The Daily Signal - What to Do If You Get Smeared Like Nick Sandmann

Episode Date: September 18, 2024

Todd McMurtry was a lawyer, but he had never practiced defamation law before legacy media outlets demonized 16-year-old Covington Catholic High School student Nick Sandmann for the crime of "smirking" while wearing a Make America Great Again hat. Now, McMurtry has published a book about defamation law—a book he recommends as a kind of "car insurance" for cancel culture. "I think that you should treat it like buying car insurance," McMurtry tells "The Daily Signal Podcast" of his new book, "Dismissed: How Media Agendas and Judicial Bias Conspire to Undermine Justice." He warns that most Americans with a traditional values approach to life should expect to face attempts to "cancel" them. He notes that smear campaigns happen to "everybody," from high school students to college athletes to professionals to housewives. "I've dealt with dozens and dozens of these people, and it happens all the time." McMurtry warns that Christians and others who support traditional values face an increasingly hostile culture, from the LGBTQ movement to the movement for "diversity, equity, and inclusion" or DEI. Enjoy the show! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, September 18th. The Daily Signals, Tyler O'Neill sat down with Todd McMurtry, a defamation lawyer best known for representing Nick Sandman. Sandman, who gained notoriety for standing with a MAGA hat after the March for Life in 2019 and allegedly smirked at a Native American man, sued many companies for defamation after they presented him as a villain. McMurtry represented Sandman, settling most cases out of court. McMurtry talks about his new book dismissed how media agendas and judicial bias conspire to undermine justice.

One major lawsuit, including the New York Times, Rolling Stones, and others was ultimately dismissed, leading to the book's title. His book explains what happened to Sandman, how he helped get justice for the MAGA hat wearing teen, and what Americans should do if they find themselves in the crosshairs of cancel culture. Listen to Tyler's interview with Todd McMurtry right after this. Hey, it's Rob Lewy from The Daily Signal. Want to stay ahead of the curve on conservative news and analysis? Subscribe to our free Daily Signal email newsletters. You'll get the latest headlines, detailed policy coverage, and exclusive interviews delivered straight to your inbox.

Whether you're interested in our morning update, breaking news alerts, or weekly roundups, we've got you covered. Don't let the liberal media control the narrative. Sign up now at dailysignal.com slash email and join thousands of informed conservatives. who rely on The Daily Signal to cut through the noise and get the truth. This is Tyler O'Neill, a managing editor at The Daily Signal. I'm honored to be joined by Todd McMurtry. He is well known as the lawyer who represented Nick Sandman, the Covington Catholic boy, who was repeatedly defamed after the March for Life back,

I believe it was in 2019. Anyway, McMurtry has a wonderful new book called Dismissed, how media agendas and judicial bias conspire to undermine justice. It's great to have you with us, Todd. Thanks, Tyler. I'm pleased to be here. Appreciate the opportunity. So what really inspired this book? I mean, I think you and I both know that defamation law is complicated and somewhat arcane and also twisted in a way that makes it harder for someone who gets defamed to, represent themselves in court. And I think, you know, you really lay out an excellent case for revisiting New York Times v. Sullivan. And you have a lot of cases here, but what really inspired you to,

you know, write a book about it? It was really frustration with the process. When I started the Nick Sandman case, I had not handled a defamation case prior to that. And so it was kind of a baptism by fire, but immediately with the notoriety that that case brought, a lot of other people called me, reached out to me for representation, many of whom I've represented. And it's anything from simple stuff like a girl who said something improper and finds herself under attack at school for saying something about President Trump, for example, or a student who, you know, utters the wrong word or professional or, you know, all types of people. CEOs and so on, who say the wrong thing, and then they find themselves in trouble in getting

canceled. So having to deal with so many people who had been canceled and trying to help them, it became painfully obvious how much of a barrier defamation law was to helping them. And I thought that writing this book would explain to people the difficulties, but also maybe show some of the opportunities or opportunities to change, ways to protect yourself from defamation. And again, just to emphasize this, this happens to everybody, literally from high school students, college athletes, professionals, business people, housewives. I've dealt with dozens and dozens of these people, and it happens all the time, and it's amazing. And I think people need to understand how the cancellation process works and how it relates to press

the judiciary and defamation law. So does your book really give a quick way of, you know, what to expect, if you get defamed what to do, what to look out for, and of course what to watch out for with media false narratives. Right. There's some basic things, I think, that a person who finds themselves the recipient of an email from the principal that says, we don't like the way you addressed this teacher who is whatever, you know, some intersectional of some intersectional nature. And, you know, then the next thing, you know, that email leaks and you're getting a call from the local newspaper. So when that happens, if you read the book, you'll understand

the process and what's taking place and how you're in the crosshairs to be, in essence, canceled and how to respond. And so there's some practical tips in the book about only responding and writing, never saying, I'll take this, can we speak off the record? Because, you know, there's rules about speaking off the record that most people don't really understand identifying a lawyer in your community who has some familiarity with this law. And I provide, you know, sample ideas and letters of what people could write and how to defend themselves. And the whole idea is to write a letter that's going to say, what you're about to write is false. And I don't consent to you exposing the details of my private life. And so by putting that journalist on notice of the falsity,

it probably, or it does improve your position with regard to proving their fault, be it negligence or actual malice. So let's go over the case that brought you into defamation work in the first place. You know, the smirk heard round the world, this, you know, Maga hat-haring boy who decided that he would, you know, not bow down or something to the Native American man. I mean, it's really interesting because, as you noted, you know, you put the whole scenario through some AI platform. And it revealed the truth of what the...

the situation was that the media completely overlooked. But, you know, what really made your blood boil when you saw all these stories coming out about Nick Sandman and walk us through, you know, that conversation you had with your wife over the dinner table? Okay. Well, what made my, it was very, very interesting because, you know, we're at dinner. My wife and I are at dinner. And as I say in the book, we're not people who sit at dinner and scroll through our social media accounts. We actually talk, but I went to the restroom and came back and she was doing this. And I started looking at it as well. And I had a son that went to Covington Catholic High School. And I thought, this can't be. And I knew enough or had enough intuition to feel that this was false and that it was a hit job.

And so I, you know, I really spent the night kind of keyboard wariering against people in my community saying, wait, there's another video because I found the other video pretty quickly. And I said, this is not what happened. I'm, you know, yelling at the mayor of the city of Covington. I'm complaining to lawyers and the Diocese of Covington's law firm. I mean, it went on and on. And it was just very interesting. And then it was very surprising. I just had a sense that I was going to get a call on the case and the next morning I did. So it was a strange set of circumstances. But the way they treated a young person like that, knowing that he was innocent, knowing the kind of kids that went to that high school, you know, how upstanding they were.

I just knew it was a terrible thing, and I felt very, I was very upset and wanted to help in any way that I could. And what other type of law were you involved in before this? And then suddenly you found yourself, you know, pulled into the cutthroat world of defamation law. Right. Well, over the years, I have had some type of rebel type cases representing taxpayers and taxpayer lawsuits. And generally, I've sued governmental entities for things. that I've considered to be improper. So I have kind of had David and Goliath type situations. But the bread and butter of my law practice prior to this was what you would call business dispute litigation. I represent a number of municipalities in Kentucky. So I had did a lot of municipal law.

And then I also did a lot of planning and zoning law. So I had a very nice basic practice. It was it wasn't you didn't have people calling you all the time from all over the country with the craziest things you can imagine asking you to represent. them. The new practice is a lot more fun and exciting, but the old practice was very reliable, and I was pretty good at it, so I enjoyed that. Then you come into defamation law, and you represent this client. I mean, this is a client the entire world pretty much heard about, and you're representing him against CNN, against, I believe, the Washington Post, against a lot of the legacy media giants in the business. And you know, you came out with, and I'm still like on the edge of my seat

wondering, what did CNN do? How much did they pay? Like, there are so many unanswered questions in the Nick Sandman cases. And you resolve most of them, or I believe all of them, before they ever get to trial. Is that correct? Well, it'll continue to remain a mystery of how the cases were resolved. There were eight cases, three of them were settled, and then five of them were not. And that was also a pretty big inspiration for the book, because the trial judge in Kentucky, who was, like, I think at the time, I think he was 83 years old, and was very favorable to the press in his prior opinions. That's the judge that we drew in the case. And he dismissed our case. And I thought this is, you know, how can they dismiss it? And he said, well, it was really what Nathan Phillips said is

his opinion of what happened. And I said, how can it be an opinion to say that somebody blocked your path and prevented your retreat? That's a fact. And we had 14 different camera angles that showed that Nick Sandman didn't move an edge so he could not have blocked Nick Sandman and could not have prevented him from doing anything. As you know from the video, Nathan Phillips walked right up to Nick Sandman and is pounding this drum in his face. Nick never approached Nathan Phillips at all. And so we said these are factual issues. But the court said that they were opinion. And changing the way courts look at opinion is one of the recommendations that I make in the book. Not everything should be an opinion, but the way judges

write opinions today, legal opinions, they can make a lot of things an opinion. And I think that's completely wrong. And then we went to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is the appellate court above the trial court where we were. We had a three-judge panel. We had an Obama appointee, a Biden appointee and a Bush appointee on our panel. And of course, we lost two to one. The Bush appointee wrote a very strenuous dissent saying that we should not have lost the case and that what was said about Nick was fact and not opinion. And the other two judges appointed by Democrat presidents felt differently. And they said that these statements that I contend were factual were in fact opinions. So opinion is kind of a catch-all that a judge can use to dismiss almost anything.

And unfortunately, this split between Republican and Democrat appointees certainly gives the appearance of kind of politicization of the judiciary. And that's what we talk about in the book. There are some studies that I cite in the book basically saying it's true. People appointed by Democrats support Democrats and people appointed by Republicans support Republicans. But the problem is if you draw the wrong judge, you get two different types of justice. So it's a real mess. And that's part of the book as well is to say, we really can't live like this. It's not working. Yeah, you have a whole section on lawfare. And you don't take a very, an extremely pro-Trump stance, but you say, you know, Trump has really gotten, you know, repeatedly attacked and demonized in the law.

Right. There's, there's kind of levels when you think about it. This is this part isn't explicitly stated in the book, but you have, you know, there was a strong effort to cancel Trump during his first term. And that didn't work. So we moved strongly into the lawfare category as kind of the last resort. And it's, it just seems like they failed in the first try. So now there's this effort with the lawfare as a second try to use the judiciary in a political manner to achieve a political end that it's really not meant for that, obviously, as we know, by looking at how frivolous these lawsuits are. When it comes to responding to somebody getting canceled, you know, and I think this is kind of the nut of the book, you talk about the need for defamation

law to be different than it is. And, you know, I know, I know New York Times v. Sullivan, you know, a long time ago, civil rights case, maybe that was slightly rightly decided. But if you look, you know, there are so many different rulings that are based on New York Times v. Sullivan, and it kind of influenced the way the defamation law works today. How would you say defamation law has been undermined by New York Times v. Sullivan and following precedents? And what does, you know, the Supreme Court, let's say five or six justices had your ear, what would you tell them? Well, I think that New York Times v. Sullivan needs to go away.

Prior to that, the United States and its defamation practice operated under the common law, which was primarily a negligence-based application. And so if a reporter didn't investigate something very well or couldn't document why that person was saying X or why in the newspaper or a blog or whatever it might be, there's a greater chance that they'll be held liable for their negligent. investigation. And the idea being that all it really would do is require the press to be careful about its reporting. I mean, the entire country of Great Britain operates under this common law method, and they have functioning newspapers and a basically functioning press. And there are lawsuits for defamation over there from time to time. I think it would serve as a tremendous

check on cancel culture if people had to be held more accountable. I mean, the thing that I run run into all the time is that one of my clients is called by a reporter who has an anonymous source. And we know it's false. We don't even know if the source is real. And it's very hard to find out whether the source is real or not. And so that's that, I think, getting rid of New York Times v. Sullivan would change that, put us back to where we were, put us in line with the common law, which is, you know, where our system of laws is derived.

And we know for a fact that Great Britain operates just fine. with this system and we don't need a a this actual malice standard and again I think it would do a lot to really stop cancel culture because people could be more easily held to account well so that actual malice standard you know when when it comes to defamation if you get defamed but you put yourself out there in the public i mean it's interesting new york times v sullivan says this person who is actually a government official is a public figure and therefore for in order to defame him, you have to meet an actual malice standard. But now in follow-up cases, this has been applied to somebody who just puts themselves out

there in the public sphere. And so the definition, public figure, which meant something in 19, I believe it was 54, 57 when that case was decided. But now it means almost anybody. And you get, I think you get situations, I don't know if Nick Sandman quite applies, but I think Candace Owens definitely was considered a public figure, even though she was employed by no government. And in order to win a defamation case, you have to prove that they acted with reckless disregard for the truth. Right. So the actual malice standard created in New York Times v. Sullivan, first applied only to government

officials, then it began to apply to individuals who were public figures. But there's grades of public figures, so you could go to an all-purpose public figure. That would be President Trump or Kamala Harris. They would be all-purpose public figures. So they pretty much, it's hard to defame somebody like that. They're so famous. But then you could have what's called a limited purpose public figure, and that is somebody that you said thrust themselves into the controversy. I think the case law says into the vortex of what's going on. And we never had the opportunity to argue for Nick Sandman that he didn't do anything. He didn't thrust himself anywhere. So we would have argued that only the negligent standard applied, but the defendants were

already gearing up to say this was a public controversy. He was in the middle of it. We want the actual malice standard to apply. And actual malice also. applies whether you're a public or private figure to what type of damages you can get. Defamation cases allow for damages called presumed damages. A jury can basically pick a number on presumed damages. You don't have to prove economic loss, just reputational harm. But even for a private figure to recover presumed damages, they have to show that the publication was made with actual malice. And you mentioned reckless disregard, but even that standard is higher than it sounds to the normal ear. it really demands that a person who's publishing a statement in essence,

actively ignore the truth. So you have to either know that it's false or you have to know that if you open this box, the answer's in there, but you choose not to open the box. So it's a strange little standard, yeah. Well, because in the vast majority of defamation cases, when they're strong, get settled out of court, I think we see a lot of defamation. I follow a certain organization that brands people,

hate groups. And many times they've been sued for defamation and they argue that it's privileged opinion, that they're not stating facts. But in many cases, it's either settled out of court or handled separately. You know, there was a big case in 2018 where they paid millions of dollars and settled out of court. But, you know, how if we were to change the New York Times v. Sullivan precedent, would that change the way that defamation cases are handled? Should these cases be settled out of court? If we went back to the common law standard that England still has, would we see as many cases settled out of court? No, I think the incentive to settle defamation cases comes from the fact that you can so easily lose the case because the judge retains the right to determine whether the statements are defamatory or not.

defamatory. Instead of that going to a jury, oftentimes judges, they should let it go to the jury, but in the Sandman cases, the judges retained the right to say whether the statements were defamatory or not, and they also, the judges have the right to state whether it's an opinion or not. We certainly argued that those issues should go to the jury. So you want to settle if, you know, people want to settle because they know how precarious it is and how difficult it is to prove up these cases. They're very challenging. But when you get past all of that, defamation cases do provide for substantial verdicts. There's a lot of big verdicts out in the United States, a lot bigger than even Johnny Depp's case.

We had a case in Kentucky here about two years ago where a doctor received like $22 million. And it was not my case, unfortunately, but a very simple case. And the jury awarded $22 million. So there are big cases. And I think if we change the standard, it would strengthen the plaintiff's position for a while until people who were issuing these statements learned to be more careful and to wait just a minute or two before they published it. For example, in the Sandman case, the Washington Times really rushed out there and published it

kind of hot off of Twitter. You know, there was a viral tweet going around, and the Washington Times basically, you know, it jumped from the Twitter to the Washington Post, excuse me, Twitter to the Washington Post, and they ran with it with not much investigation. I think in the future, if we change the standard back to the common law, you would see that I think people would just be more careful. I think it would be better. So we talk about the anatomy of a smear.

I mean, I think in your book, you say that a hit job, what will it look like? What are the flashing neon signs that show that somebody is about to get canceled? Well, most of these, the hit jobs that I've dealt with have really been culture war type hit jobs, whether it's an LGBTQ situation or a DEI situation. Somebody will have offended one of those issues, right? So when that happens, in some of the cases that I've had, they really do go to social media or to email campaign, so-and-so has to go. And the organization, whether it's that person's employer, whether they spoke as an employee or whether they're just associated with the company, people will start to say that person has to be fired from their job. And that creates a lot of anxiety and people will then, you know, that you'll be fired.

I know of a very high-ranking professional who made one mistake and was escorted from his office and wiped from the company's website within. a few hours. I mean, literally that very day was walked out of the office with a box in his hand. And he was a fairly senior person in the company. So that's what you see. You see some statement that creates some outrage that leads to some form of campaign to punish the person for the transgression. And then you generally see a capitulation by an employer or a sports organization or university. I represented a young woman who said something political and, literally was chased off campus. Her sorority had an emergency meeting and kicked her out. They were so afraid of the outrage that was flowing from her support for President Trump. So these things happen

very, very quickly, and they're hard to stop. And so it's important, as I say in the book, when you, you know, when you start to see it coming, you know, don't hope that it goes away, try to address it early on as early as possible and try to get the truth out as early as possible. And I always recommend that if at all possible, somebody hire a lawyer. I think they'll be better served in that emergency circumstance, to have somebody who can take a different perspective on what's happening. Well, so, you know, and it's interesting in this book because I think you're writing to a broad audience.

And I think a lot of Americans think, well, what happened to Nick Sandman, what happened to, you know, you talk about Candace Owens, what happened to these various people, that's not going to happen to me. what would you say to those naysayers, you know, would you say that this is a real issue that all Americans, especially, you know, if you're conservative Christian, you know, you go through, you know, white conservative Christian, should you be expecting this to happen to you? And if so, you know, what do you look out for? I think that you should be, you should treat it like buying car insurance. You should prepare for it and you should expect that it is a real possibility because,

I mean, literally one word, the wrong word, the wrong phrase, the wrong hat, the wrong drawing, all types of things can lead to your immediate expulsion from whatever it is that you're doing. I mean, I've seen Ivy League scholarship athletes be threatened to lose their scholarship over one false statement. So I would suggest that people, or one statement that they didn't make, you know, they were accused of it. But I would suggest that people get the book because it'll really tell you what you need to do to prepare for this and how to recognize it if it's coming your way. And I would say especially if a person is, you know, in any way involved in, you know, whether they're city council member or, you know, some type of elected official, whether they're in their job puts them in front of the

public eye, whether they're a professional of any type of business owner or chief executive, these people really need to be careful because it happens fast and it can be devastating. And what happens to people who suffer this? It is devastating. Emotionally, financially, your friends, your family, you're basically, I've seen people kicked out of polite society for things that are pretty minor by my standards, but are turned into outrageous events. and then these outrageous attacks that follow. So I think people do need to be thinking of it as they would. What are my chances of having a car accident?

They're probably in that range and something that you would want to buy insurance for, in essence. And that is no good lawyer in your community. Read the book and be prepared for the eventuality if it happens to you. Why do you think this is such a threat culturally? I mean, I don't know if you want to get into, you know, spiritual, struggles you might think are tied in with this, but, you know, why do we have this ideology that's essentially looking for ways to scapegoat, those who would have been considered, you know,

normal Americans? Right. I mean, a person that used to, you know, raise their family, go to church, do their job, volunteer in a civic organization, those were all hallmarks of a good person. And as I said in the book, Christians are especially under threat in these things because they tend to support traditional values. And we have this, they might more naturally react against some intersectionality or some DEI issue, you know, probably with a very fair and Christian response, but not one that is consistent with, in essence, the dominant culture.

And so I do think that there is certainly for people who are, you don't even necessarily have to be Christian, other religions hold views that are in opposition to intersection and DEI issues. And, you know, so that aspect is certainly there to make, to make you more of a target because you're more likely to have a viewpoint that is different than the popular culture. And I do certainly see something I said in the book, and that is why did the press attack Nick Sandman as aggressively as they did? And I've seen other children attacked. I've seen high school students, college students attacked for similar things. And I think that there's just a hunger to, to punish somebody so badly that it inflicts fear into the rest of the culture so that parents are afraid, that scholarship athletes are afraid, that people in colleges are afraid. And so they keep their mouth shut. And in essence, it creates an enforced conformity, or at least a lack of dissent from, you know, what the dominant culture is currently telling us about how we should live our lives. And I think that the willingness to stand up to that is, is, you know, important, but at the same

time, it has to be done in a way that's safe and that people are careful about what they say and that they object so in the right manner. But even when you do object in the right manner, you know, it often gets twisted, you know, presented in a false light. Right. And I, if you'll recall, one of the things I recommend in the book is not everybody has to fight the culture war. You know, there's people like me that will stand up to defend people and make statements that are in favor of, you know, of, or in favor of those that are canceled and support those who are canceled. But I think for most people, if you can avoid getting into it, then you should avoid getting into it. But if you can't avoid getting into it, then you should be very,

very careful about what you say. So I do think it's good for people to let the professionals, so to speak, fight these battles for them because, you know, we're prepared for the losses. Yeah. Well, I did want to ask you one other question, and that was about Candice Owens. You have a chapter in here, and I think it's a very important chapter, where you talk about the wrong think on COVID, how Candice Owens was asking questions that were, you know, that were inconvenient for the government narrative. And then you essentially had an attempt to cancel her. But also, we've seen Candice Owens become somewhat of a lightning rod in recent months for statements that I'm pretty sure you wouldn't agree with. Why, you know, why feature her in the book and how do you

navigate the current situation? Well, I think that what's what, what is the chapter about her case in the book is very instructive about cancel culture. She, she, in essence, at the time, was largely uncancellable unless they took away her platform. So then there was an effort to de-platform her. And we talk about that kind of added level when you're a big shot and, you know, that you're self-employed, you can't be fired from your job. You're not afraid if people aren't happy with what you say, if you're trying to speak the truth. And then what's the next step? The next step is de-platforming. We saw President Trump de-platformed. We saw efforts to de-platform. We saw efforts to de-platform. form Candace Owens, and then after that comes lawfare, in essence, right? So I thought that the chapter

was very instructive for that purpose. And I know Candice has been involved in a lot of controversy of late. And, you know, I think Christ is king or whatever the phrase is, things like that are said, and those are implied to be anti-Semitic in some way. I have to say, I don't know. I would consider myself a strong supporter of Israel and very pro-Israel. And, you know, I think we're doing the right thing there. And I think Israel's in an existential crisis, you know, in a situation where they have to win. And I don't fully understand Candace's comments or why she made those. Well, is there anything else you'd like to add about the book, about Nick Sandman,

about any of the big cases that, you know, obviously not the ones you're involved in, but the ones that you think might open a potential to revisit New York Times v. Sullivan? Well, we have some very interesting cases, and I probably am not going to comment on those, but we look strategically for opportunities to get at the law and try to make changes. We have had some good success. It's not a defamation case, but we brought a case against the comedian Kathy Griffin for basically getting somebody fired in a canceled culture event. That's what we allege in the complaint.

So we are trying to press the boundaries of things and to try to do good for people when they are canceled. So that's an interesting one to follow. We had a nice victory in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals where we were able to sue Kathy Griffin in Tennessee. And so we have a very good decision, which is helpful to other people who are canceled in the future. And it increases the opportunity to bring the defendant to your hometown versus having to travel to California or New York where they have anti-SLAPP laws and you don't have to go there. So I think we're doing some good work and we're certainly trying and fighting hard. So, you know, it's an ongoing fight and we just try to be, you know, strong in our efforts

and remain hopeful that we're going to make a difference as we go forward. Well, thanks so much for joining me. Where can people follow you by the book? listen to the book. It's available on audio as well. Yeah, you can get the book at Barnes & Noble or on Amazon. You can get it on Kendall, and there's an audible version. And it's a tight little book. It's not a big read. It's not written for lawyers. It's written for everyday people. And I think it's worth the time to go in there and learn about this so that you're protecting yourself. And following me, I have a, I do a little bit of work on Twitter.

where I post things every once in a while. It's just at Todd underscore McMurtry. And if something interesting happens, I'll post it there. Well, great. Thank you so much, Todd, for joining us. And best of luck with the book. Thank you, Tyler. I appreciate it.

Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Signal podcast, where Tyler O'Neill interviewed Nick Sandman's lawyer, Todd McMurtry. Be sure to tune in later today for our headlines where I'll be outlining today's top news. Thanks again for listening. Have a wonderful day, and we'll be back with you at 5 o'clock.

The Daily Signal podcast is made possible because of listeners like you. Executive producers are Rob Lewy and Katrina Trinko. Hosts are Virginia Allen, Brian Gottstein, Tyler O'Neill, and Elizabeth Mitchell. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, John Pop, and Joseph Von Spakovsky. To learn more or support our work, please visit DailySignal. com.