Advisory Opinions - Here We Go Again

Episode Date: August 13, 2020

In 2017, an anonymous individual named “Q” began posting on a public messaging board called 4chan about “Pizzagate,” a conspiracy theory alleging that a restaurant called Comet Ping Pong was really an underground child sex trafficking ring run by deep state political elites. Q quickly gained acclaim online after he continued posting unsubstantiated clues—what QAnon followers call “bread crumbs”—about a prophetic “Great Awakening” that is in store, when deep state Democrats will supposedly be held accountable for their “crimes.” On Tuesday, avowed QAnon sympathizer Marjorie Taylor Greene won a Republican congressional primary in Georgia. Beyond her avowal of QAnon, she is a 9/11 truther, has called black people “slaves” to the Democratic Party, and has characterized the 2018 House midterms “an Islamic invasion of our government.” What’s worse, the president congratulated her win on Twitter after her victory. Given Georgia’s 14th District is a reliably red district, she’s almost certainly headed toward Congress. What does this mean for the future of the GOP? David and Sarah have some thoughts. Be sure to listen to today’s episode to hear our podcast hosts discuss the new police officer body camera footage leading up to George Floyd’s killing, as well as the constitutional underpinnings of John Eastman’s Newsweek piece questioning Kamala Harris’ eligibility for office on birtherist grounds. Show Notes: -John Eastman’s Newsweek piece on Kamala Harris, U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, Thomas v. Lynch 5th circuit case, D.C. circuit case, statutory citizenship rights explainer. -Police officer body camera footage leading up to George Floyd’s murder. -Professor Ted Sampsell-Jones on the charges in the George Floyd case. -Pew Research Center polling on QAnon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This ad was expressly recorded to create a sense of simplicity. Just a few simple sounds. No complexity. Like Neutral. Made with just vodka, soda and natural flavour. Neutral. Refreshingly simple. Welcome to BMO ETFs. Where do you get your insights? Volatility has continued to be a hot topic.

I think the Fed does have other cards to play. Are these mega cap tech companies here to stay? Never before has there been a better time to be an ETF investor. BMO ETFs presents Views from the Desk, a show all about markets and investing with ETFs. New episodes every Thursday morning. You ready? I was born ready. Welcome to the Advisory Opinions Podcast. This is David French with Sarah Isker. And sorry to say, Sarah, we don't have any space talk today. We don't have any dinosaur talk today.

We've just got... Oh, but we've got law talk. Oh, we have law talk. We have the latest... Well, can we really call it a birther controversy? Really? Okay, we have law talk. We have the latest. Well, can we really call it a birther controversy? Really? Okay, we'll call it. We've got the latest birther controversy.

We're going to talk about QAnon. And now that it looks like there's going to be a follower of the Q conspiracy theory coming into Congress, much to the delight of the President of the United States. coming into Congress, much to the delight of the President of the United States. And we're also going to talk about the fully, the Minnesota has, the Minneapolis police have now released the entire body camera footage of the George Floyd killing. And it has caused some people to question the narrative, so to speak. And so we're going to talk about that and why the video, I think, reaffirms what we already knew. But we're going to talk about that in some detail. And then we're going to end with a culture question that Sarah has. So we'll just keep

you in suspense about what that is. But first, let's talk a little bit of birtherism. So yesterday, a law professor, I actually know him, a law professor named John Eastman, wrote a piece in Newsweek, newsweek.com. Still a thing. Who knew? It's still there. It's still there. Called Some Questions for Kamala Harris about eligibility. In other words, is she a natural born U.S. citizen? And the argument is that maybe she's not. Why? Because when she was born in the United States, she was born in the United States, her parents apparently were not U.S. citizens at the time that she was born. She's the child of two immigrants, and they may not have been permanent residents of the U.S.

at the time that she was born in the U.S. And so Professor Eastman makes the argument that maybe she's not a citizen and they're a natural born citizen and therefore not eligible to be president. And it was this kind of scholarly argument about what natural born citizen means. But here's the part I really objected to. Well, there's a couple of things I objected to, but here, the last paragraph, I really objected to this. And then Sarah, you can guide us. You can be our guide through the legal aspects of this because you've got some interesting recent experience. But here's the last paragraph.

And before we dive into the law, I want your reaction to this. I have no doubt, says Professor Eastman, that this significant challenge to Harris's constitutional eligibility to the second office in the land will be dismissed out of hand as so much antiquated constitutional tripe. Now, I'm going to object to calling this a significant challenge, but we'll keep going. But the concerns about divided allegiance that led our nation's founders to include the natural-born citizen requirement for the office of the president and commander-in-chief remain important. Indeed, with persistent threats from Russia, China, and others to our sovereignty and electoral process, those concerns are perhaps even more important today. It would be an inauspicious

start for any campaign for the highest offices in the land to ignore the constitution's eligibility requirements. How else could we possibly expect the candidates, if elected, to honor their oaths to, quote, faithfully execute the office of the president of the United States and to the best of their ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States? Am I overreacting, Sarah, in believing that that paragraph was casting doubt on Kamala Harris's ability to uphold her oath of office because her parents were not citizens when she was born in the US?

Sigh. Long sigh. So look, if this were a real interesting constitutional argument, I'd be here for it. I really would be, but there's actually quite a bit of law on this, including recent law. And, uh, and I just like, I don't understand why we're having this conversation, but I find it really interesting. It's very nerdy. And so I wanted to do a little mini, you know, 2L, 3L seminar with you, David, on U.S. citizenship.

So there's two types of citizenship. Statutory, which is granted by Congress, and constitutional citizenship. Now, Congress can, by statute, grant birthright or naturalized citizenship. So you can be a natural-born citizenship through either category, but they're different. So let's do statutory birthright citizenship first. So this is, you know, what Congress has said. If you are, for instance, born abroad to a U.S. citizen gestational mother who is not also the genetic mother, they have a thing for that. The person's gestational mother is recognized by the relevant jurisdiction as the child's legal parent at the time of birth and the person meets all the other requirements. So that's kind of fun.

Okay, two U.S. citizen parents who are married. These are all now going to be born in wedlock children. U.S. citizen parents, and you're born outside the United States. Both parents are U.S. citizens, and one parent has resided in the United States. You're a citizen. One U.S. parent, one U.S. national, born in the United States. You're a citizen. One U.S. parent, one U.S. national

born outside the United States. You, the child, are born outside the United States. So the parent has to be a U.S. citizen. The other parent has to be a U.S. national. And the U.S. citizen parent was physically present in the United States for a continuous period of at least one year. Cool, cool. All right, Sam, you're born outside the United States to one U.S. citizen parent and one alien parent. The U.S. citizen parent had to be physically present in the United States for at least five years, including two years after the age of 14. And by the way, that physical presence could include a member of the armed forces who was serving abroad, for instance.

include a member of the armed forces who was serving abroad, for instance. And then you get some, you know, U.S. citizen mother, alien father, children born out of wedlock to a U.S. citizen father, which obviously happens from time to time. On occasion. On occasion. So that's all to say these are all the statutory ones. OK, let's leave those aside for a second. Because none of them apply. It's common. Harris was born in the United States, right? Correct. So you're born in the United States. Let's look at the constitutional

stuff. So this is all based on the common law tradition of just solely or the right of the soil. And there's been some cases on this. There was a case called Won Kim Ark at the turn of the century. The Chinese Exclusion Act had denied citizenship to Chinese immigrants and no Chinese citizen in the United States could become a naturalized citizen. So Won Kim Ark was born in San Francisco. California was already a state by this point. Born in San Francisco to parents who were both Chinese citizens who resided in the United States. He then left for a second. He tried to come back and he was denied entry. The Supreme Court held that, in fact, the guarantee of birth

right citizenship applies to children of foreigners present on American soil, even if their parents are not American citizens and indeed are not eligible to become US citizens. As a practical matter, this means that American born children receive recognition of their citizenship, regardless of the immigration status of their parents. There are some exceptions to that, but they're small. For instance, diplomats. We'll get to that in a second. Because you're born in the United States

and you have birthright citizenship, right? But what does in the United States mean, David? And this is where my nerd heart just flutters. This gets fun. So the 14th Amendment, based on that case, David, and this is where my nerd heart just flutters. This gets fun. So the 14th Amendment, based on that case, grants birthright citizenship to, quoting the 14th Amendment here,

all persons born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof. This is important because the 13th Amendment, which is about slavery, but still, says prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude, because the 13th Amendment, which is about slavery, but still, says, prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude, quote, within the United States

or any place subject to its jurisdiction. This is the disjunctive or, meaning that there may be places that are within the jurisdiction of the United States, but that are not part

of the Union, to which the are not part of the union to which the 13th Amendment would apply. So this becomes really relevant for the 14th Amendment. Okay. We then have the insular cases. Are you familiar with the insular cases, David? I am. I must, I regret to say that I'm not familiar with the insular cases. I am, I must, I regret to say that I'm not familiar with the insular cases. The insular cases have become quite insular themselves because they're pretty side-eyed upon these days. But in the insular cases, the Supreme Court distinguished between incorporated territories and unincorporated territories. unincorporated territories. So this gets pretty funky. So let me go through some cases that are from the last five years. So is a military base in the United States? The Fifth Circuit? No.

It is subject to jurisdiction of the United States. So it meets one half the 14th amendment, but it is not the sovereign territory belonging to the United States. So it doesn't meet the other half of the 14th amendment. You are not born on U S soil. So unless you meet the statutory requirement for birthright citizenship, you do not meet the constitutional requirement for birthright citizenship. In this case, a father was serving overseas with the military. He had become a citizen, but did not meet the residency requirement in the United States to have continued presence in the United States since becoming a citizen. Joins up with the military shortly after getting his citizenship, goes abroad, has a baby with a German woman. I think she was German, but whatever. The baby's born in Germany on a US military base in a US

military hospital. They all come back to the United States. That baby boy grows up to be a man. He commits, I think, a drug possession crime and is then deported. And so the argument was, can he be deported? He was born in the United States. He has no other, you know, statehood. So what are you going to do with him? And the Fifth Circuit said, you know, he didn't meet the statutory requirements

because his dad didn't have the presence box checked. And he didn't meet the constitutional requirements. So he got deported. That case went up with a cert petition to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court did not take cert for what it's worth. Okay. So what about American Samoa? Unlike other territorial possessions who are statutorily deemed American citizens at birth, section 308.1 of the Immigration Nationality Act of 1952 designates persons born in American Samoa as non-citizens. So same thing, DC circuit 2015. No, if you do not meet the statutory requirement, which this person did not American Samoa doesn't want to be part of the United States. So we're not going to forcibly make them citizens. Basically a quote at base appellants asked that we forcibly impose a compact of citizenship with its concomitant rights, obligations, and implications for cultural identity on a distinct and unincorporated territory of people

in the absence of evidence that a majority of the territory's inhabitants endorse such a tie and where the territory's democratically elected representatives actively oppose such a compact. Also went up on cert, also denied. Okay, but David, are you thinking what I'm thinking?

That none of these things apply to Kamala Harris at all? But what about John McCain? Yes. Born in the Panama Canal zone. That's right. This would seem to fly in the face. Both of these cases would fly in the face of John McCain being eligible to become president. And indeed, they kind of would. So Larry Tribe and Ted Olson wrote this about the John McCain situation. He was born in a United States Naval Hospital, as you said, on Coco Solo Naval Air Station in the Panama Canal Zone. They wrote, historical practice confirms that birth on soil that is under the sovereignty of the United States, but not within

a state, satisfies the Natural Born Citizen Clause. Therefore, based on the original meaning of the Constitution, yada yada, Senator McCain's birth to parents who were U.S. citizens, serving on a U.S. military base in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936, makes him a natural born citizen

within the definition. So here's what's interesting. He's maybe not a constitutional natural-born citizen. Because then we have to get into whether the Panama Canal zone is similar or dissimilar from just a military base. Did we have jurisdiction over it? Yes. Was it a sovereign territory of the United States?

I don't know. Yes. Was it a sovereign territory of the United States? I don't know. But go back to that statutory natural born citizen, birthright citizenship. You're born outside the United States. Both parents are US citizens.

At least one parent has resided in the United States or one of its outer line possessions. No problem. He was a natural born citizen. Plus there's just the hashtag America test. was a natural born citizen. Plus, there's just the hashtag America test. Like, so if you're a grandson of an admiral and a son of an admiral, and you're born in a naval installation

while they're admiring or officering at the time, that's just like, you're just hashtag America right there. Is that, I mean- David, I'm so wounded that you would not apply the strict construction of the 14th Amendment to John McCain. I mean, is there not a hashtag America sort of like part of the 14th Amendment?

Or is that common good constitutionalism that we oppose? That's right. It's in the penumbras and emanations, David. So here's our test. Is Oakland under the jurisdiction of the United States? I believe it is. Do we have sovereignty?

Which is where Kamala Harris was born. That's correct. Do we have sovereignty over Oakland? I believe that we do. Occasionally. So according to Juan Kim Ark in the United States Supreme Court and the Congress,

Kamala Harris very much had birthright citizenship the day she was born. She did not need to be naturalized, was not naturalized, and is incredibly eligible to be President of the United States. So, I think a little additional background to this article is interesting

because part of this is actually rooted in the argument over anchor babies. So there has been, especially in the Trump era, an argument that if two immigrants, and with this particular emphasis on illegal immigrants, although that's not Kamala Harris' parents, but if immigrants have a baby in the U.S., that baby is an American citizen, and then that's what's called an anchor baby. That's sort of like what gives the immigrant the continued purchase on American soil is that they're parenting an American citizen. And a lot of people do not like this concept.

They really do not like it. And so there's been a push either for congressional action on citizenship of children of immigrants. There's been a push for some sort of judicial action. But as of right now, it's kind of a fringy argument. It's an argument around the edges. It has no judicial purchase whatsoever, and it has no legislative purchase whatsoever. And I just sort of took this as kind of an argument. It's like backdooring the anchor baby argument.

Yeah, you know, that would make my mother not a U S citizen, by the way. Uh, both of her parents were not U S citizens. And, um, you know, there's also some pretty nasty stuff around Jews in that argument historically. So I don't really find it interesting or tolerable or whatever else, because look, even if you want to change the law moving forward, okay, we can have that debate. That's what we do in the United States. We debate future policy things. But we certainly are not going back and saying that my mother and Kamala Harris are not US citizens. That's ridiculous. Right. Exactly. Exactly. And then, so not only is it ridiculous, but then this, I'm going to circle back to where we started this conversation. I find that last paragraph that he wrote where he was talking about, you know, where he was talking about loyalty to the United States and its inauspicious start for any campaign to ignore the Constitution's eligibility requirements.

I, what? I mean, remember she was born in Oakland. My mother was born in New York. This is, uh, actually far more tenuous than Ted Cruz,

who was born in Canada, John McCain, who was born in Panama, sort of, um, right. Both of whom we've held were, uh,

not naturalized and therefore natural born citizens. It's actually just really, really easy. Did you have to become naturalized? No. Then you were natural born. The end. Exactly. Exactly.

So it was, you know, I didn't know if it was trolling. I mean, Professor Eastman is not known as a troll, but it certainly lit Twitter on fire. But, you know, there's a bright side, Sarah. Now our listeners know more than they ever would have known. And an obscure Fifth Circuit opinion and D.C. Circuit opinion, which I think were pretty interesting and and ongoing right like someday the supreme court probably will decide what counts whether a military base counts as in the united states and there is arguably some circuit splits on that um so look out for those questions yeah so here's a question for you so you're arrested how severe do you remember how severe the drug drug charge was that that guy was arrested for in the... I think

to be deported, it has to be a felony. To be subject to deportation. Right. So, would you rather serve some time for felony drug possession or be plopped

into a foreign country... That you've never lived in. That you've never lived in that you've never lived in and likely do not speak the language. Not unless we find one that speaks English. Right. And then with no right of entry into the country that you grew up in, would you rather serve the time

or would you rather be plopped in Germany? Or is it either or? Is it both and? Is it serve the time and then find yourself back in Germany? That's really interesting. And by the way, I don't think he got deported to Germany because Germany would then have to accept him. And he's not a German citizen. So you can end up with these situations because like, for instance, let's use Singapore. You can be born in Singapore to people living there and working there and

whatever, and you're not a Singaporean citizen. So you could end up with a situation where you thought you were an American citizen. Turns out you're not based on this. You're born in Singapore, but you're definitely not a Singaporean citizen by their laws. And so there's nowhere to deport you. definitely not a Singaporean citizen by their laws. And so there's nowhere to deport you. And then the United States basically comes up with this list of countries that you have some ties to and go through those countries to ask who wants you. Yeah. It's how you can get stuck in deportation limbo. Hasn't there been a movie about people who... There's been movies and shows about people who've lived in international terminals. You're talking about Terminal with Tom Hanks? Yes, there you go. Yeah, but in that case, I believe his country, there was a coup or something and the country fell.

You can make a much nerdier one about the citizenship problem. I'd like to thank our sponsor, Bills.com. Being in debt sucks. Credit cards, student loans, mortgages, doesn't matter what kind. Being in debt is the worst. I know that. I got out of law school with a lot of debt and it took a long time to pay it off. Well, there is a way to defeat your debt. Thanks to bills.com. If you're losing sleep over maxed out credit cards or stressed out thinking about your mortgage payments or student loans, bills.com can help you take back control of your life. The first step to lowering your monthly payments and becoming debt-free is to get a free debt assessment. It only takes a few minutes and could save you hundreds or even thousands of dollars each month. From debt settlement to

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Bills.com slash opinions bills dot com slash opinions well let's leave um the relatively sane world but by comparison yes the relatively sane world of arguing about whether or not kamala harris is an american citizen which is to be clear not a credible argument that she's not an American citizen, but is the stuff of law reviews compared to QAnon. Let's do it. So for the background here, there is a Republican primary was held on Tuesday and a believer in the QAnon conspiracy theory. Her name is Marjorie Green, Marjorie Taylor Green, her full name.

And she's a believer, or at least expressed interest in the Q conspiracy theory. And shortly after victory, multiple Republicans were saying, no, we disown this person. This is not the kind of person we want in Congress, but she wins anyway. And look, we have had weird, bad people in

Congress. There are weird, bad people in Congress right now, okay, that you can go and, oh gosh, I mean, the neighboring, my neighboring congressional district has a guy named Scott Desjarlais who is a Republican congressman. We don't need to go into his scandals, but look them up, guys. My goodness. So there are scandalous people in Congress.

But not all of them get embraced by the President of the United States. And especially not when they're conspiracy theorists. Although funny enough, Scott Desjarlais was last week. Not all of them get embraced by the president of the United States, and especially not when they're conspiracy theorists. Although funny enough, Scott Desjarlais was last week. Also embraced by the president of the United States. Yes, of course, because this is the timeline we live in.

And here is what President Trump said. Congratulations to future Republican star Marjorie Taylor Greene on a big congressional primary win in Georgia against a very tough and smart opponent. Marjorie is strong on everything and never gives up a real winner. Okay. Now, if you care about the future of the Republican Party, you do not want winners like Marjorie Taylor Greene. And when we say that she is a believer or sympathetic to the QAnon conspiracy theory, this is not reading the tea leaves. This is what Marjorie Greene said in a video from 2017. Q is a patriot. And she said the conspiracy theory of the QAnon conspiracy theory is, quote, something worth listening to and paying attention to. Q, again,

he is someone that very much loves his country and he's on the same page as us and he is very pro-Trump. So, Sarah, do you know what Q is and QAnon is so I think that the best answer that is no have I like googled this and read the Wikipedia entry and tried to learn what it is yes but I consider that to be sort of like a peripheral like like if you're having to look up the Wikipedia page you don't know what it is sort of like a peripheral, like if you're having to look up the Wikipedia page, you don't know what it is, sort of by definition. Right. So let me tell you how I started to try to figure out what QAnon was about.

So it's 2018, early 2018. I gave a speech in a church in Nashville. You remember back in the days when you'd like give speeches in front of live audiences? Seems like it was a, it was an odd dream. I know, a distant past. And so after it's over,

I had the normal, you know, group of people coming up. Some really liked what you say. Some disagree. Lots of polite questions. And then as I'm walking out, this very earnest young guy kind of pulls me aside. And he says,'m walking out, this very earnest young guy kind of pulls me

aside and he says, I really liked what you said. You made a lot of sense, but I'm really confused because a lot of what you're saying contradicts Q. And I had kind of sort of heard what it was just because I try to keep track of extremism. And I was just sort of vaguely what I was like, come again. And he said, you know, Q and Q is it. And he went into a little bit of detail. But here here's sort of the Reader's Digest version. For those who don't know, in October of 2017, a person started posting on 4chan. And Sarah, do you know what 4chan is?

Again, do I? It's like Reddit, but for people who think Reddit's too mainstream? It's a message board, especially then, that had zero standards. In other words, anything you wanted to put on 4chan, you could put on 4chan. And so it became a place where you would see some of the most awful and graphic stuff you could imagine. It became a board where people would engage in the wildest speculations. And somebody posted on 4chan calling themselves Q as a shorthand for their security clearance,

providing quote-unquote crumbs about a coming storm. And essentially, I'm going to just give you the broad outlines of this thing. The broad outlines is that there's somebody highly placed within the federal government

that posits that Donald Trump and for a while, Bob Mueller were working together to take down an international cabal of child traffickers and pedophiles, including and some parts of the conspiracy theory include the claim that there are people in Hollywood who eat children. And so you took... Do they eat the children to like stay young and like keep their skin looking fresh? I'm just curious, like they can afford other types of meat. Unclear. I don't have a PhD in Qology.

I'm more like working on my GED right now. And for those listening who think that this is a good time to email me about the answer to that question it's not i don't i don't care don't do that um so in in other words what then began to happen is that a growing community of people began to get involved in different aspects of this conspiracy theory that was positing an international child trafficking regime that included large parts of the government, included large parts of the Hollywood establishment,

and that Trump was going to bring it all down. Now, sort of the precursor to all of this was the Pizzagate conspiracy theory back in 2016 that a place called Comet Ping Pong, a pizzeria named Comet Ping Pong, was actually a front for child trafficking and pedophilia. Relatively near where I live. Oh, is that right? I mean, you know, across the river. Have you eaten there? I have not. I've driven by it. Well, there is a day when you really wouldn't have wanted to be there because a guy who'd

follow the ping pong, the Comet Ping Pong conspiracy, he grabbed an AR-15 and he went there to try to rescue the children who are being enslaved at Comet Ping Pong, walks in, opens one of the doors, which was supposed to be, according to the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, supposed to be the door to the dungeon turned out to be like a supply closet. And I think his quote was, the intel wasn't 100% after he was arrested. I mean, his heart was in the right place, David. Oh, no question.

He was trying to rescue people from being sex slaves. Oh, no question. He was trying to rescue people from being sex slaves. So anyway, if all of this sounds just unbelievably weird and wild and strange and crazy, it is. But one of the things that we're learning is that a lot more people believe it than you might think. Facebook has been- Can I ask one more question? Yes. According to Wikipedia, there's also part of this where like Trump actually did the Russia stuff on purpose in order to get Robert Mueller as special counsel to help him

take down the international- And I don't know how much of the Trump-Mueller cooperation theory is still viable at this point. It's an evolving conspiracy, Sarah. Okay, because I found that interesting. Yeah.

You've heard the term nine-dimensional chess? Yeah. That's some 19-dimensional chess right there. You've got to want that one. Yeah. So it sounds all strange. It sounds weird but i have encountered it now multiple times offline talking to people not at my church but when i've gone to other churches i've countered

aspects of it so q really has a lot of tentacles so you can believe some conspiracy theories just on their own that actually happen to be sort of part of the larger q conspiracy verse and so facebook recently began to really try to to dive into this and found that there were groups with millions of members millions of members who are believing all are parts of this QAnon conspiracy theory. And now Marjorie Greene is heavily favored to win and to be part of Congress, being a believer in Q. And there are a number of Q adherents who ran for office under the GOP banner in this past election season. So I don't know how many of them may end up getting elected to Congress, but one of them, at the very least, is getting elected,

has been embraced by the president. So, wow. So, oh wait, presumably some things that this Q guy has said have been accurate, or has none of it been accurate? Well, you know, like a lot of conspiracies, things are phrased and sort of broad. So what he does is he leaves quote-unquote

crumbs. So rather than saying with exact specificities, specificity, A is going to happen, then B is going to happen, and C is going to happen, he often is quite vague. But then he will say things that are specific and then they turn out not to happen but that's you know because nefarious forces intervened or um there's a lot

of forgiveness for q's inaccurate um predictions now one thing that has given Q rocket fuel, at least in the subset of people who believe in it, is the Epstein death in prison. So the Epstein, the existence of Epstein Island, Epstein's death in prison, all of that has been fuel for the fire. And undeniably, the Epstein case is a absolute nightmare, just a nightmare. And the idea that both Bill Clinton and Donald trump were friends with this guy is awful um but that the epstein case has given some fuel for the fire and and there are also instances where online people will ally themselves with q activists without even knowing it because they've really done a good job sort of hijacking the hashtag Save the Children hashtag. And so a lot of what you're going to find online when you follow sort of that Save the Children hashtag, you're going to find yourself going down a Q rabbit hole. So, David, you had a theory before we started today about the types of people who have heard of this and not

yeah so my theory is that if you're living in red land and if you're in if you're in deep red america and you've not encountered any hint of q you might be running in more elite circles. Can I provide you the data that proves you wrong? Proves me wrong, yes. Yes. Some of the data is based on my mother. That would be called anecdata. Don't worry. I'm getting there.

I'm getting there. Okay. My mother is a big fan of the president. She lives in a pretty red part of Texas. And I texted her this morning to ask her if she'd heard of it. And she said, is this another thing about hating the president? And I said, no, mom, it's the opposite. Please don't look it up. So then Audrey, our fabulous fellow at the dispatch, sent me a Pew study on this. And in fact, 76% of all US adults have not heard anything about QAnon.

But it is pretty closely tied to your news source. So the more liberal your news source, the more likely you are to have heard of it, David. New York Times, 59%. MSNBC, 49%. NPR, 39%. Fox News, 19%. So 80% of Fox News viewers have never heard of this. Those who get their main news, by the way, from the networks are the lowest, NBC, CBS, and ABC. ABC, single digits. Ninety two percent of people who said that ABC was their main source of news have never heard of this. Basically, liberal Democrats. Thirty nine percent have heard of it, whereas only 20 percent of conservatives have heard of it. So this seems like something to some extent

that is being blown up on the left as a crazy thing that all the people on the right believe in. Yeah, well, I do think there's a mirror image of some of the things, some of what happens on the right, how people will blow up Antifa. Right.

Oh, I think this is very similar. You know, they blow up Antifa. Right. Oh, I think this is very similar. You know, they blow up Antifa like, you know, Donald Trump is holding us back from Biden's Antifa hordes. And similarly, interestingly, in the way that I think people on the right cannot stop talking about the squad, that they're somehow the four most relevant members

of the Democratic House of Representatives. Now, to be clear, one of the things that helped elevate the squad, and that's AOC, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilyan Omar, one of the things that helped elevate them is when they were first elected, Nancy Pelosi really very publicly embraced them.

I think that's something that she's come to regret. But again, if you're reading about the quote, the squad, chances are you're reading a conservative source because they really elevate those four representatives as emblematic of the Democratic Party. So yeah, I mean, this is how the current news environment works. But also true, if you are at a Trump rally and you're surveying the signs at a Trump rally, you're going to see a host of Q signs.

And some of them will be quite explicit. They'll have Q. Some of them will be more, you have to know what you're looking for with the, you know, where we go one, we go all hashtag, which is a Q hashtag. You'll see it just sprinkled all through the crowd. And it's absolutely the case

that there are millions of people on these Facebook groups. And so, yeah, I think you do have two things happening at once here. I think you have the left sort of saying, look, this right wing version of Antifa is emblematic of what Trumpism has become. And you also have several million people in the United States believing all or part of this crazy conspiracy theory. I think both can be true at once. Well, let's see where this goes. I can't go anywhere bad,

so I feel good. I think it's, yeah, totally a sign of the health of our body politic. Yeah. I'd like to take a moment and thank our sponsor, ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN lets you access the internet as if you're from a different country.

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Just fire up the ExpressVPN app, change your location, hit connect, and then refresh the page and the show or movie you want to watch will magically appear. If you use my link right now at expressvpn.com slash opinions, you can get an extra three months of ExpressVPN for free. Expressvpn.com slash opinions. All right, so we've covered citizenship. We've covered Q. Shall we go to another unpleasant subject? Yeah, I feel like we're actually just like heading down with each subject into

more unpleasantness. Go. Yeah. So this, in the last few days, the full body camera footage of the George Floyd arrest and killing has now been made public. And it includes the body camera footage of the officers who were there from start to finish. And it has created a little, what I would call sort of a mini backlash

on parts of the right. Have you seen the footage or read the analyses, Sarah? Yes, yes. Before I describe the, so the mini backlash, I'll just very briefly describe the mini backlash. The mini backlash is saying, this disputes the narrative

uh floyd was much more contentious and resisted much more than sort of quote unquote the narrative says and that he was complaining about not being able to breathe before he was put down on in restraints put down on his stomach um so then therefore it's going to really raise a question for the jury as to whether these officers had sort of the requisite uh criminal intent um that had in had he not in there you're sort of getting some of the uh conversation that occurs with a lot of these kinds of disputes had he not arrested resisted he'd be alive today um the jury is not going to respond very well to the prosecution once it sees these tapes etc etc has been some of the backlash um and i just wondered what did you think when you when you saw it

to some extent i thought it did the exact opposite yeah uh he tells them that he had tested positive for coronavirus which may explain why he couldn't breathe even before they put him on the ground he's saying he's having trouble breathing and then telling them he has a diagnosis of a virus that causes people to have trouble breathing so to me that's the opposite of he was lying to them about not being able to breathe beforehand um and it's you know to say that he seemed like a threat when he was resisting being put in the car um you know that there is some resistance being put up for sure. And they do decide to put them on the ground rather than to put them in the car. But that's also, there are times where it is,

in fact, really upsetting that we determine excessive force claims. Let's take the civil claims for just a second. Excessive force claims only in the moment that they happen happen but this is one of these times we're doing that which is what's required by law is actually going to help the floyd estate um because his resistance what if you think it was strong resistance weak resistance whatever it was is not going to be relevant to the nine minutes of the neck being on Floyd's, sorry, the knee being on Mr. Floyd's neck. So to that extent, I think it's irrelevant. On the criminal charges, it's more relevant. But boy, once again, like nine minutes, he's not resisting during those nine minutes, so much so that one of the officers was about to restrain his legs. And we have the footage where he then decides not to because he

doesn't need to. At that point, when you don't need to restrain his legs, did you need to be restraining his neck? Yeah. Yeah. So I had the same view that you did. I've paid close attention to this case. And if you were somebody who not paid any attention at all and had somehow gotten the view that the police put him on the ground with zero resistance at all from him at any point, that this would have been a surprising video. But if you paid any attention to this case at all, you knew that he resisted.

I mean, that was, that was in fact, part of the narrative of the case. What, what really, there are a couple of things that, and I think I'm going to talk about this in my newsletter today. There's a few things that stood out to me here. If you're talking about from a jury perspective, one, if you followed, um, One, if you followed these cases, these excessive force death cases in the United States, usually an officer escapes criminal liability or criminal penalty when he can demonstrate that he was afraid for his life. That somebody died, he killed somebody because he was afraid for his life. And there in that circumstance, it was reasonable for him to use the level of force that he used. What this video does is it shows conclusively that Floyd wasn't a threat or a danger to these officers at all. He was just tough to handle. Can I actually ask a question also?

At the beginning, the officer comes up to the car with his gun drawn and like drawn, drawn, not hand on his belt. Was there any reason to believe like in any of the 911 calls or reporting this crime that floyd was armed i don't believe that there was i mean i i have not seen any account his the accusation was that he passed a counterfeit 20 bill i believe yeah and he's in his car and he's in his car so yeah i think from the beginning that is an inappropriate escalation. And he is having some trouble following the officer's commands to keep his hands on the wheel.

Because then they ask him for something and he takes his hand off to lean over to the passenger seat and they're like, F-bomb, F-bomb, get your hands on the wheel. Yeah. And he repeatedly has some trouble doing that,

though it's pretty clear watching it that it's not um uh you know it's incompetence not nefariousness he's obviously intoxicated floyd having some trouble and is trying to comply confused etc he's not being belligerent and not putting his hands up right although you know officers are trained to be very careful and cautious in these circumstances where they can't see the hand for sure and he he does he's but in this case floyd is terrified of the gun yeah he keeps he keeps referencing the gun saying i've been shot before oh mr officer i'm so sorry sorry please mr officer don't i've been shot before.

And the gun keeps... And you're right. The officer has to be careful, but Floyd's clearly terrified of the gun and around and around it goes. Yeah. So, I mean, it's quite clear that Floyd is both apologetic and non-cooperative

during much of the encounter before he's put on the ground. And in fact, the one thing that if I was the officer's defense attorney, there's a point where he requests to be put on the ground instead of being put in the squad car. So all of that, putting him on the ground is not inappropriate. not um inappropriate what's inappropriate is then the night and this is another revelation from the video it he was actually put on the ground with the knee on his neck for longer than we thought yep more than nine minutes and then there's another aspect of it that is just downright chilling in which is the you can hear that the the public

that's gathered around is calling for the cops to get off of him and someone is saying check his pulse check his pulse check his pulse and one of the officers checks his pulse finds no pulse and they don't do anything they stay on top of him and And just from the standpoint of a jury, number one, there is no indication that he was a danger to the officers. He was just uncooperative. And number two, you have this incredibly callous moment where you check for his pulse, find no pulse, and you're still on top of the guy.

And so what that led me to believe is from a legal standpoint, basically what you've got left at this point is trying to argue in essence that he would have just died anyway. That there's nothing that the police did that actually caused his death um because nothing justifies there's no other legal justification for what they did for those nine minutes while he was on the ground that was just my that was my takeaway from it i think uh this will be an interesting case trial because in some ways the law is not interesting about this. Right. If that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah.

The law. And we've had some good pieces in the dispatch about the law surrounding this and how Minnesota murder statutes are a little bit of a mess. Yeah. We'll put that in the show notes too. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Before we move on to our cultural topic, I have some notes of what we've said so far that I just want to go over real quick.

A couple of corrections, a couple additions. So one, since we've been recording, the Trump campaign lawyer jenna ellis has said on uh senator harris's citizenship quote it's an open question and one i think harris should answer so the american people know for sure she is eligible two okay uh a note on that fifth circuit case you would ask me what crime he had committed whether it's was misdemeanor or felony. Um, so it was a felony domestic violence, uh, conviction. He also had two other felony convictions for crimes of moral turpitude,

which made him eligible for deportation. Lastly, uh, that Congresswoman, the QAnon Congresswoman you were referring to, um, also is a nine 1111 truther and she has said that she thinks it's odd that we

haven't seen quote it's odd there's never any evidence shown for a plane in the Pentagon there is by the way there yeah yeah there's there is video so evident so anyway those are my show notes from our show so far so can i ask you my cultural question yeah but can can i just i you know every now and then sarah i just feel like i need to pause and a beat and absorb so what is the question that kamala harris is supposed to answer as a result of the citizenship issue questions david questions question what are the questions

that she's supposed to answer they're just questions just asking questions that's so well you know i was actually feeling a little bad about i had like a smidgen of bad feels about emphasizing that eastman op-ed in the uh newsweek in newsweek wondering if it's a little bit of nut picking in the sense of taking an extremist argument and elevating it and debunking it something you know kind of i hate about then, of course, the president's campaign lawyer weighs in. Yeah, no, don't feel bad about that. Let's take a moment and thank our sponsor, the Bradley Speaker Series

and the Bradley Foundation. Making sense of current events during this extraordinary time can be trying. Conceived in Liberty, the Bradley Speaker Series is a new video series that offers meaningful perspectives through engaging 15-minute interviews.

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That's Bradley with an L-E-Y at the end, FDN.org slash Liberty to watch the video. New episodes will debut weekly, so come back often and subscribe to our YouTube channel to be notified whenever a new video is posted. All right. Do you want to ask your question? Yeah. So, and I think it's a good question for you, David. I was going to ask you actually off pod just for your advice, but then I was like, hey,

we have a podcast today. I'll just ask you, uh, and record your answer. Okay. So, um, new infections are going down in the country. Uh, testing numbers are also going down, but that to me is, seems somewhat related to the fact that new infections are going down. Uh, results from testing is coming back faster. That's all to say, we've had a lot of good news this week on the pandemic front, but I'm still recording from my basement and you're still recording from whatever the room that is that you have all these posters in of various sports games. My lair. I just call it my lair. But we're starting to get to the point where people of good faith and reasonable differences are gonna react differently. So here's my question. Um, what happens when someone

of good faith again, wants to meet in person now, but you don't quite feel comfortable. but you don't quite feel comfortable. And how do you say it without sounding like, you know, you're better than them slash more pious in your coronavirus protective thoughts? You don't want to make them feel bad, but you're just not quite ready and you don't have a great excuse. There's not, you know, like, I guess I could claim baby,

but like he's two months old now. Yeah. I don't know. Babies don't really get coronavirus, it seems. And I don't want to use an excuse. I don't want to lie. I want to find, yeah.

So what would you do in that situation? So that's not really a hypo question. I mean, it is, this is kind of our lives now because... Yeah.

Some people are going to be ready sooner than others. When Tennessee opened up, pretty soon. Like, we've been open for indoor dining for a long time. Churches are open without these super strict capacity requirements. I mean, they're still social distancing and all this. But we've been to church. I've eaten out. You've eaten out. And...

You've eaten out inside? One time I ate out inside and there was no other... There were no other customers inside. So that's interesting. So like... So we went to dinner for the first time this week.

We ate outside, but we had not been to a restaurant since March. And we had not been to a restaurant since March and we had not been out without the baby for two months. So it was a celebration of several things, but we ate outside. So like, I think right now, if you, for instance, said, Hey, Sarah, do you want to like go eat at a restaurant? I would want to so badly. Cause I haven't seen you in so long. I, I trust you. I consider you a wonderful human and I miss hanging out with you, but I don't want to be inside with you. Yeah. So this is how it happened for me

as I was invited to... So I've been invited to eat multiple times. And every time before I've been invited to eat, I have said, and when I've accepted, I've said, I'm eating outside now. And when I've accepted, I've said, I'm eating outside now. Like, that's the way I said it. Just actual statement. Yeah. I'm really happy to meet you. I'd love to meet, you know, meet for coffee, meet for food. I'm eating outside.

I just say it like that, you know, either via email or on the phone. That sounds great. Let's do it outside. Just super casual. Well, this one time I did not say, let's do it outside. Just super casual. Well, this one time I did not say, let's do it outside. And so I was the second person there and the person who invited me was inside. And I walked up to the table and I said, just as nice as I could, I said, oh, it's so good to see you. Can we eat outside? Because it was a restaurant that had tables outside. And so they said,

oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't know where you were on this. Super nice. Super nice. And we went to the hostess stand and she said, nope, outside is full. So there was no place to eat outside. Well, then you're like, well, do you say, well, see ya ya right like what do you do but i looked around and there was nobody inside the restaurant like there was complete social distancing it was not a situation like a lot of restaurants that if i think spurred some of the resurgence of the virus in tennessee where it's just been people all over the place. Everyone inside was wearing a mask. And so I said, okay, I think, I mean, it's suboptimal, but it seems reasonable. And I don't think another customer came inside the whole time. So we were basically there by ourselves inside the restaurant. And it was

mainly my fault, I felt like, because I didn't say on the front end we're gonna do we'll do this outside but my experience is um I'll walk up to people and as I see them I'll say so great to see you sorry about the shit no shaking hands and all that but you know I just say it I just say it and I feel like this is going to be a thing now. You'll come up with your own. And then on the flip side, if you were one of the people who's more comfortable, then you've got to come up with a way to say like, hey, you don't need to wear a mask in my house if you don't want to, but you can if you want. Yeah. I've just found like smile on your face and state what you do.

Okay. Unless people are just jerks. No, most people aren't jerks. Yeah. They're cool with it, you know? Okay. And the one thing that you do have, and this is something that a guy has to deal with

less than a woman, is the person who is aggressively initiating physical contact yes and that's that's something nancy's had to deal with is the person going in for the hug right oh come on and um that's that's very awkward that's very awkward and it's even happened with people after she has said, I'm not hugging and shaking hands and been very sweet about it. And there's been sort of like, oh, you know, we're old friends. Right.

Well, there's no old friend exemption to viral transmission. Just like there's no progressive protest exemption or football exemption. There's no exemption to this. So what's your approach been, Sarah? Or what do you think it will be? I have really brought chivalry back into my life. And I make my husband do everything. I still make him go to the grocery store.

When we did go to that restaurant, you went you know in to check in for the reservation and i definitely had him like open the door like go in to do that um you know wearing a mask all that everyone's wearing yeah it was fine it was two seconds um and actually i think we misread the sign and you were supposed to check in outside but whatever the signs were confusing um and like even with people i sort of like stand a little bit right like not behind him but like just a little bit off his shoulder to like have a little bit of a physical barrier not for viral reasons that would make no difference but for exactly the hugging thing that you're talking about is just sort of like a physical message that like it's

going to be a little bit harder to come touch me. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we just, and when I'm with Nancy, I will say, we're just not doing the, you know, we're not hugging, shaking hands, all this. So great to see you, miss you, you know, but you know, and it's funny, I think this is one area where, um, there's old Southern manners that actually help. And that is old school Southern manners is that a man is not to initiate physical contact with a woman. That's like old school manners. So now that's less common. Now people sort of, you know,

shake hands no matter what, but the old school was, you're going to wait to see if the woman shakes a hand or the woman go you know goes for the hug before you initiate any physical contact and there's sort of like some residual cultural memory of that that makes that makes interactions a little maybe a little bit easier um and you know the south is much less sort of like the Northeast where I've never figured out the kissing on the cheek rule. Yeah. Like, never figured that out.

I have no idea. Like, Sarah, I can't even. If I sat here and tried to tell you all of the embarrassing, awkward moments I've had over the years when I've been in the Northeast about this kissing thing. I finally got to the point where if I know someone well enough, I just say, I don't know what I'm supposed to do here. So can we not do that? The goodness is that's probably dead now, right? Like handshaking, probably cheek kissing is over. Yeah. Is it an air kiss? Do you actually kiss the cheek i mean what is going on sarah it's that's a good point i've definitely i've had both i tend to do like i do a cheek to cheek but air kiss when i do that which is not for everyone so don't be offended that i haven't kissed you it's basically with older older gentlemen see me in sort of a daughtery way.

Then you get the cheek-to-cheek air kiss. But yeah, I think that's probably dead. I mean, I've really benefited. There's a reason this is coming up late. Because of the baby, we've done some people go into our driveway, and we come out on the stoop and show them the baby. And there's a couple of things about that. There's coronavirus, but there's also just like when you have a newborn, you can't really

have the newborn around a whole bunch of people because they don't have immunity to anything and you haven't had their shots and all of that stuff. But he's had his shots now. By the way, he was a trooper. The nurse stabbed him twice in one leg and twice in the other leg. And he looked at her, screamed at her, and then promptly fell asleep. That's amazing. Oh, have I got stories about kids and shots. But in the offhand chance that my older kids are, because our youngest is an absolute valiant trooper about shots. But the older two,

I'll just stop. i'll just stop before yeah just before i'm disowned all right well this is good this this has been cathartic for me good advice i'm going to put it into practice in my life i found unless somebody's just performative you know as long as you just state it up front and you do it with a smile on your face in a nonjudgmental way, it's all good. Everyone's cool with it. And it probably makes them feel more at ease as well. Yeah, just state the rules and live by them

and people are fine. All right. Wouldn't it be nice if life was that easy, Sarah? It can be if we only live in our basements and talk over Zoom. Alright, well thank you guys for listening. Please go rate us on Apple Podcasts. This is David French

and Sarah Isger and this has been the Advisory Opinions Podcast and we will be back on Monday with an interesting nerd topic and a little bit of law. Until then, thanks for listening.