No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Republicans' bombshell election scheme gets exposed

Episode Date: April 23, 2023

Republicans’ scheme to prevent young people from voting gets exposed. Brian interviews Senator Bernie Sanders about the GOP's voter suppression plot, his response to the Clarence Thomas-Harlan Crow scandal, what’s at stake if Republicans refuse to lift the debt ceiling, and his pitch for a 4-day workweek. And former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner joins to discuss the Fox-Dominion settlement, what to expect in the upcoming Smartmatic trial, and the lawsuit being brought by Fox’s own shareholders.Donate to the "Don't Be A Mitch" fund: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dontbeamitchShop merch: https://briantylercohen.com/shopYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/briantylercohenTwitter: https://twitter.com/briantylercohenFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/briantylercohenInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/briantylercohenPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/briantylercohenNewsletter: https://www.briantylercohen.com/sign-upWritten by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going to talk about the Republican scheme to prevent young people from voting getting exposed. I interview Senator Bernie Sanders about that very voter suppression plot, his response to the Clarence Thomas Harlan Crow scandal, what's at stake if Republicans refused to lift the debt ceiling, and his pitch for a four-day workweek. And I'm joined by former federal prosecutor Glenn Kersner to discuss the Fox Dominion settlement, what to expect in the upcoming Smartmatic trial, and even the lawsuit being brought by Fox's own shareholders. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. So this past week, a reporter named Lauren Windsor at the undercurrent got a hold of audio from a Republican lawyer named Clita Mitchell, who gave a presentation to a bunch of donors at the RNC about efforts to suppress voting for young people. Here's a quick clip if you hadn't heard it yet. So we need to be looking at what are these college campus locations in polling?

What is this young people effort that they do? They basically put the polling place next to the student dorms, so they just had to roll out of bed back to bed. And we need to build strong election integrity task forces in those counties. Virginia, we have a great task force in every county in Virginia, and we have a great statewide coalition. The governor just signed a bill yesterday that does away with signatures on absentee ballot applications and ballots, and now it has to be the last four digits of the Social Security number and a birth year. and we need to make sure that there's transparency

and people are watching and verifying. That makes Virginia back in play, frankly, to be able to have some authentication. And again, having first day in-person voting campaigns. Wisconsin is a big problem because of the polling locations on college campuses. There are 5.1s and 3s their goal for the Supreme Court race was to turn out 240,000 college students.

and that's Supreme Court race. And we don't have anything like that, and we need to figure out how to do that and how to combat that. And here's the kicker. Mitchell's presentation was titled A Level Playing Field for 2024, because preventing the most likely Democratic voters

from casting ballots is apparently what Republicans consider leveling the playing field. But their own stupid comments aside, these efforts are real and they're already playing out in the states. Republicans are currently targeting on-campus voting in a number of states, including New Hampshire, Idaho, and Texas. They're trying to make it so that out-of-state students aren't able to cast a ballot where they go to school.

And Mitchell is looking to target her efforts in a number of states, including Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Virginia, and Wisconsin, all of which have major student populations because of big universities. Republicans are also fighting against pre-registration of students, where 17-year-olds are able to register in advance of their 18th birthday so that once they turn 18, they're able to vote without delay. And of course, Republicans are challenging this stuff. and we're mostly winning, but we're not winning everywhere.

And I want to play a quick clip of my interview with Mark Elias from last week where he explains what's happening here. But what's also happened is the volume of Republican energy before the courts has quintupled. Like, it's gone up dramatically. So when I look at a number like there were 93 lawsuits filed by Republicans and conservatives in 2020, too. I mean, there were only 150 lawsuits followed in all of 2020, and that included 65

post-election lawsuits. So you look at the volume of energy, it feels like even though we are still winning, each of those losses is cutting deep. And so what I'm worried about is like, it's great, I can say to you, we won 116 victories, we lost 35. But that 35, when you then couple on the ability of Republican legislatures to pass more bad laws. You know, it's like you're just constantly spinning on a treadmill in which democracy is losing a half a step every, every mile or so. It doesn't feel like you're losing ground,

but you really are kind of losing ground. So, you know, we're doing everything we can to sort of put our thumb in the in the dike to keep democracy from flooding over. But fundamentally, we need electoral change. We need democracy reform. We need to break the fever within the Republican party. So again, yes, we're winning most of the cases. But if a Republican introduces of voter suppression law and it's upheld in the courts, then on net, it's still a step back because it's still a new voter suppression law that didn't exist before, and yet now it's been validated by the courts. And Republicans know that it can't hurt to try, which is why they're doing it.

And that's made easier by all of these right-wing judges who don't care what the law says because their priority is helping their political party. And so Republicans would just go judge shopping, just like they did for the Miff of Pristone case, because they know they'll get the outcome that they want with certain judges. of which is to say that confirming judges right now is monumentally important for exactly this reason, which is probably why we shouldn't have an 89-year-old senator who's had declining health for years and is now stuck in a hospital serving on judiciary with a razor-thin majority effectively ending Democrats' ability to confirm judges. But, you know, that's a story for a different

day. But just as a quick aside, if you're looking at the Republican Party's agenda and wondering why they would double down on all of this super unpopular stuff, on banning abortion, on banning books, coddling fossil fuel companies, protecting millionaires and billionaires, despite the fact that none of those things even come close to being popular, it's because they don't need a popular agenda. They're not trying to earn votes. That's the point. That is why they're running this multi-pronged approach,

where they do the things that their donors want, like repeal the estate tax and ban abortion, while also just preventing people from voting who aren't likely to vote for them. They've given up on trying to win on their platform. Now they're just rigging the game to their benefit. And we got some insight into this with this recording by Clita Mitchell, but this strategy isn't new. They've been doing it for years. They're just more overt about it now because for the first time in U.S. history, my generation, millennials, aren't getting more conservative.

They're staying liberal. That's never happened before. Republicans have always been able to rely on refilling their ranks as the previous generation ages out. But that's done. And so this is existential for them. That's why they're being so shameless. That's why they don't care about the optics. They don't have, like, the luxury of discretion because there's no time for them.

Look at Wisconsin, for example. They lost their majority on the court, which may very well mean that we'll see new maps in that state soon. Republicans may have lost Wisconsin for the foreseeable future because they rely on those gerrymanders to entrench their majorities, their ill-gotten majorities. But as soon as they lose them, which is, again, hopefully what's the case in Wisconsin, as soon as the system is fair, then it is really, really hard for them to get it back. They took Wisconsin as a warning, as a shot across the bow, because they know that if what happened there happens in other states, they're done.

They've already lost the future. They've already lost future generations of Americans. So at this point, they're just trying to cling on to whatever they can. So look, I know that this stuff in particular is dark, but here's the silver lining in all of this. The same extremism that they're employing to rig the system is precisely what is pushing independent voters away. We've seen it for three cycles in a row now. Even in this past cycle where Joe Biden had an underwater approval rating and we had sky-high inflation, Republicans still couldn't win the Senate and their red wave in the House turned

into a majority of just like a handful of people. And even still, they're passing more abortion bans and book bans and don't say gay laws and attacking Disney and gay kids. And while that might work with the base, it only pushes the rest of the country away. And I would never say that we're guaranteed victory in 2024, but I am saying that a really good way for Republicans to keep losing is by doing exactly what they're doing right now. And so if we can eke out a majority in Congress

in the Senate, in the White House, then we can pass the For the People Act, we can pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, and we can get national protections and undo so much of the damage that we're contending with right now. And I know it feels far away, but we could be a lot closer than it seems,

and that would quite literally change politics in this country forever. Next up is my interview with Bernie Sanders. Now we've got the U.S. Senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders. Thanks so much for coming on. My pleasure. So Republicans are moving in a number of states

from Idaho to Texas to suppress voting for young people. They're trying to ban on-campus voting. They're trying to prevent student IDs from being an acceptable form of ID at the polling place. If anyone would understand the importance of young people speaking out politically, it's you. So what's your response to these Republicans who are trying to prevent young people

from exercising the rights to vote? It is unspeakable. It really is. It's outrageous. It's an effort to undermine democracy. And it tells us how shallow the entire Republican ideology is. Look, Brian, I don't mind if people disagree with you. You disagree with me.

That's called democracy. But if the only way you're going to win an election is to deny people the right to vote, it tells me that you got nothing real to say. So making it harder for young people who are the future of this country, who are facing enormous problems today in terms of student debt, the high cost of college, in terms of worries about child care for their kids or student debt, to say to those kids, we don't want you to participate, because you're going to vote against us is absolutely disgraceful.

And this should send a message to young people. If they don't want you to vote, what you've got to do is radically increase voter participation. Do everything you can to bring your friends to the polls. Yeah, I think that's a great point. Like, if you didn't understand the importance of your vote now, the fact that they're trying so desperately hard to take it away should be a testament to how potent, how powerful it is. You know, this reminds me a little bit about the kind of racism

that we have, has existed in this country, but so many years. And many people in the black community have responded exactly appropriately. They don't want us to vote. You know what we're going to do? We're going to increase voter turnout. That should be the message. Now, a Republican operative lawyer named Kleda Mitchell was caught on tape speaking to a bunch

of bigwigs at the RNC about the ways that they're going to use to try to prevent young people from voting. This woman was on the call between Trump and Brad Raffensberger, where he was pressuring him to find 11,780 votes that didn't exist. What does it say that the GOP is still being led right now to this day by the same purveyors of the big lie? What it says is that increasingly, not much. 100%. But increasingly, we have a major political party that doesn't believe in democracy.

So it's one thing for a party to hold an ideology, a conservative ideology. That's one thing. Let's debate that. But it's another thing for a party to simply say, we have to win at all costs, even if it perpetuates a big lie, even if it involves making it impossible. for people who vote against us to vote yeah i completely agree now we've got a supreme court right now moving over to that issue that is completely insulated from any sense of accountability or ethics what do you support in terms of court reforms from you know a court expansion or term

limits or a code of ethics or something else well i think i'm not a great fan of packing the supreme court because it it really will make the the court an entire joke which is really what goes on in Wisconsin right now. I mean, it is totally political and that's, it raises a whole broader issue with the role of judiciary in American society. Because simply, when Democrats come to power, you add five more judges, Republicans come and you add more, you're going to end up 800 people on the Supreme Court. But I do think there is a way to rotate judges, which is consistent with the Constitution. And that would be, I think, a preferable approach. And what do you think the likelihood of getting something like that through would be?

I think people are looking, sadly enough. I think people are now seeing the Supreme Court not as a group of nine people who seriously look at precedent and constitutional law, but really as a political body where you now have, you know, say five Republicans, three Democrats and one somewhere in the middle. And that's really not what it should be. So, you know, I think we need to take a heart. And the other thing, obviously, is what Judge Thomas has, what we've seen recently in his financial situation, we need to have strong ethical standards in the Supreme Court, which does not exist right now. Just as a quick aside on the Clarence Thomas thing, you know, his benefactor, I guess we'll call him, Harlan Crowe is, had claimed that he has

nazi memorabilia including a signed copy of mind conf because uh because it's important to remember travesties that have happened in the past we're both jewish i'm assuming that we had similar reactions to this what was your reaction when you when you heard that well a reaction is it goes beyond this particular individual it goes beyond a supreme it goes to a supreme court justice justice who is being funded by an extreme right wing person and uh that should not be acceptable i really shouldn't there are laws that other judges have got to abide by and that should be applicable to the supreme court okay so let's get into the economic stuff here you've spoken out in favor of a four-day work week that's a 32-hour work week to replace a 40-hour work week

what's the pitch for that right here's the story brian and thanks for asking that question let me be very clear and i think very few people will disagree with me as a result of artificial intelligence and robotics, there is going to be a radical transformation of our economy and our workplaces. The jobs that many people have today will not be there 15, 20, 30 years from now. And that's not just blue-collar workers. That's white-collar jobs as well. So there are a couple of things. I think, first of all, the main point to be made is that technology unto itself is not necessarily bad. If you can come up with machinery that makes workers more productive that eliminates filthy work or work of drudgery, that's a good thing. Who should benefit from

that technology? Should it just be the people who own the technology or the corporations who utilize it or should it be the workers themselves? So if we can, and I think we should be discussing, reducing the work week to 32 hours as a result of increased productivity. That is what we have got to do. Second point, the more complicated point, mental, is this. What we are seeing in not just robotics, but in artificial intelligence, is an exponential growth in the kind of information of computers now can assemble. and there are some very serious people, and this is not science fiction, there are some very serious people who worry that that artificial intelligence may outsmart, if you like, the human developers of that technology, that they will act independently of human wishes, in which case you're into a potentially very weird future.

Those are some of the issues I think we've got to look at in that area. On that point, if American companies are going to benefit from the effects of AI and increased automation, presumably other countries would do the same. So is there any worry that scaling back to a four-day work week would kind of put us at a strategic disadvantage relative to other countries who may not adopt the same four-day work week but who have the same advantages that are presented by by this, you know, by these advances in technology? I think all over the world, unions and working people are talking about a four-day work week. In the UK, for example, there was recently a study done by a number of companies who will implement that a four-day work week. And look, what they found, you know, if you go to work, what's important is not the number

of hours you sit at a day work. desk. It's what you accomplish. Yeah. And a number of studies have shown is that when people have more time off, more time off for leisure, being with their families, entertainment, they end up being more productive. So what I think many of these companies found actually workers produced more and felt better about their jobs after 32 hours rather than 40 hours. Okay. Moving over to the budget, Kevin McCarthy finally released this Republican budget, which effectively dismantles the Inflation Reduction Act. It cancels IRS funding. It cancels student loan. debt forgiveness and it increases oil and gas production. This thing has no chance of passing the

Senate and yet this gimmick is being done at a time where we got to move because the stability of the economy is at stake here. So what's your response to Kevin McCarthy who seems to be perfectly content to just screw around here for partisan political gain? Well, I think the answer is, as you've suggested, this is an absurd, reactionary, dangerous approach. It goes without saying that we cannot default on our debt, much of which, by the way, was accumulated during the Trump administration. So it is totally irresponsible for anybody to suggest that we not pay our bills and bring our country in the world into a major economic downturn.

Second of all, I think the antidote to what McCarthy is talking about is to come up with a budget and a set of principles which makes sense to ordinarily. Americans. For example, Republicans talk all the time about their concerns about the national debt. That's part of what McCarthy is talking about. Well, if you're concerned about the national debt, you've got to deal with income and wealth inequality. You've got to demand that the wealthiest people and largest corporations start paying their fair share of taxes. Second of all, you've got to deal with the concerns, the enormous concerns that working people now have. What we're seeing now is millions of our people continue to work for starvation wages.

And unbelievably, in the richest country on earth, we don't talk about this enough, Brian. Over 60% of Americans are still living paycheck to paycheck. All right? So what does that mean? It means you've got to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. I'm chairman of the committee that has jurisdiction over that. I believe the minimum wage in this country should be $17 an hour. all right you've got to make it easier for workers to join unions not make it harder it's an

issue we're working on terms of starbucks amazon and other companies as well i do want to jump over to the minimum wage for a moment but just first on this issue more broadly of kevin mccarthy's budget you know he's being led on on a leash basically by the most extreme members of his caucus who are responsible for putting him in the position that he's in right now is there any acknowledgement from your Republican colleagues in the Senate about, about like the disaster that he's pushing everybody toward in this country by virtue of coutowing to the Marjorie Teller Greens of the party? Because it doesn't seem like Senate Republicans are on board the way that House Republicans are. Well, I think, you know, I don't want to speak for Republicans

in the Senate. But I think some of them, at least essentially ignore what goes on in the House and do their own thing. Yeah. But your point is well taken that right now you have right-wing extremists who are exerting enormous power in the U.S. House. Now, the issue that you just mentioned, I want to go back to is the issue of raising the minimum wage. You also wrote an op-ed and the Guardian advocating for that.

The pushback that I presume you're going to get is that in certain states, well, first all, Republicans are claiming that this should be a state's issue and that in certain states where the cost of living is so low, raising the wage higher than it is right now would make it untenable for companies that operate there. So what do you say in response to that? What I say is that there have been a number of studies which suggest that it's just not accurate. Bottom line is, I don't care what state you are living in. And obviously, if you live in San Francisco, when New York, the cost of living is higher than a rural rest in Virginia. That's true. But the bottom line is nobody in America can survive on seven and a quarter an hour.

I don't care where you're living, and nobody can survive a nine or $10 an hour. Inflation has taken a toll, terms of housing costs, terms of food costs, terms of health care costs, and people need a living wage. $17 an hour is not some kind of outrageous number. It is, in fact, at the very least, what people need to live with dignity and enjoy a decent standard of living. All over this country, what we're saying is an explosion in the cost of housing. People can't afford their rent. You've got many people paying 50% of their limited income for rent. People can't afford the cost of food.

And meanwhile, we have not raised the minimum wage in Congress since 2008. So the time is now for a significant increase in the minimum wage. I guess my question is, why is there no acknowledgement from those on the right? that when you give people, regular people, more disposable income by virtue of raising their wage, they'll be able to actually use that to stimulate the economy, which at the end of the day does benefit those business owners. You are assuming that we're looking at a rational debate.

Yeah. So your point is if you put money into the hands of working people, they will use that money, they will spend that money, they have to stay alive, and that will improve the economy. I mean, I agree with you. Look, what you have right now, which takes us to a corrupt political system, is you have many members of Congress who receive a lot of their campaign contributions and their ideological background from very, very wealthy people.

And essentially, what they think is that we have to work to improve life for the very, very wealthy. And really, if anybody is poor or any working class people are sure, struggling, it's therefore you stand up on your own. We need tax breaks for billionaires. And one of the issues that we're working on right now is you've got 41 Republicans. That's 80% of over 80% of the Republicans of the Senate want to repeal the estate tax. Do you know who benefits from repealing the estate tax? Not poor people. One half of one percent. So they want to give a trillion dollars in tax breaks at the top one half of one percent. What's the economic or moral justification for that. There is them. It just makes the richer. So to answer your question, this is not a

rational argument. What you have right now is massive income and wealth inequality. Billionaires fund the political system. And you've got a lot of people who are working for the rich who could care less about the working class or middle class of this country. Yeah. You know, another issue that I mentioned before in terms of what Republicans are looking to appeal with their repeal with their new budget is IRS funding. They keep claiming that it's important to repeal this because, you know, the IRS is out there knocking down doors and ripping the wallets out of hands of working class Americans. What has the IRS actually been able to do with its increased funding, just this last tax season alone? Well, there are two or three areas that

the IRS has needed to improve upon. First of all, their service, if they're under service, they're a large bureaucracy. And if you don't have the people there to respond to your calls, You got a question, right, about your tax form, right? You want to know what's legal, what's not legal. You make a telephone call. Well, if there's nobody hired at the other end, you're going to be in a lot of trouble trying to fill out your form, or you're going to take hours to do what should take minutes.

That's one issue. We need to fill those slots. The second broader issue, which really is what the Republicans worry about, is if you're a large corporation and you have all kinds of accountants and all kinds of lawyers helping you evade. the tax war. How is the IRS going to compete with a dozen accountants who are, you know, paid millions of dollars a year? Yeah. All right? So what we're trying to do is to make sure that the IRS has a team of lawyers who can stand up to large corporations and their accountants

and lawyers and say, you know what? You've got to stop paying your fair share of taxes. That's really what the Republicans worry about. Yeah. Just so that we have this, this clip here, can you briefly explain what is at stake if Republicans do fail to lift the debt ceiling well what it means is that you know if you do not pay your debt you go bankrupt right as a person what you're talking about is the united states then acknowledging to the entire world that we're incapable of paying our debts if you like we are bankrupt uh we are um defaulting on our debt and if the united states the largest economy on earth cannot pay its debt, clearly it will cause incredible chaos in the entire world's financial system. Investments will be significantly scaled back. It will mean

increased unemployment and economic chaos in our country and all over the world. That is why people like Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump acknowledge that you cannot default on your debt. It would also seem to be at odds with the stated Republican goal of trying to protect our economy if you then let the global economy melt down to try to, you know, to try to win this standoff. Nobody denies that it would be incredibly irresponsible, incredibly, and cause massive damage. Where we are right now is that we need to mount an offensive against a right-wing ideology, which is at war with the working families of this country. And one of the issues that we are working on,

the many issues that we're working on on the Health Education Labor Committee is to take on the pharmaceutical industry so that we significantly lower the cost of prescription drugs. We're going to deal with the child care crisis in America. You're talking about the economy. Well, you know what? You can't go out and get a job

if you have a child or two children at home and you can't find any child care. So we have a dysfunctional child care system, which we have got to deal with. In terms of health care, we have got to ask why we are spending twice as much per capita on health care as to people of any other country, and yet we have 85 million people who are uninsured or underinsured. Meanwhile, the drug companies and the insurance companies make record-breaking profits. So what our goal is right now, Ryan, is to rally working class people all over this country around an agenda that works for them and do everything we can

to address this massive movement toward oligarchy and income and wealth inequality. And there's some good news out there. Let me give you some examples. You may recall that a number of months ago, a rail workers came before Congress and said, hey, we do difficult work. We have zero paid sick days, right? Well, you know what happened as a result of the work the unions did, and many of us in Congress did? We are right now, half the workers have seven days, and I expect within a couple of more weeks or months,

all of those workers and the unions will have gotten seven days paid sick leave. We are also working with on university campuses where you have adjunct professors and graduate students who are really doing a lot of teaching and research and are being exploited. You may have noticed University of California last month had a huge strike. They won those workers, won that strike. Rutgers University, huge strike. They won their strike. strike going on now at the University of Michigan. All of that is working people standing up

for decent wages and benefits, and we are doing our best to support those efforts. Yeah, and I would also point out that Michigan was able to repeal its right to work law for the first time. The only state to be able to do that in the last 58 years, so that's some good move on the union front. Just building on that union topic for a moment, you know, we've seen, especially with these recent hearings where Howard Schultz came before the committee, basically that these anti-union CEOs are moving to violate union law in this country because there's no enforcement mechanism within the National Labor Relations Board. Is anything being done to bolster enforcement so that when there are these violations, it's not just tacked up to a cost of doing

business for these CEOs? You're exactly right. Brian, you're exactly right. It's a very important issue. Workers have the constitutional right to form a union. And what we're seeing in America today is more and more workers are exercising that right. They want to form unions. We're seeing that at Starbucks. We're seeing it on college campuses. We're seeing in white college jobs, etc. What companies like Starbucks are doing, as you indicate, they are quite clearly breaking the law. You want to form a union? Well, guess what? We ain't going to negotiate a contract with you. We don't care what you want. We're going to break the law. So that's why I had Howard Schultz come before the committee to explain what he is doing. And we are continuing to work on that issue in telling

Starbucks they have to abray the law. But more importantly, to your point, and that is that we need teeth in label law to say to the Starbucks and the Amazon's and the other companies, guess what? You cannot do A, B, C, D. And if you do it, there's going to be substantial fines attached to your efforts. Right now, many of these companies are breaking the law with impunity. We have legislation called the Pro Act, which is essentially legislation which gives worker protects workers' rights to organize and tells companies they cannot interfere illegally with those rights. And I'm assuming the fate of that bill rests solely on whether we're able to get Democratic

majorities in the House and Senate. That is exactly right. So if you're a worker out there and you're thinking politics and not relevant to your life. You want to form a union. I think we have virtually all of the Democratic senators, maybe not one or two, but I think we have virtually all of them. I think we have zero Republicans on supporting that legislation. But if we're going to grow the middle class in America, we've got to grow the trade union movement, and that legislation is part of that effort. Let's finish off with this. There seems to be something

of a push to legitimize bagels in DC. There is now something called the Bagel Caucus. You're from Brooklyn. My whole family is from Brooklyn. We spoke about that before we started recording. I feel like it's something of a birthright to be able to identify good bagels having come from there. Are you buying this effort to claim that DC bagels

are actually good or as good as New York bagels? I'm a big fan of bagels. Actually, I don't eat bagels very much in Washington. and as I recall, most of my vacations here in Vermont. And I can tell you, Vermont has moved a whole lot in recent years in terms of producing good bagels. So if you're in Vermont, get one. Oh man, this turned, this turned into a, I tried to bash DC bagels. You start advocating for Vermont bagels instead. I have Vermont Senator, you know. Yeah, yeah, that's fair enough. All right. Well, Senator Sanders, thank you so much for taking

the time. It's always great speaking you. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. federal prosecutor and co-host of our legal series on YouTube, The Legal Breakdown, Glenn Kershner. Glenn, thanks so much for taking the time. Hey, Brian, great to be with you. So, Glenn, Fox is settled with Dominion voting systems for $787 million. It was reported by law and crime that Fox brought in $1.2 billion in earnings in 2022, meaning that in one fell swoop, more than half of their annual earnings were just wiped out by this lawsuit. They've still got the smartmatic lawsuit that they're contending with another defamation case. That's for $2.7 billion.

And then, of course, there is the prospect of yet another lawsuit on top of that brought by their own shareholders here. What does this mean for Fox moving forward? It could mean insolvency. I mean, you have to wonder if Fox can weather this financial storm. Think about this. Dominion sued for $1.6 billion. Now, presumably that had something to do with the valuation of Dominion voting systems and the amount of financial damage. including future earning potential, Fox's defamatory lies did to Dominion. Well, you know what? Smartmatic is suing for $2.7 billion. So if you figure Fox had to settle a $1.6 billion lawsuit for nearly three quarters of a billion dollars, how much are they going

to have to pay out to make the smartmatic suit go away? And here's the thing. Fox is now operating, from a position of extreme weakness. Because once they settled with Dominion, oh, Smartmatic is going to be so emboldened to go high, to go hard, and to really ring every last any out of Fox. So you've got another settlement that is likely in the offing, the Smartmatic suit. You also have shareholders suits being brought by Fox's own shareholders against the Fox Corporation. You've got one of Tucker, Carlson's former producers suing Fox. I mean, you really have to ask yourselves, can Fox weather this financial storm? This may be more of a financial question than a legal one, but what happens in the instance that Fox has multiples of its own annual revenue just being wiped out

with these cases? Well, I know if it happened to me, I would declare bankruptcy, right? I would just go out of business. I would fold up my tent and try to find some new line of work. So, you know, I am not an accounting expert, and I don't even play one on TV, but it really is an open question whether Fox is going to go belly up or whether they have enough in reserve, whether they have enough insurance coverage to kind of weather this financial storm. But here's the thing, this settlement and these suits that are being brought against Fox, I believe Brian will only inspire more suits and more suits to be brought. And I would like to think that, you know, this settlement and the others that may come will at least tamp down or deter others from engaging in the kind of blatant democracy busting lies that the Fox News was in the habit of broadcasting.

So I think right now, you know, this is a win in lots of different ways, not only for dominion, but even if only as a byproduct, it's a win for the American people. Yeah, I mean, you say that, but at the same time, I think the first statement that came out in the aftermath of the settlement was that Fox just repeated its claim that whatever the president says at the time is newsworthy. And so we were justified in our coverage. So, you know, I wouldn't hold my breath in terms of Fox finally seeing the light here. But with that said, why would Fox's shareholders sue here? What is the reason? And beyond that, what's the likelihood of success for them?

Yeah, it's called a derivative lawsuit. So the sharehold, you know, the board of directors, the executives, the officers of the Fox corporation have a fiduciary duty to the shareholders. One of those duties is to make sure you put people in place and mechanisms in place to make sure that your news programs, your anchors, are not defaming people, are not intentionally broadcasting falsities such that you're opening the corporation up to civil liability. And it's pretty clear that the executives and the officers of Fox Corporation just badly fell down on that duty, on that responsibility to protect the shareholders.

So this is not the first shareholder derivative suit that's been brought against Fox. They've been sued several times in the past, and they've had to settle with their own shareholders. In 2017, there was a suit brought by shareholders concerning some sexual harassment that was apparently running rampant at Fox. Well, they settled that for $90 million. Was it the Bill O'Reilly case? I think that was part of the Bill O'Reilly case. Or Roger Ailes, there was Roger Ailes and yeah. Yeah, it was running rampant, it seems. And they had to settle that rather than actually, again, go to trial and try to defend their own actions. In 2013, there was another derivative shareholder suit brought against Fox. That one was settled for $139 million. It had to do with a phone

hacking scandal in London. So, you know, Fox is no stranger to, you know, recklessly and negligently running the Fox Corporation. And as a result, having to pay out to their own shareholders. So, you know, this is another potentially major setback and major financial hit that Fox may have to take because it's pretty clear that the settlement that they had to pay three quarters of a billion dollars to Dominion because they had defamed Dominion. Boy, that's going to put wind in the sales of this shareholder suit. So, you know, Fox better strap in because they're going to have to write a whole lot of big checks. Yeah.

We spoke about the potential for a settlement in the last legal breakdown episode. I feel somewhat vindicated here because I asked why would Dominion really care about bringing it to trial if they could settle for as much money as they would have gotten anyway? Because why would they actually care about, you know, defending democracy if their ultimate goal was just to get paid? I'm vindicated, if not saddened by the fact that that ultimately played out that way, that defending democracy, that bringing these people to court to get their words on the record wasn't a part of their plan. But with that said, will we see the same thing from the Smartmatic

case? Like, I'm generalizing here, but it doesn't seem like the issue of protecting democracy is any one of the top 10 issues that motivates any of these companies as they're going to court. Yeah, that's a great question. There are some companies, some corporations, some businesses that have a real social conscience. But let's face it, at the end, end of the day, it's called a business for a reason. They're going to make business decisions about smartmatic is, I predict, about whether they should settle with Fox, depending on what kind of a number Fox's offering. And, you know, that only makes sense because they do have a responsibility to their employees, to their shareholders. And here's the thing, the lawyers that represent the dominions

and the smart Maddox of the world, their job is not to zealously defend democracy. They're job is not to zealously represent the interests of the American people. Their job is to zealously represent their client, whether it's Dominion or SmartMatic. So yes, I suspect at the end of the day, we're going to see another settlement. It will frustrate us because SmartMatic has already promised in the aftermath of the Dominion settlement. They put out a statement saying something like, you know, half of Fox's misdeeds were disclosed, were revealed in the Dominion. in litigation. Well, guess what? The other half will be revealed in the smartmatic litigation. You know, let's hope they're true to their word.

So before you mentioned insurance, I'm curious how that would work, because wouldn't this fall outside of the purview of something that an insurance company would actually insure a news organization for? Like, how does lying and basically airing defamatory statements fall into the purview of something that would be permissible by insurance coverage? Yeah, you know, I am not an insurance expert, but my understanding, Brian, is you know, you can write any kind of an insurance contract that you're willing to pay for. So what I will say is those other two shareholder derivative suits that I mentioned, the one in 2017, the one in 2013, where there were big Fox payouts, the reporting is that insurance covered some or most of those payouts. So, you know, even when it looks like it comes to not just negligent misconduct by a corporation, but reckless and perhaps even intentional misconduct by a corporation, look, you can write an

insurance policy to cover anything. The question is, what kind of premium are you going to have to pay when a company has a track record of operating at a minimum negligently such that there is big payout after big payout after big payout. And I haven't seen any reporting on whether this three-quarter of a billion dollar payout to Dominion might be covered in part or in whole by insurance. And that was going to be my last question here. Will there be a point at which we do find out whether or not these payouts are covered by Fox's insurance? You know, there are probably all kinds of non-disclosure agreements that are entered into between insurance companies and the

people and the companies they insure. But I do also believe we have a lot of really, really, good investigative journalists out there who are able to weasel information out of any number of sources. So I would say stay tuned for that. Okay. And let's finish off with this. Everyone's looking to what's next. So what's the timeline here for this smartmatic case? I don't know if there's a trial date yet set in a smartmatic case, but here's the thing I'm going to be looking for. Fox has a track record of violating discovery obligations and of making misrepresentations. to the court, so much so that the court sanctioned Fox. And you know what, let's be clear, there is probably some relationship between the fact that on the morning of the settlement

before the parties settled, the judge appointed a special master to dig into Fox's discovery violations, gave that special master carte blanche to conduct any and all depositions of folks over at Fox to try to uncover any other, you know, violations of discovery or of court rules and orders. And all of a sudden, after that, what do we get? We get a settlement. Could it be that Fox was still trying to protect itself against that kind of intrusion by a special master? So, you know, against that backdrop, I would say, let's see if Smartmatic files a motion saying, judge, the litigant in this case, Fox, has a proven track record of violating discovery obligations and making misrepresentations to the court. So you know what? Just to be safe,

we are also requesting a special master be appointed. If I were on the smartmatic legal team, I think I would absolutely file a motion like that. Okay. I do have one more question. I know I said the last one was the last one, but I'm just curious, what's your takeaway here from this case? I know a lot of us on the left, myself included, even though I expected this, are upset at the prospect of Dominion having settled. But I'm just curious what your takeaway is, because a lot of us just want to see Fox go down, but coming from someone who has a legal background, how do you think this played out? You know, my takeaway from this is it's kind of a win-win, because Fox really inexplicably waited until the last minute to settle. I do think the appointment of the special

Master had something to do with that. But so much of the damaging information was already revealed to the public about Tucker Carlson, for example, saying Sidney Powell is lying and then feeding those very lies to their viewers. So I think, you know, the sort of cumulative effect of everything that we've learned. And, you know, if Smartmatic can be taken at its word, we're going to learn a lot more about the dirty dealing behind the scenes of Fox News. I think, you know, it could reach critical mass and it could sort of end up in a place where Fox News is so badly damaged and diminished. And perhaps it can't even remain a going concern and it goes belly up. So I think things are trending in a good way for the American people, but in a really bad way for Fox News.

Don't talk dirty to me, Glenn. All right. Well, we'll leave it there. For those listening, if you want to catch more of me and Glenn, subscribe on YouTube to watch the legal breakdown. Glenn, thanks so much for coming on. Hey, great being with you, Brian. Thanks again to Glenn. Okay, one last note, I am right on the cusp of 2 million subscribers on YouTube. So if you're not yet subscribed to my channel, please check it out and throw me a subscribe. Okay, that's it for this episode. Talk to you next week.

You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen. Produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, interviews captured and edited for YouTube and Facebook by Nicholas Nicotera, and recorded in Los Angeles, California. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app. Feel free to leave a five-star rating and a review, and check out Brian Tyler Cohen.com for links to all of my other channels.