The Daily Beast Podcast - This Constitutional Clause Could Ruin Trump’s 2024 Plans

Episode Date: August 22, 2023

On this episode of The New Abnormal, Law Dork newsletter’s Chris Geidner tells co-host Andy Levy about a Constitutional amendment that could prevent Trump from running again, and what it would take for that clause to actually be enacted against him. Also on this episode: Kate Briquelet, senior reporter at The Daily Beast, explains the connections between bank J.P. Morgan and Jeffrey Epstein as laid out in a recent piece she reported. Plus, she tells co-host Danielle Moodie who she thinks will be held accountable next in this saga. 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. Our 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 for you today.

Kate Brugle, a senior reporter at The Daily Beast, joins us to talk about her recent piece about possible connections between J.P. Morgan and Jeffrey Epstein. Then, the publisher of the legal newslettered law door, Chris Geithner, is here to break down Section 3 and why it could possibly disqualify Donald Trump from running for president. But first, let's have some fun. So, Andy, one would think that after 91 charges four separate indictments over several jurisdictions, that some members of the Republican Party, some voters within the Republican Party would say to themselves, maybe not Trump, you know, maybe there's somebody else in the clown car that they can vest in their hopes and dreams in. But no, as it turns out, with a latest CBS you gov poll that three out of four Republican voters say that they are more likely

to vote for Donald Trump in the primary and his nearest opponent being Ron DeSantis, not even close. And that they believe that these charges are all, I guess all 91 of them, all four indictments, are just about politics. They have nothing to do with his five. decade fucking run as a crime boss. And this is where we are. And these people are saying, lo and behold, that they trust Donald Trump more than their only family and friends, which leads me to believe that most of these people have a really shitty circles.

What say you? It's not a cult. We're not allowed to call it a cult, but it's a cult. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And it's just, it's so dispiriting because it's not. we didn't know, or at least it's nothing we didn't suspect, but to see the actual raw numbers, 73% are supporting Trump. Among the reasons for this is to support him during his legal fights.

61% of those who say honesty is very important are supporting Trump. This one is just, these people are gone. Honestly, like, I don't know that there's any coming back from this. That's the fucking scary part. Like, yes, this is a cult and Trump is a particular figure, but they have gone down this road and they are continuing to go down this road. And the idea that even one percent of people who say honesty is very important could support Trump is bad enough. 61 percent. 71 percent feel what Trump tells them is true. Like you pointed out, that's higher. Only 63 percent feel what their friends and family tell them are true. It's

un-fucking believable. And it's just, we've known it's a cult for a long time, and we've known that Trump is a singular figure. But I don't know, like, people who leave cults have to go through deprogramming. Like, they don't, they're

not just suddenly okay after the cult leader, you know, dies or is put in jail or whatever happens to the cult leader. They still have that tendency. And, And this is, like I said, dispiriting earlier, but it's also, it's fucking terrifying, isn't it? So this is the thing.

I know that the mainstream media loves to go into white people diners, because that's all that apparently exists in the Midwest, and sit down with those voters, because those are also the only voters that matter to mainstream media, and ask them about their insights about Donald Trump. And, you know, like, it's the fuck your feelings crowd, but we clearly care about these people's feelings. I don't actually care about their feelings. I do care about the psychology behind it in the way that I have watched, like you're saying, multiple documentaries on different cults and different parts of the world and what happens to seemingly normal people who are then find themselves in the midst and wrapped up in a particular fundamentalist leader's psychology and their dominance. And I do

think that there is something that is worth the research in, which is, again, not about these people's feelings, but it's like it is a psychosis when you look at the fact, I mean, Donald Trump is a serial liar. Like he lies about little things. He lies about big things. He lies literally about everything. And it's as if these people, it's like, you know, when folks find themselves in relationship with somebody who's a serial cheater. And then they are shocked and stunned when the person that they knew was a serial cheater and how they got with that person was through an unfaithful relationship turns around and cheats on them. I'm like, are you dumb? And this is like the same thing. It's like these people, they look at Donald Trump and they're like, he's lied, he's cheated and he's

steal from everyone, but he's not going to do it to me. Right. Like somehow he's, you know, he's telling me the truth. I'm like, what is it? He's incredible at his sorcery because that's what I'm, you know, and I don't want to call the man. I mean, he's a grand wizard, but I don't want to say, you know what I'm saying? Like, but it is some type of fucking sorcery. No, you're absolutely right. And in this poll, the people who are or might consider Trump, they said, what are your top reasons. 99% of them said things were better under Trump. Don't know where they were from 2016 to 2020, but I'm thinking it wasn't America. 95% of them believe he fights for people like me. He does not give a shit about people like you. And he certainly doesn't fight for people like you.

And the fact that, like you said, the fact that they have fallen under this spell and you have to sit here like the emperor's new clothes and it just doesn't matter. There's, There's nothing that when I say these people are gone, like I don't know how to talk to people like this. Like I know how to talk to people who don't share my beliefs, but are sane. And you can have a discussion with them and whatever. You may not get, you know, gratification from the discussion, but you can have a discussion. I don't know how to approach a discussion with someone who thinks Trump fights for people like them. and for people who think that things were better under Trump and who think that Trump is honest.

They're not living in reality. Like, how do you talk to someone who is, I don't want to use, I don't know what terms are incorrect now on things like this, but these people are deranged. Ah, right, yeah. They don't need me talking to them. They need professional, you know, people talking to them. But here's the thing. This is what makes the deprogramming. And I think, you know, there may be a handful of.

of people who have found their way into deprogramming and probably through the likes of prison because that's where the insurrectionists who followed his directives to take their country back are right now. And so, you know, you watched during the January 6th committee hearing, some people testify that like, I can't believe I thought this way. And, you know, because now they're facing the grave consequences of following this man. But for everybody else, you used to be able to meet lies with facts. But because over the last eight to 10 years, this entire party has like they have done away with facts.

They have done away with science. They have denigrated these things. They have denigrated faith in institutions. So even if you were to say, Andy, they need to go see a psychologist or a psychiatrist these people are so deep in their in earth two that they wouldn't believe the doctors do you don't like so I so I really and when we look at it and we say because I want again people to remember this is 30% of the country this is not a majority of the country they don't have they just have

very big fucking microphones but this is not a majority of the country but when you look at 30% of the population and I blame the lack of journalistic integrity, because when these people say, we were better off under Trump, there is never any follow-up. Tell me how. Right? Like, tell me how you feel that your life and livelihood was better under Donald Trump. Just give me one, two bullet points.

Right. Yeah, look, I know you can't do that in a poll or whatever, but you're absolutely right when it comes to these New York Times diner pieces or whatever, where they basically, you know, I'm not the first person to say this, but they basically treat this like they're going to an exotic zoo. And they just let the people say whatever they want, and they never say to them, you know,

or if they do say to them, it doesn't make the article. But they never say, you know, what exactly you're talking about here? And, you know, give me any, like you said, give me a couple of examples. They never ask anything like that. There was a story I'm now blanking on where it, was earlier, I don't know if it was earlier, it must have been last week. They talked to a guy, and I think some factory had come to the town and provided new jobs, and the guys, and it was,

you know, a foreign company. And the guy talked about how great it was. I think he actually ran a diner or some kind of restaurant. And he was talking about how great it was, and it was good for the economy. And then they told him that it was, you know, the company had come here through efforts by Joe Biden. And the guy on a dime instantly was like, well, now I'm opposed to it. These are real people. These are the people we're talking about here, where one minute they are totally fine with something because they think Donald Trump did it

or that it just happened. And then you tell them that, oh, Joe Biden negotiated this or he created the conditions for this. And then they are on a dime. Like the guy instantly was just then opposed to it. So how do you talk to people like this? Do you have to let them believe? Do you have to lie to them and just say that,

oh, all of this happened because of Trump, so that then they'll support good things. Like, you can't do that. I said at the top, you know, these people are just gone. And I don't like thinking that about people. And I think about this because, look, I grew up, you know, on Long Island, I grew up in a fairly very conservative town, I think I would say. I have absolutely no doubt that the vast majority of people I went to high school with are now huge Trump fans, including a lot of people I was friendly with back then. I don't like to think of these people as gone, but at a certain point, it's like, if, you're that divorced from reality, I don't know what else to say about you. I really don't. That's the thing. And one, those people who are gone, they're not going to be listening to us, right? Like, they are literally so stuck inside of, I mean, look, Ron DeSantis is a perfect, like, is also a perfect case study in this.

Where Ron DeSantis, inside of his DeSantis' evil camp, believes that, like, his policies are beloved nationally, that he is the second coming, that like his campaign was going to be the best ever. And then you get Ron DeSantis outside of the bubble of Florida that he is created. And he doesn't know how to fucking function, right? And so when you look at these people, it's like interjecting reality to them is like giving people who aren't knocked out smelling salts. Do you know what I'm saying? Like it's too much truth for them to take in. just doesn't make sense. I was watching this story the other day because I'm with my family,

so we're watched 60 minutes because this is what older people do. And I was watching 60 minutes. And you guys know the guy who Tucker Carlson and Fox News turned into like the enemy of the state, Ray Epps. And they did a expose on him. And Ray Epps was a member of the oathkeepers, like former military guy. The only reason why he's not in jail is because it was caught on body camera, him actually really trying to tell people not to, you know, enter into the Capitol building and trying to deter the onslaught that we all witnessed. But Donald Trump and the rest of them turned this man into an enemy of the state. He's had to sell his home. He now lives in an RV in an undisclosed location. This is a man that was a member of the oathkeepers.

So he believed in all of their shit. and now he turns around and he's just like, I don't know what I was thinking. And I'm like, does it take an entire party turning on you and you fearing for your life, but you were participating in this shit? But it's like for him, his aha moment came when he became the target of the president

and the party's ire. Yeah, and like you said, we saw a lot of that from the, you know, his own staff during the January 6th committee hearings. And maybe that is what it's. takes. I don't know. I don't understand the complete lack of empathy that it takes for something to have to happen to you for it to register and that you can sit there and watch it happen to other people and it not make a little click in your brain or a little ding. Should I say that again? Ding.

I don't really get that. But sure, let's say that there is that kind of person where if it doesn't happen to them, it doesn't really exist. And maybe that's what it takes, but that doesn't work on a population writ large. Look at the Des Moines Register just came out with its first Iowa poll. And Trump is crushing. He's at 42%. The closest to him is DeSantis at 19 and then Tim Scott at 9. I mean, he's absolutely crushing.

And I don't see anything changing this. And the fact of the matter is that you look at all these polls and you look at how the Republican base thinks about Donald Trump. And there is nothing in there that would lead to, you to believe anything other than he is absolutely going to be the nominee and it's not even going to be close. Yeah. And I think, you know, again, when we're talking about the psychology and thinking honestly about this 30 percent, thinking about this field of Republican choices that are not Donald Trump and that they're not even close, you know, we can look back at, you know, a couple of

weeks ago, the New York Times did a piece entitled, it's not Reagan's party anymore, stating that Ronald Reagan's three-legged stool coalition supported the GOP for decades, and the latest poll reveals little doubt that Donald J. Trump has put an end to an error. And so when we looked at this, and, you know, we were talking about this before we started recording, they had a couple of pieces, right, that I guess I would call value pieces from 2005 versus 2023. And they look at, okay, opposed same-sex marriage. In 2005, 78% of Republicans opposed same-sex marriage. In 2023, only 36% opposed same-sex marriage. Prefer reducing the debt to protecting entitlements. 62% in 2005 agreed with that. Only 29% in 2023. Think America should be active abroad.

53% agreed in 2005 of Republican. and only 24% agree. Again, this looks at the value set of the Republican Party. Now, when I looked at this, I said, wow, look how things have changed for the better. But if you look at that oppose of same-sex marriage and yet support the anti-trans, anti-queer policies that are coming out of places like Florida, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, and others, they're on board with it. It's not playing out nationally, meaning that Ron DeSantis thought that he was going to be able to run solely on the hate of marginalized communities.

Come to find out, Republican voters don't actually give a damn. So it's like this very weird place where we, they're not a party that actually has shared values anymore. Yeah, I don't know that they ever were because I, you know, look, unlike you, Danielle, I'm old enough to remember back in those days. And there was a pretty big split between like the social cons and the more libertarian-ish conservatives. And then you had the Rockefeller wing that was sort of not very hip to the social conservative stuff either. So they've always sort of been a party made up of really disparate parts. But I agree with you. If you just looked at those three things that you mentioned in the abstract, you would say,

oh, this party's gotten so much better. Mm-hmm. Right. think this is such a good thing. Opposition to same-sex marriage is down by over half. They would now rather protect entitlements than worry about reducing the debt.

And they don't want America going into a whole bunch of foreign countries anymore. And you'd look at that and you'd say well this party has really grown up. And then of course you open a newspaper or you talk about the polls that we just did and how people feel

and you're like, yeah, not so much maybe. So, you know, the Times piece is right. Like the era of Reagan is gone. You know, it is, it is dead and buried. It doesn't mean it can't, you know, come back to zombie life at some point. But for now, it's just fucking dead. But it was weird to me that they, like, the way the Times framed this was kind of weird to me is I guess what I'm getting at here. But the opposition to same-sex marriage one is interesting. It's still, you know, bizarre that in 2023, over a third of Republicans opposed San Francisco. same-sex marriage. Like, let's not minimalize that. That's still bad, but obviously it's much better

than it used to be. But you are absolutely right, because you bring up the anti-trans and the anti-queer agenda that has become part and parcel of this Republican Party. So you start to think, ah, maybe things haven't changed as much as this one little poll number shows. Because as everyone who was alive back in the 80s and 90s has pointed out, everything we're seeing now is an exact play of the gay panic from back then. Yeah. At the end of this article, they say this, either way, there's not much room for an issue-based ideological challenge to Mr. Trump in today's Republican Party. While large numbers of Republicans may disagree with him on an issue here or there, a frontal assault on the tenants of Trumpism is unlikely to go anywhere.

Zombie Reaganism certainly will not. And I think that that is how we understand the holes between Trump and everyone else in the Republican field is that they are all championing Trumpism. So if I'm a Republican voter, the fuck I'm going to go with the generic version. I'll just go with the originator. Yeah. They don't want someone that is ideologically opposed. Right. The excellent point that you make there is it's called Trumpism and Trump is right there. Right. So why are you voting for someone else? It's like if he's not there, all right, Fine. Then do you want DeSantis? Do you, you know, are you so bat-shin insane that you want someone like Marjorie Taylor Green? You have to start looking for someone who you think will continue the legacy

of Trumpism. But yeah, when you've got the guy it's named after right there, why in the world would you even consider voting for anyone else? Folks, I would like to welcome to the new abnormal Kate Brick-a-lay, who is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast and has been covering the Jeffrey Epstein case for several years. Kate, you have a recent piece entitled Epstein Victim. My J.P. Morgan boyfriend warned me not to tell police about Jeffrey's abuse. Give us a 50,000-foot view as to this article and Sarah Ransom, who is the subject of this piece? Sure. So Sarah Ransom is someone who is a victim of Jeffrey Epstein. She's been vocal in the fight to get justice for survivors of Epstein's trafficking ring.

She attended Gillen Maxwell, her criminal trial a few years ago. And she was really front and center of this battle for victims. So recently, everything we've been hearing about the Jeffrey Epstein case and all of the new revelations of who he was spending time with, who he was sending money to is coming out of a lawsuit that was filed against J.P. Morgan. There were two lawsuits filed against J.P. Morgan at the end of 2022. One was filed by a victim of Epstein known as Jane, by a pseudonym. And the other was filed by the U.S. Virgin Islands. And it's through these lawsuits against J.P. Morgan that we've learned how close Epstein was to the bank and the bank's high-level executives. So each week, it seems, through the litigation, we're learning all sorts of different news and different puzzle pieces to this crazy saga. And Sarah wanted to come forward and share what she knew and share her experience dating somebody who worked for J.P. Morgan because she feels it raises questions and perhaps it could add to

everything that's being explored right now about Epstein. She in 2006 was living in New York when someone recruited her into Epstein's world. She had been living in an apartment that was owned by Jeffrey Epstein where he housed models and he also housed some of his employees and guests. And at the time, She was living on the Upper East Side in this swanky apartment when she met a man that she identifies as Dan. And Dan happened to be a senior employee at J.P. Morgan who allegedly suggested that she not go to authorities about Epstein's abuse. In your piece, because I want to bring, you know, people who have not continued to follow kind of the fallout since what I refer to as the alleged suicide of Jeffrey Epstein and conviction of, of Jelaine Maxwell. Sarah Ransom, who in your piece you write, was 22 when Jeffrey Epstein began abusing her in 2006.

And in 2021, she wrote a memoir entitled Silence No More. But in that book, she did not reveal the relationship that she had with the man that was working at J.P. Morgan Chase. And the question that I have for you is twofold. one, was this an actual relationship or was this Dan person affiliated with like the paid sex ring? That's number one because I was unclear about that. And then two, tell us more about this very intimate relationship with the bankers and Jeffrey Epstein and this sex ring that he was running being fueled through the bankers. this back. Sure. I think we'll start with J.P. Morgan. So according to these lawsuits, J.P. Morgan was

banking with Epstein, you know, for 15 years, starting in 1998, I believe. And so in the mid-2000s, Jeffrey Epstein is under scrutiny in Florida for abusing minors. He's under investigation. At the same time, he's palling around with all of these powerful people and big names, whether it's in Washington or New York City. And J.P. Morgan was trying to benefit from his Rolodex. So in the mid-2000s, while Epstein is being investigated by Florida police, J.P. Morgan is courting Epstein as an important client at its private bank. And, you know, their compliance officials are also raising red flags about Epstein. They're sharing news articles that are coming out about police, in Epstein in Florida. They're flagging suspicious cash withdrawals or transactions, you know,

that are tens of thousands of dollars, which they're required to do under law. But the lawsuits that were filed against J.P. Morgan alleged that J.P. Morgan ignored these red flags and they continued to profit off of their relationship with Jeffrey Epstein instead of perhaps going to authorities about their suspicions or suspicious cash. withdrawals or just giving information to authorities about payments to women. And some of these women, you know, were underage or they were very young. They were young women. And they also were from Eastern Europe. Oh, interesting. Okay. A couple of follow-up questions here. This is not my banking system or your banking system. So I want folks to really understand that when you're talking about

this private bank being, you know, courting Jeffrey Epps. and being able to make money off of it. Do you have any insight into how this differs from what people understand their relationship with their bank? That being number one. And number two, how much profit are we talking about in terms of what J.P. Morgan was able to make off of this relationship over 15 years? Yes.

So the people that are clients at the private bank are high net worth individuals, right? They are people that are multi-millionaires. Their net worth is in the hundreds of millions of dollars. And Epstein was referring famous clients to the bank. Supposedly, the Google co-founders, Leon Black, Bill Gates, allegedly, although his camp kind of denies that. Prince Andrew was one of was... Yes.

I know he was setting up talks, I believe, with Israel's prime minister, Netanyahu. There were lots of people that Epstein was connected with that bank, either the bank, itself or bank executives such as Jess Staley, former bank executive, we're interested in meeting. How much money do we know, if any, with regard to how much J.P. Morgan made in that 15-year relationship? I don't remember if that's been quantified in the legal papers. I'm sorry, I just remember off the head. But I think that we can say that Jeffrey Epstein was a very important client to J.P. Morgan. And I think the length of their relationship shows that the internal emails showing meetings, you know, with J.P. Morgan executives and Bill Gates and J.P. Morgan executives

and the Google co-founders, Sergey Brin. And it raises a lot of questions, I believe, you know, as to whether the bank essentially ignored any concerns that it had about Jeffrey Epstein in order to reap profits, which is what the argument is in the lawsuits. And I guess where Sarah fits into this is she was in Epstein's world while he was being investigated by the feds in Florida. And she was part of his world while he was a key client of the bank. And so her questions are, and she has stated this in her book when she says that she dated a man with a top job at a bank, I mean, her questions are, you know, where these men ever related? Did J.P. Morgan ever know that she was dating this guy and he told her not to go to the police? There's no concrete evidence that her

former boyfriend who worked at J.P. Morgan knew Epstein was a client of the bank. I think she just wanted to get her story out there and see if it resonated and to see, you know, her idea is that it just raises even more questions about J.P. Morgan's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. And, you know, she had told me that I feel that J.P. Morgan has a lot to answer for. That's essentially what she told me. And I think when some of the survivors read the latest news updates about what J.P. Morgan knew, and they see these internal emails that come out. It feels like almost every other week, every week, there's kind of a new update in the litigation where, you know, it appears that, some of these high-level J.P. Morgan executives are making jokes about Epstein's predilections for young

women. And I think that's concerning, essentially making jokes about, you know, girls in Epstein's orbit looking like Miley Cyrus or calling them nymphets or, you know, saying the age differences between husband and wives would have fit in well with Jeffrey, like just things like that that really aren't a good look. I mean, the reality is based on your article and, you know, and what has been coming up in these cases is that we know that Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking ring can't sustain without a J.P. Morgan Chase. And that there was, you know, there is grounds for lawsuits that are being waged against them because to your point and to your article, there was known communication. You know, jokes are veiled reality.

right, which is that you know that something nefarious is happening, but everybody's benefiting from it. And so we'll just look the other way, except I don't even know how many young women were trafficked, harm, drugged, you know, by Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplices. My last question for you, Kate, is as you've continued to cover this, how exposed is a J.P. Morgan and what do you think the likelihood is about the outcome of how. this goes because some of these women have already been paid out hundreds of millions of dollars. Right. Obviously, I'm not a legal expert, but J.P. Morgan has already settled Jane Doe's case for close to, I believe, $300 million. And so I'll be curious to see what happens with the U.S. Virgin Islands case. I mean, they want almost as much money as that. I mean, they want at least $190 million in the J.P. Morgan and their lawsuit against J.P. Morgan. And that's scheduled for

trial in October. That's just a few months away. And so I think we're all waiting to see if J.P. Morgan settles or admits any kind of fault because, you know, J.P. Morgan, its CEO, Jamie Diamond, they've been in the press all year saying, you know, they had no idea that Epstein was running a trafficking operation. They had no part in it. And they're pointing the finger back at the U.S. Virgin Islands saying the territory, you know, essentially accepted Epstein's favors and looked the other way too. So it's kind of a blame game in the media right now. And the Epstein story continues on multiple fronts. You know, Sarah and another victim named Maria Farmer are planning the lawsuit against the FBI saying that FBI should have

intervened, you know, back in the 90s when Epstein was reported and that this could have prevented, you know, scores of underage girls and women from being exploited. And I think the J.P. Morgan element is just one piece of that. Everybody's looking for someone to blame. And, you know, so far, only one person has been fried and convicted. And that's Gillen Maxwell. And I think, you know, we all need to kind of be looking ahead to see, will anybody else be held accountable? Yeah. Well, we will leave it there today. Folks, check out Kate's article. Epstein victim, my J.P. Morgan boyfriend warned me not to tell police about Jeffrey's abuse up now at The Daily Beast. Kate, thank you so much for making the time for the new abnormal.

Appreciate you. Thank you. We've seen a spade of articles lately purporting to lay out the case for why Donald Trump is constitutionally ineligible to run for president. Who better to walk us through the arguments than former BuzzFeed legal editor and deputy editor for legal affairs at Grid News and current publisher of the excellent legal newsletter LawDork at LawDork.com, Chris Gidner. Chris, thanks for being here. Hey, Andy. Don't sound so enthused. What a fantastic topic. Donald Trump and how he is really a modern example of why we have actually a series that I had when I was at BuzzFeed with my my editor, certainly somebody you know and love, Catherine Miller.

Here's a part of the Constitution you never realized you'd need to care about. Right. Okay. So, yeah, no, exactly. So over the weekend, you wrote a piece at Law Dork that goes through what all of these eminent legal minds have been writing, and you headlined it. Trump is almost certainly disqualified from being president, will it matter? Now, setting aside the will it matter part for now, though I think we all know the answer

that sadly. Let's talk about who is saying this and what their reasoning is. And I guess let's start with the two conservative law professors who have written 126 page paper for the University of Pennsylvania Law Review entitled The Sweep and Force of Section 3. Now, what is Section 3 and why is it being treated like Beyonce where you don't need to use its full name and I'm just supposed to know? Just Section 3. That's their key moment of being like, by the way, we're really smart law I know. I know. I love it. Cute. Will Budd and Michael Stokes-Poulson are conservative law professors, federalist society members. They are not resistance bloggers. They are as serious as it gets and they tilt to the right quite significantly.

They, however, put together this article looking at Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which was one of these post-Civil War amendments, and Section 3 basically says, if you're a part of an insurrection, you don't get to be an office holder anymore. That's really what it says in a few more words than that, but it's not that complicated, despite their 126 pages to make sure that anybody who wants to question them can't question them. But, I mean, it literally, says no person shall hold office under the United States or any state who, having previously taken an oath to the United States, has engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. So you don't even need to engage in

insurrection or rebellion. That's the clause. It then has a provision that says, but Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each house, remove such disability. That's the clause. We don't normally have a need for it in the modern era. Right. It has not regularly come up, but anybody who was seeing the news on January 6th,

some of us who lived in D.C. on January 6th, pretty much looked like an insurrection to all of us. When you have these people sitting at the speaker's desk, you have people in the well of the Senate, when Congress was supposed to be holding this special joint session of Congress to count the electoral votes from each state and declare the winner of the presidency, that seems to me to be pretty clearly an insurrection. Yeah, I found it interesting that Baud told the New York Times. that when they first started looking into this, neither he nor Paulson, both of whom, as you mentioned, are Federalist Society members, that neither of them had strong opinions either way, but by the end of

their research, they concluded, and this is a quote from Bod, Donald Trump cannot be president, cannot run for president, cannot become president, cannot hold office unless two-thirds of Congress decides to grant him amnesty for his conduct on January 6th. I say in my piece, like, I mean, we were like early bloggers back in when we were both in law school. I mean, so I've been following his work for 20 years now. And he is not a liberal. He is not somebody who's just going to fly off the handle. And, I mean, I noted the version in the article 117 pages in where they literally call this the most straightforward application of Section 3.

Yeah. That's abrupt. Oh, no, absolutely. And, you know, they spend, I guess, a fair amount of the 126 pages going over the history of Section 3 and et cetera. One of the key parts is this question of like this argument that like it was a temporal clause. Like it was basically only supposed to be in a fact like for the post civil war. Like this was supposed to deal with the rebels. But they go through. and basically say, like, no, that is not the case. They could have done so. There are examples of how they could have done so, and they didn't. This is a clause that is intending to stay in effect going forward, in effect, to be used in a moment like this, when you don't want to have to write a new constitutional amendment to change something

to be able to prevent an office holder who, attempted to either engage in insurrection or give aid and comfort to those who did from running up for office again, holding office again. Yeah, it just seems like on its face, first of all, you don't put it in a constant, in a full on constitutional amendment if it's meant to be temporary. And second, it would be pretty silly to do something that is only meant to apply to something that had already happened and not meant to prevent that something from happening. again. The bottom line is that that is not what's there. Right. There is no limitation. There is no reason to believe that this does not, the legal way that they put it is the presumptive

perpetuity of constitutional language. Right. That's the law professor way of saying what you just said. Right. Yes. We've got a constitution. Like, if we don't say this is a one-time, only clause, there is no reason for somebody to read it as a one-time-only clause. Absolutely. Another thing that they write, which I found very interesting, was they write that officials, administrators, courts, legislators, legislators, whose responsibility call upon them to apply Section 3 properly and lawfully may, indeed must take action within their powers to preclude Trump from holding future office.

This is strong stuff, and it seems to be echoed in the other writings on this, including over at the Vala conspiracy, Stephen Calabrese, who says, State Secretaries of State and their subordinates may not list on their election ballots as candidates for president, anyone who is not eligible to hold the office of president. So in effect, does this mean that simply allowing Trump to appear on the ballot in their states, these secretaries of state will themselves be violating the Constitution? Well, I mean, they would be violating their state's provisions about who they're allowed to put on the ballot. Okay. They would not be violating the Constitution. A lot of people's questions out of this is, well, how do you determine? Like, don't we need him to be convicted of something?

It doesn't, like, somebody else need to make that determination. The way that they talk about it, the way that over the weekend, Judge Ludig, and, And Lawrence Tribe describe it in the Atlantic, which they credit the Law Review article for its sort of intensive and extensive background on this. But the idea basically is that this constitutional amendment is the way that they describe it is it's self-effective. Right. You don't need legislation to be passed. You don't need a court ruling in order for Section 3. of the 14th Amendment to apply to a situation. Now, that doesn't mean that a Secretary of State

acting is the end of it. What happens then is if a Secretary of State does not include Trump, or if a Secretary of State does, that somebody who thinks that that is the wrong interpretation of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment can then go to court. So if, let's say, the California Secretary of State doesn't include Donald Trump on the ballot, then Donald Trump's campaign could go to court. If the Secretary of State of Texas, I mean, let's not say Texas because they don't want to go to the Fifth Circuit. The Secretary of State of Florida doesn't put Donald Trump on the ballot, then a voter in that state, state could potentially go to court and say that this is an improper ballot, that this ballot does

not effectuate Section 3 of the 14th Amendment because they have put somebody who is not qualified to be president on the ballot for president. So this is where I get, I guess, a little confused. I understand that this is ultimately a separate issue from whether or not Trump is found guilty in Jack Smith's January 6th. sixth case or anything like that. And Bod himself, he told the New York Times, the question of should Donald Trump go to jail is entrusted to the criminal process. The question of should he be allowed to take the constitutional oath again and be given constitutional power again is not a question given to any jury, which, fine, I get that. But I guess what I'm saying is absent a conviction for the

things that Section 3 lays out, how do you determine other than, well, this is just my opinion, that Trump meets the requirements of Section 3 to be ineligible? Yeah, that's obviously where you get into the complications. Okay. That is clearly the messiest part. But the bottom line is that people making determinations of whether people are qualified to be on the ballot happens every day. Okay.

And if you disagree with that decision, a much, more simple version. I mean, let's not go completely factual, but like residency. Like, let's say you have, we're not even going to go with like out of the country or something, but like, let's say you have a summer, what you call your summer home in wherever and you're running for office in another state. And you say, no, this is my residency and somebody challenges. and they say you haven't been there, your summer home isn't actually your summer home, it's your

residence. You live there, you intend for that to be your permanent residence, and you're improperly running for office in this state. Like, that can go to court and they can make a determination based on laws about domicile and residency, and they reach a ruling. That's what would happen here, except for it would be obviously something that there's far less case law on and it would get complicated and it would ultimately almost certainly end up at the Supreme Court as like pretty much everybody writing about this acknowledges. But that doesn't mean that

it shouldn't. And if you take a step back for all of those people questioning whether like any piece that you've read about the criminalization of politics, Like, maybe the answer is we actually have things in place in our Constitution that could have avoided any questions about the criminalization of politics. Had the United States Senate convicted Donald Trump on his impeachment charges back in January 2021, then he wouldn't have been able to run for office. Or you've got Section 3 of Amendment 14. Like, in either case, you do have options for dealing with the political question of whether Donald Trump can run for office again. Whether or not that means he shouldn't also face criminal charges is a separate question.

But I do like to point that out for those people who are writing all of these very, very concerned pieces about the criminalization of politics that I would like them to point to their piece saying that Republican senator should have voted in favor of conviction in January 2021. Yeah, that would be interesting. Something else interesting to me is that the actual language of Section 3 that says that you can't be a senator or representative or an elector of president or vice president or hold any office, et cetera, applies to people who have previously taken an oath as a member of Congress or an officer of the U.S. or as any member of a state legislature, etc. So this is basically saying the problem here is it's not the crime, it's the oath breaking.

Like had Trump not been president and never held public office, none of this would apply if he were just running now for the first time. Right. That is 100% correct. I don't know why I find that so interesting, but I do, that it only applies to people who have previously sworn the oath. That also shows its limits. Right. This is a very narrow provision, were we not living in this moment?

If it weren't for the fact that this is coming up and front and center to us because of the fact that Donald Trump is running for president again, this is a very narrow provision. This is about people who have taken an oath to the Constitution engaging in insurrection. Like, if you didn't live in this moment, you would say, duh. Right. But am I wrong to think that there are a whole bunch of Republican elected officials I think this might apply to? This is where you get into this question about. I'm opening a can of worms, Chris. That's what I do.

Yeah. No. And when you come up with the idea of what is insurrection or rebellion, what is engaged in, what is ATERComport to? the enemies. There is this question about Trump is in a way not just incidental. Like, like, this is not like, I mean, I've had people in my replies over the past few days like, well, doesn't that mean all 126 members of Congress who voted to challenge the results? Can't run for office? I don't know. I need to really go through. how they interpret it, but I don't necessarily think that that's the case.

That is taking a vote on the provision. And I don't know that that certainly if you're a lawyer, like you could make an argument, like that was after the insurrection they had come back. That is giving aid in comfort. Like, sure. Like, could a lawyer argue it? Okay. Do I think that that's the same as what we have?

evidence of Trump having done both before and after January 6th? No. Okay, we're going to have to leave it there. Chris, thank you so much for coming on and explaining this in words that even I can understand. Everyone go check out LawDork.com. It is one of the best sites for Supreme Court and other legal news that we've got right now. Chris, thanks again. Thanks a lot, Andy. Andy Levy. Daniel Moody. Andy Levy, how are you kicking off this week? speaks of fuck that guy. All right. I'm going to pick a Republican senator who we don't talk about too much on this show.

It's a guy named Bill Kennedy. And he is from a state in the union. I can't remember which one. Nor do I particularly care, to be honest. He's from a state guy. Yeah, he's from a state in the union. And he was on a show called State of the Union. He said that the case against Donald Trump for mishandling classified documents,

for having all those boxes of stuff at Moralago. was, quote, almost a slam dunk. And he said he thinks Trump should drop out of the presidential race. And he told Casey Hunt, the host of State of the Union, that Trump will lose to Joe Biden if you look at the current polls. He said, I think any Republican on that stage in Milwaukee, that's the debate stage, will do a better job than Joe Biden. And so I want one of them to win.

And he's sort of echoing, you know, there's a thought among some, you know, the more sane conservatives that, yes, Trump is killing it in the prime. primaries, but it's going to be a different story in a general election. So you would think that a guy saying stuff like this would not be a fuck that guy for a show like the new abnormal, where we kind of pride ourselves. For picking people that we say fuck that guy to who say bad things. And all of that sounds very good. But then, of course, he was asked on whether he would vote for Trump if Trump is the GOP nominee. And instead of saying no, and instead of saying, no, and instead of saying, saying, look, I just told you that there's a slam dunk case against him for having a bunch of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. So you would think pretty easy for Bill Cassidy to say no. And instead, what he said was, I'm going to a vote for a Republican. I'm going to vote for a Republican. And now last I checked, Donald Trump is a Republican. And last I checked, Donald Trump is 40 points up against Ron DeSantis, his nearest.

opponent for now anyway. So I think you could make a good case that Donald Trump is going to be the Republican that is nominated. And here is Bill Cassidy telling you that Trump shouldn't be the nominee and that he shouldn't be president and then saying, I'm going to vote for a Republican. So all the points you just got are wiped off the board as far as I'm concerned. And this is the same thing we've seen going back to Bill Barr and a bunch of these other guys who will tell you to your face that Trump is unfit to be president and then we'll say that they are going to vote for the Republican nominee or that they would vote, they would still vote for Trump over Biden. Bill Cassidy sits very comfortably in that group of people and for that he gets my

fuck that guy for today, Daniel. Yeah, they just don't have any morals. Right? They have absolutely no integrity. There isn't one in the bunch of the Republican Party. right now, I don't care what level of government you're looking at, if you're going to make that statement and say that Donald Trump should not be president of the United States, should pull himself out of the race, and then turn around, then shut the fuck up. Right. Right? Because I keep saying shutting the fuck up is free. If you honestly have nothing of merit and importance and a platform to stand on that says, you know what, Republicans, we need to back away from this guy. We need to back away because if it was a Democrat, I don't even want to get fucking started on the pitchforks and fucking, you know,

Party City fucking Tiki torches that these motherfuckers would have out right now. Right? But like for Trump, he's the Messiah. So I'm like, if you're not going to back away from it, and it's the same thing with Chris Christie and the rest of them. They want to say, there's a few amount of them that want to say hot shit and then turn around and say, but I'm going to vote for him. So sit down.

Yeah. And I can't believe this is how I learned that Party City is a alt-right favorite. I have no idea. Wow. Daniel, who is your fuck that? Full disclaimer. Party favorite is totally fine. No, Party City is not an all right favorite.

I'm joking. As far as I know, they do great stuff. Please keep advertising with us. I'm going to take the advice of my dear friend and shut the fuck up. Because it's free. Danielle, who is your fuck that guy? So, you know, an oldie but a goodie because like we can't get rid of him. Ron DeSantis.

And you may say, for what reason? Because there's always so fucking many. Essentially, Ron DeSantis just recently, this motherfucker has said that he wants to move on from his fight with Disney. And he wants to move on from it. Right. Let bygones be bygones, apparently. Because guess what? He picked the wrong fucking company to start a brawl with.

He picked this multi-billion dollar company beloved by people around the world, but particularly in America, to rumble with. And so now, right as he said that he wanted to move on from the dispute that he fucking started, but can't fucking finish because he's a punk, according to the New York Post, Disney has filed a counterclaim seeking damages against Florida governor Ron DeSantis just days after the presidential hopeful said the two feuding parties have, quote, moved on from the dispute. And Disney accused the board of supervisors picked by DeSantis to oversee Walt Disney World's Special Tax District of breaching contracts. They have filed a 55-page filing. And in addition to the damages, the company has requested a court order for the district to comply with the contracts it entered before the board took control over the park's development. My prayer here, you know how you can go into like drug stores and get the saints on like in a in a candle form? So mine would have Mickey Mouse

even though they're phasing him out. And my prayer here is that I would love to watch Disney bankrupt Ron DeSantis. I want him to be bankrupt personally, spiritually, physically. Like, I would love to see the damages be so high that he ends up having to work at Disney to pay it off. Like, that's what I want. That's my dream. I'm going to get my Mickey Mouse candle. So for that reason, Ron DeSantis remains a Hall of Famer.

Fuck that guy. I just did a search for Mickey Mouse votive candle. And I found a bunch. Are you sending it to me? I will send it to you. Yes. You can. Start my prayer vigil.

You can pray the rob away. That's what I'm going to do. 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. This podcast is a Daily Beast production with production by Jesse Cannon and Seamus Calder. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Last Last.

and our star-studded The Daily Beast podcast at the Daily Beast.com slash podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, consider becoming a Daily Beast subscriber. Subscribing is the best way to feed the Beast and support all of your podcasts as we cover what might become the darkest timeline. Head to the DailyBeast.com slash membership slash podcast and sign up today.