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
I also wrote a piece about a month after the
Biden shouldn't run piece. I also wrote another piece for
the Wall Street Journal saying that, you know, Republicans overreached
on the Clinton impeachment in ninety eight, and I lived
through that up close and personal and sort of warning
the Democrats should not overreach as well, and that they
(23:49):
were dangerously close to that. So on the Trump indictments,
I mean, look, I didn't vote for Trump. I don't
like what Trump did on January sixth. I don't like
the whole document. It's the taking of the documents after
the classified documents, after we left office. I'm critical of
those things that said, you know, with respect to January sixth,
(24:10):
I think it's fair to ask the question, why is
it taking the Justice Department over three years to bring
the case. By the time the actual case occurs, I
mean they knew about I mean sort of the facts
were on the table. They did not have to wait
for a congressional investigation. Sort Of a lot of the
facts that they know were on the table or were ascertainable,
(24:30):
I would say within twelve months. Why is it that
they're waiting three years to bring the case in the
middle of an election against the major party candidate. I mean,
that just looks bad. Regardless of what the merits are
or may not be of the case, that just looks bad.
And I think Democrats have not given a very good
answer to that. The brag prosecution in New York I've
(24:55):
also written about that's a disastrous prosecution. That case should
have never been brought with, never brought against anyone else.
If the last name had not been Trump, and you
know what.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
We think, if he had not run again, would it
have been brought Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
I think so, because I think it's bloodsport for a
lot of the lefties in our party. Yeah. I think
they just have such a visceral dislike for him. I
also think there's a codependency between Trump and the left
and mainstream media. I mean Trump needs Trump needs the
mainstream media and the left to beat up on him.
It's part of his brand, It's part of what generates
(25:31):
support in his base. Can you imagine what the ratings
for CNN would have been in the last four years,
if they had not had Trump to further to be
every time breaking news. You know, the end is near.
He is about to be frog marched, you know, if
they didn't have that on a sort of hourly basis
and a repetition loop, where the ratings would have been
(25:51):
or where so many of our democratic what so many
of our democratic politicians would have been talking about if
it weren't you know, Trump's latest you know, alleged breach,
they might have to be talking about school choice or
education or other things that are important. So there is
this weird codependency that goes on between Trump and the
(26:13):
left and the mainstream media.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on
the Tutor Dixon podcast. And as you've mentioned, they can
use Trump against other candidates. I mean, you hear them
talking about the MAGA extremists and you can get lumped
into that category and then that's like a stain that
they can use against you, right, And.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
You know, look, I would love to see nothing more
than to see the Democratic Party, particular Democratic Party of old,
the Clinton Democratic Party, which was a very centrist, mainstream
you know, moderate culturally, moderate, economically, sort of pro business
Democratic party that's sort of the Democratic Party I grew
(26:56):
up in, and I believe them. But you know, you
don't hear the Democrats talking too much about bid nomics.
They like to. But you know, as sort of all
the numbers showed, you know, the average person has lost
money under the Biden administration, and mean wages have not
kept up with inflation. We've had seventy percent inflation. Wages
have just started really going up in a meaningful way,
(27:17):
but the inflation has clearly outstripped them, and so the
average family is losing six seven thousand dollars a year
as a result of the policies in the last three years.
But you know, you don't hear a great deal of
depth of debate on that issue because we're it's Trump
all of the time. It's Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump.
(27:40):
You know, prosecution, prosecution, this, you know this, this transgression,
that transgression, So you don't you know it, like the
social media problem that we were discussing, the Trump Trump
has sort of eclipsed everything else in our politics, so
we're not talking about what everyday Americans want to talk
about and sort of comment send. So so I think
(28:02):
back to the prosecution in New York. I think that
prosecution was a disaster. It is a disaster. The notion
that you would prosecute hush money as a campaign contribution,
It's just not if you read the statute and if
you see how the FEC Federal Elections Commission has interpreted
what is and is not a campaign contribution. Spending money
(28:25):
on something like hush money, funds on something like hush money,
or a whole slew of other expenditures is not considered
a campaign contribution, and to try to criminalize it is just,
you know, it's it's just ridiculous overreach. I think it
is a it is a travesty of a prosecution. And
(28:46):
some Democrats have pointed them that out, but not enough
have And you know, so I think that that is
that's another concern about the prosecution. If you look at Georgia.
You know, in Ruth Marcus made this point in the
Washington Post, and she was one of the very very
few people on the left to make the point. You know,
that may be a case of overkill as well, essentially
(29:09):
the same conduct as being tried by the Feds by
Jack Smith on the January sixth batter. You know, it's
not that it's necessarily a constitutional bar. It's not a
double jeopardy issue for the state to try the same
set of facts. But in many instances you would see
the state, you know, defer or elect not to prosecute
(29:34):
if the Feds are sort of prosecuting that set of facts.
And I think sort of the rico is just you know,
I think it's going to be a lot harder case
than a lot of people think it is to prove.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
What about these cases against the electors, the people that
came out and had the alternative slate? What about those
cases we have that in Michigan. That is also a
situation in Georgia. And I think that that has really
scared the grassroots of the party because they go, gosh,
these people were they were created, as you know, voted
(30:09):
in as electors. They had this political maneuver that if
the courts went a certain way, their slate would be accepted.
But I mean, we've got people that are in their
eighties that are facing you know, decades in jail because
of this. And folks on one side are saying this
is not really illegal. They didn't they didn't break the law.
(30:32):
The other side is saying, we're going to get them.
We're going to put them in jail.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Yeah, I that's one of the reasons I think it
is going to be a more difficult prosecution than a
lot of people think. Basically, the alternate elector scheme is
based on a what I think is an extreme, maybe
a fringe reading of the twelfth Amendment, which is that
(30:56):
the vice president can tabulate the counter votes. There were
disputed elections in the nineteenth century, so the past of
the Electoral Count Act, the Electoral Count Act is hopelessly confused.
It is impossible to really go through, even as a
skilled attorney. It is impossible to go through and sort
(31:16):
of understand exactly what that means in various different scenarios. So,
you know, John Eastman's point of view on that is
that what governs is as an originalist, what governs is
the twelfth Amendment, and the twelfth Amendment gives the vice
president the sort of the sole discretion in counting the
(31:37):
votes and counting which votes are legitimate and which votes
are illegitimate. I disagree with that reading. I think that's wrong.
I think that's a fringe point of view, But it
doesn't mean that it's criminal to believe that and sort
of the alternate elector's scheme flowed from that reading. So
I think they're going to run up on some chat
(32:00):
challenging arguments as to whether that conduct is protected by
the First Amendment. You know. I think that's sort of
the one question in the Georgia case. I think the
second question in the Georgia case is when Trump called
Rosenberger and said, I just need to find eleven seven
hundred and eighty votes, did that mean necessarily that he
(32:23):
was asking Rasenberger to falsify election returns? And I'm not
sure you can make that leap. I mean, that's the
Georgia Statute, the Georgia Statute. I'm simplifying things here. There
are some complications and some nuances, but essentially the Florida statue,
the Georgia Statute requires that you solicit a state official
(32:46):
to falsify election returns. And Trump simply saying I just
need to find eleven thousand, seven hundred and eighty votes
does not necessarily mean he's asking him to false by
the votes. It could mean I really believe there's one
hundred thousand false votes in Georgia, just one trying to
find ten percent of them and I need you to
dig a little deeper. So I think there's I think
(33:08):
there's you know, there's room for Trump defense on both
of those issues.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
So I think that's why we're seeing a lot of
division right now. I think that's why we see I
think I mean in Michigan, I see a lot of
fear in the grassroots and they don't know how aggressive
they want to be out there with their opinions.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Now.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
I think there are some who will still continue to
go out there and fight as hard as they can.
But you see people that are kind of backing off
of politics altogether. I think that's bad for both parties
because people don't want to vote, they don't want to
get involved, they don't want to be out there knocking doors.
People are afraid to knock doors. They're like, gosh, you know,
we had a woman knocking doors last year. She's eighty
years old, I think, and ended up getting shot in
(33:50):
the back by another older lady who was just mad.
You know, this is we've become a society that is
afraid to talk about that gray area.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
Like I said, said, we.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Are so conditioned now to be in the black or
white that when someone comes in and says, well, let's
have a discussion. You just don't know how that's going
to go. There's so much more that I want. I'm
gonna have to have you back because I wanted to
get into the documents and all of that. And I
know we've run over time, but I am so I
really have enjoyed having you here at Julian. It's been
a great conversation and I really would like to have
(34:22):
you back.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Sometimes I'd love to come back. And again, I'm delighted
to finally meet you. As I said, I watched you
a lot on the campaign trail last year and I
was very impressed.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Well, thank you, and it was fascinating getting to hear
your stories and your history from the Clinton administration to today.
I want to get into it more, so we'll definitely
do it again. Thank you, Thank you for being here
and think sounds good, and thank you all for being
here with us on the Tutor Dixon Podcast. For this
episode and others, go to Tutor.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
Disonpodcast dot com.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
You can subscribe right there, or head over to the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast
and join us next time on the Tutor Dixon podcast,
have a blessed day,
You're listening to the Tutor Dixon Podcast in the Clay
and Book podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Welcome to the Tutor Dixon Podcast. Today should be a
very interesting conversation as we dig deep into the division
between our nation's political parties. I'm joined by a man
who knows a little bit about impeachments. Julian Epstein was
the chief counsel to the House Judiciary Committee fighting Bill
Clinton's impeachment. Now we're two impeachments, two impeachments and one
(00:30):
impeachment inquiry later, some of us are asking if this
justice system is becoming a political weapon, and if so,
where does that lead. Julian Epstein, thank you so much
for joining me, Tudor.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Thanks for having me on the podcast. And it's a
delight to meet you. As I was just saying a
few minute ago, I watched you on the campaign trail
last year, and I was very impressed with a lot
of what you said, and I actually thought you were
going to be one of the upside candidates that was
going to win and the last but I enjoyed watching
(01:04):
you very much and I was very impressed by your candidacy.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
I appreciate that well you've been in this political world
a lot longer than I have. I obviously lived through
watching the Bill Clinton impeachment from the outside, and you know,
I'm probably at that point, I think in college, thinking
what does this all mean? I'm at that point, I think,
just a few years younger than Monica Lewinsky. And I
(01:28):
don't think I could see it then for what I
see it as now. But I mean in the midst
of what I look at back then. Gosh, I just
saw John Fetterman tweet something that I would think would
get most people impeached back in the nineties. Now, you know,
like things have changed. Let's just say that things have
(01:48):
really changed. But we also see we had two impeachments
of President Trump and now we have an impeachment inquiry
into President Biden. Is that going to be the new normal?
And how much does that take away from our power
as a country, our preparedness as a country, our ability
to protect our own citizens and make sure that we're
keeping control over national security and all the things that
(02:10):
you have to do as a US government if you're
constantly embroiled in some impeachment inquiry.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
I think it's an excellent question, and I worry that
it is becoming the norm. I remember giving an interview
to The New York Times during the first Trump impeachment
saying that impeachment was going to become increasingly a political
weapon rather than a tool of legal accountability, sort of
like the War of the Roses going back a few centuries,
and it would just be this sort of unending payback
(02:39):
that was going to go on. And you know, I
think there's some of that going on here, and I
think in general it is our system of accountability, whether
you talk about impeachment or whether you talk about Justice
Department enforcement of laws against political figures, is becoming way,
(03:00):
way too politicized. And I think there are probably sins
on both sides, But to your point, it is as
it did during the Trump presidency. It sucked up all
the oxygen. Russia Gates sucked up the oxygen for all
four years of the Russia of the Trump presidency. You know,
(03:21):
notwithstanding the fact that the Durham Report found there really
wasn't the quotion of evidence to begin the investigation in
the first place. I think the Democrats grossly overplayed their
hand on the whole Russia Gate matter, and arguably impeachment
as well, and I think it is. It is becoming
(03:42):
the political norm. You look at just the and I
know you spoke about this is one of the reasons
I was so impressed with your candidacy last year. You talked,
you spoke about educational performance in the public schools and
how poor our performance in the public schools, and how
few high school are proficient in math and English, and
how those numbers are getting worse. And I thought you
(04:04):
made if I remember correctly, I thought you made a
pretty good case on school choice, which I'm uscled for.
And we sort of don't have that debate. We're not
having the debate. I know you've been a big champion
of manufacturing, and the Biden administration likes to talk about
all the manufacturing jobs that are coming back, when in fact,
very few manufacturing jobs have actually come back into the country.
(04:25):
If you look at the trend line over the last
ten years of manufacturing jobs, we're gaining maybe one hundred
two hundred thousand a year, not that many. For the
last ten years, the trends have been the same. The
Biden administration basically has seen some of the rebound jobs
from COVID comeback, but overall, the manufacturing sector has been
(04:46):
hurting for a long time, and the growth in manufacturing
has not been very substantial in the last two years
or in the last ten years.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
You said something that we're not having the debate. I
think that that's the case in so many places. And
this seems like when you see people say the country's
so divided right now, we can't have a conversation. And
I don't know if this is the fact that you
have social media and you have so many loud voices
out there that just proclaim something and everybody takes that
(05:17):
as okay, that's where the party stands. But if you
look at what we're seeing with education, we can't have
the debate, and there are outside controlling factors that are
taking over the debate. You have the teachers' union, you
have the parents' groups. So those are the ones that
are clashing. But nobody's sitting down and saying, well, I mean,
come on, guys, is there something that we can actually
(05:40):
talk about here and say, okay, we're going to agree
that we can't accept a five percent reading proficiency rate.
This is robbing these kids of an education and future,
and it's filling our prisons. Those two facts are intertwined.
So let's say we have to have a solution here.
But if we're a Republican, we're on one side. If
we're a Democrat, we're on the other side, and we're
(06:01):
not coming together. I mean, we can talk about this
when it comes to the border, when it comes to abortion,
when it comes to all of these different discussions.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
We don't.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
We as humans live in the gray area. As politicians,
you live in the black and white area. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Well, I mean that's one of the reasons I liked
your candidacy because you spoke in terms like this, which
I think people relate to. I think you could take
you know, you could get ten Americans in a room,
any ten random Americans, and eight out of ten would
agree with what you just said. That we don't have
a serious discussion going on about education, and our public
school systems are going to hell, and you can just
(06:37):
see it in the performance standards, and it's getting worse
and worse all the time. Immigration has been a disaster
under this administration. There's I mean, you can be as
pro immigrant and as welcoming as you want, but the
idea that we can absorb seven million folks without sort
of any seven million migrants without any meaningful plan. Look
(07:00):
at the chaos in New York right now. Yeah, I mean,
I think your basic point is there's a lot of
issues out there. Education, I think is the best example,
but you know, retooling our economy so we're ready for
what they call the fourth Industrial Revolution is an issue
that no one talks about, and I don't think we're
well enough prepared for. And I think it hits the
(07:21):
middle class and the working class with huge numbers. But yes,
I think your general thesis that you were your question,
which is that we are becoming so ensconced in this
political scandalization and the payback one administration after the next,
(07:41):
we are not dealing with sort of these issues. And
I think social media, to your point, has also had
so many ill effects on our society. It is tearing
apart the fabric of our society and in our politics,
it is all it is doing is empowering the extremes
on the left and the right, so that though eight
and ten people that I think you speak to are
(08:03):
not having their voice heard in the every day in
our everyday politics, and it's so it's it's a shame
that politicization is crowding out the debate. Social media, which
empowers the extremists on the far left and on the
far right, is crowding out the debate, and everyday people
are not having their essential needs address.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on
the Tutor Dixon Podcast. I'll tell you something that I
thought was funny when I first started running for office,
because you have all these people that come in and
they're giving you advice, and they're all your consultants, you know,
And there are some people that are like, you got
to do you know, Whitmer's doing TikTok videos get out
(08:47):
there on social media. And I said, guys, I'm never
going to do that because it's just not who I
am and it would be very faked. And then someone
said to me, well, you can't do that anyway, you're
not running for congress. And I remember that striking so
hard because I thought, are you allowed.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
To be a clown if you run for Congress?
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Like when did running for Congress become really different than
running for any other office? Like you can just be
you're a celebrity if you're running for Congress. And I
think that that has become a part of the problem.
We got away from a sampling of people from all
different parts of the country, and you started to get
this group of actors. And I mean, we've heard people
(09:26):
call Washington, d C. The Hollywood for ugly people, but
really you have a lot of people playing a part.
And I would argue that even Joe Biden has played
a part for many years because he's never been a
working man. He's never actually he's never actually driven an
eighteen wheeler. You know, he's talking about the unions right now,
the UAW strike right now from a place of absolutely
(09:48):
no personal knowledge on it.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
And I'm looking at our guys here.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
You know, I supplied the automotive industry for years, and
I'm talking to the shops here and they're going, this
is devastating to us to have these auto workers out,
because every plant that's shut down means we shut down,
and then somebody in the next state shuts down, and
somebody in the next state shuts down, and all of
those folks that are making fifty to sixty thousand dollars
(10:13):
a year, they're not getting the five hundred dollars strike
rate every week they're off. They're getting nothing. And so
these guys that are all playing the part, they're not
actually they have no idea of what the background is
of what's actually happening in the country.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
I think that's right. I mean, I think one, I'm
glad that you say things, and I wish more candidates
and politicians would say that, I am going to stay
true to my authentic self, and I think very very
few people do that. I mean, Christen Cinema is another person,
an Arizona senator, who has just said, I don't believe
in the orthodoxies of the left or the right. I'm
(10:49):
going to be an independent voice and I'm going to
call it as I see it, and I'm not going
to be sort of dictated to by the you know,
by the sort of the chieftains of the party as
to what I have to think or what the orthodoxy
should be. And I love that. I like that about you.
I love that about Kristen Cinema, and I like that.
So I think that's good. I think your second point
(11:11):
about these politicians playing the clown game to get elected
into office, I mean, I think that is the world
that we are living in on social media, which is
you are playing to a very small and vocal extreme minority.
You know, Progressives, for example, in this country represent probably
five or six percent of the voters. But the Democratic
(11:33):
Party is sort of you know, genuflecting and cow taling
to a lot of the presisive activists because they are
so disproportionately active on social media and they will try
to cancel and berate people that depart from the orthodoxies.
And this is part of the thing that I think
is is destroying our country. And I also agree with
(11:57):
you on the multiplier effect the strike and the all
of the surrounding communities and sort of the need to
you know, hopefully see some resolution on that soon. So
so yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Wonder what it is with you. Well, I wonder if
these conversations where you have folks coming out. I mean,
that was really Gretchen whitmer Ran on the unions. I
support the unions, you know, I support the Teachers' Union.
Of course, she was getting millions, so of course she's
supporting them. They're supporting her.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
It's a team. They're a team.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
And she's coming out and saying that like they can
do no wrong. And I'm not saying that she should
do something different, but I'm saying there is a conversation
to be had. This is something independent from politics. And
so when you empower people like that, just like politicians,
sometimes those people take it too far. And you've got
(12:48):
Randy Weingart and going over to Ukraine, and we're like,
why is the teachers union leader going over to Ukraine,
you know, holding the flag upside down? But whatever, you know,
she's over there talking to these people, and she's now
so important. But I have to say that she also,
Gretchen Whitmer immediately came in and said we're going to
get rid of right to work in the state of Michigan,
(13:10):
which was pretty devastating to a lot of our employers.
And I think that you are not really reading the
tea leaves. I mean, you see, we just saw Ford
put eleven billion dollars into Tennessee and Kentucky. Ford is
Ford is Michigan. You know, you look at these auto companies,
this is what Michigan was built on.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
We built wheels.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
I mean that we put the country on wheels, and
they were looking at other states because it's a heck
of a lot easier to pay for energy in Tennessee,
where they make sure that they keep their energy costs low.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
And where they don't have unions.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Let's just be honest, it's easier to not fight with
your union bosses every day. And then she gets rid
of right to work and lo and behold a few
months later a historic strike where they strike against all
three auto makers. I mean, and now she's just gone.
She took her millions, she's run, she's not running again.
(14:03):
Why are we having politicians dabble in the private sector
and then get out when it's uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Well, I take your point, and I think, you know,
I wish more politicians would spend more time in the
private sector. I think they would learn a lot more
about how businesses work, and particularly the press of small
businesses trying to make ends meet. Before you know, they
make a lot of policy changes, whether it's raising taxes
or or or you name it. I think as to
(14:33):
the right to work, you know, I think there are
a lot of sort of blue state governors that are
starting to rethink, you know, the loss of jobs and
the right to work states. And I think that's sort
of something that a lot of people are giving some
some more thought to. You sort of, at the end
of the day, have to look at the data, and
and I think, you know, I think there's some examination
(14:55):
of that right now. I would also separate the teachers'
unions out from sor some of the other unions. I mean,
I think at some point the teacher unions are going
to have to say, there's accountability. You know, we have
to accept some accountability. If the criticism is that you
(15:16):
allow too much incompetence into the system, it can borrow in.
You can't fire bad teachers, and that is showing up
in poor test scores in math and English across the board,
particularly for black and brown students. At some point, the teachers'
unions are going to have to say we take responsibility.
(15:37):
I mean, if they were if Randy Weingarten were in
another profession, if you were the CEO of say Ford
and Ford were performing just to circle back, and Ford
was performing as poorly as the public schools are performing
in terms of results, I mean, she would be fired
in the blink of an eye. And I just think
(15:59):
this is an issue. A school choice is an issue
that is growing in popularity. You saw what happened in
Pennsylvania with the governor, Governor Shapiro, who was for it,
and then he got muscled by the unions and sort
of backed down, and they found this sort of middle
ground position, which I don't think is a real middle
ground position, But that is an issue that is changing.
It's changing in favor of school choice, and at some
(16:24):
point the unions, I think are the teachers' unions, You're
going to have to face the music on this issue.
Their performance has just been abysmal and unacceptable. And I
think voters, including Democratic voters in significant numbers, are seeing
that now. And imagine that's the case in Michigan in
part because of your campaign last year. But I think
(16:46):
they're seeing it, and I think, you know, change is
within the next decade on that.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
That's something that we struggled to get across to people,
but you know, we tried really hard. And that was
one of the examples I would use. Look, if I
had a production line that was making five percent good
product and everything else had to be scrapped and I
had to remelt it and report it and I only
got ever five percent good product, I wouldn't be in business.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
So how do we allow the schools?
Speaker 2 (17:13):
How do we allow our taxpayer dollars to go toward
ruining these children's lives, and let's be honest. I mean,
we can't mince words here. You have robbed them of
an education. They will not have a future because of this,
and it absolutely is disproportionately black and brown children.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
But if I if I.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Fight for that, I don't necessarily have a lot of
support from certain Republicans. You've got Democrats who will never
say it. And again, I don't believe it's because these people,
regardless of what side they're on, don't want these kids
to have a good education. No way, That's not what
it is. We have become so politically divided that you
are afraid to come out and have a strong stance
(17:52):
on anything. And if you are afraid to have a
backbone on certain issues like good child's education, then maybe
you're not the right person to be in office.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
But what have we done to politicians to make.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
It controversial to talk about every kid succeeding?
Speaker 3 (18:09):
I think it's outrageous.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
But I mean, look at where we are right now
with Joe Biden. I think that there are a lot
of Democrats who watch his performance on a daily basis
and they go, man, this is a problem. I mean,
the man is aging before our eyes. But he is
an older person. He's clearly suffering. He's had a lot
of gaps. He's said a lot of weird things, whether
(18:31):
it's aging or not. He keeps making up these stories
about his personal background that simply aren't true. Democrats have
to be in fear of how he performs in twenty four.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
So you said a lot of things there, which I
think I agree with a lot of them. First, with
respect to the teachers' unions, they are extremely powerful. They
are a huge union. They organize voters on election day,
they have huge war tests, and I think a lot
of Democratic politicians and just think it's not worth having
a public fight with them, even though the performance is
(19:05):
so poor in the public schools and they are losing
support all of the time from voters. I think. Secondly,
your point is which I again agree with, and I'll
tie it back to the Biden question, is we are
living in an age of intimidation because of social media,
where the loud, extreme voices intimidate the common sense center,
(19:28):
the eighty percent of us who want common sense solutions
to everyday problems like education that you speak about. And
this is a terrible thing, and I don't know what
the answer is to it, but it is really ripping
apart our social fabric and our political fabric. I agree
with you on that. On a good example of that,
which you tied it to, and I would tie it to,
is the Biden question. I wrote a piece for The
(19:52):
Wall Street Journal in March of this year saying that
Biden should not run that the primary reason is because
I think, with all due respect to him and his career,
he's not mentally competent to be president. I mean, you
watch him in any any extemporaneous interchange between him and
(20:17):
a reporter, and he inevitably gets facts wrong, or he
stumbles his way through a question, and it's embarrassing. And
that is not the kind of mental competency you expect
for the most powerful man in the world, the commander
in chief of our country. And it's it's plainly obvious
to everybody, including Democratic voters, two thirds of whom don't
(20:40):
want him to run for reelection. So when I wrote
that piece in March, I had dinner that night with
a lot of political strategists, some of them Democrat, and
all of them said to me, I completely agree with you,
And I said to them, don't you say anything about them.
(21:01):
Why don't you say so publicly? Oh, no, I can't
do that. I'd get squashed. And I'm sure I got,
you know, exed off for the White House Christmas Party
list for writing that piece. And then in the course
of the next week or two, I had different events.
I hosted a couple of events at which Democratic elected
officials were there, and to a t all of them
(21:24):
said to me, I completely agree with what you said.
Completely agree with what you said. And I said, we
why don't you say that. We can't come out and
say that, can't cross the president. It would just be
bad for the party, it would be divisive. And so
there is we are living in this situation. And I
think that the teachers the teachers' unions is one good example.
And I think also this question about whether Biden should
(21:45):
run is another example where people don't say what they
really think and they'ren't scared and they're intimidated. You know.
Cato did a survey a couple of years ago which
which found that somewhere between sixteen and seventy percent of
them Americans were scared to say what they really think
about everyday political issues for fear of the reaction that
they would get, the sort of the outrage, the sanctimony
(22:09):
of the extremes on the other side who would disagree
with them, the contempt, the politics of contempt, which Arthur
Brooks has written at AEI has written about very very beautifully.
So we're in agreement that most I think Americans reside
in the common sense center and want to hear common
(22:31):
sense solutions and are being drowned out by the extremes,
in large part because of social media and sort of
the dysfunction that has become our politics.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
When you see these indictments, I mean, currently we're looking
at this impeachment hearing in DC, but we've got for
indictments against the former president. Oddly enough, those are the
two people running for president again that seemed.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
To be in the lead.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
What do you think that the country sees when they
see these indictments? Do are there any folks on the
Democrat side. I think a lot of Republicans feel like
this is in many cases, in many of these indictments,
these are outrageous. But do you think that there are
Democrats who are also saying, I don't know, maybe this
is going a little too far. Because I've had people
on our side say, who's ever going to run for
(23:19):
president again?
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Who wants this?
Speaker 2 (23:20):
And I got to tell you it makes you nervous,
you know, I wrote.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
I also wrote a piece about a month after the
Biden shouldn't run piece. I also wrote another piece for
the Wall Street Journal saying that, you know, Republicans overreached
on the Clinton impeachment in ninety eight, and I lived
through that up close and personal and sort of warning
the Democrats should not overreach as well, and that they
(23:49):
were dangerously close to that. So on the Trump indictments,
I mean, look, I didn't vote for Trump. I don't
like what Trump did on January sixth. I don't like
the whole document. It's the taking of the documents after
the classified documents, after we left office. I'm critical of
those things that said, you know, with respect to January sixth,
(24:10):
I think it's fair to ask the question, why is
it taking the Justice Department over three years to bring
the case. By the time the actual case occurs, I
mean they knew about I mean sort of the facts
were on the table. They did not have to wait
for a congressional investigation. Sort Of a lot of the
facts that they know were on the table or were ascertainable,
(24:30):
I would say within twelve months. Why is it that
they're waiting three years to bring the case in the
middle of an election against the major party candidate. I mean,
that just looks bad. Regardless of what the merits are
or may not be of the case, that just looks bad.
And I think Democrats have not given a very good
answer to that. The brag prosecution in New York I've
(24:55):
also written about that's a disastrous prosecution. That case should
have never been brought with, never brought against anyone else.
If the last name had not been Trump, and you
know what.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
We think, if he had not run again, would it
have been brought Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
I think so, because I think it's bloodsport for a
lot of the lefties in our party. Yeah. I think
they just have such a visceral dislike for him. I
also think there's a codependency between Trump and the left
and mainstream media. I mean Trump needs Trump needs the
mainstream media and the left to beat up on him.
It's part of his brand, It's part of what generates
(25:31):
support in his base. Can you imagine what the ratings
for CNN would have been in the last four years,
if they had not had Trump to further to be
every time breaking news. You know, the end is near.
He is about to be frog marched, you know, if
they didn't have that on a sort of hourly basis
and a repetition loop, where the ratings would have been
(25:51):
or where so many of our democratic what so many
of our democratic politicians would have been talking about if
it weren't you know, Trump's latest you know, alleged breach,
they might have to be talking about school choice or
education or other things that are important. So there is
this weird codependency that goes on between Trump and the
(26:13):
left and the mainstream media.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on
the Tutor Dixon podcast. And as you've mentioned, they can
use Trump against other candidates. I mean, you hear them
talking about the MAGA extremists and you can get lumped
into that category and then that's like a stain that
they can use against you, right, And.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
You know, look, I would love to see nothing more
than to see the Democratic Party, particular Democratic Party of old,
the Clinton Democratic Party, which was a very centrist, mainstream
you know, moderate culturally, moderate, economically, sort of pro business
Democratic party that's sort of the Democratic Party I grew
(26:56):
up in, and I believe them. But you know, you
don't hear the Democrats talking too much about bid nomics.
They like to. But you know, as sort of all
the numbers showed, you know, the average person has lost
money under the Biden administration, and mean wages have not
kept up with inflation. We've had seventy percent inflation. Wages
have just started really going up in a meaningful way,
(27:17):
but the inflation has clearly outstripped them, and so the
average family is losing six seven thousand dollars a year
as a result of the policies in the last three years.
But you know, you don't hear a great deal of
depth of debate on that issue because we're it's Trump
all of the time. It's Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump.
(27:40):
You know, prosecution, prosecution, this, you know this, this transgression,
that transgression, So you don't you know it, like the
social media problem that we were discussing, the Trump Trump
has sort of eclipsed everything else in our politics, so
we're not talking about what everyday Americans want to talk
about and sort of comment send. So so I think
(28:02):
back to the prosecution in New York. I think that
prosecution was a disaster. It is a disaster. The notion
that you would prosecute hush money as a campaign contribution,
It's just not if you read the statute and if
you see how the FEC Federal Elections Commission has interpreted
what is and is not a campaign contribution. Spending money
(28:25):
on something like hush money, funds on something like hush money,
or a whole slew of other expenditures is not considered
a campaign contribution, and to try to criminalize it is just,
you know, it's it's just ridiculous overreach. I think it
is a it is a travesty of a prosecution. And
(28:46):
some Democrats have pointed them that out, but not enough
have And you know, so I think that that is
that's another concern about the prosecution. If you look at Georgia.
You know, in Ruth Marcus made this point in the
Washington Post, and she was one of the very very
few people on the left to make the point. You know,
that may be a case of overkill as well, essentially
(29:09):
the same conduct as being tried by the Feds by
Jack Smith on the January sixth batter. You know, it's
not that it's necessarily a constitutional bar. It's not a
double jeopardy issue for the state to try the same
set of facts. But in many instances you would see
the state, you know, defer or elect not to prosecute
(29:34):
if the Feds are sort of prosecuting that set of facts.
And I think sort of the rico is just you know,
I think it's going to be a lot harder case
than a lot of people think it is to prove.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
What about these cases against the electors, the people that
came out and had the alternative slate? What about those
cases we have that in Michigan. That is also a
situation in Georgia. And I think that that has really
scared the grassroots of the party because they go, gosh,
these people were they were created, as you know, voted
(30:09):
in as electors. They had this political maneuver that if
the courts went a certain way, their slate would be accepted.
But I mean, we've got people that are in their
eighties that are facing you know, decades in jail because
of this. And folks on one side are saying this
is not really illegal. They didn't they didn't break the law.
(30:32):
The other side is saying, we're going to get them.
We're going to put them in jail.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Yeah, I that's one of the reasons I think it
is going to be a more difficult prosecution than a
lot of people think. Basically, the alternate elector scheme is
based on a what I think is an extreme, maybe
a fringe reading of the twelfth Amendment, which is that
(30:56):
the vice president can tabulate the counter votes. There were
disputed elections in the nineteenth century, so the past of
the Electoral Count Act, the Electoral Count Act is hopelessly confused.
It is impossible to really go through, even as a
skilled attorney. It is impossible to go through and sort
(31:16):
of understand exactly what that means in various different scenarios. So,
you know, John Eastman's point of view on that is
that what governs is as an originalist, what governs is
the twelfth Amendment, and the twelfth Amendment gives the vice
president the sort of the sole discretion in counting the
(31:37):
votes and counting which votes are legitimate and which votes
are illegitimate. I disagree with that reading. I think that's wrong.
I think that's a fringe point of view, But it
doesn't mean that it's criminal to believe that and sort
of the alternate elector's scheme flowed from that reading. So
I think they're going to run up on some chat
(32:00):
challenging arguments as to whether that conduct is protected by
the First Amendment. You know. I think that's sort of
the one question in the Georgia case. I think the
second question in the Georgia case is when Trump called
Rosenberger and said, I just need to find eleven seven
hundred and eighty votes, did that mean necessarily that he
(32:23):
was asking Rasenberger to falsify election returns? And I'm not
sure you can make that leap. I mean, that's the
Georgia Statute, the Georgia Statute. I'm simplifying things here. There
are some complications and some nuances, but essentially the Florida statue,
the Georgia Statute requires that you solicit a state official
(32:46):
to falsify election returns. And Trump simply saying I just
need to find eleven thousand, seven hundred and eighty votes
does not necessarily mean he's asking him to false by
the votes. It could mean I really believe there's one
hundred thousand false votes in Georgia, just one trying to
find ten percent of them and I need you to
dig a little deeper. So I think there's I think
(33:08):
there's you know, there's room for Trump defense on both
of those issues.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
So I think that's why we're seeing a lot of
division right now. I think that's why we see I
think I mean in Michigan, I see a lot of
fear in the grassroots and they don't know how aggressive
they want to be out there with their opinions.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Now.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
I think there are some who will still continue to
go out there and fight as hard as they can.
But you see people that are kind of backing off
of politics altogether. I think that's bad for both parties
because people don't want to vote, they don't want to
get involved, they don't want to be out there knocking doors.
People are afraid to knock doors. They're like, gosh, you know,
we had a woman knocking doors last year. She's eighty
years old, I think, and ended up getting shot in
(33:50):
the back by another older lady who was just mad.
You know, this is we've become a society that is
afraid to talk about that gray area.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
Like I said, said, we.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Are so conditioned now to be in the black or
white that when someone comes in and says, well, let's
have a discussion. You just don't know how that's going
to go. There's so much more that I want. I'm
gonna have to have you back because I wanted to
get into the documents and all of that. And I
know we've run over time, but I am so I
really have enjoyed having you here at Julian. It's been
a great conversation and I really would like to have
(34:22):
you back.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Sometimes I'd love to come back. And again, I'm delighted
to finally meet you. As I said, I watched you
a lot on the campaign trail last year and I
was very impressed.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Well, thank you, and it was fascinating getting to hear
your stories and your history from the Clinton administration to today.
I want to get into it more, so we'll definitely
do it again. Thank you, Thank you for being here
and think sounds good, and thank you all for being
here with us on the Tutor Dixon Podcast. For this
episode and others, go to Tutor.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
Disonpodcast dot com.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
You can subscribe right there, or head over to the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast
and join us next time on the Tutor Dixon podcast,
have a blessed day,
Host
Buck Sexton
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