America's Talking - Episode 52: U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade & Exclusive Interview with Former President Trump

Episode Date: June 24, 2022

Join The Center Square's Executive Editor Dan McCaleb & D.C. Bureau Chief Casey Harper as they discuss: U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. Exclusive TCS Interview with former President Donald Trump in which he talks about the economy and the January 6th hearings. Supreme Court strikes down New York's restrictions on concealed carry. Biden calls for federal and state gas tax holidays, a move critics call a 'gimmick'. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Dan, this is the world of breaking news. This is the exciting story. It's a major story. I actually had to jump and hide in this bathroom of the coffee shop to record this podcast because I was working from a coffee shop, writing up the story, writing up the grilling. Welcome to American Focus. I'm Cole McNeely General Manager of America's Talking Network. If you have not already, we ask you hit that subscribe button wherever you listen to this podcast

so you don't miss any new episodes of American Focus. Now here's your host, Dan McKalep. Thank you, Cole. Welcome to the America in Focus podcast, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulb, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. Joining me today is Casey Harper, Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief for the Center Square. Casey, we recorded the majority of this podcast on the afternoon of Thursday, June 23rd. However, it is now Friday morning, June 24th.

The U.S. Supreme Court just delivered a landmark decision that over the U.S. Supreme Court just delivered a landmark decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, the 40-year-old Supreme Court decision that constitutionally guaranteed the right to an abortion nationwide. Now the issue will be up to the states. Casey, tell us about this. What's going on? You're absolutely right, Dan. This is the world of breaking news. It's the exciting story. It's a major story. I actually had to jump in hide in this bathroom of the coffee shop to record this podcast because I was working from a coffee shop, writing up the story, writing up the ruling, which you can read about at the center square.com. But, you know, the implications of this are going to be played out for years to come at the state level.

There's going to be a battle in every state. The primaries are going to focus on this. If you think that this ruling is kind of the end of the debate of abortion, it's probably just the beginning, really. This is going to be happening in all 50 states. But the top line is there is no constitutional right to abortion, according to the court today. And states cannot be prevented from banning abortion. So, you know, it's fair to guess that most red states will pretty quickly pass at least some restrictions on abortion, if not pretty severe bans. And so, you know, it's going to play out at the state level. That's what to watch.

So this went from being a dried up dead federal issue to a very live off 50 states issue. So, yeah, so essentially what you're going to have, what we're going to see here is sort of a hodgepodge. of different state laws affecting abortion. Some states, particularly red states, are going to have much more restrictive laws when it comes to abortion. The Supreme Court's ruling today came out of a case out of Mississippi, where the state of Mississippi banned abortions after 15 weeks, but some states, such as Texas, ban abortions after six weeks.

And then there are, of course, more liberal states like California and Illinois that essentially allow abortion on demand. So, you know, it's going to be a big issue nationwide. Of course, we've talked about inflation and gas prices and that being a big issue, particularly affecting President Joe Biden and the Democrats leading into the midterms. This is going to, this is going to move up there as a top issue on people's minds. You're right. And there was questions of whether maybe the Supreme Court would find some kind of middle ground, but this is no middle ground. This is a decisive victory for the pro-life camp, really everything they could have asked for. And so, you know, the ruling is very long.

We're still reading through it, digging through it. You're going to see a lot of great stories and coverage of that at the centers for a com. But this initial news is big. There's huge protests outside of the Supreme Court right now. And I think there was only heat up that, you know, the DOJ has warned a lot of pro-life centers to be aware or to be, you know, ready for potential attacks. They call it a particular night of rage.

You know, I've seen some reports of that. Some of that, you know, reporting is just kind of inside or not to the public sources. But those are the kind of things that are circulating around. That's another thing to watch that for. Hopefully, you know, things stay peaceful in the protests. Thank you for the update, Casey. As you mentioned, this is a developing story. Go to thecentersquare.com throughout the weekend to find our updates.

But moving on yesterday. Casey, Illinois's bureau chief, Greg Bishop, scored an interview with former President Donald Trump. The wide-ranging interview included such topics as Illinois's upcoming primary election next Tuesday, the January 6 hearings, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and other topics. But I want to focus on what he had to say about inflation and gas prices. It's not even fathomable that this is going on with the inflation the way it is, with fuel prices at now $6, $7, $8 a guy, and more. It's going up higher, more than that.

You look at all of the things that are happening. I predicted just about every one of them. And I predict a lot of bad things happening in the next two years. I used to use an expression, we're going to end up being Venezuela on steroids. And that's where we're going. Former President Trump is doing what he usually does best, which is calling out the weaknesses of his opponents. That's what propelled him to success in the Republican primaries in 2015 and 16.

And I will say that there are some spots where gas prices have surpassed $7. So not on a statewide average. The highest state right now is California, which is $6.36. You know, there's others like Arizona that are $534. Oregon's $5.52. You know, more southeastern states are lower, like Texas at $460 or Florida at $4.74. but those are still much higher than normal. We hit record highs earlier this month.

And, you know, it is a bit of a political layup right now to call out gas prices when the opposing political party is running the show. Right. Particularly when since President Biden has taken office, gas prices have doubled essentially when former President Trump was in office. And of course, this is going to be a big political issue during this. midterm election year. But if the former president also had something to say about U.S. energy independence, can we queue up that clip? We were actually energy independent.

Energy independent, nobody thought that would be possible. And soon to be energy dominant, we would have been bigger than Saudi Arabia, Russia put together. Here's another prediction. Brownouts and black ass all over the country this summer. Wait, do you see what's happening? All these states that are going green, it doesn't work. Republicans like former President Trump have been highly critical of President Biden's energy policies on his first day in office. He signed some executive orders that ban new leases for oil and gas drilling on federal lands. He killed the Keystone Pipeline that was going to transport cheap Canadian oil down throughout the U.S. He put more restrictions on the oil and gas industry.

on those comments. The purpose of doing something day one, the way Biden did, is to spike the football, to tout it to your base, to proclaim it as a fulfilled campaign promise, which Biden did, which he got a lot of credit for from his base, and which was pretty popular among his base, especially not really that controversial when gas prices are so low. But when they go higher and higher as they have, as you pointed out, they've doubled, it's hard to take that back. You can't spike the football on, you know, day one of your presidency and then try to,

you know, when you spike a football, it can go in any direction. It's kind of hard to recover. And I think that's what he's seeing. You can't take credit for it in the first year. And then a couple years later tried to say that you're actually helping oil drilling. You know, Biden gave a speech show this week that we covered at the center square.com where he talked about all the things that his administration has done to lower. gas prices and increased the supply of oil. And he pointed fingers at oil producers. He pointed

fingers at gas stations for not lowering their prices. He pointed fingers at everyone. But of course, did not mention his day one actions that he had taken credit for earlier. And so, you know, Trump is doing, what Trump's doing is a forecast of what you're going to see Republicans doing all the way through November of this year, which is hammer the gas prices issue, hammer the economy, hammer inflation, because all the polling shows it's the number one concern for Americans. and Republicans are winning on that issue. The polling also shows that the average voter trusts Republicans more on the economy. They trust Democrats more on other issues like the climate.

But when it comes to the economy, Republicans do have more trust among voters. And so this is the political sweet spot for them. What Trump is doing is nothing out of the ordinary. And if the prices remain elevated and inflation remains elevated, which is very possible up until the next presidential election, we could hear Trump or DeSantis or whoever, whoever ends up being the, the challenger to the Democrat beating this drum right up through 2024. Referencing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, of course, who many expect to throw his hat into the ring in 2024. He's facing a reelection campaign this year in Florida. One more

question or thought on a former President Trump's interview that his closing comment, And that last clip we heard about brownouts and blackouts potentially across the country this summer. I'm in Illinois here in Illinois, the Mid-Continent Independent System Operator, which runs the grid, the electricity grid through several sort of middle of the country states from Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, down to Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, other parts of the middle of the country. They've actually warned that there actually could be potential for brownouts or even blackouts this year, as many of these states, including particularly Illinois, look to phase out, excuse me, cold plants in the state in the name of green energy. And so that potential, that's not an exaggeration. That potential does exist. It does. You know, we've also, I've written, you know, in recent weeks about different reports predicting just that.

I mean, it might be regional. It could depend on what, you know, I don't think, you know, nationwide blackouts aren't really the concern. Browns, not the concern, but regional brownouts, you know, shutdowns. You even saw recently, you know, one state encouraging people to not charge their electric vehicles because of grid troubles, which really sparked a lot of controversy because, you know, so many people are pushing first to go all electric vehicles. And yet they're already discouraging you from charge. charging it based on grid problems. So it's more complicated. I think that, you know, the brownouts are a real possibility of summer with, you know, air conditioning. And if the problem, you know,

it's not just going to be a this year problem. I think some of these problems are systemic. They are kind of built in the infrastructure and the changing federal and state policy we've seen the different investments. They're not investing in some of the traditional energy sources as they have in the past. And we're starting to feel the effects of that. And, you know, many Democrats just said this is part of a necessary needed good transition. And maybe that's the case. But even Trent, you know, and that's debatable, but those transitions can be really painful.

And I think we're experiencing some of that pain, assuming that the best case scenario, which is this is a good, necessary transition, which a lot on the right would say, no, it's not. The technology is not there. We haven't seen it work. We're already seeing a darker, literally future because of this reliance on green energy. And that's the problem. I think even most Republicans, conservatives would say, yeah, we eventually need to move towards green energy,

but we have to build our infrastructure up first, and our infrastructure is not there. Just take California, one of the states that has aggressively pursued green energy policies and has tried to quickly move away from fossil fuels. But they've been experiencing blackouts for years now, and that's just because we're not ready to make that transition, not ready to fully make that transition. So just one shout out again to Illinois, the Center Square's Bureau Chief in Illinois, Greg Bishop, for securing that interview. Trump is a very controversial figure. So, you know, depending on where you stand politically, take it for, take the interview for what it's worth. But we're proud of him

for getting it. But we have some other news to talk about this week. Casey, including a Supreme Court, U.S. Supreme Court decision that just dropped today regarding Second Amendment protections. Tell us about that. That's right. And we should give another shout out to Justice Clarence Thomas. It's his birthday today. And he actually authored an opinion in question that we covered at the CenterSwear.com. And this opinion was a 6-3 opinion. Oh, actually, I missed, I said that wrong. John Roberts wrote the opinion. But I believe that Justice Thomas wrote a concurring opinion. I might be wrong about that, but I believe he did.

But there's a six-three in this case. And it's kind of complicated. And with these cases, that's usually the case. It doesn't get to the Supreme Court unless it's pretty complex or, you know, there's been a lot of back and forth and some nuances needed. But to summarize it, it addressed New York State's concealed carry laws. And so, you know, around the country, there's different policies varying by state based on how you can, and in what circumstances under which you can get a concealed carry license. In most states,

you have to go through some kind of process, but you can get a carry. You can carry a weapon. But New York had particularly strict laws when it came to concealed carry, being one of the more liberal states and the nation. And the way there's worked was basically you had a blanket no. anyone who applies for a concealed carry license. Really, the answer is no unless you can prove that you have an especially good reason to need one. Or they would call it a proper cause. And so I'll read this quote from what the state wrote, how they interpret the law. Absent such a need, that need being the proper clause.

Absent such a need, applicants may receive an premises license, allows them to keep a firearm in their home or place of business or a restricted license. for a that allows them to carry in public for any other purposes for which they have shown a non-speculative need such as hunting, target shooting, or employment. So basically they're saying that just generally wanting to have a weapon or wanting to have, you know, something for self-defense was not a good enough reason for concealed carry. You had to have a particularly unusual set of circumstances to get a concealed carry.

So a guy challenged to this and he said, you know, there's a lot of crime and rock. robberies in his neighborhood, and yet he was still denied. And so that went all the way up to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court ruled that New York's restriction on concealed carry was too stringent, was too tight. You didn't have to prove some extraordinary reason for needing a concealed carry. The right to bear arms is intrinsic in the Constitution, in the Second Amendment. And so this is a really important case. And I think I think you'd have some things to weigh in here, damn. But I'll just say it's important because so much.

of the laws around the Second Amendment are there's the play in the joints. There's nowhere in the country where guns are 100% totally banned. It's similar to abortion, but it's somewhere in the middle. You know, abortion issues, how many weeks? What are the circumstances? And the gun rights issue is, well, it's in the licensing, the permitting, what you have to do that the certain states, especially on the left, will make it extremely difficult through bureaucratic measures like these to get a weapon.

And so they can't outright ban them because of the Second Amendment, but they can make it so difficult that almost no one can get them. And that kind of level of difficulty, at least what New York did has been struck down is too difficult. And there's several other states around the country that have somewhat similar rules. So this could really have big impacts around the country. Yeah, you referenced abortion rights, of course, we're still waiting on the Supreme Court's decision in the case that could dramatically affect. Roe v. Wade, nothing to report on that this week, perhaps more than likely next week. But getting back to this gun rights case, Casey, I agree with you. You have to wonder what it's going to mean for future Second Amendment cases that will go before the Supreme Court here in

Illinois, where I am located, we have what's called a mandatory FOID requirement. All gun owners, legal gun purchasers have to apply for and receive a firearms owner's identification card. That has been challenged as unconstitutional. That has not reached the Supreme Court, of course, in the wake of the tragic mass shootings, New Valde, Texas at Rob Elementary School and in Buffalo, New York, and other areas, it's become a national conversation. Again, as a matter of fact, I'm going to throw you a curve. ball here, Casey, because it was not on our top list of topics, but the U.S. Senate this

week with bipartisan sport, more than a dozen Republicans, joined Democrats in passing some new gun control measure that has to go back to the House. It is not law yet. But just tell us briefly about what's going on there. Yeah. So as you mentioned, the House has actually passed something. earlier this month. It had red flag laws. It had an array of restrictions because this issue is so controversial. There's a House version. Actually, the House passed multiple bills. It's not just one big bill. And then the Senate is working through theirs right now. It passed a procedural vote actually today. It has not finalized in the Senate yet. And then even after it does, it has to be kind of a

reconciliation, which is not the right word, but through these two House and Senate bills. The biggest, you There's different things that are probably not going to be that controversial. There's grant funding for research and for mental health. Those things aren't stirring up too much. There's talk of raising the limit of the age limit for buying, you know, certain kinds of weapons like higher capacity, semi-automatic rifles from, like, you know, 18 to 21 or something. The biggest, most controversial, though, are these red flag laws.

And there's actually, you know, this is why you should check out the center square.com because there's actually some bad reporting that red flag laws were not in the Senate bill, but they actually are. They're just under a different name. They have different, you know, kind of bureaucratic names like crisis intervention orders. Okay, that's a red flag law. So kind of reading between the lines a little bit, but a red flag law essentially allows a judge to take or seize and confiscate the weapons from someone that they deem a danger to themselves or to others. And so, you know, theoretically, if you're suspicious of your neighbor, you can, could report them to, you know, you could report them to the authorities and then the judge

have a hearing and take their weapons. And so this is really controversial. I think this is going to be a big, you know, where you're going to see much of the focus in the battle on. And we covered a poll this week from Convention of States Action along with the Trafalgar group, which found that the majority of Republicans' independence, so this is 72% of Republicans and 52% of independents, believe that those red flag laws can be abused by local authorities, government officials, you know, used to politically target someone. You can, I mean, not to, like a lack of due process is the concern. Yeah, you kind of can be guilty until proven innocent. You know, there's no trial by your peers here. For example, an estranged spouse who isn't a really contentious breakup with their significant other.

for example, could go to court and claim that the person they're breaking up with or did break up with is mentally unstable. And there's in some of the way that this works is a judge could just order without a trial, without, you know, any kind of a chance for the, for someone to defend themselves to take their guns away, at least on a temporary basis. Yeah, but I mean, and that's, I think that's a pretty generous scenario. I mean, it could be anything from your, uh, your nose. neighbor who is on a personal political crusade to disarm the neighborhood, you know, could do something.

That's a less favorable kind of a thing. And I think that's what's being alluded to in this poll. Anyone who has an axe right, anyone who wants to take a guns away can just report you and you have to go through this process. Now, they say it's going to be temporary. And of course, that's a good thing. You know, you don't want to terminally take someone's guns away if you don't end up determining if they were actually a danger. What I'll point out is, you know, I used to write a lot about something called civil asset forfeiture, which a lot of people don't, you know, know, it's kind of a technical term. But the long and short of it is that police officers can pull you over in many states. And if they think that your property or is, was purchased because of, you know, by drug money,

basically. So if they pull over a drug dealer, they have drugs in his car, they can seize his car, you know, 30,000. An alleged drug dealer. The person hasn't been convicted yet. Yeah. Or if this person, I mean, there's cases where someone just has a large amount of cash in their car and that's suspicious to the police. They will seize the car and they're actually allowed to keep that money and use it to buy anything for the police department from softball jerseys to new vehicles, whatever they want. But they say, well, if you want to get your stuff back, just file an appeal. But the appeals process is incredibly difficult. You don't have an attorney provided for you in this appeals process. if you don't apply within the specific number of days and do the paperwork just right, you will not get your stuff back.

And so that's the kind of thing I think people are afraid of when you say, oh, well, it's just temporary. You can get it back. It's like, well, you got to imagine if you had to go down to some equivalent of the DMV. And, oh, you had to go within seven days and you came on the eighth day. It's like, sorry, your gun collection is gone forever. You know, those are the kind of things that we've seen reporting on. You can just Google this. Every news outlet has covered some form of civil asset forfeiture abuse.

And that's what came to mind for me when I saw this that people need to be wary of. And there's already, you know, we'll see what's in the final bill. But there was already in one draft that I saw that the state did not have to provide an attorney for someone who was fighting this, you know, their guns being seized. So some right, you know, the state doesn't have provided. So that's already a financial burden that would disproportionately affect poor people. So some of these, you know, these are the things that are going to keep coming up. We'll see where this lands, but it's definitely an issue to keep to keep watching. Yeah, and due process is a key component of the U.S. Constitution.

Suspects are innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around. So the Constitution is supposed to guarantee an individual's right to defend themselves in court over these types of things. You reference civil asset for it. forfeiture. Those laws, of course, vary from one state to the next. But yeah, we've reported at the center square.com about the abuses of things like civil asset forfeiture, which could, in fact, carry over to these red flag laws. Anyway, Casey, let's move on, but stick with the U.S. Supreme Court. Another decision this week by the Supreme Court affects school choice programs across the states, particularly in states that had school choice programs, but ban religious-type schools

from participating in the choice programs. What do the Supreme Court say this week? This is another example of one of those cases that is pretty complex. We're trying to break it down. And so in this particular case, the state of Maine created a program where you could have, give families and students, not like college students, but like, you know, high school or, or, or younger students. You could give them tuition assistance to go to a private school, especially in rural areas where they didn't have a public school available.

So it's like, okay, this makes sense, you know, providing funds. If you don't have a public school, what are you supposed to do? You know, so you can get some state money to go to a private school. But then Maine said, also, you cannot use that money to go to a religious private school. You have to go to a secular private school. And so this was challenged, you know, there's a family.

that challenged this case and Carson v. Macon and said that this is discrimination against religious schools. They found that it was unfairly targeting them. They said they should be able to use, you know, to choose whatever school they wanted. And they pointed to the free exercise clause of the Constitution saying that you can't discriminate

against those schools simply because they are religious. Because that was really the only reason. It wasn't some other reason it was, we do not give to those schools because they are religious. And the Supreme Court ruled six to three, in favor of the family challenging the law. They said, here's a quote from their ruling. They said a neutral benefit program in which public funds flow to religious organizations

through the independent choices of private benefit recipients does not offend the establishment cause. And it went on to say that their decision to continue excluding religious schools from its tuition assistance program, it promotes stricter separation of church's state than the federal constitution requires. So basically they said Maine went too far. There's other cases that are related. There was another case called Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia versus Comer, which was a similar case where a church's preschool applied for a state grant funding program that is just a funny little state program that gave money to fix playgrounds. And so this, you know, religious preschool

applied for it and they were denied in the states that we don't give money to religious schools. And so that was challenged and they also lost. So this is kind of back-to-back cases. That one was in 2016. Of course, this newer one came in this week. But it's back-to-back cases where schools, religious schools, you know, were denied state funding. They took it to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court said, no, states, you cannot not, you cannot refuse to give a school money simply because it's a religious school.

So it has big implications. I know you know a lot about school voucher programs and those kind of things. I'd love to hear you speak about what kind of implications this kind of case could have for other states. Well, so school choice programs like voucher programs, like scholarship programs, have been around, you know, in varying degrees for decades now. But school choice, just I guess to briefly summarize, school choice allows particularly, but not exclusively lower-income families whose children are sort of stuck in and failed or failing public schools to use the taxpayer dollars that they pay to send their child to a public school,

to go to a school of their choice. Maybe it's a charter school. Maybe it's a private, a non-religious school. Maybe it is a private, it is a religious school. But various states have their restrictions on that. But school choice has become really front and center of the education controversy, particularly since COVID-19. when public schools shut down at the beginning of the pandemic.

Now, it wasn't just public schools. It was private schools as well. But public schools tended to stay closed much longer than private schools, and it largely had to do with teachers unions, fighting back against school boards, fighting back against states boards of education and not wind to reopen saying the schools were unsafe. Well, we all know the learning loss that are,

many of our students experienced during these remote learning periods, during these school shutdown periods. And evidence also shows that it affected lower income families, minority families, much more than it did more affluent families. So what this decision, I think, is going to do. What this week's decision is going to do, it's going to open up some of these opportunities for these families who have been stuck, who themselves couldn't afford private tuition to move their kids from a failing public school to a better performing private school, it's going to give them more opportunities. And I think that's personally a good thing.

Yeah, and the COVID is not the only thing that has really brought a lot more attention to schools. I think the curriculum and really a lot of the politicization that we've seen at the school board level and at the teacher level has brought a lot of controversy. I mean, of course, you know, I've written on our website about, how, you know, there was federal funding going to train teachers in critical race theory, which, of course, upset, you know, a lot of parents. We've seen a slew of teachers go viral online for pushing, you know, kind of just very, you know, liberal policies in the classroom, you know, BLM flags in the classroom,

gay pride flags in the classroom that, you know, we've seen a lot of videos go viral where they're pushing certain gender ideas. And we don't really write about those issues. And we're talking about with kindergartners. When I'm talking about with, you know, kindergarten first, second, third graders, where parents, many parents just don't think that's appropriate curriculum for their children. Right. I mean, I remember just a few years ago, even talking about sex ed was really controversial for like high schoolers. You know, there's a lot of states that were trying to not allow sex ed classes in high school. And now, so it's not surprising that so many parents are really upset about talking about sex and gender with such young kids.

But all that to say, it's brought a lot of parents. saying, wait a minute, what's going on in my school? Do I want to go to the school anymore? I think there's been a breakdown in trust between parents and the local public school. It's been because of so many things on social media. It's been because of the way COVID and mask mandates were handled. And it's been because of CRT curriculum. And it's also because so many kids were home and the parents actually saw firsthand the curriculum on their laptops. And it's just it's broken down a lot of trust. It's made parents look at private schooling more. I think. I just think that anecdotally look at homeschooling more.

more. They want to open their options because a lot of they don't trust the local public school in the way that, you know, maybe they did that was trusted a few decades ago. Well, Casey, we're going to have to leave a couple topics on the table today. You just ran. We're a couple of windbags over here. Yeah, I was going to say you. Thank you very much.

But that is all the time we have this week for our listeners. A reminder, you can find all of the Center Squares, a great podcast at America's Talking.com. Take a look. Please subscribe. There is no cost. This has been the America in Focus podcast. For Casey Harper, I'm Dan McCaleb. We'll talk to you next week.