What a Surprise, the Racist Bastards Want to Denaturalize Zohran Mamdani

Transcript

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

0:00:04 Thomas: Hey, while we're here, the merits will take three seconds. No! Done.

0:00:17 Matt: Were you announcing between 1933 and 1942? Yeah. That's still on there. They still have to answer it.

0:00:20 Thomas: Ooh, I was a Nazi in 43. Gosh, I just barely squeaked through. Thank God.

0:00:26 Matt: I would crawl into a hole and die if I received this order, I have to say. I literally chose this story because I wanted to hear more of Mike Lindell and your delivering. This is, the people want it.

0:00:34 Thomas: Well, hi, I'm here, Matt. What do you need from me? Hello, and welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 1172. I'm Thomas Smith, and that over there is Matt Cameron. Matt's been too long. How you doing?

0:00:38 Matt: It has. I'm so happy to be back and got so much to talk about. And for whatever reason, once again, I'm in a fantastic mood.

0:00:56 Thomas: We'll never fix... Scientists, get on it. Why is Matt in a... Maybe it has something to do with some of our sponsors of the high court variety. Maybe, I don't know. I don' know what his secret is, but somehow he's always in a good mood, which we're gonna need because the world is not in a good mood.

0:01:07 Matt: Doing all right. No. No? But there's also, So once again, I'm just going to tell you, there's some maybe doomerism going on. People might be a little too worked up about some things that maybe we could talk out. I know people hate it when I do this, but maybe we can rein back and look past the headlines. I hope so. That's what I'm here for. We're trying to be realistic here.

0:01:22 Thomas: They probably like it when you do that, honestly.

0:01:27 Thomas: Don't worry everyone, if he's full of shit, I'll call him on it. We want the appropriate level of doom on this show.

0:01:30 Matt: Yeah, please. Please. I will. And so we'll read it. No doubt. That's right.

0:01:36 Thomas: I'm always going for accurate doom.

0:01:39 Matt: Very slowly cranking up the doom meter and looking behind you.

0:01:42 Thomas: I try to keep us on the correct doom reading. That's all.

0:01:44 Matt: Hey, fair enough. Well, we've got two things today to talk about, two big stories that relating to citizenship that I think people have cranked up the doometer way too high on. And I'd like to pull it back and talk about what's going on with each of these things. So we've got the birthright citizenship case, which we didn't get a chance to talk about yet, the actual decision. We know from the last time we talked about this in 08 -11 -58, all the way back on May 16th, that this is not actually about birthright citizenships, but we'll talk about what it's actually about.

0:02:06 Thomas: They could have called it the anything case really doesn't matter has nothing to do with that.

0:02:09 Matt: No, not in the least. And then I want to talk About Calls to Denaturalize Zoran Mondami, the candidate for mayor of New York, and about how denaturalization actually works. Because I've touched on this before, but I think this is a great time because DOJ is now talking about mass denatualization. They've put out a new memo that people are getting freaked about.

0:02:26 Matt: And I just want to try to pull back and tell you how this actually works and who's actually at risk, because it's not as bad as these headlines would tell you.

0:02:34 Thomas: But I'm sure it's not good, Matt. I'm sure it's not good. But no, that's important. We don't want we're here to temper any freak outs that aren't appropriate. Sure.

0:02:36 Matt: It's not great. No, I'm not here to say it's good.

0:02:41 Matt: That's right. Best we can. And again, anytime I'm saying this, I'M NOT SAYING YOU SHOULDN'T BE WORRIED. I'M not saying things aren't bad. I'm just saying, as you said, the appropriate level of doom should be applied. And, you know, we have a long way to go here. We're only in July of 2020 -25, everybody. Let's base ourselves. And speaking of basing ourselves, we're going to have some fun with Footnote today with the return of one of our very favorite meme characters. We might even get some audio from him.

0:03:04 Thomas: All right. Cool. Yeah. We've bugged various locations and we're going to see if any of that yields any fruit.

0:03:10 Matt: Many Bothans survived, actually. They made it.

0:03:14 Thomas: Nice. Yeah, I'm very interested in your take on this horrible Supreme Court case. And I'm excited we have a fun footnote to get us back in the happy mood, get us back in The Matt Mood afterwards.

0:03:25 Matt: You got it.

0:03:25 Thomas: All right. Well, we'll get to it. Hey, check out Gavel Gavel. We had Stephanie Jones's attorneys on. That was kind of definitely interesting. Definitely check that out if you are interested in big law and how they deal with a case like this and how they go on a random podcast like ours.

0:03:40 Matt: That was very cool. Cool.

0:03:40 Thomas: You know, that's how they do that strategy. So, yeah, it was really fun. Go check it out. And after this break, we will get to the doom.

0:03:51 Ad: [Ad break 1 — ad music]

0:03:51 Thomas: All right. Doom or not. Yeah, I don't know. It's not it's not really doom or not, but it's like how much doom or something maybe no

0:03:58 Matt: Well, it's been a couple of weeks now since this decision came down on the 27th of June. So we've got a little perspective here. And I was trying to bring perspective to this as soon as it came down. Now, it'S not good. This decision is not good, and we knew when we talked about it back in May that it would not be good because we saw where the wind was blowing. We saw what the court was trying do, and so do my IRS we're going to talk about, and Jackson correctly call out what the court's trying to do. But in terms of the actual birthright citizenship issue, it could be be very bad. But as of today, the day that we're recording this and shortly before this episode comes out, there is some very good news on this and we'll get to that at the end. And the good news actually proves that Samuel Alito was right in his concurrence. Yes. And I agreed with Samuel Alito in his concurrents and I still do. I think that he's absolutely correct. The reason he's correct is because he's complaining about the loophole.

0:04:08 Thomas: Okay what oh okay

0:04:44 Matt: So he was absolutely correct to point out this loophole, thank you, appreciate it. So we'll talk about it, but let's just get into the we talked about this in 01138. I think I skipped over a few things. And I want to make sure that we understand what this case is actually about, at least on paper. Now, Sotomayor is going to tell us what the case is exactly, actually about at the end of the day, what the government is trying to do.

0:05:01 Thomas: Oh wow a double actually about

0:05:04 Matt: There's a double actually about. There is on the surface what the law is going on here. And there beneath the surface, there's a strategy, the chess game that the government's playing, the way that they brought this case and why it is in front of the court. So remember, this is three combined suits that were brought. One of them was brought by a nonprofit and the other two were brought by states. There's a total of 22 states in DC. So what they were seeking was for an injunction on the birthright citizenship order, which again was an executive order released on January 20th. And all that order did, because it can't change the law, can't changed the 14th amendment. It just said that the federal government's no longer going to issue documents to babies born in the United States under certain conditions with certain parents.

0:05:40 Thomas: I mean it still sucks man I don't like this all that it did language like all it did was an attempted horrible fascism

0:05:44 Matt: Well, right. Yes. It did the most that he could do through executive order and no doubt that's bad. Had. But at the same time, I mean, we all remember I was making fun of it. Everybody's making fun of it's a stupid order. It's completely unconstitutional. Again, I know that's a naive lawyer brain thing to say, but every judge to look at this quickly, immediately, Reagan appointees, Bush appointees Trump appointees above appointees across the board have agreed this is stupid and unconstitional. And it's come very quickly up now through the shadow docket because we're not looking at the merits and only as usual in these kinds of cases, only Sonia Sotomayor is talking about birthright citizenship in the birthright citizenship decision in her dissent. That's the only place you're going to hear it talked about at all. Very much like with the immunity decision, which happy anniversary on the immunity decision. We just marked that. I actually want to talk another time about what that has wrought so far, but yeah,

0:05:53 Thomas: Yeah yep yeah oh wow that's been a year holy crap.

0:06:33 Matt: Just around July 4th, July 3rd, I guess. Yeah. But you remember, of course, in that decision, memorably that Sotomayor got into the facts of January 6th and the government didn't want to touch him and Roberts didn't wants to touch them, right? Because he wants to talk about what actually happened. And she does the same thing here where she's like, birthright citizenship, by the way, totally ironclad. There's no way you can touch it. Here's the facts. And she lays it out for pages and pages.

0:06:55 Thomas: Yeah, that was the let us not bicker about who killed who kind of thing. And then they're like, we don't want to we were crafting a rule for the ages. That guy said that one time. We're not here to worry about any specific presidents or like any coups they may or may not have done. That's we're not that specifics. We're not digging into that.

0:07:12 Matt: Or constitutional amendments they might not be ignoring or not ignoring in this case. So, you know, just to be very clear, this is a shadow docket case, which means that it is looking at the injunctions that issued. So these injunptions, and I want to talk for a minute about the difference between universal injunutions and nationwide injunitions. This is actually very important. We didn't really get to touch on it when we talked about this. We had other things to talk about, but that's why I I really want to get behind this because the headlines are saying that universal injunctions are dead and there's no way you can have one ever again. It's not quite that simple. So let's back up to how the court gets to do injunptions at all. An injunction is just stopping something from happening or forcing something to happen in some cases, less often. But there's the general idea that courts are either acting in law, where they're coming from the law that's been passed, or they're acting in equity, which is when they do things basically out of the fairness of the parties about what the right thing is to do. And way back in olden times, you used to have courts courts of law and courts of equity and courts of chancery. So you get to read a lot about this in this decision because there's some originalism built in here. But the question is about the equitable power of the courts. And equity, again, is not necessarily based on law. It's just what's the right thing to do. And injunctions, generally speaking, are based on equity because it's weighing some balancing factors, right? You're looking at the harm to the parties. You're look to the likelihood that maybe this will work out. And you're trying to decide whether or not this law should go into effect while the whole thing is pending because the merits of the case are

0:08:26 Matt: Years away potentially. And as Sotomayor points out, and as we'll talk about, the merits may never reach the court. We might not ever get to talk about this. And that might be the government's strategy. Right.

0:08:35 Thomas: Really wish they could be like, hey, while we're here, the merits will take three seconds No, done we're already here we came out we got dressed

0:08:42 Matt: Yep. Yep. Put on our evening jackets. Yep. Exactly. So yeah, no, morning jackets. Put on their morning jackets, that's what you have to wear in this report. So the question here, the government was actually trying to say, and this is absurd, but the government is trying to said that Article III of the Constitution doesn't allow universal injunctions because even though Article III the Constitution clearly allows cases in equity, which would include all kinds of equitable injunctions. But what they narrowed it down to is what the Judiciary Act of 1789, which gave the power to the courts to do these things, actually meant when it allowed equitable jurisdictions. And this all matters because a universal injunction applies to everyone, absolutely everyone. It says the government cannot enforce this law against everyone. A nationwide injunction or any other kind of limited injunction would say you can't apply it to the plaintiffs, the people who brought this

0:08:43 Thomas: We're in our robes yeah

0:09:27 Matt: Case. Amy Coney Barrett, in her majority opinion, which I take some pretty serious issues with, obviously, but she gives the example of a noise complaint that if you bring a noise complain against your neighbors because they're having parties every weekend, you could go to court and get injunction against your neighbours and they could stop having parties.

0:09:42 Thomas: Yeah they would have to fight for their right to then

0:09:44 Matt: Now, that's right to party, often retaining counsel as is traditional when fighting for your right to party. Now, the other neighbors are also affected by the parties, but they're not parties. They're not plaintiffs, right? So if there's a violation of that order, only the plaintiff who brought the noise complaint has the right to go back to court and say, shut it down. So this is not, I don't think it's a particularly helpful example because we're talking about babies being born, not parties happening on Saturday nights. And as is pointed out throughout this in the dissents, this affects everybody. There's no way you can say that babies in Texas and babies in Rhode Island are different. Every baby's going to have the same basic birthrights. So the thing is that universal injunctions, which don't just apply to other plaintiffs, but apply to everybody, have become very popular because of all these executive orders.

0:09:54 Thomas: Party sure yeah yeah yeah

0:10:25 Matt: And I went back and found a Harvard Law Review article from recent, we'll link to it, very well done. And it talks about the fact that since 1963, just about half of the universal injunction is issued, have been issued against the the Trump administration? That's a lot. That's a lot, and it's because, you know, no, it's those deep state judges.

0:10:37 Thomas: Maybe they should stop trying to do illegal things that would solve it yeah that's true yep

0:10:44 Matt: It's those deep state Reagan judges that are staffing him. So that's a really important point, that these are becoming more and more necessary over time because of the rise of the administrative state, but also because you have more and More Presidents acting by executive order, and Obama certainly has had a share of these too, but nowhere near as much as Trump.

0:10:59 Thomas: Well also yeah it coincides with congress stopping doing their job too so that's part of it.

0:11:03 Matt: Right, exactly. So Presidents have to act, as with DACA. So what you end up with is an unpopular thing in which one district court judge can stop something for the entire country. And now for something like this, where it's clearly unconstitutional, there's just no question that anybody born in the United States is a citizen. That's the text of the law. It makes a lot of sense to just stop it, to just grant the universal injunction and to apply it to everybody, because why should it have to be just for the people that are before the court? That makes no sense. None. But what Amy Coney Barrett did at the end of the day, I'll just read the sort of the holdings here so you can understand what happened and why this this matters. Remember, 22 states and these organizations got these injunctions, which means that this order is not effective in 22 states. The government's applications to partially stay the preliminary injunptions are granted, but only to the extent that the injunensions are broader than necessary to provide complete relief, keep that phrase in mind, complete relief to each plaintiff withstanding to sue.

0:11:55 Thomas: I don't understand any of that. Yeah. Translate for us.

0:12:00 Matt: Easy one. What she's saying is that states and nonprofit organizations, your people are going to be covered by the injunciations that are already in place are the partial injunctions so far as they relate to the states. So there is an injunction in Massachusetts that will remain in place, but there's no injunction in Texas, so you don't get to have one there. The complete relief for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is provided by that state's injunction. And she's saying complete relief doesn't have to include Massachusetts actually having an order against Texas, right? But that's ridiculous when it comes to this.

0:12:28 Thomas: I don't even understand how that applies to this case.

0:12:30 Matt: It doesn't. Yeah.

0:12:31 Thomas: Like, it'S one thing if it'S like I'M trying to think of a different example. Yeah, it's hard to entertain this because the whole thing is so stupid. But when you're talking about the federal government, I guess that's my question. I understand states are going to do things differently and all that. But like, if we're talking About the federal government, why is it about the particular victims of a thing in a location and not more about like the policy itself? Self.

0:12:52 Thomas: Like if if the thing itself they're doing is unconstitutional or is even a risk of being unconstitional. I mean, shouldn't a judge be able to just stop that policy? It doesn't it's not like it makes any sense, naturally speaking, to be like, well, yeah, the policy we have is people born in Texas aren't citizens, but people born here are like doesn't make any sense to me.

0:13:11 Matt: Right. Well, so if there were an order that did something with coal mines, right, that shut down all the coal mines in the country, right?

0:13:15 Thomas: Hmm. Mm hmm, sure.

0:13:16 Matt: It wouldn't necessarily make sense to have that order extend to, I don't know, Rhode Island. I'm pretty sure there's no coal mines in Rhode Island, it makes sense to have it be limited to the states where there are coal mines, right.

0:13:24 Thomas: I don't even like your example. There's no coal mines in the problem. Problem. Like, you know, like you can have it apply to every state because in a state with no coal mines, it just is like done.

0:13:29 Matt: But it's only complete relief if it applies to the States that actually already have them would be the ACB argument, I guess here, they buried arguments. So I will point out that CASA, to their credit, the nonprofit organization that brought this suit on behalf of immigrants had specifically said on the record in this case, in the oral arguments that complete relief for them meant every baby in America, it didn't just mean they're plaintiffs. It didn't mean the states, right? Because there's no justice if there's not justice for everybody, right. This is one of those things. And it turns out when you're talking about the states it's a huge hassle if you have this unevenly applied if you've got people moving between state lines because we don't know what the status of somebody might be. We'll talk about this later but there's now clarity as to what any of this means as of right now. But the states obviously of complete relief requires that it be national because otherwise they're gonna be dealing these massive headaches of trying to figure out which people in their states are actually citizens because of where they were born and when they moved and what happened. This has has to be national to be complete relief for the states. It's the only way it makes sense. And Sotomayor says directly, this is the end of the argument, as far as I'm concerned. The only way the states can make this work is if it's national. The Only Way the Plaintiffs Are Going to Be Happy is if It's National.

0:14:29 Thomas: Who does this even do anything for? It's so artificial.

0:14:32 Matt: Completely. And that's what she's saying. And they're playing games. The whole thing, remember, is that the government does not want this to get to the Supreme Court on the merits. And Sotomayor calls them out beautifully. She talks about their gamesmanship, and she talks about how this is exactly what they're trying to do. The government does not ask for complete stays of the injunction, as it ordinarily does before this court. Why? The answer is obvious. To get such relief, the government wouldn't have to show the order is likely constitutional, an impossible task. So she's saying the government could come in and say, we don't want any injunctions. But what they're saying is we'll settle for the injunptions that are already in place as long as we can enforce in other places. And the gamesmanship in this request is apparent and the government makes no attempt to hide it. Yet shamefully, this court plays along. No right is safe in the new legal regime the court creates. Today, the threat is to birthright citizenship. Tomorrow, a different administration may try to seize firearms. Remember Remember, she mentioned that in the oral argument, or prevent people of certain faiths from gathering to worship. So, you know, again, she's saying this is all just to get to this point where we can have this weird, uneven application across the country where you can have different rights

0:15:35 Matt: Given to a baby born in Texas and a babyborn in Rhode Island.

0:15:35 Thomas: You know, I've said that I want a law and order candidate for president among many things I want. I want president that's going to be like, hey, here's my pitch. One of them is prosecute all the people who have been letting people die in ice custody, have been doing all this stuff any family stuff all this stuff just put them in jail lock them up you might say lock them up lock him up is what you might Say I want that we've been talking about like oh we need the project 2025 but for us project 2029 I guess and I think we might get a good start on that I wasn't sure how to do it but I think one good start would be take a look at every single dissent from the Supreme Court and take a Look at the examples that the only sane justices used and then that's our policy so banning guns Guns? We're banning guns. First day, we could even just run an ironic thing. I don't even care. I don't care. Hey, the Supreme Court has ruined everything. So remember how they think this is the way it should go? Well, we're going to do the counterexample. We're going to ban guns.

0:16:31 Thomas: And what are you going to? You can't get an injunction. Those don't work. So one at a time, I guess every state, if you want, can get an injection. Otherwise, guess what? You don't have the right to own a gun anymore. You just don't have it. Why? Because the stupid Supreme Court ruined how rights work.

0:16:44 Matt: No guns in Massachusetts, guns for everybody in Texas. Sure. That's if that's what you want.

0:16:48 Thomas: And there's a bunch of other ones, too. And I like that they use that example. And I obviously it's a little bit sarcastic, but it's also the best way to try to get through. And it didn't work in this case. But I think let's use that example so I can try to wrap my brain around this thing. So if if a president, if President Obama, the second, you know, whoever, you know because he was going to come for everybody's guns. And of course, Hillary was goingto come for everyone's guns, of course. And they never do. But let's say we actually get that person, President Mamdani, President AOC, and they say no guns for anyone. And so the way that they're saying this should work is, well, that's the law of the land until each state comes and gets the right back for that state.

0:17:27 Matt: And maybe not even that, because Alito and Thomas and their concurrence are like, yeah, we're not sure this would really apply to states. Maybe states don't have standing no we haven't really decided that each person every gun owner

0:17:33 Thomas: What? Who would? Each person? Oh, my. Well, they did talk about class actions, right?

0:17:38 Matt: Yep I want to keep my guns right we'll get to that yeah

0:17:41 Thomas: OK, OK. But I'll keep that in my mind is how we're understanding that. But I just want to make clear that's our platform, Project 2029. Scour the dissents and find every example they used.

0:17:45 Matt: Yeah right yeah yeah before we get to the actual solution here which is there it does exist I just want to point out that most of this thing is a sort of originalist it's like at least kind of pseudo-originalist look at what was in place in 1789 when they passed a judiciary act and she's going through all this and all you need to know about it I'm going to read from justice jackson because jackson's descent jackson has been on fire at this term. She's got some awesome dissents. I would love to read.

0:18:06 Thomas: Cool useful great yep yep she's the only one I really like right now I love sotomayor but yeah

0:18:15 Matt: So good. So good. Sotomayor does well, of course, as she always does, but Jackson's is more to the point on this. To hear the majority tell it, this suit raises a mind -numbingly technical query. Are universal injunctions sufficiently analogous to the relief issued by the High Court of the Chancellery in England at the time of the adoption of the Constitution and the enactment of the original Judiciary Act to fall within the equitable authority Congress granted federal courts in the Judiciary act of 1789?

0:18:40 Matt: Yeah, very important that we talk talk about that for two hours. But that legalese is a smokescreen. It obscures a far more basic question of enormous legal and practical significance. Get ready. This is going to be a tough question of law. May a federal court in the United States of America order the executive to follow the law?

0:18:38 Thomas: What a relevant question yeah

0:18:58 Matt: Perfect. It's perfect. And I mean, it's so good that she does this because that was what we were saying at the time back in May. It was like, they're just going through this mind -numbingly technical is perfect way to put it. When the rights of future children are at stake, first of all, but also when it's such a simple question, clearly, they just don't want to follow the Constitution.

0:18:56 Thomas: Okay yay or nay yeah I don't even know if I want to grant them that the fact that something's technical isn't necessarily the problem it's just wrong it's

0:19:20 Matt: And it so obviously needs a universal solution because there's just no reason that we should be quibbling about which babies it applies to. All future babies, that's how it should work.

0:19:27 Thomas: Incorrect so dumb every baby should be able to own a gun that's That's what we think. If you conservatives, MAGA, you're worried about your baby not being able to own a handgun. Well, guess what? And President AOC is America. That's how it's going to work.

0:19:43 Matt: I'm going to read one more piece from Jackson's dissent. Honestly, I'd love to read this whole thing and Sotomayor's too. They're both really brilliant, but this is really an important warning. And so this is going to get doomer -y for a minute. And I agree with the doomer analysis that she's giving here, but I also think that Alito is correct to say that there is a gigantic loophole, which we'll talk about, which I think is going to save the day on this one. I have no doubt that if judges must allow the executive to act unlawfully in some circumstances, as the court concludes today, executive lawlessness will flourish.

0:20:08 Matt: And from there, it is not difficult to predict how this all ends. Eventually, executive power will become completely uncontainable, and our beloved constitutional republic shall be no more. Perhaps the degradation of our rule of law regime would happen anyway, but this court's complicity and the creation of a culture of disdain for lower courts, their rulings, and the law, parentheses, as they interpret it, end parentheses, will surely hasten the downfall enabling our collective demise. Beautiful. That's quite a statement.

0:20:27 Thomas: I mean, yeah, yeah.

0:20:34 Matt: She's really been on this kick. And she, that was Jackson.

0:20:35 Thomas: Who was that again?

0:20:37 Matt: That was a suggestion from Jackson's dissent.

0:20:38 Thomas: Yeah, pretty much.

0:20:39 Matt: I will also note that in her, in a footnote, I wouldn't miss the footnotes, some really good footnotes in this one. She actually, in footnote five of her dissent, cites the dual state by Ernst Frankel, which I've just been reading actually recently.

0:20:49 Thomas: Oh, I've heard other people. Yeah, I've read that. I've, I, I heard someone talk about that in an interview.

0:20:53 Matt: I know that Professor Aziz Haque, who's been on the show, has been big on this book, and he brought it to my attention, actually, and I did start reading it. It's a great read from a Jewish labor lawyer named Ernst Frankel, who wrote about the rise of what he called the dual state and how the Nazis were beginning. I mean, this was published before things really went to where they went, talking about where it was going and the fact that, yeah, the dual estate was published in 1941.

0:21:11 Thomas: Oh, the book, the book was really. Oh, wow. Oh, Wow.

0:21:16 Matt: So yeah, things were, yeah.

0:21:18 Thomas: So that's equivalent to like now for a, are we in 1941 or we 1938? 38. I probably, does anyone have a spare calculator handy for the conversion? I can never remember. Celsius. Yeah.

0:21:22 Matt: I think we're closer than 37, 38. But he fled Germany in 1938 and was able to write from safety about what was going on in Germany. But she was talking specifically about the complicity of lawyers and judges and about this dual state where lawlessness was being allowed because they were forming essentially a Nazi court system, which is what ended up happening. So I think it's very significant that Jackson is citing this when she's talking about a law -free zone that the court is establishing with this decision. I mean, that's very damning. That's a real warning.

0:21:50 Thomas: Now I think, correct me if I'm wrong, I think the dual part of it, the dual nature of it and it's something that I think is very hard to understand, very hard to like just come up with until it's happening to you, which is like, no, you still have laws. The laws are all still there, but their application is whenever the fascists need it. So it's like, you can't point to it and be like, well, it's not as though they made, you know, bribery legal or something, but it's like, okay, bribery legal unless and until there's a politician that they don't like who might maybe be guilty of something that could look like that. And then all of a sudden the death penalty, there's no laws because nobody's going to punish anybody if they're on the correct team. But if they aren't, then it's this hyper standard of law where it's any sort of evidence whatsoever and you're convicted and punished very harshly. That, if I remember right, is kind of that dual nature of it. It. And it makes sense here because what we have is none of this mattered when Czech's calendar, the last four years when we had a Democrat as a president, none of that mattered. Weird.

0:22:50 Thomas: Isn't that weird? Just coincidentally, it only mattered right when Donald Trump, who was also granted God Emperor status by the immunity decision right before he came in. That's when it mattered.

0:22:58 Matt: No, Steve Vladeck pointed out that Neil Gorsuch really didn't like universal injunctions except the 10 times he did, right? I mean, it goes right to your point, right, and Ernst Frenkel called it the prerogative state. That's what it is, is you can use it when you need it. That is exactly what you're saying, the prorogative statement.

0:23:11 Thomas: That might be. Yep. Yep, that's what it was. Yeah yeah, progress day. Yeah okay. That I think more specifically what I was thinking of. Yeah you're right. Thank you for giving me that it's counterintuitive. It's not as though anything by the letter of the law really changes. And it goes to show that the country, the thing, the, the things that we had, remember the country we had everybody, it really wasn't about what was written on the pieces of paper, you know, because in that prerogative state, nothing really technically changes. I mean, there might be changes, but that's not really the key. The key is the decision to uphold it. And sometimes and not in others and, and normalizing that as a culture and losing the norm of justice, attempting to be blind, as they say, like losing all attempt at that is really, really bad. And it's scary.

0:23:52 Matt: It is. It is. But there's some good news, so we should move on to the part that Alito really doesn't like because that's the part we know we're going to like.

0:23:58 Thomas: All right, maybe we'll take a break and get ready for good news, everybody.

0:24:01 Matt: All right, you got it.

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0:25:44 Thomas: I'm all ready now. What's the good news?

0:25:45 Matt: Okay. Well, Well, as we've been saying, if you want to know what's really going on, check the dissents. And if you wanna know the weak points, check The Concurrences. We've got Justice Alito here complaining that he just doesn't think the court's going far enough because they're leaving too many possible loopholes. So ACLU taking notes, obviously, on these loophols.

0:26:01 Thomas: There's still some babies that might be citizens.

0:26:03 Matt: Right, can't have it, can' have it. So Alito's concern here is that we could still get nationwide class actions with nationwide injunctions that would apply to all kinds of people who aren't the plaintiffs. And he specifically wags his finger at the district courts. And he says, district courts should not view today's decision as an invitation to certified nationwide classes without scrupulous adherence to the rigors of Rule 23. Otherwise, the universal injunction will return from the grave under the guise of nationwide class relief, and today's decision will be of little more than minor academic interest. I know, he's dramatic.

0:26:29 Thomas: From the grave. Yeah, that thing that's been fine and existed for all this time. Ah, there's some problems with it, obviously, but like return from the grave, come on.

0:26:38 Matt: The thing we freshly murdered, like we just killed it today.

0:26:41 Thomas: Yeah, the thing that you can say, see the thing That's Still Bleeding that I put a couple of piles of dirt on.

0:26:44 Matt: Yeah, you got to shoot it through the head. That's the, yeah. But he's afraid that some unscrupulous judge is going to create a class because he's going to think that for some reason this thing should apply to the whole country. So I just want to point out Rule 23 prerequisites. And again, you can get a precertification. And that's what he's concerned about, too, is even before the dispositive decision about what the class action is for some motion purposes, you Can get it a court as just happened, as we'll talk about, to determine if there is a class. And just a reminder that under Rule 23, as federal civil procedure, you can get a class only if the class is so numerous that joinder of all members is impractical. You can't bring everybody in. There are questions of law or fact common to the class. They all want to be born in the United States. The claims or defenses of the representative parties are typical of the claims or defences of the class, they're all the same babies.

0:27:19 Thomas: Mm -hmm, mm -hmm. Yep, mm‑hmm.

0:27:29 Matt: The representative parties will fairly and adequately protect the interests of the glass. So obviously the state's doing a pretty good job.

0:27:34 Thomas: That sounds like exactly what it should be. And you're telling me that he's saying, no, this shouldn't exist? Like, it's already bad enough. It's already bad enough that this has to be the way to do it. But you're telling me, this asshole, I get that they don't care about anything, but what about the gun example? Is he really trying to say that, like, no, not even this class action can exist. What should happen is each individual person who wants to own a gun after President AOC bans them needs to get relief from the court?

0:27:59 Matt: Oh, gun owners, I'm sure would be an easily certifiable class. No question. Done. I'm sure that would be just fine.

0:28:03 Thomas: Well, hold on, hold On. Okay, so I'm trying to actually, I Get, don't get me wrong. I Get what will happen is obviously they will pretend none of this exists when there's a gun case. I get that. I get it. But how would the gun gun ownership class exists. So he's not criticizing the concept of class action in this context. He's saying for this citizenship thing, it wouldn't make sense.

0:28:21 Matt: He's getting mad about some guys that haven't done anything yet, about district court judges that are going to make overbroad classes involving this and just come right back in front of them.

0:28:30 Thomas: So that leaves the wiggle room for according to his standards. It's an overbroad class if it's babies, but not if it'S gun owners or something.

0:28:37 Matt: Right, or states. He is saying the court should have conclusively stated one way or another if the states have standing. It kind of assumes that they do, and everybody seems to assume that's what the decision means, and he does too. But he talks about reflexive state third -party standing. We shouldn't just assume that states always have, and then maybe that's true in some cases, but I think for the most part, if states are concerned about things applying to their residents, they should have the right to have standing. That makes sense.

0:28:56 Matt: But the way he concludes this is that lax enforcement of the requirements for third -party standing and class certification would create a potentially significant loophole to today's decision. Federal courts should thus be vigilant against such potential abuses of these tools. So, yeah. So that's what happened today. A George W. Bush appointee, I guess, abused these tools and created a class.

0:29:14 Thomas: The deep state. Yeah?

0:29:16 Matt: Yep. It's particularly significant. This is Judge LaPlante in New Hampshire. Great decision today. And it's really actually great that he was was the first one to get to it. ACLU filed this, I think, almost the day or maybe within hours of the court's decision because they knew where things were going and they were ready with a class action. They filed this in New Hampshire. And LaPlante made a point of saying in today's hearing, so what he did is he issued this from the bench, but he also issued a 38 -page decision that we'll link to. He made a part of saying, when this was in front of me before, I refused to grant nationwide injunction. I didn't think this was worth a universal injunction at the time in the way that you presented this case. But coming back after the Supreme Court's decision, decision this is clearly a class so I think that means a lot this is not somebody who is rushing to do that this is just the kind of guy that alito wasn't talking to

0:29:53 Thomas: That'll get through to him. No, sorry, but I agree. It is a good point. Or would Alito spin it to be like, Like, see, it wasn't even a valid class until he decided to, you know, is that proof of his theory that it's going to be abused by the federal court judges?

0:30:09 Matt: Well we'll see it'll be back in front of them I should tell you what the the class actually is just so we're clear and this this makes a lot of sense it just basically applies to the order it's kind of interesting because I've never heard of a class that includes future people but it does make

0:30:21 Thomas: Yeah, it also makes me nervous.

0:30:22 Matt: Sense yeah all current and future persons who are born on or after february 20 2025 where one that person's mother was unlawfully present in the united states the person's father was and so basically just follows the language of the order about people that might be subject to the order. So this is great. It's called Barbara v. Trump. It's a 38 page decision. They've done exactly what Supreme Court have asked them to do. And they've crafted a very specific class that he finds has national application because these people exist all over the country.

0:30:44 Thomas: Do we have humans all over the nation? Oh, okay. I didn't know that.

0:30:46 Matt: Turns out, and unless we're looking at some kind of children of man situation within the next few weeks, we're going to be having babies continue to be born. So, but I would just read very quickly before we move on. This court has no hesitation determining this situation warrants emergency injunctive relief and class certification. The respondent's proposed course of action would reverse a nationally known and recognized government policy in place for a century and affect thousands of families. Injunctive relief here would only maintain the status quo during the litigation and at most delay the policy's implementation. He finds that the denial of birthright citizenship can have immediate and irreversible effects and that it has to apply nationwide. So there we go. And that was what I thought was going to happen as of the time the decision came down, but I can understand why people were so upset and why there's all this speculation about how we're gonna be facing this permanent dual state where, to use this expression a different way, I guess, where you're gonna have babies born to different circumstances, and we're going to be totally unclear on, you know, once you cross the state border, are you going to become a citizen automatically? Obviously, we can't let that stand. So that's why in the end, I think this is going to work out one way or another, that we're gonna have to keep the status quo, because this class makes too much sense.

0:31:16 Thomas: Yeah. Doy. Yeah. So for this one case, I'm trying to figure out where the optimism, what the outer limits of this optimism is. It's that the birthright citizenship thing should be fine.

0:31:52 Matt: In the end. That's what I believe.

0:31:58 Thomas: Okay, but what about this entire framework going forward that seems incredibly dumb? Are there going to be times where it doesn't create a class?

0:32:07 Matt: Yes. Yeah.

0:32:07 Thomas: And are there going be times when the Supreme Court is just like, no, no class, you know? We decide.

0:32:12 Matt: And they have made it within the last 15, 20 years or so. They've made class actions much more difficult. And that is part of the conversation to have. I've been focusing on birthright citizenship, because that's what what the case is about. But as we talked about at the time, this finding, this holding that universal injunctions essentially can only exist if they provide complete relief, and that just means, I guess, whatever you want it to mean, that is very bad.

0:32:21 Thomas: Complete relief.

0:32:32 Matt: And I'm not going to say it's anything else. It's potentially very bad for all kinds of justice and for getting results in the face of terrible executive orders and terrible federal policies. Overall, I do think this is a very, very bad day, this decision. But I'm specifically hopeful about birthright citizenship being upheld in the end, as I always have been.

0:32:48 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. Well, I just want to make sure, because I don't know about everybody else, but as a listener to Opening Arguments, I wasn't really worried about the birthright citizenship thing much. And I think there has been, I don' t think this is you, but I think that there has I've been some lawyer brains talking about how like, oh, look, there was a problem with the injunctions, you know, and there was that was bad. Yeah, OK. But that only was a problema once Trump was in office, you Know, and so it's about this is an outrageous decision in that way. I mean, even if there were some way to curb those national, you know, universal injunptions in a way that made sense again, it's about the fact that this only became a problem once Trump was back in office. That's the only time it mattered. It's just naked partisanship. It's not even close. So I guess what I'm wondering then is, yeah, what are we worried about going forward with this? Can we just get classes certified or is that going to be too tricky? You know, are they going to?

0:33:33 Matt: It is going to be hard.

0:33:38 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Great.

0:33:40 Matt: It This absolutely complicates things. It also invites way more shadow docket litigation. It's just going to happen. Yeah.

0:33:44 Thomas: Awesome. Well, Steve Vladek will be able to write many sequels to the shadow docket. I don't know how important this is, but I did not understand that complete relief thing at all. Because it sounds like you're saying the problem with these injunctions in how they work and how they actually provide relief for people is that they don't provide complete relief. And so a thing that does less would provide complete belief. But a thing That Does More would not do that. Am I, what is, well, am I just misunderstanding it? Like, is that what she's saying?

0:34:08 Matt: That does seem kind of Alice in Wonderland when you put it that way. You're understanding it as a person, but I'm trying to explain it as a lawyer, unfortunately. The Judiciary Act of 1789 includes that language about complete relief. Let me just find that. I just had the excerpt here.

0:34:24 Thomas: Don't have the Judiciary Act of 1979 memorized.

0:34:26 Matt: Do not have it memorized. I have to pull it up.

0:34:29 Thomas: Are you even a lawyer?

0:34:31 Matt: Suits and equity shall not be sustained in either of the courts of the United States in any case where plain, adequate, and complete remedy may may be had at law. So this is a little tricky, but basically the idea is that you can't extend equitable relief if you could get legal relief incomplete and in full.

0:34:46 Thomas: Okay. So it's saying, I see. So it isn't. It is the opposite of what I said, where it's like, because you can get complete relief by, hey, we're going to just stop this gun being taken away from Steve over there. And they're saying, yeah, that's fine because Steve was the one who sued, you know? And so, yeah. Well, that'S complete.

0:35:06 Thomas: Can't take his gun away. Next in line.

0:35:09 Matt: And or maybe Tennessee, if Steve lives in Tennessee, maybe we get this, maybe, although if Alito has his way, maybe not, but you know, complete relief is just a square to the four corners of what they want.

0:35:11 Thomas: Yep. Yep. Or something. I see. Not going any further than necessary in their minds.

0:35:22 Matt: Right. Because why would you want to protect the babies in all those other states? Who cares?

0:35:25 Thomas: And I almost could see an argument for that in a way. But again, this is why I don't think being technical is the problem per se, because I could get, I'll get, you want to get technical?

0:35:34 Matt: Sure.

0:35:35 Thomas: ACB, I will get technical with this. This is my first time looking at this, but I think I would pretty easily just say, well, it's not complete relief. I think you've mentioned this because the whole problem is anybody. It's not very complete. The whole problem was babies. It wasn't like any of the babies were suing. Were they there? Were they in court? Were they on suits?

0:35:51 Matt: Right, right.

0:35:51 Thomas: Was it a boss baby situation where a boss Baby was in there? So I would almost agree that, yeah, no, it is complete relief and you still need that. And I could agree that maybe if there's some other hypothetical where an injunction is more than complete relief, like it's going over and above. Okay, maybe I could see that, but it doesn't seem like this.

0:36:09 Matt: No. And Sotomayor points out that for difficult. The only way they can have complete relief if they're going to do things like trying to figure out how to spend their federal funding, like who's a citizen and who's not, they have to figure all that out, right?

0:36:20 Thomas: So stupid. All right, cool.

0:36:20 Matt: It's such a mess that a complete relief has to be national. Yep. It's the only way it is. Well, more fun citizenship questions to come.

0:36:26 Thomas: Yeah, let's talk about my favorite mayor. Not yet. My favorite mayor candidate who has won a primary, I guess. Okay, I gotta keep remembering. Yeah, can they denaturalize my favorite politician currently? Currently.

0:36:37 Matt: Yeah. Well. So I wanted to address this because, you know, this is another one where I think we should be careful about uncritically repeating things that Trump administration promises they can do, right. Or uncritical repeating things to go into or, or mischaracterizing, for example, this memo that that came out on June 11th from the Department of Justice. Now, I am concerned about this memo.

0:36:54 Matt: Again, whenever I say these things, it doesn't mean I'm not worried. It doesn't mean I don't think there's real problems. But I also know the law, and I know what they're saying in the actual memo. So just to use Mamdani as sort of the center of this discussion, because he's easy to understand, he was born in Uganda, and he's lived in New York City since he was seven, and He naturalized at the age of 27 in 2018. So he's a very typical kind of immigrant story of someone who came with his family at a young age, and then naturalized later in life. I meet lots of people like that. And you might remember that for a while, he did have a career as a rapper. I couldn't find the actual song that's in question here.

0:37:22 Thomas: Oh yeah I've heard it played on something.

0:37:25 Matt: Ridiculously enough, the way this all came up is Andy Ogles, the Tennessee representative, has called for denaturalization because of some rap lyrics. We've got a rap on trial crossover episode here. What he said was, free the Holy Land Five, my guys. That was what he said. That's the concern.

0:37:39 Thomas: Okay, free the Holy Land Five, my guys.

0:37:41 Matt: The Holy Land Foundation is a pretty significant prosecution where FBI investigated for 15 years a charity that allegedly was funneling money to Hamas. I don't know enough about the case to know know how legit any of this is but let's just even assuming they're rap lyrics right I mean we're talking about you want to take somebody's citizenship away for eight words in a rap song that's what he's saying

0:37:57 Thomas: Oh that oh oh okay is that the justification they're using? I mean they have so much to choose from. I thought they were just saying he's a socialist and we get to kick socialists out of the country or something. That was another thing I heard. Oh okay wow that's

0:38:13 Matt: It's no he actually wrote a letter to pam bondy where he said that those rap lyrics were enough publicly it's so stupid publicly praising the foundation's convicted leadership as quote -unquote my guys raises serious concerns yeah oh and this part too from ogles I got to read this. While I understand that some may raise First Amendment concerns about taking legal action based on expressive legal action, you're talking about denaturalizing somebody, stripping them of citizenship based on words that they said. That is really bad. I just want to make sure everyone understands that. But he sent this letter to Pam Bondi. It's obviously very performative, but it did raise these questions and it got people talking. And of course, Trump's comment on this was as stupid and insane as usual. He said, because he doesn't understand what's going on anymore at all. A lot of people are saying he's here illegally. He's said, of Mr.

0:38:19 Thomas: Stupid okay yeah imagine

0:38:56 Matt: Mamdani, we're going to look at everything. Right. Okay. Nobody said that, but thanks. Thanks for your contribution. Nancy Mace put up a poll on X to see if he should be denaturalized and deported. And it was a squeaker. It was 47 .6 no to 47 .1 yes, with a 5 % not sure. I don't know why that's a public opinion matter, but right.

0:39:13 Thomas: Voting not sure in that poll what are you even

0:39:19 Matt: Right, right.

0:39:20 Thomas: Doing there not sure I'm still waiting to hear you know arguments on the merits of either side but gonna click through to see what the results are here yeah

0:39:27 Matt: 5%. Yeah. So what would it actually take to denaturalize somebody? Because I'm getting, and this is personal for me too, because we're getting so many calls and concerns from people who are naturalized and are worried about this. And again, I want to be clear when I'm talking about this stuff, I'm not trying to pat you on the head and say, there, there. Don't worry about it. It's fine. There are real reasons under this memo to be concerned, but not for almost everybody. And your chances of being hit by lightning are still much, much greater than any of this ever applying to you as a naturalized citizen. The denaturalization memo, and let me just read from it very quickly here. The civil division shall prioritize and maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings. Now, they tried to do this in the first term as well. There was a lot of headlines, a lot to splash about it. They reviewed 700 ,000 naturalization cases, and they referred 168 of them to court. So just in terms of your ratio there, that's a pretty low ratio. I couldn't find numbers on how many of those ended up being denatualized, but they list out all the possible ways you can be denatralized. And I want to emphasize this. At this point, because of a Supreme Court precedent called Ephraim from 1967, the Supreme Court specifically found that You can't just take somebody's citizenship away because of any kind of political opinion or speech. And they said this in very, very strict language. The undeniable purpose of the 14th Amendment would be frustrated by holding the government can rob a citizen of its citizenship without his consent by simply proceeding to act under an implied general power to regulate foreign affairs or some other power. Though the framers of the amendment were not particularly concerned with the problem of expatriation, it seems undenial from the language they used that they wanted to put citizenship beyond the power of any governmental unit to destroy. It's just fancy language from Justice Black in a Supreme Court decision. I'm aware of that. So I'm going to tell you what the law actually is. But I want to be very clear up front that this is something, denaturalization is an extremely high bar and it has to go in front of a federal judge. That's the thing that people really need to understand. There's a lot of stuff that ICE can just do on its own. We've been talking about administrative warrants, notices to appear in immigration court, these fines that we'll talk about at some point that are ridiculous that they're levying, the stuff they can just unilaterally do to people. You have to get a federal judge and a federal prosecutor, by the way, has to put this in front of a federal judge. And it's a very high standard of proof. Now, these are civil proceedings. But after that case I just read you from AFRO -M, they can only proceed if they can prove that you misrepresented something in your application for citizenship, something material. And there's recent Supreme Court precedent on the fact that it has to be actually material to your citizenship. It can't just be lying about anything. So I'll give you an example of the first person that the Trump administration has denaturalized. And this is the kind of thing when you hear it, you think, think, okay, well, that makes sense. One of the questions on the citizenship application is, have you ever committed, assisted in committing, or attempted to commit a crime or offense for which you were not arrested? This is one of my favorite questions in all of immigration law, because obviously the answer is yes, we've all committed crimes for which we've not been arrested. That's just part of living in America. It's living anywhere, really. You've probably committed five federal crimes today. But this is a catch -all question. It is designed to get people, right, so that if they can come back and prove, and actually prove, not just like allege, but if if they can charge you with an actual crime that you had committed before you naturalized. In this case, it was child pornography.

0:42:29 Thomas: Wait.

0:42:29 Matt: One of the worst things you can do, child sex abuse.

0:42:30 Thomas: In what case?

0:42:31 Matt: So this is the first person they've denaturalized. So I'm giving you an example of the kind of thing that is routinely denaturalized. Now, again, there have only been several hundred denaturalization cases in our lifetimes. It's so rare. It'S so hard to get through. And the majority of the big ones, because there were about 22 ,000 from 1906 to 1967. I was looking at the Cold War. Or unfortunately, there was quite a lot of them. That was before the law changed, when it was much easier to do. But one of the best uses of denaturalization law was to go after Nazis, because there were a lot people who lied about having been Nazis, concentration camp guards, SS officers, who made it in and became citizens. If you lie about that, that's an immediate denatualization. That's exactly the kind of thing it's supposed to exist for.

0:43:09 Thomas: Wasn't there the questions that are still like left over from that? Like are you Hitler himself? Oh, I was a Nazi in 43.

0:43:12 Matt: Yes. Yep. Were you a Nazi between 1933 and 1942? Yeah. That's still on there. They still Right, exactly.

0:43:21 Thomas: Gosh, I just barely squeaked through. Thank God. How many 9 -11s did you commit? Like there's like a bunch of those. But it might understand you correctly That whoever this child porn person was that you're talking about, essentially we're like, look, child porn isn't the problem. It's that you lied to us about it. That's the grounds for which we can get rid of people's citizenship and

0:43:42 Matt: That's the loophole. That was the technicality.

0:43:42 Thomas: We can just denaturalize them. Look, I wouldn't even be mad about the child porn. It's you were truthful with me, you know? Okay.

0:43:47 Matt: Right? So disappointed. Yeah. Yeah, no, it turned out that, you know, at the time he was applying for citizenship, he was engaged in this horrible activity. So he was charged with it later, but because he lied about having been doing it at the the time. Now, you can see the problem here, obviously.

0:44:06 Thomas: There's a lot of them.

0:44:07 Matt: Yeah, a lot of problems. Now this is just one example that they can also do this if you lie about gang affiliation, terrorist affiliations. And we've seen in the last few months the way that they throw around gang and terrorist affiliations, right? So this kind of thing we can expect to be used against people that allegedly support Hamas and their rap lyrics or whatever. And the problem with civil denaturalization proceedings, which is what they're talking about using and what Ogles was calling for in this, civil denaturalization under 8 U .S .C. 1425 does not have a statute of limitations, patience, unlike criminal denaturalization. So they could come by after any time. So I'm not trying to make light of this because I do expect they are going to try to find ways to harass people. That's what a lot of this is going to be. I'm nicht making light of it at all. And I do think it's important. But the chances of Sauron Mondami actually getting in front of a federal judge at all, let alone that actually working, are absolutely zero. Like, I just don't see that happening. If there were some kind of process that allowed them, as they used to be able to do, the thing that was struck down in Ephraim, if there was some kindof process that led the government to do it without a judge involved, I'd be much more concerned.

0:44:29 Thomas: Oh, interesting. Yeah.

0:45:00 Matt: But, you know, as it is, the reason I wanted to respond to this is because the headlines kind of made it sound like they can just bring denaturalization cases against anybody for any reason.

0:45:08 Thomas: So this is not the thing where Marco Rubio just has to scrawl his stupid signature.

0:45:13 Matt: No, fortunately. Yeah. It's a lot harder than that.

0:45:13 Thomas: OK, that's right. That's a different thing. I know that's obvious to you, but to to us, it's kind of like vaguely. Wait a minute. I thought he could just sign a paper. But that's that's different. OK.

0:45:22 Matt: That's an important comparison. Yeah, yeah. Now that's for residents. And even as a permanent resident, you have many fewer rights. But again, I'm not being an institutionalist here. I promise I'm just promising the law is going to work. I'm just saying.

0:45:31 Thomas: No, no. Yeah, well, here's what I got. Here's the rant I need to do, man. And I don't know if I don' think I'm trying to apply this to you. But what we need is way more outrage about the very idea of someone even bringing this up. That's what we need. I don't give a shit about the technicality of whether or not they can do it. I mean, I do. But right the minute you say, let's get rid of someone's citizenship, let''s get they're not an American anymore because they might have said some rap lyrics I disagree with. And once you know it, it's actually because of the color of their skin. And it's actually like, that's what as a society, forget lawyers for a moment. I don't watch cable news, but I don't get the sense that people really keep up with how outraged they should. This should be immediately the end of your credibility. That's where the media has failed us. It doesn't do that. The media just keeps moving with, oh, the goalposts are over there. Okay. Well, we'll go slight. Oh, they're over there? Okay. The goalposts are over forever. And there needed to be a time when they said, wait a minute, I'm sorry. You're saying that we should kick someone out. We should get rid of their citizenship and kick them out because they're a Muslim. And because they said these things. Like that's, how dare you? Like you shouldn't be allowed in polite company anymore. Like you're not, you shouldn'T be here. Like you should be out. Like, that's what we need.

0:46:43 Thomas: It doesn't matter if someone's like, hey, I am going to, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to generate a bolt of lightning with my mind and I'm gonna murder that baby. You don't be like, well, it's fine. He can't do that. You know, it doesn't really matter. It's like what are you talking about? Why are you doing that? Why would you even say that?

0:46:59 Matt: You know, I got to say, you really have been getting the format here, Thomas. We really do need non -lawyers to just step back and be like, Matt, I don't care that it can't happen. Right.

0:47:10 Thomas: No, I care about both. Both things are important, you know, because we, I do, I am worried about this and I do want to know, and this is what the show does a great job of. I want to know which things are the Marco Rubio can scrawl a stupid letters on it and it's done and which things aren't. That's very important.

0:47:12 Matt: I'm with you. I'm worth it. No, no. Sure. It's

0:47:24 Thomas: But yeah, like this is something our media environment and society should be. This is unacceptable. You bring this up at every interview. I know there's a million things like that with Trump, but they didn't do that. And that's what they needed to do. Every single interview. If you kept in, if there was a guy who just just killed a puppy on camera, but then he's like, also runs for office later. You should every single interview. Hey, why did you kill a puppy? On camera? Like, I don't care that he won an election somewhere. Every single interview should start with that. And it needed to be that for like 400 ,000 things that Trump has done, but that's not how they operate. That's not how they do it. They just, just move on. Just move on to the next disqualifying thing that we're going to forget about the next day.

0:48:01 Matt: So important. And, and Andy Ogles should, this should haunt him forever that he tried to call the denaturalization of somebody just because he didn't like him because of something he said once That is such a good point. And I wanted to conclude with something like that, but you've just said it beautifully. So I think we can leave it there.

0:48:16 Thomas: Assholes. Sorry. It's so frustrating.

0:48:17 Matt: That too. Yeah.

0:48:17 Thomas: They're not American. It's so un -American. All right. Well, let's take a break while I cool down for a moment and then we'll get to something more fun.

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0:50:11 Thomas: All right. What's going on? What's this footnote, Matt? What do you got? What do we got for us?

0:50:16 Matt: Well, we've got a follow up from some fun we had a few weeks ago with one Michael Lindell, favorite of the program.

0:50:21 Thomas: Mike Lindell. Oh, great. Okay. I shouldn't have calmed down. Hold on. I got to use you talk. I'm going to get my heart rate going again so I can try to pretend to be that guy for five minutes.

0:50:28 Matt: I mean, we could make this easier and probably just get him on the line. I don't know. We could probably talk to him. He's not that hard to talk.

0:50:33 Thomas: I'm sorry I can't push the buttons. My fingers are too big. I would try to call but I hit like four buttons at once

0:50:37 Matt: There he is. Guys, I

0:50:41 Thomas: Every time I try to do one. I had a rotary phone is what I grew up with. I don't know how you do these ones.

0:50:46 Matt: Literally chose this story because I wanted to hear more of Mike Lindell and you're delivering. This is what the people wanted.

0:50:49 Thomas: Well, hi, I'm here, Matt. What do you need from me?

0:50:54 Matt: Well, I got some bad news on top of the millions of dollars of legal fees you got to pay.

0:51:00 Thomas: Oh boy. I don' know how much more bad news I can take. It's been a lot lately.

0:51:05 Matt: Yeah, well, you might remember your attorney, Christopher Kosheroff of McSweeney, Sinclair and Kosheroff PLLC. Don't know how much you know about Mr. Kosherov. But do you remember the Black Voices for Trump debacle?

0:51:18 Thomas: Now are you asking me or are you asking thomas oh uh black voice you're gonna refresh me

0:51:21 Matt: I assume you remember that, Mr. Lundell?

0:51:27 Thomas: What was that again I remember it but I can't I can'T quite how does that have to do with him or is it their lawyers no it's okay we can step out of the scene tell me to fill me in fill me a director pull me aside be like hey thomas hold on I don't remember could you tell me whatever that point was you

0:51:27 Matt: Oh, it's okay. Yeah, yeah, okay. As you know, Mr Kosharoff's been representing you for some time, and he successfully managed to allow a $2 .5 million judgment to enter against you from Dominion Voting Systems. I'm sure you're getting on that. Some pillows to sell.

0:51:56 Thomas: Said that like it was a good thing but I I think that was bad so I'm just trying to make sure I'm following you said he was successful but I have to pay 2 .5 million dollars doesn't sound that doesn't sound good

0:52:03 Matt: Well, some of us think it was great. But we got some headlines this week from Mr. Kasharoff because a filing actually dropped well after. So the verdict was June 24th, and we got this order on July 7th. And the lawyers have been sanctioned now $6 ,000, which isn't that much money, but this... That's right. Yeah. Are you familiar with Rule 11?

0:52:23 Thomas: That's like three pillows I

0:52:33 Matt: Well this is the deep state conspiracy which requires

0:52:34 Thomas: Don't I'm not familiar with a whole lot of rules to be honest with you I tend to just do whatever and then someone tells me if it was against the rules and usually I just disagree okay

0:52:46 Matt: All lawyers to sign off in their pleadings to say that the claims defenses and legal contentions are warranted by the law and you're making non -frivolous arguments we have an order to show cause at issue in this case because it turns out that mr kasheroff had repeatedly engaged in using ai sites in his briefs and I'm just going to go ahead and read you this is from Judge Nina Wang talking about the errors in this cause errors included but we're not limited to misquotes of cited cases misrepresentations of principles of law

0:53:07 Thomas: Okay but did they get like the gist of it though like if they were close enough then I think that's fine I was told that the AI would be able to do this

0:53:10 Matt: Associated with cited cases, including discussions of legal principles that simply do not appear within such decisions.

0:53:28 Thomas: Maybe they should have though

0:53:30 Matt: Well, right. In very much the same way that we all know that the election was rigged. And no question about that.

0:53:35 Thomas: Well we agree I'm so glad sounds like we can cut this segment short then.

0:53:39 Matt: It's almost exactly in the same same way that the election was rigged. Misstatements, misstatements regarding whether case law originated from a binding authority, such as the United States Court of Appeals for 10th Circuit, misattribution of case law to this district, and most egregiously, citation of cases that do not exist. So there is just a litany. This is a bad loss. This came out pretty badly. How do you feel about artificial intelligence generating cases to stick into briefs?

0:53:42 Thomas: Okay, but did we win though? Oh, I don't really care as long as they're for me and I win.

0:54:08 Matt: I think that's how Mr. Kasharov felt too, but the court did not. I will also point out that But the caption at the top of the case read, The United States District Court for the District of Sight District.

0:54:20 Thomas: Well, is that one of them? I don't know.

0:54:21 Matt: The District of Site District, yes, that is a well -known.

0:54:23 Thomas: Look, I d' n't know if that's one. I pay lawyers to do this. I p ay lawyers to pay A1 to do this.

0:54:28 Matt: And now the lawyers are paying to do this. They get to pay $6 ,000 for the privilege of what they've done.

0:54:32 Thomas: Now, do they accept pillows? Like if I just bring the pillows straight there, will they cash me out?

0:54:39 Matt: I mean, it's $2 .5 billion worth of pillows plus now $6 .000 worth of pillars. Like you said, that's a few pillows at least. I will say that your lawyer did defend himself by saying that his work has been mostly fine.

0:54:49 Thomas: Well, there you go.

0:54:50 Matt: There you go. What's the problem?

0:54:51 Thomas: It's mostly fine. What are we supposed to be, perfect? Have a little sympathy here.

0:54:53 Matt: The deep state goes deep is what I'm learning here because this judge is fully in for dominion voting systems at one point she actually subpoenaed uh she had an order to have council turn over all of their emails talking about the briefs and of course she caught them saying that they hadn't properly reviewed them it's bad the whole thing's bad just another use of artificial intelligence in

0:55:15 Thomas: Well, I don't have any normal intelligence, So I gotta figure out any way I can get

0:55:17 Matt: Courts to find some and I will say usa is number one at putting fake sites into to briefs. Of the 206 known instances worldwide, we have 124 of them.

0:55:29 Thomas: USA USA.

0:55:29 Matt: So doing pretty well. Yeah, we get most incarcerated, nice military spending, and the most AI -fic briefs, that's right.

0:55:35 Thomas: I like you, sir Now you're speaking my language. Can you do my case Wow?

0:55:40 Matt: Yeah, I'm not taking this appeal. I would crawl into a hole and die if I received this order, I have to say. So a very good coda to a very Good Case of just, on top of everything else, these are the kinds of lawyers that you find to represent somebody in this case against a Dominion voting systems. And remember, in their actual arguments, the lawyers were going deep on the Dominion Voting Systems, part of the deep state voting election conspiracy, the whole thing. So this is what you expect, I guess.

0:56:04 Thomas: Look I couldn't get any other lawyers every single one I called it's like it doesn't work. I don't know if their phones are broken.

0:56:11 Matt: Well, things are going to happen when you just say that people are on an Antifa conference call. There are consequences to that, it turns out. These are the dangers of AI. These are dangers of trying to represent Mike Lindell on a shoestring budget, I suppose.

0:56:18 Thomas: Well, they were well to be fair He didn't do any worse than my other lawyers. I mean, it's pretty much par for the course I lose and then I gotta find a way to pay a bunch of money So pretty much do that's what lawyers tend to do in my experience experience.

0:56:37 Matt: I don't think you could find a lawyer who could have won either of these cases this was

0:56:42 Thomas: That's what they keep telling me every time I go in the office. Well, that put me in a better mood, Matt. Good times. Love that guy. Thanks so much, Matt, thanks so much listeners, and most of all, thanks to our patrons, patreon .com slash love. They're the best. They'RE the reason the show happens, and we'll see you on Monday or Tuesday. I can't remember. Never remember.

0:56:42 Matt: Plain defamation for

0:57:01 Thomas: Have a good weekend.

0:56:56 Matt: Sure all right one of those next week okay

0:57:22 Thomas: No, keep going. I was going to probably say what you're going to say, but worse. I'll wait till you say it first. I meant to listen to him again before doing this, and I didn't and I can't remember. I hope I'm doing it as any, I can'T remember. Okay.

0:57:33 Matt: That sounds just fine to me maybe I observed their lawyers yeah

0:57:39 Thomas: I didn'T hear you. I was doing a whole lot of cocaine. No, I probably can'T say that.

0:57:42 Matt: So anyway