The Daily Beast Podcast - Elon Musk Reveals His Next Step On The Path To World Domination

Episode Date: January 7, 2025

The New Abnormal co-hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie share their apprehension at the increasing scope of Elon Musk’s political ambitions. Then, MSNBC legal analyst Glenn Kirschner joins the program to discuss the state of law and order in America (hint: It’s not doing so hot). Plus! Chris Geidner, the deputy editor for legal affairs at Grid and author of the Law Dork newsletter, catches us up on a number of big legal stories that happened over the holidays. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy, and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits pretty comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears.

What an excellent show we have today, and we're so glad to be back from vacation. MSNBC legal analyst Glenn Kirshner joins us to discuss the implications of a potential Trump presidency despite his criminal convictions and the dangers posed by a Supreme Court that won't hold him accountable. Denton Law Dwork Newsletter editor Chris Geithner will join us to talk about Chief Justice John Roberts' comments about criticism of the courts and how recently legal decisions like the one on net neutrality could strengthen conservative control. But first, let's have some fun.

Well, happy January and happy new year. We're back and excited to be with all of you for another glorious season of the new abnormal. And there's no better way to kick this off when better than, you know, reflecting on January 6, 2021. What a day. What a time to be a. alive. And it's so great that Donald Trump is going to be headed to, oh, that's right, not trial, but to be inaugurated once again as president of the United States on January 20th. What a time to

be alive, Andy. Yeah. It is amazing that it's just like so close after New Year's. And everyone's trying to get in the swing of like, you know, New Year, New Me and be all positive and everything. And then six days into the year, it's like, oh, yeah, we have to remember that this happened four years ago. And the thing is, we do have to remember that this happened four years ago because it seems like a lot of people have forgotten. Not that they've forgotten it happened, but that they've forgotten exactly what happened. And it really is like this along with COVID just seem to be two huge things that happened in 2020, 2021. And for some reason, they just haven't stuck, I guess, if you will. A million plus people, American, is dead from COVID, and we act like it never really happened.

And four years ago, there was a mob of the insurrectionists stormed the Capitol building. People died. People got hurt. And they tried to help overturn a free and fair election. And, you know, on one side now, a lot of the same people who at the turn ate damn well what was happening and were hiding under desks and who were. who were scared for their lives are now pretending that the people who store in that building were patriots and Donald Trump has talked about pardoning them all, et cetera. It's absolutely unreal how we have, I don't want to say we've allowed history to be rewritten because there are, you know, look, I'm sure anyone listening to this knows exactly what happened on January 6th, and knows exactly who was to blame.

But a large swath of this country has either completely rewritten what, happened on that day or has decided to just collectively shrug at what happened that day. And it's so dangerous for that to happen. I know we don't want to get too into this. We fucked your ear off over the last four years about January 6th. And you all know how we feel about it. But I think it is important that the people on quote unquote our side remember what happened that day. Quick thing, just the last little thing that I'll say is that Joe Biden decided to do an op-ed in the Washington Post, probably one of the shortest op-eds I've ever seen, where he wanted to remind the American people about January 6th and said that we should be proud that democracy held

and our institutions held on that day. I fucking beg to differ. And the fact that Joe Biden is going to be attending the inauguration of Donald Trump speaks volumes as to what a failure our democracy has become and that we are no longer one at all. And he, with the thanks in part to Merrick Garland, are surely responsible for that. So, bravo. Thank you for your op-ed, Mr. President. Okay. So speaking of presidents, Elon Musk. Just, you know, I guess is not only president of the United States, but he's apparently president of the world right now. And, you know, I guess, is not only president of the world right now and has been being called out by world leaders in France, Macron, and in Germany for meddling, lo and behold, in their elections. And I think it's because, well, if you can

successfully buy one president in the United States and all goes well, why can't you make that a trend worldwide and then have worldwide domination? Because apparently it's not enough to be the world's richest person and the biggest asshole, you also need to ensure that there is, I guess, worldwide poverty and authoritarianism as well so that you can sit firmly on your throne and look down at the peons. That is the rest of the world. I find Elon must to be, there aren't enough curse words that one could use and I want to spare all of your ears. But But yeah, this is the future. We've arrived here. Welcome to the United States of oligarchs. This is who we are and this is what we've become. And it doesn't matter that people want to run some

headlines lamenting him and world leaders want to come out and wag their fingers because at the end of the day, who won't check him, boo? Nobody. Yeah, it was wild how he had kind of rapidly become possibly the most dangerous person on the planet. And that's saying a lot, considering Donald Trump's about to be president of the United States again. As he fed, Danielle, I mean, the stuff, you know, he's gone worldwide, whether it's supporting the, the AFG party, the alternative for Germany, I think that stands for in Germany, which is about as far right as it gets, whether it's referring to the Labor Party in Britain as, I forget the exact words he used, but pedophile was one of them. He's calling for the release from prison in England of people who have

been virulently anti-Islam and who are considered dangerous extremists. He's dipping his toes into Canadian politics. And it is just, like you said, who's going to check him? Sorry, you said, who's going to check him, boo? Correct. I am going to miss quote you said, because look, we've had four years of Joe Biden in office. And over those four years, it's not like Elon Musk's government contracts have shrunk. If anything, I would say they've grown between SpaceX and and Starlink and whatever else. And we continue to give this guy money. He is a guy who thinks of himself as like sort of this Uber capitalist,

who in reality is very, very dependent on taxpayer money given to him by the U.S. government. And on top of that, the security aspects of this, the fact that SpaceX is so intertwined with NASA now and that Starlink is providing Wi-Fi to, you know, a whole bunch of people. And like you said, we have let him run unchecked. And if he has taken any lesson from the last four years, it is pretty much the same lesson that Trump has learned over his life, which is that he can do whatever the hell he wants. And there will be little or no repercussions. And it'll probably make him richer. And so sure, if you were him and, you know, why wouldn't you then turn your sites to Europe and to Canada and figure, hey, I just bought an election here in the United States, which I know is oversimplifying things, but let's not pretend that there's not some aspect of that. That's true. Why can't I do the same thing in other countries? And why can't I use my platform, Twitter slash X, to send out absolutely insane lies and misinformation and disinformation. It worked in America.

why the hell wouldn't it work in places like Germany and the United Kingdom? And again, nobody is stopping him and nobody's even trying to stop him from what I can figure out. I mean, I haven't seen any calls from anybody in any party here in the United States to maybe take a look at the government contracts he has and to take a look at what an absolute nightmare of a security risk he is. But it's the golden rule. He's got all the gold so he can make the rule. rules. You know, the funny thing is here, and by funny, I mean nothing of it is funny at all, is that Elon Musk is worth $400 billion. And his greed and his thirst for power is insatiable. You would think to yourself like, my God, isn't it enough? Don't you have enough?

Why now must you, like, go around meddling in world democracies? Because it's not enough. Elon Musk sees democracies around the world, sees the people as a problem to be fixed. And that, you know, it was said by Hitler back in 1930s that private business cannot, private enterprise, cannot succeed in democracy. This was the pitch that he was making to the industrialists that supported his run to become the chancellor of. Germany. This was his pitch to the industrialist, much in the same way that that same fucking pitch happened at Mar-a-Lago, where we have seen now a parade of billionaires going to Donald Trump to bend the knee to offer their million-dollar, right, bounties at Donald Trump's feet. And it is just, It is wild, wild to think that it is our elected officials that open the doors to allow this to happen

and wanted to tell us that by being in bed with Elon Musk and Bezos and others, that, oh, this is what it looks like for public, you know, for government to link arms with private industry. Except what you've done is allow for a tumor to embed itself in our democracy and now spread like wildfire, not just here, but everywhere around the globe. Because now if you get rid of these people that you've become utterly dependent on, then what happens? And you've already, Elon Musk doesn't just have, I'm certain, he doesn't just have top security clearance in the United States.

I'm sure that he has it everywhere where folks are using Starlink and this, that, and the other thing. Like the obscene amount of power, while we've been so focused on Donald Trump, The most dangerous person in the world is, in fact, Elon Musk. And Donald Trump is just his puppet. And that to me is like, whoa, I don't think that folks who are saying like, well, we were able to riot out the last four years, we'll be totally fine this time around, have taken their heads out of the sand at all.

No, I agree with that. And among those people, unfortunately, are a bunch of elected Democrats who seem to be you know, if not fully in support of the absolutely ridiculous and ridiculously named Department of Government Efficiency that is being quote unquote run by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswami. And you've got these Democrats who are saying, yeah, we're going to work with them. People like Richard Torres, Rokane, Jared Moskowitz in Florida, and a bunch of others. And they are sitting here and legitimizing this, I'm not going to call it a department, because it's not a even though it says it in its name, they're legitimizing this enterprise that should have absolutely

no legitimacy to it whatsoever. And the fact that if this is going to be the playbook for the next four years for a bunch of Democrats, we are in even bigger trouble than we think. Look, you could say their head is in the sand. You could say it's up somewhere else, I suppose. But I don't know how they sat through a first Trump presidency and got the idea that the thing to do here is to play ball with Donald Trump and Elon Musk for the next four years. I don't even know how you come to that conclusion in any logical or rational way. If nothing else, we need a really strong Democratic Party. I'm laughing, even putting those three words together in my head, you know, strong Democratic Party. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But my God, I cannot remember in my

lifetime when we so desperately needed a strong Democratic Party the way we are going to for the next four years and possibly beyond. And so far, I have to say, I'm not particularly impressed with what I'm seeing, Daniel. You shouldn't be impressed with what you're seeing because I don't know what you're looking at because I have seen not a goddamn thing. And I swear I've checked my eyes many a times. I see nothing. You know, we've seen as Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer have worked behind the scenes in order to prop up their sectinajarians to be ranking members of really important committees, moving, pushing, and moving younger, brighter, quicker, stars to the side like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, like Representative Jasmine Crockett, in lieu of doing the same old thing over and over again.

In the op-ed that I mentioned that Joe Biden has up at the Washington Post, he talks about, you know, shaking hands with Donald Trump and being present at the inauguration. because they think that this pageantry that we're getting ready to witness somehow is signifying to the world that democracy has held in the United States. Meanwhile, oh, just by the way, Donald Trump is going to be sentenced on January 11th. Now we know already by the judge's own words like there's going to be no jail time. There's going to be nothing that is going to signify to this country that law and order has prevailed in this case. because they think that putting up the same people, pretending that institutions have held when we know,

like recording right now, we have one of the spouses of the Supreme Court justices that were part of helping to fund the insurrection on January 6th. The other one's wife was flying flags. And nothing has happened to these people. So how Joe Biden writes a piece that tells the American people, everything will be okay. And, you know, not to be an ageist. Because again, this is not about age. It's about passion. It's about understanding the strategies that Maga has been using over the last 10 years to numb us into a place where we're going to accept authoritarianism. And you have these young people that are willing and able and know how to tackle Maga, how to get people like conscious and aware of what is happening. And right now, the best symbol for

our democracy and for the Democratic Party is Nancy Pelosi on the House floor in a fucking Walker. That is not strength to me. Yes, I agree with everything he said, but I do think you're overlooking the one thing that will save us. And that is more op-eds from James Carville. I really think that there's a guy who has his finger firmly on the pulse of the nation and can tell you exactly what's been going on in the last 10 years. And it's just, he's so hip to the kids. And my God, it's just like every time I see another op-ed from him or he's quoted because he was on some cable network. It's like, what are we doing here? And this is all of a piece with what you were saying. It's like, I understand that it's hard to look at the world and say, hey, it's time for me to

take a step back. But it's time. It is time. We don't need Rahm Emanuel running the Democratic National Committee. We don't need any of these guys brought back. I don't know. It's just time to look forward. And like you said, what Pelosi did in sidelineing AOC is so bad for the party. And this is someone Neti Pelosi has literally devoted her whole life to the party. And the fact that she can't see that what she's doing now is actually bad for the party. I don't want to dismiss Nancy Pelosi's entire career. She did a lot of good along with some bad, but she did a lot of good. But it's time to step back. And again, even if she doesn't want to resign from Congress, get out of leadership. Get out of the way. There are people who are younger. There are people who are hungrier. There are people who grew up with social media who know

much, much better than people like Nancy Pelosi do. So how communications work these days. To keep pushing them aside in favor of these people in their 70s and their 80s, it's so counterproductive and they're clearly not going to do it on their own. And I'm hopeful that at some point the young people outnumber the old. And look, I'm basically one of the olds at this point. At least I sort of know my name. And even though I don't act it.

Just know when it's time to gracefully step aside. Joe Begging should have known that. Nancy Pelosi should know that. And none of them do. And it is so bad for the party and so bad for the country. And I just wish they would come to their senses. Folks, I am so excited, honestly, that my first interview of the new year is with the wonderful, brilliant Glenn Kirchner, who is an MSNBC legal analyst.

host of Justice Matters and has been a frequent guest on the new abnormal breaking down all of the legal news we need to understand. Glenn, we start off this new year with a reminder of the January 6th, 2021 insurrection. It has been four years, Glenn, since we watched a plume of smoke go up over our capital building, a gallows being built, a chance of hang Mike Penn. and Mitch McConnell pointing his finger on the floor saying, this is a dark day, this is Donald Trump's fault. And four years later, Donald Trump is going to be not standing trial, but standing on the steps of the Capitol building being sworn in as the 47th president of the United States. Talk to me. Talk to me about law and order. Talk to me. Yeah, it's sort of the death of the rule of law, it feels like. I wish I could say that the rule of law is in hibernation and will be prodded into wakefulness sometime soon.

But, you know, I have to be realistic as much as I try to be idealistic and optimistic. We now have a president of the United States who is an adjudicated insurrectionist, adjudicated by a trial court and state Supreme Court. And in the United States Supreme Court case, when it took up that issue of whether he should be disqualified under the 14th Amendment section 3, spoiler alert. He should. They did not disagree with the Colorado trial court or Supreme Court's finding, ruling, holding based on the evidence after a trial that Donald Trump engaged in insurrection. Constitution be damned because it says an insurrectionist cannot hold any office. The Supreme Court said, yeah, we don't think that should apply to Donald Trump.

and they came up with an intellectually dishonest reason as to why that is. They actually said, we know that's the express language of the Constitution, but we don't really care about the text of the Constitution. We think Congress should pass yet another law saying to say anything. Insurrectionists should not be able to serve in office. That has exposed the Supreme Court. That was, I think, the third time they exposed themselves as someone, as a body, at least to five justice majority that is not loyal to the Constitution. They're not honest brokers of the rule

of law or the text of the Constitution. And now we have an adjudicated insurrectionist who's about to take the oath of office. Again, we have a convicted felon, soon to be a convicted felon on the day he sentenced. And mind you, these were 34 felony crimes designed to cheat in and try to steal the 2016 presidential election. And we have somebody who stole and unlawfully retained our nation's closely guarded secrets, earning him a federal indictment for espionage and obstruction of justice, among other crimes. He will now be retaking the reins of federal power, and when I say he will be reigning over the people of the United States in ways that if we take him at his word, he said he'll be a day one dictator, he said he will terminate portions of the Constitution,

and he said he will use the military against his political opponents. And I frankly anticipate he will do all that and more. What a nation we have become. I mean, it is, you know, you and I have been in conversation, Glenn, for years. And believing that America would learn its lesson, wouldn't repeat history. Because we all witnessed with our own eyes the first Trump presidency. We saw how he utilized his hotel. which is now, of course, gone, where he had foreign diplomats stay at inflated prices.

We saw a for-sale sign be put on the White House. And then when he wasn't able to win a second term, he told his followers to go take their country back. We listened to the January 6 committee hearings that were televised. We heard from law enforcement, from former Trump administration staff. And yet, here we sit. And Judge Mershan, in the New York case, has come out and said that, you know, according to law, Donald Trump must be sentenced on January 11th. But that, of course, there will be no jail time.

So tell me the point of this pageantry. What is the point of this sentencing that is a sentence saying that is a sentence? supposed to take place on January 11th. Donald Trump is, of course, trying to appeal this from happening. But why does it even matter at this point when we're just days away from his second term? I'm not sure I can make an argument in favor of it mattering in any concrete way because when you commit 34 felonies and a judge decides that because of your power, your influence, your connections, your position, your wealth, your profile, you will not be punished for those 34 felony convictions that a jury, men and women who were selected to serve on that jury in New York, did the very hard

and thankless and dangerous work of holding Donald Trump accountable for those crimes. And he will receive not one minute of punishment, no incarceration, no fine, not even a period of probation with conditions as set by the court that Donald Trump has to abide by. He's going to receive something called an unconditional discharge. I have never been involved in 30 plus years as a prosecutor in an unconditional discharge. That means zero punishment at all. The only thing it accomplishes is it finalizes those 34 guilty verdicts and they will become final offenses of conviction. So for the four years that he is reigning over the American people, he will in fact be a convicted felon. And it's not until you are sentenced that you can formally

appeal your convictions. And that's what he will be able to do once he's sentenced. But one of the most important reasons for sentencing somebody for their crimes and imposing some sort of punishment, holding them accountable, is to deter others who in the future might choose to felonies to try to cheat in and steal American elections. Not only will there be no deterrent value because there is no punishment and no accountability, it will actually serve as an incentive or encouragement for other crooked politicians to follow Donald Trump's playbook, cheat in and steal elections, because they can rest assured that with their power, influence, and connections, they will receive no punishment. You know, this really, it

feels like, I hate to say the death of the rule of law, because I don't believe we are yet at an end as a republic, but I think we are now sprinting, not just jogging in the direction of the end of our republic. Tell me why you don't think that this is the end. I genuinely asked that question because 34 felony counts. We have laws on the books across these United States that deny returning citizens, those that actually paid their debt to society from ever being able to participate in government, to be able to vote. This 34 count felon is now going to be the president of the United States. So how do you see this as not being an end to the rule of law as we know it?

It's a great question. And the good news is I think the trend has been toward restoring voting rights for returning citizens after they have served their sentence and completed their probation. And I encourage and embrace and applaud that. So Donald Trump told us that if we vote for him one more time, we'll never have to vote again. So I take your point. If he makes good on his threats and his promises, then maybe we have experienced our last election because we will be converted into a dictatorship. I think that's a distinct possibility.

And Donald Trump has promised it. The reason I choose to say this is not the end of the rule of law is because I don't think we're all just going to throw up our hands and give up and can that we can never again be a law-abiding people or a nation that applies the rule of law. I would like to believe Donald Trump's decline will be rapid. I do take some comfort in the dysfunction and infighting we've already seen from the Republicans. Let's not forget the Republicans in Congress, rarely points of light in today's America, have told Donald Trump no over and over and over again. They said no to Rick Scott. They said no to Matt Gates.

They said no to raising the debt ceiling. They said no to shutting down government by refusing to pass a CR. They apparently are saying no to going out of session, so there will be no confirmation. Hearings, heck, even Ron DeSantis said no to Laura Trump as a senator to Phil Marco Rubio. That's a whole lot of no, aspiring day one dictator. And I do think if they started to give in to Donald Trump on every one of those. fronts that I just mentioned, that would be an even more ominous sign, that they would not do their job and protect their constituents, but at least they have said no half a dozen times.

Let's hope that continues. But I can't conclude that we're done as a democracy or that the rule of law will no longer be a thing. And the reason I can't conclude that is because I don't think we're going to lay down and die and give in to this aspiring dictator. I think we're going to keep fighting like L for the future of our country. I wonder because for years, for nearly a decade, I like you and others have looked at Donald Trump as the sole threat to our democracy. We watched as for the first time the United States back in 2021 was labeled as a backsliding democracy coming off of the end of his initial term as president of the United States.

We watched as Donald Trump wanted to clear Lafayette Plaza with police, deny people the right to assemble in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, and use the military general, Mark Millie, in his fatigues walking through the plaza to symbolize that he is the hammer. And I think about those images and I think about where we are right now, and I listen to you with regard to the infighting, but there is something that is different this time around. about Donald Trump, which is that the person that is making the most noise and is showing themselves to truly be the authority is one who was not elected. And that is Elon Musk. And we are watching as he is not only as he placed the crown jewel of America atop his head, but he is now going around and meddling in other democracies using his. extraordinarily disgusting amount of wealth. And so I wonder my question to you is, do you see an increased danger now that Elon Musk is really who seems to be in charge, that MAGA seems to have, you know, another president that they actually didn't elect? And so what do you make of this term, this second term, this second regime, now that it has an oligarch backing? Well, first, I guess I would say the oligarchs, the billionaires, the ruling class,

have always been sort of inclined to support the Republicans and the Republican politicians and, you know, trying to buy them early and often. So I don't know that that much, that has changed much other than we now have a pretend agency, the Doge, not a thing. Not an agency, not funded, no building, no power beyond the power of Elon Musk's money, but he's always had that power. And I actually think the senators are mocking him behind us back. I think the senators are saying to themselves, you know, when Musk leaves their office, I ran a Senate campaign. I got elected with blood, sweat, tears, and yes, lots of Republican donations. but this guy has done nothing to be elected and to have the kind of power he's trying to wield. So I don't think that much has changed.

I actually think, you know, you're going to see the infighting among these people because Donald Trump is surrounding himself with imbeciles and incompetence. And let's remember during his first two years of his first term, when he had all the levers of power, the House and the Senate of the accomplished damn near nothing, except. tax cuts for billionaires, which he may accomplish again. And I think the number of imbeciles in the administration was much lower then than it will be now, assuming Congress starts confirming the imbeciles to cabinet positions. So I have some hope that it will continue to be a dysfunctional Trump administration. It will make it hard for them to accomplish what they want to accomplish.

But really even more frightening than the Elon Musk development is the Supreme Court's presidential immunity development because that gives Donald Trump the power of lawlessness. It gives him a blueprint for autocracy because the Supreme Court said in no uncertain terms, you can order your military officials and your DOJ officials to carry out your unlawful commands, including to imprison your political opponents without charges, without evidence and without due process. You can then use your second core constitutional power, pardon power to pardon your military officials and DOJ officials from carrying out your illegal commands and everybody gets away with it. That's the blueprint for autocracy that a corrupt,

conflicted, and the illegitimate Supreme Court has the 5-5 Justice Majority has delivered to Donald Trump. And one of our three eminent scholars hit the mail right on the damn head. Akeel Reed Amar when he said, in the presidential immunity ruling the Supreme Court to the Constitution unconstitutional. And what do we do, Danielle, when the Supreme Court abuses its discretion? There is no higher court of appeal, but it's no different than they had said, you know what, that Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures, we don't like that anymore. You know what? The Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination, the right not to incriminate yourself. We don't think that has a place in today's society.

You know what, that Sixth Amendment right to counsel, we don't really buy. anymore. They can do away with those rights just the way they did, just the way they bestowed the power of lawlessness on a president. And that is what, that is what I am most concerned with. What does your resistance look like, Glenn, as we head into this second regime? And as people are feeling right now both deeply cynical and hopeless. So I thought I would be spending the coming years covering the Trump trials, watching as jury after jury, just as the New York jury did, holds Donald Trump guilty accountable for his crimes against the American people, which he most assuredly committed, but has now gotten away with. But I guess my mission, I feel like, is pivoting somewhat to one

of education, because if we don't continue to talk about the lawlessness that we anticipate Trump and his Blackies to engage in in the coming years in the Trump administration, people will forget to look, we'll forget to recognize lawlessness when they see it. If we don't educate the public on why what Trump and company is doing is wrong, is unlawful, is unconstitutional, then we're going to lose the capacity to resist it and to oppose it and to work to get back to a place where the rule of law is a thing in our republic. So I kind of see my mission now as continuing to educate and talk about the abuses that, frankly, I hope Trump and company don't perpetrate. I hope they don't. I just have every reason to expect they will. Glenn Kirchner, we will leave it there today. I cannot

thank you enough for the work that you continue to do, for the education that you continue to provide, and we will continue to be in conversation as we navigate this brave new world. Appreciate you. We're all in this together, Danielle. My first guest of the new year is the universally beloved Law Dork himself, Chris Geidner. He's the former BuzzFeed Legal Editor and Deputy Editor for Legal Affairs at Grid News and the current publisher of the most excellent legal newsletter, Lawdork at lawdork.com.

And he's here to catch us up on a couple of big things that happened last week that maybe flew a bit under the radar as we were all making merry. Chris, happy new year and welcome back. Happy new year, Andy. Thank you. So, as I said, there are a couple things I want to talk about with you today. So let's maybe start with John Roberts's year-end report on the federal judiciary. Now, unless I'm mistaken, Roberts is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Is he not? He is, although to be law dork on you, technically his title is Chief Justice of the United States. Wow. Okay. I am so glad that I had you on to clear that up. So, okay, now that that's cleared up, what is in this report? I assume it's a lot of mea copas, some shoutouts to the importance of judicial ethics, things of that nature. Yeah, of course. He really understood this moment and the difficult nature. Nope. Instead, what we got was a lashing out from a man who,

is, it's truly hard at this point to know how much of it is a complete removal from the rest of society and how much of it is an antagonism to the rest of that society. It was an attack on the attacks on the judiciary. Yeah. So he spent a lot of time laying out in his mind the difference between legitimate versus illegitimate criticism of the judiciary? What does he have to say here? It's almost a step worse than that. He didn't even acknowledge legitimate criticism. He sort of set up the fact that legitimate criticism exists. Right. Then he didn't go into that at all and then said, so because of that, I'm going to write about these four areas of illegitimate activity. And what he said, those illegitimate areas were violence, intimidation, disinformation, and threats to defy lawfully

entered judgments. The problem is that only the first one, violence, was really clear about its illegitimacy. The rest of them, and what I go through at Lawdork, is that throughout the rest of them, he sort of flutters back and forth between talking. about things that I think we would all agree are illegitimate to talking about things that sound a lot more like whining. Yeah. So, for example, when he talks about intimidation, I mean, yes, obviously you don't want people calling up federal judges or justices and saying, if you rule this way, I will kill your family. Right. That would be bad. Yes, but he seems to take a much

broader view of what intimidation is to the point where it seems like he's almost saying any criticism is intimidation. Yeah, here's a sentence that he wrote, public officials too regrettably have engaged in recent attempts to intimidate judges. For example, suggesting political bias in the judge's adverse rulings without a credible basis for such allegations. So in other words, a politician speaking on the floor of a legislative chamber saying that a judge's ruling is biased is in John Roberts' opinion. If John Roberts decides that you don't have a credible basis for that claim is illegitimate. Yeah. And there's also, to me anyway, there's a both siding going on here in the guise of no siding. If that makes sense.

Oh, totally. He doesn't. Everything is written in code. There's no specific examples given. Even when there are things that we're able to figure out what they are, there's no specificity given, which makes it really difficult. And it does. It presents this specter that all of these things happening out there, anything that you,

the reader of John Roberts report can imagine fits into. to this is illegitimate. My ultimate concern with this is that it really chills criticism, a lot of which is legitimate. But my sense is the criticism that it's looking to chill is, for lack of a better term, is the criticism that's coming from the left. He doesn't seem like, I mean, the king of sort of trying to intimidate judges and suggesting political bias is Donald Trump. But you don't get that sense from reading what Roberts wrote. No, this is definitely not a, I'm really nervous about the incoming administration. Right.

Report. No, not at all. It is, who are these people attacking our rulings and saying that we're politically biased? I wrote that aspects of this sounded like an Alito speech. Like, it truly was far afield of the sort of presentation that John Roberts tried to throughout, for example, the first Trump administration put forward as what is my institutional role going to be? Well, I do feel, I've said this on the show before, I feel like he has completely abdicated that position. Well, yeah, I mean, especially when you look at the reporting from

last year that the sort of role he took in the immunity case that the New York Times reported on, that he had basically decided it before it was heard and probably would have gone even further. There are definitely those who would say he's always been this person and he just feels like it's safe to come out now. And there are others who would say that he gave up at some point. I don't know him personally. I can't tell you what it is. But it is definitely a fact that the John Roberts that we're getting today is, is

far less concerned in in ways that could become very important come January 20th onward, far less concerned at presenting a neutral institutional presentation to the country. Well, and let's get, there's another segment of what he wrote in his year end report that you get into at your Lawdork piece that I think plays right into that. And that is the way he sort of seems to address or at least allude to the upcoming hearing on the proposed TikTok ban, right? It was very weird that, like, December 18th, the court agrees to hear this case over the law that could ban TikTok on January 19th. They're going to hold arguments on January 10th. And then right in smack dab in the middle of that on December 31st, he issues this report that specifically says that hostile foreign state actors have accelerated their efforts to attack all branches of government, including.

the judiciary. And the law that we're going to have oral arguments on January 10th over is about foreign adversary controlled applications. If one wanted to be aggressive, one could certainly make a case that he was commenting indirectly at least on that case. Because the government's basis for defending this law is national security. And John Roberts gets in this report and literally says that we must, as a nation, take all appropriate measures to stop these hostile foreign state actors. Yeah, if nothing else, it struck me as odd to put that in his year-end report when he's talking about something that is clearly going forward. I know he tried to sort of massage it by saying, oh, this is what was happening in the past year, but it seemed

fairly clear from reading his report and reading your writing on it that this was, I'm being aggressive. I mean, he was trying to say that it was the type of disinformation that he viewed as a legitimate. But to the extent he's doing that while the case is pending, I mean, it felt to me more like an amicus brief in that case. Yeah, absolutely. Just for time purposes, I want to shift to a decision that was issued last week, not by the Supreme Court, but by a three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. The case was Ohio Telecom v. FCC, and as you wrote at Law Dork, it basically struck down net neutrality. Can you start by quickly explaining what net neutrality is? Yeah, I mean, net neutrality is, and of course, this is where you're going to get me in trouble,

Andy, because I'm a lawyer, not a tech guy. I mean, essentially what it says is that, like, you've got all of these internet service providers. You've got all these providers, and they have to, you have to, to offer up their telecommunications devices equally to all. They can't say that this site is going to have to pay this much. These consumers are going to have to pay this much for this service. You can't distinguish among those different services or websites. And net neutrality purports to protect that. And what the basis for that that the FCC has is in its most recent iterations is by asserting that these providers are common carriers akin to a telephone company. And what the, the Sixth Circuit said is that essentially you read the law wrong, there's no way that you can

call these services common carriers because they're not telecommunication services. Instead, they're information services. And information services aren't common carriers. So the ramifications of this seem pretty, at least potentially, broad. For instance, and tell me if this is a bad for instance, a broadband company, your cable company or whatever, you know, Verizon, wherever you get your internet from, that company could decide, well, we want to throttle MSNBC.com, but not FoxNews.com, making it easier for people to get onto FoxNews.com, or the reverse. Obviously. Am I doing this right? Am I doing this right? Yeah. I mean, there could be other litigation. There could be other claims, but they would be claims from MSNBC. They wouldn't be the government saying this is what you have to do. Right. So the ramifications of this, again, are may end up being pretty broad. And also this goes to,

and now we're going to have to get into another legal term, which is, of course, a Chevron deference. Can you explain what that is and how a recent Supreme Court ruling led to, what the Sixth Circuit did here? Yeah, this, and this was sort of more what I focused on because the tech effects are going to be broad. And they also, you had the additional complication of the fact that the way that net neutrality debate has evolved in recent years is basically the Democrats are supportive of net neutrality and Republicans oppose it.

And so it's entirely possible that there would have been an effort when the Trump administration came in to reverse the FCC's net neutrality decision once Trump appointees took over the FCC. So we could have been having this debate on that ground, but then it would have been within the executive branch. What we had happened last term at the Supreme Court is this decision called Loper Bright that ended Chevron deference. And what Chevron deference said is that there's so many laws out there, and a lot of them have ambiguity written into them. And if there is an ambiguous term in a law, we will, the courts will defer to an agency charged with implementing that law for its reasonable interpretations of that law. So the agencies don't get to do whatever they want,

but if you've got an ambiguous law and the agency makes a choice how they're going to interpret it, that's the court said you're allowed to do that. And so that meant that when the public votes for one party or another to take over the White House, regulations can change. What the court said in Loper Bright getting rid of Chevron deference is, and this was an opinion by Chief Justice Roberts, he said, no, there's no deference. Courts are the ones that are to decide what the laws mean. And there's always a best meaning. And so whenever you challenge anything that happens, whenever there's any law passed, you can go to a court and the courts will decide. Now, what that means when you have a lopsided six three conservative court, now you're going into another four years of Republican

appointees to the courts is that basically the administration is going to choose its rule. then they're going to get challenged in court, and then a conservative court is going to get to decide what the best meaning of that law is. Whereas in the past, what happened is that an agency, once the election was held, an agency decided what they were going to do, and then if it was an ambiguous law,

then the courts went with reasonable interpretations. And so it's effectively going to solidify conservative interpretations of the law in most instances. So in this case, just to make this more specific, it's going to mean no net neutrality. Right. But what it meant here is the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals panel, they didn't rule that the FCC was doing net neutrality wrong. They ruled that the FCC had no right to do net neutrality at all because the FCC is not the arbiter of what is or what is not an information. service or telecommunication service, the court is.

Judge Richard Griffin, a George W. Bush appointee to the Sixth Circuit, literally wrote, applying Loper Bright means we can end the FCC's vacillations. Right. He said, this is our call, not theirs. And you described this, and really this goes back to Loperbrite, as quote unquote, a judicial power grab. And that seems to be exactly what it is. Yeah, it now says that this thing that's literally.

literally gone back and forth since the Obama administration. Like, it's wild to me that under Chevron deference, the fact that it kept going back and forth in administrations would be more evidence of the ambiguity. And therefore, that the position that these administrations are taking are reasonable because it keeps going back and forth. And the public is aware of that. And they can vote for who they want. But now what they're saying is the sick circuit.

literally used that as a basis for saying, like, we need to stop this lack of clarity. We need to be able to give stability to the law, and we're going to tell you what it means. Well, it sounds to me, Chris, like we have to stop voting for these judges. Yeah, the judges who we vote for. Chris, as always, you are a beacon of clarity, and I do feel like particularly the net neutrality decision because it happened right after the turn of the new year when a lot of people were otherwise occupied flew a little bit under the radar. So thank you so much for coming on and explaining what's going on here. Everybody go to lawdorke.com. It is an absolutely invaluable resource. And Chris, always a great pleasure having you. Thanks so much, Andy.

Andy Levy. How are you kicking off this new, new, fresh year 2025? with your fuck that guy. Well, I'm going to go to the state of Ohio where despite their best efforts at the end of the season, the Cincinnati Daniels did not make the playoffs.

But I am going to talk about that state's governor, Mike DeWine, who signed a bill at the end of last week that allows law enforcement agencies to charge the public to see body cam footage of their officers.

Oh, and not just bottom cam, dash cam, et cetera, all, you know, any kind of footage that police departments, et cetera, used. That is the whole idea was to force transparency. The Ohio State Legislature and Governor have now decided that governments can charge for this. They can charge up to $75 an hour for the work. I guess there's a cap of like $750 per request. So you're talking about now charging journalistic. outlet or individuals who believe that they have been wronged by the police, you are forcing them to be charged to pay for the thing that might be the evidence they need. It's absolutely unbelievable

and it is absolutely typical of what we see from Republicans who, you know, have outside of the Capitol Police on January 6th have never met a law enforcement officer that they didn't love. and didn't try to protect, regardless of what that law enforcement officer does. And I am hoping, I don't even know why I'm hoping this, but I'm hoping that this somehow is ruled unconstitutional at the federal level. But of course, I look at the makeup of the federal courts and the Supreme Court, and I think to myself, wow, you're an idiot, Andy. But, you know, it would be nice if there were not a paywall for police video, the whole point. of which is to provide transparency.

I'm doubtful that this will be the last state to do this. I'm sure there are other Republican governors who are champing at the bit to do this. But I think this is the first. And for that, a big, well, and then a hearty fuck that guy to Ohio governor, Mike the line. The grift never ends. Ferguson, we learned in what was it, 2014, about how these police departments prey on. the poor prey on black folks with their grift of cash bail and, you know, and these quotas and all of these things, they don't protect and serve. This is not what law enforcement is supposed to do.

They are supposed to be public servants, which means that the public should have access. And by putting up a paywall, you are ensuring that those that are most violated by police and law enforcement and never received justice. And that's the goal here. Oh, God. Fuck those guys. Yep. All right, Danielle, your first fuck that guy of 2025.

I have absolutely no doubt it is something that will make us feel good about the year ahead. Why did you do that to me? I don't know. So my fuck that guy to kick off this year, the year of the oligarch, you know how in Chinese Zodiac they have like. like the different, the different years, a year of the lion, blah, blah, yeah. So I'm now invent, this is the year of the oligarch.

And to kick it off, we're going to say, fuck that guy to Jeff Bezos, the owner of the Washington Post, you know that has the motto, democracy dies in darkness. No, it dies because of greedy ass billionaires who are so weak and have such thin skin that they can't take the truth,

delivered to them, even if it is in a cartoon form. So Anne Telnais, who has been a editorial cartoonist at the Washington Post since 2008, quit her job at the beginning of the year. And why did she do that? Well, because for the first time in her entire career, she said that she submitted a cartoon for publication and that cartoon, according to what she wrote on her substack, was killed because of who or what I chose to aim my pen at. And this is what she wrote. The cartoon that was killed criticizes the billionaire tech and media chief executives who have been doing their best to curry favor with incoming president-elect Trump. There have been multiple articles recently about these men with lucrative government contracts

and an interest in eliminating regulations making their way to Mar-a-Lago. The group in the cartoon, which is now, you can see, has made its way around social media, included Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and meta, founder, CEO Sam Altman of AI,

Patrick Soon Xiong, L.A. Times publisher, the Walt Disney Company slash ABC News, and Jeff Bezos. And because she did this cartoon at the beginning of the year, She missed Tim Cook, who also recently has pledged a million dollars to Donald Trump's slush inauguration fund. And why is this important? Because this is exactly how democracy dies. Because when you have the powers that be that can just stop dead, freedom of the press, and take out things that they don't like that are truthful, then you cease to provide information to the public.

And in order to curry favor, all we're going to see over the next however many years of this regime are going to be favorable headlines of Donald Trump. What an amazing job he's doing. And I just want to point out that the list of people that she has at the feet of Donald Trump, this big, giant statue of him prostrating themselves at his feet holding up bags of money, those same companies, META gave zero dollars to Biden's inauguration. Google only gave 200,000. Amazon, 200,000. The rest of the folks, the LA Times and the others, zero dollars. So don't talk to me about how, oh, everyone receives money from these companies. Both political parties are swimming in millions of dollars.

To a certain extent, sure. But just to show you that they came to play and are willing to pay for Donald Trump's favor. So for that reason, Washington Post, Bezos, fuck those guys. And a hearty thank you to Ann Telnais for posting what the Washington Post would not so that the world could see it. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of The New Abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend and keep the conversation going.

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