February 11, 2024 • 29 mins
All three branches of the federal government saw some heated action this week, including an impeachment vote and an important case before the Supreme Court.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
I'm Stephen Monteeth, and I'd liketo talk about the politics of this last
week, that being the week ofFebruary the fourth to February tenth, twenty
twenty four. Things are getting tentsin the United States right now. The
(00:25):
politics of any election year are expectedto and certainly the politics of any presidential
election year. But I've been alivenow for almost forty three years, and
(00:47):
this is probably as wild as presidentialelections have ever been, certainly in my
lifetime. But before we get intothe presidential politics, let's talk a little
bit about the rest of the federalgovernment. There was an attempt this last
(01:18):
week to indict, or to impeachrather a member of President Joe Biden's cabinet,
Alejandro Majorcis, the Secretary of HomelandSecurity, was the subject of an
investigation by the US House of Representatives. Now, the US House of Representatives
(01:44):
has a very slim Republican majority rightnow. It's even slimmer than it was
when they were all sworn in lastyear. And that's mostly the Republican's own
fault, because well, they kickedout Kevin McCarthy from being Speaker of the
(02:08):
House, and he basically just quit, so they needed all hands on deck
for just about every vote that theytake, but in this case they lost.
(02:30):
They held a vote to try andimpeach Secretary Majorcus over the border between
the United States and Mexico. Theyclaimed that his that his stewardship of the
(02:51):
border has been so poor that itrises to the level of criminal behavior.
Now, incompetence, you know,is always an accusation that gets thrown around
(03:13):
by the two parties when they're talkingabout each other. And I say thrown
around, but really it's the biggestaccusation besides outright corruption that politicians can use
against each other. Well, theRepublicans are pretty confident in using corruption against
(03:39):
Majorcis because they tried to claim thathe's done such a poor job of keeping
the border secure that he shouldn't evenhave his job, and that he should
probably be in jail. But Congressdoesn't have the power to send people to
(04:00):
jail. Of course, impeachment simplymeans that you get removed from office.
I should I should point out though, that just like with presidential impeachments,
(04:21):
it doesn't end in the House oncethe House votes on it. Assuming that
they vote to impeach, then theSenate holds a trial and decides whether or
not the person should be removed fromoffice by a two thirds vote. And
(04:42):
even though the Democrats' majority in theSenate is just as slim as the Republican
majority in the House, there's noway that two thirds of the Senate votes
to remove Majorcis from office. Thereeven if the Republicans hadn't had a few
(05:06):
of their members say that this voteis meaningless, that Majorca's behavior may be
deplorable but doesn't rise to the levelof criminal. Even if reason and responsibility
hadn't had their day, then there'sno way that Democrats in the Senate would
(05:33):
have removed him. So and evenif they had, Joe Biden is still
the president, so he would justreplace my Orcis with somebody else who would
probably run the border pretty much thesame as my Orchis did. There's literally
(05:54):
nothing that Republicans could gain by impeachinghim, And yet they're going to try
again this week. They've already scheduledanother vote. They just lost this vote,
and they've already scheduled another one.Why the hurry, Why do they
(06:17):
think that they're going to have abetter result this time? Well, they
only lost by a couple of votes. They're really hoping that they can convince
those that they can convince the Republicandefectors, as some are calling them to
(06:42):
switch back and vote for impeachment,and they're really hoping to do it before
their majority gets even smaller. Yousee earlier, earlier in this term,
George Antos, the most notorious congressionalfraud in my lifetime, at least,
(07:06):
was kicked out of the House ofRepresentatives. He was a Republican, but
his successor may actually be a Democrat. We'll find that out on Tuesday as
well, right about the time thatthe House is taking another vote on impeaching
(07:28):
Majorcis George Santos's replacement will be votedon by the people of his district in
New York and and the circus isjust getting more and more ridiculous. See,
(07:53):
the whole point of impeaching him issupposed to be that he's not doing
anything to or at least not doingas much as he should to protect the
border. And yet there's a Republicanin the Senate, James Langford of Oklahoma,
(08:20):
who was negotiating a bill to improveborder security in the Senate and it
turned out to be so good thateven Democrats in the Senate were willing to
go along with it. But becauseit's a compromise with Democrats, Republicans in
(08:43):
the House have declared it dead onarrival without even having read it yet.
The current Speaker of the House,Mike Johnson, has declared that it won't
get anywhere in the House of Representatives. They haven't even seen the bill,
(09:05):
and they're already saying that they won'tthat it won't get any sort of movement
in their chamber. So at thesame time they're trying to impeach somebody for
doing nothing about the border, they'retaking a perverse pride in doing nothing about
(09:28):
the border. Jim Jordan, aRepublican congressman from Ohio, says that we
should wait until November so that theAmerican people can vote on it. Obviously,
(09:48):
the American people don't vote on legislation. But what he really means is
he wants the American people to electa stronger Republican majority in the House,
to take a Republican majority in theSenate, and to elect a Republican president
(10:13):
so that they can get everything theywant instead of compromising. I know people
don't like compromise. I know people, I mean, I mean even even
myself. I feel that there aresome areas where if you're compromising with somebody,
(10:39):
all you're doing is dragging yourself fartherfrom what you should be getting.
But when you're trying to run acountry of fifty states and even more territories
(11:03):
three hundred million people or more,you can't always get what you want.
You have to compromise. You haveto be able to compromise sometimes, you
have to be able to take whatyou can get by inches. Even if
(11:24):
Republicans get a sweep this coming November, even if they take the White House
and both Houses of Congress, they'renot all going to be sworn in until
the end of next January, andthat means an entire year during which Jim
(11:46):
Jordan and Mike Johnson's strategy is apparentlyto do nothing, no legislation, no
improvements at all, not even incrementalones. They're just going to spend the
next year letting things get worse andworse and worse and worse in so many
(12:07):
different areas, just because they're hopingthat this time next year they'll be able
to get everything they want all atonce there was a there was an episode
(12:31):
of The West Wing where they comparedthis kind of governing to breaking a window
and hoping that they get hired toreplace it. I mean, it's maddening
to think that when you have theopportunity, when you have the ability to
(12:58):
make some improvements now and hope andhopefully the opportunity to make more later,
that you're just going to not doanything now and hopefully do everything later.
You can at least do some thingsnow, but they won't do anything now
(13:28):
because, frankly, this is wherewe get into presidential politics. Frankly,
Joe Biden's already had too many victoriesfor Republicans to be able to stomach.
(13:50):
He's already in his first two yearsgotten landmark infrastructure legislation passed and a number
of other initiatives, and in thefirst year of the Republican majority in the
House, he was able to avoidgovernment shutdowns by making deals with the former
(14:16):
Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Now, thatright there is why Kevin McCarthy lost his
speakership, because he compromised with Democratsto keep the government running, not even
(14:37):
for another year, just for afew more weeks. He compromised to get
a few more weeks of government funding, and Republicans kicked him out of the
speakership over it. So you cansee that they're not going to compromise anymore.
(14:58):
They're not going to let the newspeaker, Mike Johnson, compromise anymore.
And what this all has to dowith presidential politics is Donald Trump is
(15:20):
running for president again. And duringhis time in office, he had two
full government shutdowns, one of whichwas the longest and most expensive government shutdown
in history. He had both ofthese, by the way, begin when
(15:45):
he had Republican majorities in both houses. He had the opportunity to do so
many things, and instead he hadtwo government shuts downs in a row.
And then he had two impeachments ina row. So now that Republicans have
(16:11):
control of one house in Congress underJoe Biden, they're doing their damnedest to
see to it that he gets atleast one of each himself. They had
so many investigations into Joe Biden andhis son, Hunter Biden, and they
(16:33):
did not get anywhere with any ofthem. And now they've lost an impeachment
vote against a member of Joe Biden'scabinet, and they're going to try again
before are their majority thins even furtherand it becomes even more likely that they'll
(17:00):
be able to impeach anyone. Andthere's still plenty of time left for them
to try and shut down the governmenteven once. Donald Trump had made history
in the worst possible way while aspresident, with two shutdowns, two impeachments,
(17:26):
and a full blown insurrection happening underhis watch. So Republicans are carrying
the water for him. They won'tgovern responsibly, they won't allow any compromise,
they won't allow Democrats to have evenhalf a victory. They're going to
(17:51):
get. They're going to hang animpeachment around Joe Biden's neck one way or
another. And they're doing it allfor a man who tried to overthrow the
government three years ago. And thatbrings us to the third branch of government.
(18:33):
Donald Trump's participation in and around theinsurrection on January sixth, twenty twenty
one. He's currently under indictment,but he's also been kicked off the ballot
(18:57):
in Colorado and Maine because those twostates decided, to their satisfaction that his
actions violated the Fourteenth Amendment. NowThe part of the fourteenth Amendment that he
(19:22):
violated is the is the section thatsays, if you previously took an oath
to defend the Constitution, and whileunder that oath you hang on, let
me read it for you. Now, no person shall be a senator or
(19:53):
representative in Congress, or elector ofPresident and Vice President, or hold any
office civil or military under the UnitedStates or under any State, who,
having previously taken an oath as amember of Congress, or as an officer
of the United States, or asa member of any state legislature, or
as an executive or judicial officer ofany State, to support the Constitution of
(20:18):
the United States, shall have engagedin insurrection or rebellion against the same,
or given aid or comfort to theenemies thereof. Now, there are a
lot of technicalities at work here,one of which is this section of the
(20:45):
fourteenth Amendment doesn't say how it shouldbe determined that somebody has engaged in insurrection
or rebellion, or given aid orcomfort to the enemies thereof. But you
see, there's another amendment, thetenth Amendment, in fact, which was
(21:06):
part of the original Bill of Rights, which says the powers not delegated to
the United States by the Constitution,nor prohibited by it to the States,
are reserved to the states, respectivelyor to the people. Now what that
means is, in the absence ofany law that says how you're supposed to
(21:30):
determine that somebody engaged in insurrection,the states basically have to figure it out
for themselves. Colorado figured it outthrough the courts, Maine figured it out
via a decision of the Secretary ofState for Maine. And just this last
(21:51):
week, the Supreme Court heard argumentsfrom the people who the people who originally
brought the suit in Colorado, andfrom Trump's own lawyers. They've also received
a whole lot of, you know, dozens of legal briefs, letters from
(22:18):
historians and experts in politics and law, and I'm sure that they're all going
to put as much effort as theycan into appearing impartial. Here's my prediction
(22:41):
for how it's going to go.And keep in mind that Donald Trump personally
put three justices on the current court. My prediction is that the Supreme Court
will claire that states have the rightto run their own elections the way they
(23:03):
see fit. This is something thatcame up a lot during the twenty twenty
elections. By the way, allthe different states had all these different procedures
for running their elections and for determiningthe outcomes, and it was decided that
(23:26):
when Texas, for example, triedto sue because they didn't like how Pennsylvania
ran there ran their elections, thatTexas had no standing whatsoever, because the
different states can all run their electionshow they see fit. And so I
(23:47):
believe the Supreme Court will will continuein that spirit. They'll in this case,
they'll say that the states can determineeligibility however they want, but they
will find that as a matter offact, that Trump was not engaged in
(24:12):
insurrection and that the fourteenth Amendment thereforedoes not apply to him. They will
basically order the various states to keepTrump on the ballots. All three of
the justices Trump appointed, Will concurAs, Will Clarence Thomas, and Samuel
(24:38):
Alito, the three liberal justices,will dissent, and it's and it really
doesn't matter which way John Roberts,the Chief Justice, goes, But I
think it's just possible that he'll dissentas well. But even if he does
(25:03):
dissent, that still means that it'llbe a five to four decision in Trump's
favor. That's just my prediction.I hope I'm wrong, but honestly,
(25:29):
I don't think I am. Now. Trump has a lot of other legal
battles that he's going through. He'scurrently under indictment for ninety one separate felonies
(25:51):
in four different jurisdictions, only twoof which are federal. So even if
he is president, and it's notlike he'd be able to to pardon himself
from everything, and he wouldn't beable to shut down all the investigations.
(26:12):
But hopefully at least some of thecharges that have been brought against him will
be tried before he's declared the Republicannominee. There have only been a handful
(26:33):
of states that have voted in theprimaries and caucuses so far. Super Tuesday,
on which fifteen separate states will holdprimaries, is scheduled for March fifth,
so that's less than a month away. The Supreme Court really needs to
(26:59):
issue a ruling before then, becauseColorado and Maine are just two of the
states for that day. If itturns out that Donald Trump that he's not
going to be on the ballots inthose states. I don't expect there to
(27:21):
be a cascade. I don't expectit to set off a bunch of dominoes
where the other states all take hisname off the ballot too. But it
would mean that he is officially aninsurrectionist in at least part of the country.
And that could help his opponent,his last real remaining opponent in the
(27:48):
Republican primaries, Nikki Haley. Thatcould give her something on which to capitalize
going into the Going into those primaryshe could say that Donald Trump has been
put in a completely untenable position.Oh, she'll wring her hands. She'll
(28:12):
say that it's unfair for some statesto decide that he shouldn't even be a
candidate. And then she'll say,but it does mean that we have less
of a chance of beating Joe Bidenin November if he's the candidate, So
(28:32):
vote for me instead. Anyway,a lot's been happening this last week.
We have no idea what's going tohappen this week. Like I said,
there's going to be a new congressmanselected in New York, There's going to
(28:53):
be another impeachment vote in the Houseof Representatives. There may be some movement
with Senator Langford's border bill, butI'd rather doubt it. And we may
just find out when the Supreme Courtis going to decide whether or not Donald
(29:17):
Trump did what we all saw himdo on January six, three years ago.
Thank you for listening. I'll talkto you more later
I'm Stephen Monteeth, and I'd liketo talk about the politics of this last
week, that being the week ofFebruary the fourth to February tenth, twenty
twenty four. Things are getting tentsin the United States right now. The
(00:25):
politics of any election year are expectedto and certainly the politics of any presidential
election year. But I've been alivenow for almost forty three years, and
(00:47):
this is probably as wild as presidentialelections have ever been, certainly in my
lifetime. But before we get intothe presidential politics, let's talk a little
bit about the rest of the federalgovernment. There was an attempt this last
(01:18):
week to indict, or to impeachrather a member of President Joe Biden's cabinet,
Alejandro Majorcis, the Secretary of HomelandSecurity, was the subject of an
investigation by the US House of Representatives. Now, the US House of Representatives
(01:44):
has a very slim Republican majority rightnow. It's even slimmer than it was
when they were all sworn in lastyear. And that's mostly the Republican's own
fault, because well, they kickedout Kevin McCarthy from being Speaker of the
(02:08):
House, and he basically just quit, so they needed all hands on deck
for just about every vote that theytake, but in this case they lost.
(02:30):
They held a vote to try andimpeach Secretary Majorcus over the border between
the United States and Mexico. Theyclaimed that his that his stewardship of the
(02:51):
border has been so poor that itrises to the level of criminal behavior.
Now, incompetence, you know,is always an accusation that gets thrown around
(03:13):
by the two parties when they're talkingabout each other. And I say thrown
around, but really it's the biggestaccusation besides outright corruption that politicians can use
against each other. Well, theRepublicans are pretty confident in using corruption against
(03:39):
Majorcis because they tried to claim thathe's done such a poor job of keeping
the border secure that he shouldn't evenhave his job, and that he should
probably be in jail. But Congressdoesn't have the power to send people to
(04:00):
jail. Of course, impeachment simplymeans that you get removed from office.
I should I should point out though, that just like with presidential impeachments,
(04:21):
it doesn't end in the House oncethe House votes on it. Assuming that
they vote to impeach, then theSenate holds a trial and decides whether or
not the person should be removed fromoffice by a two thirds vote. And
(04:42):
even though the Democrats' majority in theSenate is just as slim as the Republican
majority in the House, there's noway that two thirds of the Senate votes
to remove Majorcis from office. Thereeven if the Republicans hadn't had a few
(05:06):
of their members say that this voteis meaningless, that Majorca's behavior may be
deplorable but doesn't rise to the levelof criminal. Even if reason and responsibility
hadn't had their day, then there'sno way that Democrats in the Senate would
(05:33):
have removed him. So and evenif they had, Joe Biden is still
the president, so he would justreplace my Orcis with somebody else who would
probably run the border pretty much thesame as my Orchis did. There's literally
(05:54):
nothing that Republicans could gain by impeachinghim, And yet they're going to try
again this week. They've already scheduledanother vote. They just lost this vote,
and they've already scheduled another one.Why the hurry, Why do they
(06:17):
think that they're going to have abetter result this time? Well, they
only lost by a couple of votes. They're really hoping that they can convince
those that they can convince the Republicandefectors, as some are calling them to
(06:42):
switch back and vote for impeachment,and they're really hoping to do it before
their majority gets even smaller. Yousee earlier, earlier in this term,
George Antos, the most notorious congressionalfraud in my lifetime, at least,
(07:06):
was kicked out of the House ofRepresentatives. He was a Republican, but
his successor may actually be a Democrat. We'll find that out on Tuesday as
well, right about the time thatthe House is taking another vote on impeaching
(07:28):
Majorcis George Santos's replacement will be votedon by the people of his district in
New York and and the circus isjust getting more and more ridiculous. See,
(07:53):
the whole point of impeaching him issupposed to be that he's not doing
anything to or at least not doingas much as he should to protect the
border. And yet there's a Republicanin the Senate, James Langford of Oklahoma,
(08:20):
who was negotiating a bill to improveborder security in the Senate and it
turned out to be so good thateven Democrats in the Senate were willing to
go along with it. But becauseit's a compromise with Democrats, Republicans in
(08:43):
the House have declared it dead onarrival without even having read it yet.
The current Speaker of the House,Mike Johnson, has declared that it won't
get anywhere in the House of Representatives. They haven't even seen the bill,
(09:05):
and they're already saying that they won'tthat it won't get any sort of movement
in their chamber. So at thesame time they're trying to impeach somebody for
doing nothing about the border, they'retaking a perverse pride in doing nothing about
(09:28):
the border. Jim Jordan, aRepublican congressman from Ohio, says that we
should wait until November so that theAmerican people can vote on it. Obviously,
(09:48):
the American people don't vote on legislation. But what he really means is
he wants the American people to electa stronger Republican majority in the House,
to take a Republican majority in theSenate, and to elect a Republican president
(10:13):
so that they can get everything theywant instead of compromising. I know people
don't like compromise. I know people, I mean, I mean even even
myself. I feel that there aresome areas where if you're compromising with somebody,
(10:39):
all you're doing is dragging yourself fartherfrom what you should be getting.
But when you're trying to run acountry of fifty states and even more territories
(11:03):
three hundred million people or more,you can't always get what you want.
You have to compromise. You haveto be able to compromise sometimes, you
have to be able to take whatyou can get by inches. Even if
(11:24):
Republicans get a sweep this coming November, even if they take the White House
and both Houses of Congress, they'renot all going to be sworn in until
the end of next January, andthat means an entire year during which Jim
(11:46):
Jordan and Mike Johnson's strategy is apparentlyto do nothing, no legislation, no
improvements at all, not even incrementalones. They're just going to spend the
next year letting things get worse andworse and worse and worse in so many
(12:07):
different areas, just because they're hopingthat this time next year they'll be able
to get everything they want all atonce there was a there was an episode
(12:31):
of The West Wing where they comparedthis kind of governing to breaking a window
and hoping that they get hired toreplace it. I mean, it's maddening
to think that when you have theopportunity, when you have the ability to
(12:58):
make some improvements now and hope andhopefully the opportunity to make more later,
that you're just going to not doanything now and hopefully do everything later.
You can at least do some thingsnow, but they won't do anything now
(13:28):
because, frankly, this is wherewe get into presidential politics. Frankly,
Joe Biden's already had too many victoriesfor Republicans to be able to stomach.
(13:50):
He's already in his first two yearsgotten landmark infrastructure legislation passed and a number
of other initiatives, and in thefirst year of the Republican majority in the
House, he was able to avoidgovernment shutdowns by making deals with the former
(14:16):
Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Now, thatright there is why Kevin McCarthy lost his
speakership, because he compromised with Democratsto keep the government running, not even
(14:37):
for another year, just for afew more weeks. He compromised to get
a few more weeks of government funding, and Republicans kicked him out of the
speakership over it. So you cansee that they're not going to compromise anymore.
(14:58):
They're not going to let the newspeaker, Mike Johnson, compromise anymore.
And what this all has to dowith presidential politics is Donald Trump is
(15:20):
running for president again. And duringhis time in office, he had two
full government shutdowns, one of whichwas the longest and most expensive government shutdown
in history. He had both ofthese, by the way, begin when
(15:45):
he had Republican majorities in both houses. He had the opportunity to do so
many things, and instead he hadtwo government shuts downs in a row.
And then he had two impeachments ina row. So now that Republicans have
(16:11):
control of one house in Congress underJoe Biden, they're doing their damnedest to
see to it that he gets atleast one of each himself. They had
so many investigations into Joe Biden andhis son, Hunter Biden, and they
(16:33):
did not get anywhere with any ofthem. And now they've lost an impeachment
vote against a member of Joe Biden'scabinet, and they're going to try again
before are their majority thins even furtherand it becomes even more likely that they'll
(17:00):
be able to impeach anyone. Andthere's still plenty of time left for them
to try and shut down the governmenteven once. Donald Trump had made history
in the worst possible way while aspresident, with two shutdowns, two impeachments,
(17:26):
and a full blown insurrection happening underhis watch. So Republicans are carrying
the water for him. They won'tgovern responsibly, they won't allow any compromise,
they won't allow Democrats to have evenhalf a victory. They're going to
(17:51):
get. They're going to hang animpeachment around Joe Biden's neck one way or
another. And they're doing it allfor a man who tried to overthrow the
government three years ago. And thatbrings us to the third branch of government.
(18:33):
Donald Trump's participation in and around theinsurrection on January sixth, twenty twenty
one. He's currently under indictment,but he's also been kicked off the ballot
(18:57):
in Colorado and Maine because those twostates decided, to their satisfaction that his
actions violated the Fourteenth Amendment. NowThe part of the fourteenth Amendment that he
(19:22):
violated is the is the section thatsays, if you previously took an oath
to defend the Constitution, and whileunder that oath you hang on, let
me read it for you. Now, no person shall be a senator or
(19:53):
representative in Congress, or elector ofPresident and Vice President, or hold any
office civil or military under the UnitedStates or under any State, who,
having previously taken an oath as amember of Congress, or as an officer
of the United States, or asa member of any state legislature, or
as an executive or judicial officer ofany State, to support the Constitution of
(20:18):
the United States, shall have engagedin insurrection or rebellion against the same,
or given aid or comfort to theenemies thereof. Now, there are a
lot of technicalities at work here,one of which is this section of the
(20:45):
fourteenth Amendment doesn't say how it shouldbe determined that somebody has engaged in insurrection
or rebellion, or given aid orcomfort to the enemies thereof. But you
see, there's another amendment, thetenth Amendment, in fact, which was
(21:06):
part of the original Bill of Rights, which says the powers not delegated to
the United States by the Constitution,nor prohibited by it to the States,
are reserved to the states, respectivelyor to the people. Now what that
means is, in the absence ofany law that says how you're supposed to
(21:30):
determine that somebody engaged in insurrection,the states basically have to figure it out
for themselves. Colorado figured it outthrough the courts, Maine figured it out
via a decision of the Secretary ofState for Maine. And just this last
(21:51):
week, the Supreme Court heard argumentsfrom the people who the people who originally
brought the suit in Colorado, andfrom Trump's own lawyers. They've also received
a whole lot of, you know, dozens of legal briefs, letters from
(22:18):
historians and experts in politics and law, and I'm sure that they're all going
to put as much effort as theycan into appearing impartial. Here's my prediction
(22:41):
for how it's going to go.And keep in mind that Donald Trump personally
put three justices on the current court. My prediction is that the Supreme Court
will claire that states have the rightto run their own elections the way they
(23:03):
see fit. This is something thatcame up a lot during the twenty twenty
elections. By the way, allthe different states had all these different procedures
for running their elections and for determiningthe outcomes, and it was decided that
(23:26):
when Texas, for example, triedto sue because they didn't like how Pennsylvania
ran there ran their elections, thatTexas had no standing whatsoever, because the
different states can all run their electionshow they see fit. And so I
(23:47):
believe the Supreme Court will will continuein that spirit. They'll in this case,
they'll say that the states can determineeligibility however they want, but they
will find that as a matter offact, that Trump was not engaged in
(24:12):
insurrection and that the fourteenth Amendment thereforedoes not apply to him. They will
basically order the various states to keepTrump on the ballots. All three of
the justices Trump appointed, Will concurAs, Will Clarence Thomas, and Samuel
(24:38):
Alito, the three liberal justices,will dissent, and it's and it really
doesn't matter which way John Roberts,the Chief Justice, goes, But I
think it's just possible that he'll dissentas well. But even if he does
(25:03):
dissent, that still means that it'llbe a five to four decision in Trump's
favor. That's just my prediction.I hope I'm wrong, but honestly,
(25:29):
I don't think I am. Now. Trump has a lot of other legal
battles that he's going through. He'scurrently under indictment for ninety one separate felonies
(25:51):
in four different jurisdictions, only twoof which are federal. So even if
he is president, and it's notlike he'd be able to to pardon himself
from everything, and he wouldn't beable to shut down all the investigations.
(26:12):
But hopefully at least some of thecharges that have been brought against him will
be tried before he's declared the Republicannominee. There have only been a handful
(26:33):
of states that have voted in theprimaries and caucuses so far. Super Tuesday,
on which fifteen separate states will holdprimaries, is scheduled for March fifth,
so that's less than a month away. The Supreme Court really needs to
(26:59):
issue a ruling before then, becauseColorado and Maine are just two of the
states for that day. If itturns out that Donald Trump that he's not
going to be on the ballots inthose states. I don't expect there to
(27:21):
be a cascade. I don't expectit to set off a bunch of dominoes
where the other states all take hisname off the ballot too. But it
would mean that he is officially aninsurrectionist in at least part of the country.
And that could help his opponent,his last real remaining opponent in the
(27:48):
Republican primaries, Nikki Haley. Thatcould give her something on which to capitalize
going into the Going into those primaryshe could say that Donald Trump has been
put in a completely untenable position.Oh, she'll wring her hands. She'll
(28:12):
say that it's unfair for some statesto decide that he shouldn't even be a
candidate. And then she'll say,but it does mean that we have less
of a chance of beating Joe Bidenin November if he's the candidate, So
(28:32):
vote for me instead. Anyway,a lot's been happening this last week.
We have no idea what's going tohappen this week. Like I said,
there's going to be a new congressmanselected in New York, There's going to
(28:53):
be another impeachment vote in the Houseof Representatives. There may be some movement
with Senator Langford's border bill, butI'd rather doubt it. And we may
just find out when the Supreme Courtis going to decide whether or not Donald
(29:17):
Trump did what we all saw himdo on January six, three years ago.
Thank you for listening. I'll talkto you more later
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