Republicans Might As Well Pass the "No Things We Don't Like" Act

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:58 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 1149. I'm your host, Thomas Smith. That over there is real life attorney, Matt Cameron. How you doing?

0:01:05 Matt: Hey, I've spent my afternoon in immigration court. I am fired up. Feeling good.

0:01:07 Thomas: That's so weird for you.

0:01:10 Matt: Something a little different. Yeah.

0:01:11 Thomas: Yeah. You spend more time there than at home.

0:01:14 Matt: Well, these days, being in immigration court means sitting at my desk, drinking coffee, and looking at a screen. But still, take something out of you. I like to go in when I can, but this was a video one for sure. But good outcomes. I want to talk more about some of the lawyers that are doing the good work right now because, you know, we've had so much bad stuff we've been talking about. So much, honestly, it's just very dark stuff. I know it's got to be hard to listen sometimes, no matter how much fun we are. A couple weeks ago, we talked to a friend of the show, Liz Skeen, about the way that big law is folding under Trump and quickly.

0:01:41 Matt: So I want to feature some of the mid -law and small law fighters and some of people that are doing some really good work that I think we should feature a little bit and talk about. I think it's just a good inspiration for anybody who wants to do this work or is doing this work right now. It certainly inspires me. Then I want talk about some bad lawyers doing bad stuff.

0:01:41 Thomas: God, yeah, well, I also want to talk about some rogue lawyers.

0:01:58 Matt: That's right. Well, that's part of...

0:01:58 Thomas: There's the No Rogue Rulings Act that we got to talk I'm very curious to hear

0:02:02 Matt: Yep, yep. Shutting down those activist judges. That's right. Yeah. No. Like you think you want a grilled cheese sandwich? No. Denied.

0:02:02 Thomas: How that's. Yeah. Right. Well, it sounds like rogue ruling. It sounds like judges are like wandering around and then popping out and being like, ah, ruling. You know, like we don't even know if they're judges. There's rogues. They're just running around ruling about stuff. Yeah.

0:02:20 Matt: You're getting a salad. That's right.

0:02:21 Thomas: So it sounds like if there's such a thing as rogue rulings happening, then I'm glad the Republicans are putting a stop to that. So we'll have to. I wouldn't want. Yeah, I mean, it should be just normal judges doing judging stuff, not rogues. He crossed state lines to make a judgment in a jurisdiction he didn't even belong in. Well, I'd love to stop. Your Honor, I would love to help you. I'd like to stop you, but you're standing on the other side of this line. I can't go over my jurisdiction.

0:02:32 Matt: Yeah. Let's find those rogues. That's right. Well, you get that. It's a 24 hour rule. You get to do it. You know, we all know that. As long as you do it in 24 hours. And speaking of rogue, we've got an awesome footnote about what to do when chat GPT is talking shit about you. What are your legal options?

0:02:58 Thomas: Isn't that every day for anyone who uses ChatGPT? I get nervous when today it was too nice to me when I was asking it something. I was like, I don't trust you. Like I want, I want like, I don't want to be mean, but like when it's too nice, I'm like, are you just telling me the information I want to hear? That makes me feel like you are hallucinating things that I want To hear. I want Like a little bit of condescension. Can I get just a slight amount?

0:03:19 Matt: Hey, as long as it's true, which is the whole problem here.

0:03:22 Thomas: But my mentality is like, it's only going to be true if someone is slightly condescending when they're telling me it. Cause like, think about this thing you're talking into this chat GPT pretty much contains the whole knowledge of all humans, you know? Like, so it, it, It should be a little condescening. Like, all right, here we go. Let me explain this. But instead it's like, oh, super great question. You know, it's like, I don't trust it.

0:03:26 Matt: That's true. That's sure. That's real. Yeah.

0:03:43 Thomas: So I'll find out if I have a case.

0:03:45 Matt: We got a lot to talk about.

0:03:46 Thomas: All right. Going to be a fun show. Oh, hey, I almost forgot. And I think I'll probably talk more about it later. But let it suffice to say for at least the time being for the immediate future, we're going to pare back down to two away a week. We're going to switch up the schedule and it's going to be a Tuesday show. And with this Friday show will be exactly the same as the bread and butter. The most important thing is that rapid response. That will be exactly the same, but the other one's going going to be on essentially Tuesday, Monday night late is when I post it, but Tuesday for normal humans who don't stay up all night. Just a heads up there. We're going back to two shows a week for the time being, and I'll talk more about it another time, but we don't have time right now. We got to get to all that good stuff that Matt mentioned. So we'll take our break. Please support the show at patreon .com slash law, and you can avoid the ads. You can get the goodies. So, we'll that break and we'll be right back.

0:04:36 Thomas: All right, Matt, you rogue. Tell me about these First off, what are their stats? What kind of attributes do you get as a rogue? I would assume you're sneaky.

0:04:44 Matt: So the No Rogue Rulings Act, of course, is addressing a Republican obsession because right now under this administration, they don't like the idea that a single judge can stop an entire executive action. They might like it a lot more, you know, the next time there's Democrat, but for now they really don't.

0:04:53 Thomas: Yeah, they do this thing where whenever something bad happens in their eyes to Trump, they pretend they don't know how any government ever worked. And they're like, wait a minute, you're telling me a judge gets to like decide things? What? That can't be.

0:05:11 Matt: I mean, we've got one judge in central Texas that pretty much destroyed DACA and we're fighting very hard to get it back, right? We had one judge in Texas who tried to end Mifepristone, just a very basic, safe birth control option.

0:05:21 Thomas: And so, hey, yeah, there's definitely problems with that kind of thing. But I'm going to go ahead and guess this isn't the way to address that.

0:05:28 Matt: No, I think, and I haven't seen a lot of analysis on this yet, but I think it's probably at least kind of unconstitutional to have Congress telling the courts what they can and can't do with these kinds of rulings. But the idea is that this is, Darrell Issa introduced this. It did pass just barely in the House. I don't think it has much of a chance in the Senate, but I want to talk about it because they're going to keep it coming back. They're going keep trying to do this. They want to be sure that there's no possibility that that one judge can stop an entire federal government action. If there is going to be something that might be a meritorious complaint, that might justify a nationwide injunction, they want to set up a process where they have to assemble a panel of three randomly selected judges from across the country to vote on whether the injunction infringes on separation of powers, to have, like, judges check the judges. Yeah, this is pretty stupid. No United States district court shall issue any order providing for injunctive relief except in the case of such an order that is applicable only to limit the actions of a party to the case before such district court. Court. Now, Jamie Raskin, who is, of course, a constitutional scholar, has pointed out on the floor recently that this is really bad because this means that only the people who are actually suing would be able to get relief. So you can't ever really sue on behalf of anybody else,

0:06:31 Matt: Except under very, very thin circumstances. So it would require every American who doesn't like a policy to have to individually sue. Kind of a theme we're developing here, just like the habeas we're talking about last time, where you have to have, you can'T just bring a class.

0:06:36 Thomas: What okay give me a real life example like let's say president biden tries to do something horrible that a judge needs to stop like say forgive student loan debt you know something just terrible and then so they're saying well you can't have one judge stop that but like so like in their worldview and their thing they're doing if I'm a good old mega and I want to say you can'T give people student debt relief that's impossible how do I I make sure that my voice is heard in the courts. What do I do?

0:06:49 Matt: Can't have it. From what I remember, it was the attorneys general of Republican states that were assuming to stop that. So I guess under this rubric, they wouldn't be able to get one injunction out of the fifth circuit or whatever. They'd have to have all 50 states, attorneys general, each take up a different attempted injunction, or you could just get an injunction in Nebraska and nowhere else, or I don't know. I don't know what they're thinking here.

0:07:24 Thomas: What? Yeah.

0:07:25 Matt: I don't think they thought that far ahead. Maybe they're not even thinking that they were going to have another Democratic president. I d' n't know, but the idea though, that you can completely stop national injunctions is something that Stephen Miller and others have been obsessed with for a long time. But the fact is that there was an NYU Law Review article that we'll link to, it's called Tired of Winning, which is one of our favorite Trump quotes, and talking about how the Trump administration, for the most part, the first Trump administration had a 23 % success rate when they were trying to defend challenges against the administration because he was doing all kinds of unlawful things.

0:07:51 Matt: Generally speaking, across the board, they were finding it's about 70 % in most administrations. And it's not because the courts just hated Donald Trump, it's because they were doing all things that were just wrong and they were doing them badly. And they would just just cut corners all the time, like not going through the notice and comment period, very common thing, or doing other things that violated the Administrative Procedures Act. So that they were just doing like this objective across the board thing, trying to figure out how activists the judges actually are. And, you know, they found, of course, that while the Trump administration has a higher win rate in front of the partisan judges, its win rate those judges were lower than the average norm. So judicial ideology doesn't explain the overall loss rate. That's what I'm reading from here from this article. So this is a problem that doesn't really exist. This analysis by Bethany Davis -Knoll from the litigation director of the Institute for Public Policy Integrity. So they're They're just doing their best to take an objective look to see why it was that his numbers were so different.

0:08:37 Thomas: Gotcha.

0:08:38 Matt: And they were very different. I mean, 23 % versus 70%.

0:08:40 Thomas: And they concluded Trump derangement syndrome was the... No, no. This is a legitimate study you're saying. So this is... Okay.

0:08:46 Matt: This is some hard work from what I can tell here. So yeah, that's worth looking at. But yeah, this isn't going anywhere, but they're going to keep pushing this. They're going keep talking about this. And we're going read quickly here a piece from Fox News from Mike Davis, who's a particularly hard right MAGA troll lawyer. He was the one you might remember that published the list of people the the Trump administration should put in prison like on the first day.

0:09:05 Thomas: Oh, crap. Yeah. I forgot about that.

0:09:06 Matt: Yeah, yeah. He runs the Article III project. He was actually responsible for, he worked for Chuck Grassley and responsible for getting Gorsuch through, among others, and clerked for him. Gorsich said that he was the general of his nomination, getting it through. And he's responsible for a lot of other judges. And generally, he's running the whole right -wing warfare, honest judges, let's stop judicial corruption type thing, which is basically just trying to get the hardest right people in. So I wanted to, before we talk about good lawyers, I want to talk about some, this particular battler, because I want to go a little more on the offensive on this show. There's no reason not to.

0:09:37 Thomas: Like to think I'm pretty offensive.

0:09:39 Matt: You have that capability. But let's just read a few paragraphs of Mike Davis's editorial from March 31st, 2025 on foxnews.com, because I think that people need to hear from their own mouths what these people are actually saying out loud. Because once again, I'm going to say this every episode until somebody actually comes to my house and locks me up. Fascism requires liars. Fascismo requires that liars actually carry through the legal changes that are required to bring an authoritarian to full power. And Mike Davis is one of those lawyers. Let's get a little taste here. I've sent you a link. If you want to read a couple paragraphs, this piece is entitled, SCOTUS Must Stop Leftist Judges' Lawless Sabotage of Trump Agenda. Subhead, District Judges Are Causing a Constitutional Crisis with Partisan Overreach. So remember, keep in mind, this is the kind of thing that they think this rogue judges act is supposed to stop. And he's talking specifically, of course, about Judge James Boasberg, who, as we've been talking about over the last few weeks, rightfully did his best to to stop the kidnapping and removal of people under the Alien Enemies Act. So let's see what Mike Davis has to say about this.

0:10:25 Thomas: President Trump campaigned on securing our border, deporting foreign terrorists and other international criminals, and reforming our federal government to make it work for real Americans in real America.

0:10:47 Matt: That's not us.

0:10:48 Thomas: Yeah, damn it. I've been here in fake America. I got duped. Americans gave him a broad and decisive electoral mandate. In fact, Jack, no, they didn't. And he is doing the unthinkable in Washington boldly. Yeah, I do. I do agree with that, actually, boldly and fearlessly delivering on his promises to American voters and fast. I mean, honestly, yeah, I kind of agree with that. I mean, he is doing a lot of crap that sucks. He's trying real hard.

0:11:14 Matt: Moving quickly and breaking stuff, as they say.

0:11:15 Thomas: Yeah, sure, sure. A lot easier to do that than to make anything. Since assuming office just over two months ago, President Trump has taken hundreds of executive actions. He is not stealing Congress's legislative power under Article 1, nor is he stealing the Supreme Court judicial power under Article 3. President Trump is exercising core executive power under Article 2. With the American people and Congress on his side, radical activist judges have issued absurd, illegal, and even dangerous injunctions. Dangerous?

0:11:45 Matt: Yeah.

0:11:45 Thomas: To sabotage the duly elected president and his executive branch team.

0:11:50 Matt: Let's stop for just a second. And a couple of things I want to note here. The core executive power thing is straight from the immunity decision. And we might remember core executive powers are the ones he can't be prosecuted for when he does them. So Mike Davis is really planting a flag there. But also the idea that he's got the American people and Congress on his side.

0:12:08 Matt: So why are judges trying to stop him? That's so fascist. That is so authoritarian.

0:12:08 Thomas: Also, yeah, if there's a problem of taking congressional power, but you have Congress on your side, just have Congress do the thing. Why don't you just have Congress do it? Don't understand it. So weird. Well, I do understand it, but yeah. Yeah.

0:12:18 Matt: Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. There's also the basic principle that the courts are supposed to be counter -majoritarian. They hate that. They hate it when we point that out. But there are instances in which the courts are supposedto go against the majority when it's the right thing to do. Skip ahead a couple of paragraphs. He gets into the thing with USCID funding that we've been talking about, but we'll skip that. I want to talk about the Alien Enemies Act thing. So let's skip ahead to the three Saturdays.

0:12:41 Thomas: Three Saturdays ago, however, the judicial sabotage finally crossed the Rubicon to combat designated foreign terrorist group Tren de Aragua, the brutal Venezuelan gang that has terrorized multiple American cities. President Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a rarely used statute that has been on the books for more than two centuries. He correctly declared that that Tren de Aragua had invaded our country and engaged in violence in coordination with the socialist Venezuelan government. El Salvador President Nayib Bukele agreed to take custody of Tren De Aragua terrorists and house them in his country's secure prisons, with the United States bearing the cost.

0:13:22 Matt: What a great deal. Yeah.

0:13:23 Thomas: God, that is dark. Yeah, it's this country agreed to disappear people to a black site or whatever. And, you know, and we're going to tip them for it. Unfortunately, like many Many recent ICE raids, news of this plan leaked to the press and the criminal -loving community.

0:13:32 Matt: Hey,

0:13:40 Thomas: Yeah, hey, that's us. I love criminals. Just a fan in general.

0:13:44 Matt: That's me. Can't get enough.

0:13:45 Thomas: That's how you know you're steel manning, you know? It's like the other side, they love criminals and murder. Leftist lawyers rushed to the Washington, D .C. courtroom of Obama -appointed federal judge James Boasberg, who held an unprecedented Saturday emergency hearing even though he was not the emergency judge that weekend pushing, oh, they're like, do they have like an on -call system? That's cool, I didn't know that.

0:14:07 Matt: The rotation, yeah, I really don't know, but I mean, it's not like he pushed somebody out of the way and illegally took over. I've never heard that one.

0:14:13 Thomas: Yeah, that wouldn't really make sense. Pushing through an extraordinary and lawless order without going through the required procedures including discovery, Boesberg purported to certify a class of plaintiffs, all non -citizens subject to the proclamation. He then purportED to enjoin their deportation telling a Justice Department attorney that if planes were in the air, they must turn around. Do you want to decode any of that doublespeak for me or certifying a class?

0:14:39 Matt: It's a TRO. He's not certifying a class of plaintiffs. He was basically just saying, there's a group of people that are clearly about to be in a lot of danger. Or how about I issue a temporary restraining order?

0:14:47 Thomas: Yeah, it was right after the mesothelioma commercial that I saw the one that was like, have you been deported in a plane right now?

0:14:53 Matt: Right. Are you an alien enemy? Yeah, yeah.

0:14:55 Thomas: We can certify this class action. Like, yeah, that's just, it's using like vaguely legal language that loosely means something, but doesn't seem to at all apply in this instance. Does that seem right?

0:15:05 Matt: Yeah. Yeah, I think so.

0:15:06 Thomas: Cool, cool. Planes indeed were in the air but they did not turn around instead they landed in el salvador president bukele even taunted boesberg posting oops oh wow I missed that posting oopsie too late followed by a laughing emoji god these wow wow that's not a great sign of like good faith in terms of trying to make excuses when you're telling the judge what you did that's that's kind of the opposite you know what I mean like because they're making excuses in court and then out of court, the administration's like, no, we definitely just didn't listen and didn't do the thing you wanted us to do.

0:15:22 Matt: See why Trump loves him. Yeah. Yep. Mm -hmm.

0:15:39 Matt: Well, just a foreign president. I mean, it's just, it'S weird. It's very strange. Weird, weird behavior. Yeah.

0:15:41 Thomas: Yeah, that is, I can't think of anything at all like this ever. I'm not good on history, Matt, but this is weird. Can we, can I say in my historical opinion, weird?

0:15:52 Matt: Yeah.

0:15:52 Thomas: Boasberg's order mandated that the United States bring back over 200 terrorists, terrorists?

0:15:58 Matt: Yeah. Definitely terrorists.

0:15:59 Thomas: What are you talking about?

0:16:01 Matt: Criminal lovers. Terrorists. That's what we are.

0:16:03 Thomas: And get it right. I love criminals, not terrorists. To bring back over 200 terrorists immediately without the necessary security measures to offload them there you are well you already put them however you put them in the plane you just turn that around yeah I don't even get

0:16:06 Matt: Yeah, that's right. That's right, yeah, yeah yeah yeah.

0:16:15 Matt: What? That's such a weird thing to say. Like, there's, okay, yeah Yeah.

0:16:23 Thomas: It like we had security set up to put them in the plain and then we dismantled it immediately and if they landed we'd have to put them in a daycare like we'd have to land them in your house yeah okay the order directly interfered with an ongoing going overseas operation,

0:16:30 Matt: And there are no more ICE officers on the other side. Come on. Okay. Getting

0:16:40 Thomas: One that had been months in the making. Are you just talking about the thing they're doing though, right? Are they saying they're, yeah, is there an operation desert storm or what is he talking about? He's just talking About the thing they are doing, the flights, right?

0:16:45 Matt: People on a plane. That's what he's talking about. Yeah. Yeah, that's all he's saying.

0:16:52 Thomas: An ongoing overseas operation. Okay. One that had Been months in The making and undermine The president's ability to conduct Foreign affairs with foreign leaders.

0:17:00 Matt: And we know from the record in this case that it was days in the making and that they just threw a bunch of people together, including, unfortunately, Gabriel Garcia, who was not supposed to be deported, including people that were definitely not gang members, including women to a men's prison, right? So this is not carefully coordinated. And, you know, I just, right, exactly.

0:17:14 Thomas: Does make Me think of the classic, that's worse. You see how that's Worse, right. Like if, if it was this This haphazard and stupid. And you actually, we've been playing this for months. We've dotted every I and crossed every t. Oh, shit.

0:17:29 Matt: Pretty much let's just do one more one or two more paragraphs

0:17:29 Thomas: Yeah, way off. Do you keep going or? Yeah. Boasberg's actions were not judicial review. They were judicial sabotage. He publicized, he actually took down the plane. He shot it down. He publicised an ongoing military intelligence and law enforcement operation to remove some Some of the most dangerous terrorists and international gang members from American soil. This, he published, they've been shooting like cell phone footage all the way there.

0:17:58 Thomas: Like they're promoting what they're doing, right? The reckless exposure put American and allied lives.

0:17:59 Matt: Yeah put out videos yeah like

0:18:05 Thomas: I don't know why that's just so funny to me. Yeah, we got, tell Winston Churchill there's a problem with the allies.

0:18:07 Matt: It's so funny I know I know it is it's ridiculous like this is like this the assassin yeah

0:18:16 Thomas: We're getting like a checks notes, a dad with a tattoo back. Back mobilize the royal air force to help us american allied lives we

0:18:20 Matt: Is this like how they took out bin laden is like that kind of operation like we I don't come on yeah

0:18:30 Thomas: Already know you don't care about our ally which allies hold on tell me which allies is it canada you're not a huge fan of them is it mexico nope they're one of the I think according to you probably one ofthe terrorists right I mean allied lives in great danger

0:18:42 Matt: I mean I guess El Salvador I mean I mean, they're doing fine for security.

0:18:46 Thomas: Not if you turn around the plane before it even gets there right like this is he lawless this is so hysterical it's like he lawlessly ordered the president to turn around planes full of terrorists without any knowledge of fuel levels.

0:18:50 Matt: I don't know. Yep. Yep. Fuel waffles. Should have done some calculations. They're just going to drop into the ocean because can't

0:19:07 Thomas: Oh my God. This is, we live in the dumbest world. Yeah. Like some pilot is going to be like, oh, he told me I got to turn it around.

0:19:17 Matt: Stop for fuel.

0:19:17 Thomas: Yeah, oh boy. Okay. Without any knowledge of fuel level security needs or the required operational footprint to abort the mission. It's not a mission it's a flight of people you very carelessly put in a plane god and bring back over 200 hardened criminals oh now they're criminals boy it's hard to be terrorist and a criminal can I say like I feel like that's too different I get that like yeah okay terrorism technically a crime but you know are you a hardened criminal or are you at the end of the like in my mind very different things if you're a hardened terminal you're doing heists you know You're probably murdering, you're probably assaulting people. If you're a terrorist, you'RE planning a bombing or something, right? I mean, no one has time for both, I think.

0:19:39 Matt: No, they are not. Mike Davis isn't very good at writing. I'm just going to put that out there.

0:20:03 Thomas: The operation had been carefully planned. Nope, no, it hadn't. Carefully planned with El Salvador's military, intelligence, and law enforcement awaiting these terrorists. Did Boesberg expect that same operational footprint to be suddenly available on U .S. soil to handle these terrorists? How did we get them in the plane? How in the world? Did we, did the, okay. Okay, we had all of El Salvador's military with us to get them on the plane and they were sweating it out. They were like, geez, this could blow at any moment.

0:20:32 Matt: You see, every ICE officer who put everybody on the plane quit immediately after putting them on the airplane. And the base closed where they sent them off from.

0:20:38 Thomas: Meanwhile, one of the terrorists on the plain was like, I'm not here with you, El Salvadorian military. You're locked in here with me. And then all the dads with tattoos on the plan who aren't terrorists then killed everybody. What are you talking about?

0:20:48 Matt: So one more paragraph.

0:20:52 Thomas: Oh, one more. Okay. Darn it. I thought it was done. Moreover, Boasberg's order undermines the ability of the president to conduct foreign affairs with foreign leaders. You already said all that. Why would any foreign leader risk engaging in high stakes? It's a flight.

0:20:59 Matt: Of receiving a plane high-stakes operations

0:21:08 Thomas: It's oh, my God. Look, I'm not a military worshiper or even somebody who cares about it, but I'm pretty sure they do more dangerous things than this a lot, like probably too much, like more dangerous thing than flying a group of people. Also, like any foreign leaders, super thrilled to do anything with President Trump anyway.

0:21:16 Matt: Plan way

0:21:27 Thomas: Why Would Any Foreign Leader Risk risk engaging in high stakes operations with the president if they knew that an activist American judge could sabotage the operation, endanger lives, and publicly humiliate them. A federal judge in Texas, where the planes took off, might have the power to consider a habeas petition from El Salvador, but Boesberg most certainly does not have thepower to expose and sabotage ongoing military operations. This is not a military operation.

0:21:27 Matt: More right there's a military plane involved I think in one of the planes it's not a military operation not at all that's a domestic operation from ice so he goes on about his time to step back from the precipice and wise judges must lead the way the president had a constitutional duty to land those planes and get those terrorists the hell out of america he says so that's about it it keeps going but I I mean, this is the way they talk, and this is the best they got. This is one of the greatest minds of the MAGA movement, Mike Davis.

0:22:17 Thomas: He acts like what happened was we We left like a booby trap, which was a plane. And then a bunch of terrorists walked into it and were like, got him, trapped him. And then we had to get him out. It's like, you've got like a bee in a jar or something in your house. And you're like, we got it.

0:22:31 Thomas: We can't, we can't just get it back. We can'T bring it. Anyway. Yeah.

0:22:31 Matt: You know what was extra funny? I was reading it this week as the president was imposing the most ridiculous tariffs with absolutely no thinking at all, right? And like messing with world trade.

0:22:43 Thomas: Supply chains. Yeah. Stuff that actually would probably cause problems.

0:22:46 Matt: I mean you think that you're messing with foreign leaders when you're turning a plane around and nobody's ever going to trust us again on tariff policy? Destroying our reputation for trade, right?" I mean it's just like Ah, yeah.

0:22:57 Thomas: So dumb.

0:22:57 Matt: Anyway, so I think it's worth hearing what these people actually say in their own words. And that's Mike Davis for you. That's who he is. And that's what we're working with. That's the best we got.

0:23:06 Thomas: And I think one more thing that's funny on that is, like, I don't know how much Fox News, like print media matters. Because, like I'll be honest, most of the time when we or over on Where There's Book or anywhere are making fun or just even talking about these idiots and the stupid, horrible, fascist things they say, we're talking about a podcast or an interview or whatever. This, he had to take the time to write something out, like really considering this. And this is what he could come up with.

0:23:32 Thomas: All right. Do we get to the good lawyers now, Matt?

0:23:34 Matt: Let's talk about some good lawyers. Yep.

0:23:36 Thomas: All right, well, we'll probably take a break. We can wash that taste out of our mouths and we can, we can talk more positive stuff. I'm excited for this.

0:23:40 Matt: You got it. So I was inspired today by an amicus brief that was filed in the Perkins Coie case that we talked to Liz about a couple of weeks ago. And this is one of the only law firms that is actually standing up to Trump. This amicus was filed by a whole bunch of different public interest law groups. So we've got led by the Fred T. Korematsu Center. And of course, Fred Koremitsu was the guy who brought the challenge to Japanese internment and ultimately didn't work, but he took a stand against it. But also this brief is joined by the American Federation of Teachers, Center for Civil Rights and Critical Justice, all kinds of other centers for racial and economic justice, just a broad range of really good people doing good work. The first couple pages of this really stood out to me because I didn't know this story.

0:24:03 Thomas: Oh, I've heard of that. Right. Hmm.

0:24:24 Matt: And it got me thinking about the lawyers that we have to count on right now, because we're the only lawyers we've got. There aren't other lawyers that are going to be created in a bat somewhere. Like the ones who are here right now. We got some on the way up. But in terms of this year, right now in March 2025, we haveと depend on who's out there. And they make the point in this opening story, in this brief, that, and this is just something I'd never heard before, that the ACLU actually folded to President Roosevelt during the war. And so they actually instructed from the top, they instructed all the local ACLU affiliates that they could not take on the Alien Enemies Act internment directly, that they didn't want them to challenge the executive order that had authorized internment. And they could only limit their arguments to saying that they exempt individuals who are loyal, that they cover too wide an area, that the unlawfully discriminated, but they couldn't take on the orders directly. ACLU lawyers.

0:25:07 Thomas: So who's they? Oh, so like the top from the top, you're saying they directed the field. Okay. Gotcha. Just want me.

0:25:12 Matt: Yep, yep. So they're saying essentially, and again, of course, ACLU is doing great work today and is a very respectful organization. I don't mean me to cast a shadow here, but this is interesting history. It's important that this happened. Fred Korematsu's pro bono counsel defied the national ACLU's order to actually appeal his conviction and challenge the exclusion directly to take it on. They thought it was that important of a test case. And so they're making the point through this brief, how important lawyers are in these moments and how important it is that lawyers have the freedom to take on the government and to do what they can, especially with pro bonо work. So they're standing up for Perkins Coie. And obviously it's a bunch of nonprofits and lawyers who don't make anywhere near as much as the people of Perkins coie standing up to the rights of lawyers. And that's something that I think is really important right now. So I want to talk a little bit about the people that are adjacent to or behind the stories that we've been talking about. And we've talking a lot about the JGG case, which is the Alien Enemies Act challenge. And one of the lead attorneys on this, the ACLU, is named Oscar Sarabia Roman. And he's got an incredible story. I did not know this until I just found this. He was undocumented. He came to the US illegally with his mother at the age of five, and he was deported in 2008.

0:26:15 Matt: He actually deported from the United States with his mother in 2008. And he worked at a call center in Mexico and filed his own immigration case and brought himself back.

0:26:22 Thomas: Well, I didn't know you could do that if you entered illegally and yeah.

0:26:24 Matt: I would be very interested to know how he did it. And I got to say, open offer to any of the lawyers we're talking about in this episode today. Any of you are welcome to come on. I'd love to talk to any, any of people we're taking about here. But yeah, he ended up graduating from Stanford, got a master's in public policy at Harvard and then a JD at Berkeley. And he's been at the ACLU for the last couple of years. Most recently, he sued the attorney general of Idaho, enemy of the show, Ro Labrador. Idaho, actually, this is something I'd like to talk about another time because there's a series of laws right now that are trying to give state and local officials' power to do immigration arrests or to create immigration crimes in different states. So he's taken that on. He's looking at the complaints. Very solid. And yeah, I just think that's super cool that somebody who was undocumented, was deported, and has been through this before is standing up for people who are facing deportation. I just Think that's a really great story. So well done, Oscar Sarabia -Roman. I also want to talk about Kilmar Abrego -Garcia's lawyer. He sent Mario Sario PLC, which I think from what I gather is kind of a mid -law. And I don't

0:27:13 Matt: Mean mid in the way the kids say it. No, I mean it's mid -sized firm. They've got three three locations, Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia. Simon Sandoval Motionberg. He took a pay cut about 14 years ago. Motionberg, yeah.

0:27:23 Thomas: Motionberg. That's a hell of a lawyer name.

0:27:26 Matt: Yeah, Simon Sendoval Motionburg.

0:27:26 Thomas: I love that. Hey, Motionberg, we're going to need a motion. Get over here.

0:27:29 Matt: That's right. You're the motion guy.

0:27:30 Thomas: We've got just the guy. Affidavits in affidavit.

0:27:36 Matt: Yeah. So he's had some great hits. He's done a lot of good work. He was actually one of the first TROs against the Muslim ban. He established a first -in -the -nation due process right to federal habeas review for unaccompanied children. And really important, actually, in the Fourth Circuit and Rays v. Waples, there's a precedent that renting a home to an undocumented documented person does not constitute the federal crime of alien harboring, because that's something they've been trying to push for a while. Yeah, I know. But yeah, somebody's got to get that decision. But he's been doing great work in the Embry -Garcia case, and I've been enjoying his filings as I'm reading here. I'll just read you a quick paragraph from one of his most recent filings, which he's taking on Kristi Noem. He's pointing out the idiocy of what the government's actually saying here. Defendants do not deny that plaintiff is currently incarcerated in the infamous Secant jail. They merely quibble over whether his treatment therein rises to the level of torture. Defenders do not deny that they have paid the government, El Salvador, millions of dollars to detain plaintiff and others like him in Seekon, that defendant Marco Rubio thanked the president of El Salvador on Twitter for detaining plaintiff in Seakon, and that defendant Kristi Noem in italics went inside the Seekot jail after the filing of this lawsuit.

0:27:56 Thomas: Oh, God. Yeah. I would hope so. Wow.

0:28:35 Thomas: Oh wow. Hey just get get him. Get the guy you're there like

0:28:40 Matt: And that's what he says, that after the firing of this law suit, yet took no steps to attempt or even request to extract plaintiff.

0:28:45 Thomas: A list you know or like hey is he here. They don't care. God it's it's evil.

0:28:46 Matt: Yeah. Yeah, no. I mean, it's just like we're talking about that this really is the way that you know that they have no conscience whatsoever, because that suit had been filed and she knew there was a guy in there that wasn't supposed to be there.

0:28:58 Thomas: Yeah because and I always do this and I I know it's us kind of actual human beings trying to put ourselves in the mind of evil people with no conscience. But because I always think like if you're this kind of racist and evil, you could still be like, oh, our bad on this one. We'll fix it. You could even make a meal of that. You could be like. Oh, we fixed it when it was the one time was the mistake.

0:29:16 Thomas: But all these other people, they're the terrorists who deserve it. Like, I think they're so genuinely racist and fascist that they can't ever appear to bend to anything else, to apologize, to care about a nonwhite person in this way who's It's part of the group they're labeling terrorists, you know, even though they know he's not.

0:29:32 Matt: Yeah, no, as we were talking about recently, Will Chamberlain, also of the Article 3 Project, along with Mike Davis, was actually saying out loud in public that, well, even if he wasn't a gang member, he probably deserves it, which is just incredible. Yeah.

0:29:42 Thomas: Breaking news. New York Times alert. Supreme Court sides with wrongly deported migrant. A trial judge had ordered the Trump administration to take steps to return the migrant.

0:29:47 Matt: Well, hey, unsigned order. Let me click through the order here. It's pretty short. Yeah.

0:29:54 Thomas: Interesting.

0:29:55 Matt: We should talk about this because this is actually directly on point. Literally just talking about this exact case. So let me just skim real quick here.

0:30:01 Thomas: Just wonder, is this going to be some annoying bullshit poison pill thing or is it actually just a good decision?

0:30:06 Matt: Okay. This is good. So they're remanding it to clarify. Now this is the kind of thing we've been talking about with the Doge cases where they can play games about what everything means. But this is an an extraordinary order. It was from the beginning because the district court, remember, was ordering the U .S. government to, the officials who are responsible for this, to work with the Salvadoran government to bring them back. And the pushback, of course, was that we can't tell the Salvadorian government to do anything, but we can tell the people who did this to fix it. And that's what we're trying to do. So they just want some clarification on what facilitate and effectuate mean with due regard for deference of what's in foreign affairs. There's a separate statement here from, it's not a dissent, it'S just a statement, from Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson. And this looks like a very good statement. They're pointing out, of coarse, how completely egregious this is, how out of control, just bad this whole thing is. She's saying that because the harm is so great based on the neck and beholder standards, that she would have declined to intervene and just denied the application and made the government

0:30:55 Matt: Do this. But she agrees with the order that the proper remedy is to make sure that we do everything possible to bring him back. That means that they have to comply with the obligation for due process. She is also pointing out that they have to comply with its obligations of the Convention Against Torture, which you might remember I think I mentioned as one of my concerns about this.

0:31:08 Thomas: All right. Yeah, you did mention. Yeah. We're also violating international law, right? Yeah. Yeah.

0:31:11 Matt: Absolutely, right. Because we're not supposed to deport somebody back to someone where they know they're going to face problems like this.

0:31:17 Thomas: Even if they do have a Chicago Bulls tattoo or whatever,

0:31:20 Matt: Right, exactly. But in the proceedings on remand, the district court should continue to ensure that the government lives up to its obligations to follow the law. That's the conclusion. That's a good conclusion.

0:31:29 Thomas: I feel like that could be like boiler plate that you stamp on to every decision. It's kind of weird that, again, from the file drawer of weird, that I have to say this, but government, you got to just follow the law. That'd be that'd be cool.

0:31:33 Matt: Right. You have to remind them. Yeah, yeah. She also points out, once again, that the government's argument implies that it could deport and incarcerate any person, including U .S. citizens. So you might have heard a couple of days ago that Carolyn Leavitt, the press secretary, confirmed that Donald Trump has been talking publicly and privately about options he might have to deport U. S. citizens to places like El Salvador. And And she said, you know, we just want to be transparent about the fact that he has been talking about it.

0:32:01 Thomas: Shut the fuck up, dude.

0:32:01 Matt: I don't know what we're supposed to learn from that, but it does confirm my concerns to these people indeed. So that's what we are up against. But we've got people like Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg on our side and people like Mike Davis on the other side. So I still feel good about our people.

0:32:05 Thomas: That is these people.

0:32:15 Matt: I think that we've got the better team all around. So let's talk about this case of Columbia student Makhmud Khalil, because I want to tell you a little bit about his lawyers. But I also want to tell you about the latest, because there is some news that we expected, but it is news. And the immigration judge, I remember that he's in deportation proceedings. He is in Louisiana right now where they transferred him after arresting him in New York. And so he's on regular immigration court, just like I'd have any other client. And you might remember we talked about in the Khalil case that the basis for his deportation is extremely unusual because they're going with the idea that he presents some kind of threat to foreign policy.

0:32:15 Thomas: Oh, yeah. Right.

0:32:46 Matt: It's a provision that from 1952 that has barely been used there's only one published case on it it's not particularly helpful for this but that published case unfortunately did pretty much confirm from the board of immigration appeals that all that the government needs to do in a case like this is provide a letter from the secretary of state confirming that this person is a threat to our foreign policy so the judge ordered that the department produce that letter ahead of the hearing which is scheduled for the day that you'll be hearing this on friday this letter has been published by the associated press and it's pretty much what I expected it's to decide that a man is presenting in his presence, just being here in the United States, that he has potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences. And remember the standard here too, under INA 237A4C2, we talked about this before, but there's an option in the law. And it's so bizarre that I hadn't ever thought about it before, but it actually allows that the government can deport somebody based on First Amendment protected speech. It specifically says you can do this as long as the Secretary of State personally

0:33:40 Matt: Determines that the alien's presence or activities would compromise a compelling US foreign policy interest, compromise a compelling US foreign policy interest. So we've all been waiting to see what their cards are here, what it is that they're going to say that, you know, how he's compromising foreign policy. And I have to say, I didn't expect much more than what we got here. I will just read you their exact allegation. There's not much to it. These determinations are based on information provided by DHS regarding the participation roles of, and there's redacted, so there's another person that we're not naming here, and Khalil in anti -Semitic protests and disruptive activities, which fosters a hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States. Of course, not accounting for the fact that many of the protesters are themselves Jewish students. The public actions and continued presence of Redacted and Khalil in the U .S. undermine U .N. policy to combat anti -Semitism around the world and in the US, in addition to efforts to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence in the US. Consistent with the executive order about anti -semitism, the foreign policy of the United States champions core American interests and American citizens, and condoning anti -Semitic conduct and disruptive protests in the United States

0:34:40 Matt: Would severely undermine that significant foreign policy objective.

0:34:44 Thomas: So yeah, this is okay. So I was getting that last part. This is supposed to be a foreign policy justification, right? And in order to do that, they're like, well, you got to start with a man in the mirror. You got good foreign policy. Look, You can't learn to love another until you learn to love your own policy. So that means we got to, we got to not allow any protests in our country because that's the first step to good foreign policy.

0:34:57 Matt: Starts out. That's right. Yeah. This is bad. This is very bad. Yeah it's so bad because this you know and there's also been an announcement this week that they're going to be and I already knew this and I've been warning my clients about this but they're gonna be aggressively using AI to scour the social media of non -citizens for any kind of anti -semitic statements and of course we know what that means. That means means that you're saying that Israel's committing genocide. It means that you're upset about Gaza. It means that you have a conscience. So that's what they're looking for.

0:35:34 Thomas: This there. Again, I love dissecting this fascist devil speak bullshit. Super fun. The idea that like, we can't condone this, meaning we have to deport someone who utilized their first amendment speech. Like if you have a person saying anything, first amendment protected speech, then you're condoning it. Like, if you just have that in your country, that means you're condoning It. And that would, that would undermine your foreign policy, of course, because then you can't allow the expression of certain ideas. Otherwise you're Condoning them. That's just so, again, the screaming kids. It used to be all about the screaming feminists and they're coming for your language and you can't say anything anymore. And now we're literally to here.

0:36:12 Matt: I mean, in the name of anti -Semitism, in the name of disruptive protests, why would anybody ever want to study in this country again when you see this? You come here and express an opinion. Like Mahmoud Khalil, you participate in peaceful protests on your campus. Like Ramesa Ozturk, you co -sign an editorial that says nothing controversial, that says something that many people are saying, that they don't want their schools investing in Israel or supporting genocide. Good faith opinions that people should be allowed to have. Yeah.

0:36:20 Thomas: Yeah, Everyone should have.

0:36:39 Matt: So obviously this is wrong and I'm very concerned that it might work because the law is so bad on this.

0:36:45 Thomas: Yeah, that's been kind of the question here. Is it, is there any room in the law to challenge this or is it merely if Marco effing Rubio says so, and as long as he does the, goes to the trouble to write a letter, to pen a letter, then that's that, you know, that was kind of, I think the question from that episode was like, is there any level of review more specific than did you actually write the piece of paper?

0:37:07 Matt: So in deportation proceedings, you have to prove by clear, unequivocal, and convincing evidence that the government has to prove that they've met their burden. There are several proceedings, obviously not criminal proceedings. So, in this prior precedent that we talked about, it's the only one that has really addressed this at all from the Board of Immigration Appeals. This is a 1999 case called Ruiz -Massou. We talked about it a little bit before, but they said pretty directly, and they took a lot of pages, and I don't think they were very happy about having to say it this way, but we have before us a letter stating the Secretary of State has made this determination as the foreign policy grounds. As noted, it would be impossible to question or alter this decision without proceeding to an examination of the foreign policy of the United States, which is not a just a simple question of, yeah.

0:37:43 Thomas: Non-justiciable?

0:37:47 Matt: And they're basically saying because the reasons are facially legitimate and bona fide that they can't go past that. There's no contrary allegation, and that's it. Now, Now, I don't think that these are facially legitimate and bona fide reasons. And I think an immigration judge could find that too. And I hope they do.

0:38:02 Thomas: That's an important distinction. I feel like, look, I'm sensitive to the... First off, none of this should be happening, obviously, but given the state of the law, I'm sensitive to the idea that the court shouldn't be evaluating foreign policy goals. That doesn't make any sense. If a Republican justice were doing that with a Democratic president, that would seem insane. I get that. But that key where it's like, this is not facially anything. This is on its face absurd. It doesn't even, that's why I'm making the joke. There isn't anything about foreign policy really here. It's just like, well, it's, you know, got to set a good example.

0:38:33 Matt: Yeah, no, it is. Right.

0:38:33 Thomas: Like it has nothing to do with foreign policy.

0:38:36 Matt: Anti -Semitic conduct and disruptive protests in the United States. It also doesn't get into that standard about compromising a compelling foreign policy interest. It didn't even try to really say that in this letter. So you could say it hasn't met the law on its face too. But I really hope. I mean, he's got good lawyers and he's going to put up a fight here. But it's very important we're talking about Mahmoud Khalil and Komar Obregir -Garcia in the same episode today, because I think these are the two most important fights right now.

0:38:56 Thomas: They really are.

0:38:57 Matt: These really matter for all of us and for our futures. And I want to talk for a second about Amy Greer, who's representing Mahmoud Khalil. She's a newer lawyer, and I think it's good to get newer lawyers in the mix here because we have a lot of very experienced, very good lawyers as well in all these fights. But she graduated from Roger Williams Law down in Rhode Island. Shout out to Bristol. 2020. And she's now one of the leads on this thing. She was actually the lawyer who was on the phone with ICE in the now famous arrest. You might remember when she had to inform ICE what her client's immigration status was because they didn't know when they came to arrest her. And, uh, I wanted to play a little clip just to get you, give the human side here. Here's a a quick clip of her interviewed on NPR talking about the work that she did that night. And I just want to really make people think about what this work is.

0:39:34 Clip: The night ICE agents followed Khalil and his wife into the lobby of their New York apartment building, Khalil got his lawyer, Amy Greer, on the phone, she told one of the agents, you can't arrest him, he's got a green card, and he said, oh, he'll go in front of an immigration judge, and then I started demanding for a warrant, I was like, you cannot take him until you show us a warrant and the agent hung up on me. What was the first thing you did? Cried. Truly, that's what I did. I just burst into tears. Minutes later, Khalil's wife called Greer back. An agent had told her they were taking Khalil to a Manhattan detention facility. Greer called a colleague for help. We're criminal defense attorneys. I'm not an immigration attorney. And so we were like, wait a second, I think you have to file a habeas.

0:40:15 Clip: A habeas corpus petition challenges someone's detention over violations of their constitutional rights. Greer had to work fast because she knew ICE would probably move Khalil out of New York, and she wanted the case to be heard there. She and several other lawyers stayed up all night.

0:40:31 Matt: So First of all, I love the human detail of I cried when I hung up. I just, that really touched me because I know what that feels like. But I went back and looked at her affidavit in this case, and I just want to read just so people can appreciate. I know we're not first responders. We are not out there in the cold as construction workers filling in potholes or whatever, the stuff that really people suffer for.

0:40:50 Matt: But you don't necessarily expect to have to do what she did that night. Because you know, minute to minute, it matters. At that point, when they've got your client, they could take him anywhere. And right now, you're in New York, where it's a good jurisdiction, but you know he's going to end up in the Fifth Circuit if you don't try to do something. I worked all night to draft a habeas petition. The petition was filed at 4:40 a.m. on March 9th in the Southern District of New York. At the time of filing the petition, we had every reason to believe that Mahmoud was detained in Newark because of what the DHS agent told his wife. So 4:30 in the morning, up all night working, and then obviously having to go through the next day, still worried about your client still doing it. And it was because of that work, and because she jumped in the way she did, that his habeas claim is still pending.

0:41:26 Matt: It's now in New Jersey because it was the last place he was held, but it's still pending in a good district, in a place where a judge might actually do something about it. So just full credit to her as a new attorney, as somebody who'd never done a habeas petition before. Obviously, she had help. And I was talking to Liz Skeen about this, and she said that this team is amazing, that Khalil has. They should deserve full credit for what they're doing. She's familiar with many of the New York attorneys there. And I also wanted to shout out Behar Amzi, who's a professor at my alma mater, Seton Hall Law, and is at the Center for Constitutional Rights, also teaches at Seton Hall, and did some amazing work on Guantanamo cases. It's kind of glorious that we're bringing in for this stuff. So yeah, I just think it's just good to remember that there are real people working really, really hard on weekends and nights to do this work and to make these things happen. Because we've been hearing so many stories of judges making rulings on Saturdays, of briefs being filed over weekends. It just seems like this is now completely a 24 -7 practice. But just Just in these times when we're hearing so many bad things, and when it just seems like so many things are going so wrong, there are so many good people doing this work, and I just wanted to talk about them.

0:41:30 Thomas: That's really amazing. Yeah yeah great point absolutely. You know one of my favorite things about doing the show for so many years is always hearing from people. It's been it's been many who said they got into law because of the show. Like they said they decided to become a lawyer. I'm just realizing not a single one in the history of all of this show has said, yep, joining big law. Can't wait.

0:42:44 Thomas: Gonna go be one of the people folding to Trump because I'm worried about losing my $7 million. No, they're all like, I was inspired to do the good part of being a lawyer, like the good things that a lawyer can do. And it really is, they always say it about like a gun or something. It's just a tool and it's in the hands of whoever. And I don't fully go for that in that case, but obviously I've seen the tool of lawyers. I've seen a lot of tools as lawyers, some real tools.

0:43:10 Thomas: But a lawyer like Matt and like others who are trying to do the right thing, it can be really powerful. And it's just like essential, you know, not even to get idealistic about it. It just is essential. And it's so great that we have so many people doing this work.

0:43:22 Matt: Please stop telling us that courts can't do anything, because they are doing things. And this is still working, and lawyers still matter. And I've just always had an open offer. Anybody who's listening who wants to think about doing the kind of work that I do, or just wants to go to law school to do something to make a difference, I always happen to talk.

0:43:37 Matt: Give you 10 or 15 minutes if you want to talk about that. But we should get on to our footnote.

0:43:37 Thomas: All right. We'll take that final break and then we'll get to this footnote. I'm excited.

0:43:45 Matt: So we all know that chat GPT makes stuff up. It hallucinates. That's a pretty normal thing. We just all accept it, right? That sometimes it'll just come up with wild explanations for things because it just thinks that you want to see them. But what do you do when the thing it makes up is libel, is defamation about you personally? That's the question. This is a very, very interesting lawsuit. It's the first of its kind. There actually was going to be one earlier, I should mention very quickly, from Brian Hood, the mayor of a small town just north of Melbourne in Australia, was actually considering suing OpenA. I don't know why he didn't, but this is pretty crazy, actually. ChatGPT said that he had served prison time for bribery, when in fact he was actually the whistleblower who flagged the bribery and brought the person to justice. So that's pretty bad. When you're a politician, that's really not something you want people to be told. So, that's pretty bad, but this is pretty bad too. This is a talk show host named Mark Walters, and this is not somebody we would normally be all that interested in talking about.

0:44:24 Thomas: That's a, yeah, that's a mix up. That's a mixed up. Boy, good point.

0:44:37 Matt: He has a talk show called Armed American Radio, and it's the fastest growing pro-gun rights radio broadcast in American history. But as it happens, there was a friend of his named Fred Reel, who's the editor-in-chief of something called Ammo Land. This is a whole other world that we're not in.

0:44:37 Thomas: Oh boy. Get a life. Get a freaking life. Gosh.

0:44:54 Matt: But Fred Reil asked ChatGPT to summarize a case in Washington State, which involved fan favorite Bob Ferguson. You remember from the Three Bob Night, which that was many years ago. It feels like now that we talked about Bob Ferguson of Washington State. The Attorney General.

0:45:07 Thomas: Three Bob Night. Wow.

0:45:09 Matt: But the real Bob Ferguson has stepped up and been elected. The Second Amendment Foundation versus Bob Ferguson. So he asked for a summary of this complaint, and out of nowhere, ChatGPT responded that Mark Walters is an individual in Georgia who has served as a Charger and Chief Financial Officer of the SAF since at least 2012. Walters has breached these duties and responsibilities by, among other things, embezzling and misappropriating SAF's funds and assets for his own benefit and manipulating their financial records and bank statements to to conceal his activities. And yes.

0:45:32 Thomas: That is a real chat GPT being like this guy in particular. Like how does that happen? Wow.

0:45:40 Matt: Okay, Mark Walters does not appear in this complaint that he was asking him to summarize. Mark Walters was never the treasurer of the Second Amendment Foundation.

0:45:46 Thomas: Chat GPT is just like, like, you know who I hate? So weird. An example I was thinking of that if we ask ChatGPT, hey, did Richard Gere put that dribble in his ass?

0:46:02 Matt: Right, right.

0:46:02 Thomas: The stuff that like all of humanity thought for no reason in like the nineties. I don't know. Maybe ChatGPT is going to be like, yeah, man, I heard it from a ChatGPT I met over in the other high school or something. And there's no accountability. Yeah.

0:46:15 Matt: I mean, right now, I was experimenting with it. And you know, if you ask certain ways, if yes, chat GPT, it'll tell you that I'm the drummer for Pearl Jam, which I also am, obviously.

0:46:22 Thomas: So that's, so it does good things too. Okay. Point taken.

0:46:25 Matt: There are a lot of Matt Cameron's in the world, but it also can incorrectly identify me. But this is really strange because there's so many questions raised by suing an AI for defamation. This is incredible to me. And it's something I'd love to talk about more. I want to follow this suit a little bit more. But I had this thought that isn't this just a product's liability case?

0:46:35 Thomas: Yeah, Yeah, it seems like it. Yeah.

0:46:42 Matt: Because it's a defective product, right? Because defamation requires an intent. It requires a person. And Mark Walters is a public figure because he has a talk show. So that is a much higher standard for defamation, obviously. You have to prove you actually knew it was false. You had a reckless disregard for the truth under the New York Times standard. And so he's actually, as part of his suit, he's actually trying to deny that he's a public figure, which is kind of an interesting thing to do.

0:47:00 Thomas: I would be. Oh, my show sucks. Nobody listens to it. It's dog shit.

0:47:02 Matt: Yeah, nobody listens, right? Yeah, that's right.

0:47:04 Thomas: It's a glorified blog, really.

0:47:06 Matt: Even though on his website, it says it's the fastest growing pro-gun rights radio.

0:47:08 Thomas: Well, see, it went from one listener to two, so it's 100 % growth, really, so it's fast as growing, but, yeah.

0:47:13 Matt: Not really public. Yeah. But you know, then you have to be able to show that the hallucination actually was about this Mark Walters and not some other Mark Walthers.

0:47:19 Thomas: Oh, good point.

0:47:20 Matt: And it's really interesting amicus found by the New York University Technology Clinic. It's not for either party. They're just kind of stepping in and making some points. And one of the points they made was it actually should be a product's liability.

0:47:26 Thomas: Wow. More of a comment than a question. Yeah.

0:47:29 Matt: That's, yeah, that's right. Yeah, just taking some time. They're agreeing with my first thought, which is it really should be maybe a products liability framework, because you're not talking about a human defamation here. But also, should a reasonable person take chat GPT statements as statements of fact? Because we all know, or we're supposed to know, that sometimes it makes things up. But a lot of people may not know that. And chat GPTs in the lawsuit is coming back and saying, well, no, you've got warnings that specifically say chat GPTS can make mistakes and generate inaccurate information.

0:47:54 Thomas: Sometimes I'm going to get this guy's shit up for no reason. Look, I warned you.

0:47:57 Matt: Exactly, right. But there's a difference between summarize this this complaint for me, and maybe it gets some dates wrong, or it gets one of the parties wrong, but it just throws in a completely unrelated person and accuses him of embezzlement. It's so weird. Nobody knows how this happened.

0:48:08 Thomas: That's so funny This is really fascinating

0:48:12 Matt: Yeah, it's a good one.

0:48:12 Thomas: And maybe we'll come back to another time because this is just a delightful footnote but one thing I'm thinking of immediately is like okay on one hand you could be like well what's the harm and that's going to be usually a calculation of defamation is okay but is it actually doing any harm you know like is actually causing anyone to think a certain thing or whatever but then there's those things where it's defamation per se you know and there's these categories and I'm sure you could tell us and I'm sure we've talked about it But I would think embezzling, that's probably a defamation per se thing, right?

0:48:43 Matt: Right.

0:48:43 Thomas: So I don't know how that affects the calculation of saying, yes, it's a chat GPT instance or whatever. So, but if it's defaming per se, then you don't have to prove damages for that usually. Like it's weird. Yeah.

0:48:55 Matt: Right. Because that's one of their arguments is that it didn't really hurt him. But so many questions around this one, and I'd love to get into it more and maybe bring on somebody who knows more about it. But this one really caught my eye, and it's really good. I'd like to watch it because all of the implications of AI, I hadn't thought about defamation. Hadn't crossed my mind. And here we are.

0:49:00 Thomas: Interesting. Yeah. You should be allowed to sue it, but it has to sue itself. Like ChatGPT has to do the legal work for it.

0:49:15 Matt: Just make up a bunch of cases and throw them in there. Yeah. Like it does.

0:49:16 Thomas: Yeah. Just see how much it hallucinates when it's going after itself. Boy, what a battle.

0:49:21 Matt: Yeah, it might be a little more accurate.

0:49:22 Thomas: They'll just be like firing off like fake cases at each other, like over and over.

0:49:27 Matt: Yeah, so there you go.

0:49:28 Thomas: Well, that's, yeah, really fascinating. That's a great footnote.

0:49:30 Matt: I thought so.

0:49:30 Thomas: I loved it. Good stuff.

0:49:31 Matt: And nothing to do with Donald Trump.

0:49:32 Thomas: All right. Well, what a great show. Thank you so much, Matt. Thanks everyone for listening. Really appreciate it. Please support the show again. It's the only way it happens. It's really important. And one more reminder, next show will not be Monday. It'll be Tuesday. Looking forward to it. We'll see you then.

0:49:46 Matt: All right, free muck, muckaloo.

0:50:05 Thomas: We've dotted every U and crossed every B. Oh, shit.

0:50:10 Matt: Consistent with the executive order about him, anti-semitism, yeah, like, you know, I'm trying to think of a, I almost had a joke there.