The Ricochet Podcast - Anchor Babies

Episode Date: August 28, 2015

As promised, this week we present a debate on what popularly known as anchor babies — the idea that any child born in the U.S.A is automatically a U.S. citizen no matter what the immigration status of the parents may be. Our debaters: Constitutional law professor and Ricochet podcast host John Yoo and author, lawyer, and columnist Ann Coulter. Not much else to say about this show except do the... Source

Are you aware that the term anchor baby, that's an offensive term. People find that hurtful. You mean it's not politically correct and yet everybody is. It's looking up in the... Hello everyone! I'm not going to get... I don't know what's going to happen here. I don't have any information on that. They don't understand what you're talking about. And that's going to prove to be disastrous.

And what it means is that the people don't want socialism they want more conservatism mr dorbachev tear down this wall it's the ricochet podcast with rob long and peter robinson i'm james lalix and today john you versus ann coulter death match to go in come out. Let's have ourselves a podcast. There you go again. Welcome everybody to this, the Ricochet Podcast number 272. We're brought to you by The Great Courses. For a limited time only, The Great Courses has a special offer for you, the Ricochet listener. Order from four of the great masters lecture series mozart beethoven brahms or tchaikovsky for just nine dollars and ninety-five

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and how it's great and we need 10,000 members and the rest of it, I mean, he's done his part for that. So we'll let him rest his vocal cords for a few seconds here. I have a feeling I'm being sent to assisted living here. Well, enjoy your mush and Parcheesi starts in a couple

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Gentlemen, what are we – We should say that the meetups, there's no code of conduct for language. You can – anything goes. In real life, you can say anything you want. You can take it out in the alley and duke it out if you want to, which sometimes seems a little likely when certain subjects of certain presidential candidates come up. How would you guys characterize the situation both fore and aft Democratic-Republican in the presidential scrum this week? Fore and aft? Fore and aft, did you say, James?

Mm-hmm. Fore. Well, Donald Trump – I'm starting to – listen. Hold on. I just want to prepare everybody. I'm about to say this and I'm going to listen. Hold on. I just want to prepare everybody. I'm about to say this and I'm going to say it and I don't care. I'm starting to like the guy. Yeah.

I am starting to like the guy. For sheer reasons of performance, self-confidence, bravura, bravado, on and on and on. It is a pleasure at one level. I'll get to the other level in a moment but it is a pleasure at one level just to watch that man having so much fun that's that they're on top of which even when he's wrong as i'm convinced that he is on trade putting a base of protection that would be a bad thing to do. Even when he's wrong, he's pro-American. What he exudes is love of country. He wants this country to prosper. And if there's a choice between this country's prospering and other countries prospering,

he wishes us well and them ill. And you know, there is something refreshing about that. Now, the second level is obvious. He's just crazy. He's a crazy person, you know, there is something refreshing about that. Now, the second level is obvious. He's just crazy. He's a crazy person, total narcissist, wrong on policy again and again and again. And I haven't seen the polling on this, but it's hard to believe that he's not damaging Republicans with Hispanic voters. Legal, good Americans, but Hispanics who feel that they may be getting insulted by Donald Trump. But I'm starting to enjoy this guy. I'm in kind of the same boat. Oh, wait, hold on.

There's going to be some barking here that I can't stop. I think your dog is barking at the sound of my dog barking. She's barking at the idea of Donald Trump. She just finished reading the Wall Street Journal. Yeah, this is actually not going to stop for about five minutes. So we should pause here for one second. Well, you can keep talking. You can talk to the chat room if you want.

Hello, everybody in the chat room. For some reason, I can see the comments whizzing by, but once again this week, it won't let me type. I don't know why. All right. Well, while Rob is dealing with his dog, I think one of the things that people loved about Trump the last week was the interchange they had with the Univision advocate, the man who calls himself a journalist and as such believes that he has the right to speak over all other journalists and Hector, idea of one of your more ostentatiously noble members of the media being treated with something akin to, I don't know, disrespect.

It's like finally, finally somebody isn't just deferring to these guys as the avatar of all sense and goodness in the world and given him right back. And the colloquy that followed after he was let back into the room was a masterpiece performance by Mr. Trump. And it makes you realize that this guy has got a certain amount of theatrical, innate theatrical ability honed perhaps over the years of being on television that makes him a very formidable media presence. And yes, it's fun to watch, but you have to divorce that from the actual candidate and the positions and what he actually stands for, don't we? Look, I guess. But do we have to do it this early?

I mean – Do we have to do it this week? Yeah. I mean Trump is sort of a complicated figure for me because I know why I could see President Trump. I'm a rhino squish, right? And so is he.

He's basically John Huntsman, but he wants to build a wall. And he's more robustly patriotic, which is a good thing, and unafraid to be that. But he likes to raise taxes on the rich people and he flirts with single payer and he's not going to – he's going to – he would sign the deal with Iran and this guy is a northeastern moderate businessman.

He's Nelson Rockefeller but with a wall. And so I know why I should think, oh, interesting. I don't know why all – my friend Ann Coulter will be on in a interesting but i don't know why all my friend ann coulter will be on in a minute i don't know why she is so enamored of him but in terms of policy but i do like the fact that he's giving a clinic first of all he's doing two things one he's giving a clinic to republican candidates about what why being afraid of the camera all the time makes you look like a terrified underling, makes you look like you work for Jorge Ramos. You work for whoever it is on the other – Candy Crowley. You're their employee and he sends the opposite message and it's incredibly refreshing.

Whether he's doing damage to the Republicans and Hispanics, that could be although he could also – there's's going to make big inroads in African-American males because they know intuitively that they are the true victims of illegal immigration. So – and he's out there saying it too. So there's something sort of refreshingly real about him. But what's amazing to me is I think it's possible that Donald Trump, even going all the way to the convention, whatever happens to Donald Trump – and I think there's probably a ceiling for him because Republican primary voters ultimately just don't like a guy who's like two years ago wants to raise taxes and a year ago wanted single payer. Like that's a little too soon for the conversion, really does not care at all about abortion, really has no standing for any of the social issues that Republican primary voters think are important. I still think he might be giving a very, very useful lesson and I hope Republican candidates are paying attention.

And I don't know if they are, but I think they should be. I mean, he's fun. And by the way, we're not – the first primary is not for another, what, six months? Right. I thought the election was in two months. Yeah, it feels like it, doesn't it? It really does. Well, you hope the others are taking note.

So do I. I guarantee you Biden is. Absolutely. Oh, for sure. And Jeb Bush proudly trumpeting the endorsement of Eric Cantor, I think, is just showing that he's understanding now the anger in the base towards the establishment. You know, it really – go on, Peter. Well, no. There's just this argument.

You hear it every so often. Somebody will make it on Ricochet. You troll around the blogosphere and you see it over and over again. Trump is secretly very good for Jeb Bush. There's still people saying that Trump is some sort of secret maneuver by the establishment to save Jeb Bush because Trump is freezing the race in place. When Trump finally withers, Jeb Bush will be there in second place, ready to move up and assume them. It's all nonsense. Trump is terrible for Jeb Bush because Jeb Bush, God bless him. He was a wonderful governor of California.

But from the very get-go, he's been less than compelling as a presidential candidate. But if you have in the back of your mind an image of watching Trump handle Jorge Ramos, and then you switch over to a YouTube clip of Jeb Bush, Bush looks just unacceptable just unacceptable one of my sons I won't name him because he didn't sign up for this but one of my sons who's been paying really he's been paying

this is the one that Uncle Rob thank you very much talked out of going to Hollywood he now has a real job but he said he just looked at he was watching the news that there was Trump was on, Trump was on, Trump was on. And then came Jeb Bush. And my son turned to me and said, gee, Jeb Bush just isn't a leader, is he? And that's, this is bad for Jeb Bush. It's terrible for Jeb Bush.

Well, again, he apparently believes that he has an infinite number of bullets and an infinite number of feet because his response to the Jorge Ramos thing was to come out and say that Trump was being rude to Jorge Ramos, which is just, again, when you compare and contrast, does not play with the base. It's also simply untrue. That's the comment of somebody who did not watch the video. Precisely. So when you have these people, what we call the establishment GOP types, it's like that pitiful moment in Beethoven's life at the end where after the Ninth Symphony had concluded and he conducted it and he was deaf, stone deaf. They had to turn him around to see that the audience was on their feet applauding, except in this case, it's the tone deaf, stone deaf establishment being turned around and seeing the audience on their feet with flames and tomatoes and pitchforks. And the moment that they realize that and get exactly how much anger out there is the moment that, well, I don't know what. Except that if you'd like more anecdotes about that thing that I just mentioned about Beethoven, of course, you can go over to The Great Courses.

I don't know if that anecdote is in there. Oh, I bet it is. That's a good segue because I was going to chime in again. Your segues are so good. They make me want to chime in on this topic. And then suddenly you're doing a segue. Unfortunately, we've got to move the merch here. But the fact of the matter is,

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That's thegreatcourses.com slash ricochet. That's thegreatcourses.com slash ricochet. I mentioned before that we were about, that when you subscribe to Ricochet, you're under the jurisdiction of the code of conduct. What does that mean? And why do these three words seem to have sparked, or some variant of them have seemed to spark arguments of a legal nature, the details of which have been a master's course for anybody who's been paying attention to both sides of the argument. It's fascinating. And as it happens, we just have a couple of people who are on opposite sides of the issue when it comes to the 14th Amendment and what it means. We have you versus Coulter. Now, Anne, of course, is the author of Adios America and a frequent guest on all media platforms in the known cosmos.

And John is the Emanuel S. Cutler Professor of Law at Bolt Hall and the co-host of the wildly popular Law Talk with Epstein and You podcast here on Ricochet. Somebody should just ding a bell. I want you to come out, touch gloves, explain all the rules, have and go if I touch gloves with Ann Coulter they'd be debutante gloves aww that doesn't seem that doesn't even seem accurate John

that is just leaning way over with your chin out whack it man hey Ann it's Rob Long how are you Ann Coulter hi Rob I've been Wacky man Hey Ann, it's Rob Long How are you Ann Coulter? Hi Rob I've been watching you punch your way through

Fox News and I've been enjoying it And I've been telling everybody to read your book I want to start by saying I own your book I bought it for cash money at a bookstore You know, didn't ask a friend To send me a copy. I think your publisher would have sent us review copies.

No, I bought it like a good American. John Yu is on the line. John Yu is a brilliant legal theorist. John Yu is the one who saved the country. None of my books of which you have ever bought are read, Rob.

Of course not. They're too hard. There are pictures of me on the cover. Anne's got jokes in hers. Think about it. But I am going to link to John's books in my column as per his suggestion. Okay. So, all right. Can we just get super granular, and then I'm going to give it over to Peter.

He's going to ask the brainiac questions. I'm going to ask the stupid questions. All my adult life, I have assumed that if you were born in this country, you are by definition an American. That's just the way they wrote the Constitution. And John Yoo tells me that is true. And Ann Coulter tells me in not quite the most polite words that is not true

John Yoo why is that true? Oh I was going to let Ann go first Okay Ann why is that not true? Well remember slavery? Vaguely Yeah that was a big episode. So you know it wasn't true for 200 years. Not even being born here, not having your parents born here, not having your grandparents born here, not having your great-grandparents born here. And Indians couldn't be citizens either.

Of course, it wasn't as important back then since we weren't a massive welfare state. But yeah, you'd move into town. In fact, you couldn't even move from town to town and stay there. As I describe in my book, they'd send warning out letters if it looked like you might become a public charge. They'd send, and this is in colonial America, they'd send somebody around when a new family or new person moved to town,

would check them out, make sure they were completely self-supporting because towns would take care of, you know, widows and people in need. If it looked like you could become a burden, they'd send you a letter telling you to leave. Then again, remember slavery, we had a massive, deadly civil war, and to get an amendment attached to the Constitution takes a huge, mass feeling about something. Why on earth in 1868, with the 14th Amendment, which is precisely the point at issue, would Americans be saying to themselves,

you know what, we have to make sure that no matter how somebody gets here, if they break into our country and drop a baby, that kid is a citizen. Why, yes, of course, we must do that. But that isn't already in the Constitution. No, the 14th Amendment was about the Democrats refusing to admit they had lost the Civil War and refusing to treat freed slaves as citizens, as a half-dozen cases expressly stated from the Supreme Court in the 20 years afterwards, those four amendments, 13, 14, and 15, having them read together.

That's what it's about. I mean, the Constitution doesn't mention specific races, but yes, we started bringing, you know, Pakistanis here to be our slaves. Their kids, not only would the slavery be unconstitutional, but their kids would be citizens. But without that, no, I mean, there was a case, I don't know what it was, 20 years after the 14th Amendment. I think it was incorrectly decided, as I pointed out, as did the Yale Law Journal, where, well, first they turned down an Indian

who requested citizenship, and then there was a legal immigrant from China to legal parents, gainfully employed, not diplomats. Their son had been born, raised, spent his entire life in the U.S., not that that matters. Went back to visit his parents in China, came back to the U.S., and U.S. customs wouldn't admit him. That went to the Supreme Court. That's Wong Ark Kim.

And there was, I think, a persuasive dissent as the Yale Law Journal agreed that what the majority opinion relied on in that case wasn't how citizenship was determined in a republic, but how not even citizenship, but whether you were a subject or not was determined under a monarchy. And as everyone pointed out at the time, well, wait a second. Yeah, we did bring in a lot of British common law, but the parts we didn't bring in is all that stuff about a monarchy. Again, remember slavery, remember Civil War, and now, hey, anybody remember the American Revolution? So I think that's actually incorrect, but – Is that actually one of the – in the opinion? Hey, anyone remember? Okay. All right.

All right. But here I'm about to wrap up. Okay. But even that case, even that case, they're illegal immigrants. It isn't anyone who breaks into your country. Yes, Americans, we will die in a ditch to protect the right of an illegal alien kid to be a citizen. It's insane. And to argue that it's not is the precise reason everyone hates lawyers. Use some common sense. It was

about freed slaves. No one would pass a constitutional amendment or write a constitution saying illegals can break into your country, drop a kid, become a full citizen, and start collecting welfare. John Yu, would you not agree that inviting Anne to go first was one of the worst mistakes you've ever made in your life? No, I choose to treat her like the lady that she is. Now, I've got to start with a story that I always tell about Anne that she hates when I tell the story. We're actually old friends because we worked together on the Senate Judiciary Committee before she went

into the career of punditry that she's gone into now, much to my, against my advice. So I still remember she came into my office and she said, I'm quitting. And so I said, oh, that's great. What are you going to do? Work for this big law firm, that big law firm? Go finally cashing in and make a lot of money. This is about 1996 before all the news channels had started and everything. And she said, no, I'm going to be a full-time commentator. And I remember saying, who the hell is going to pay you for your opinions? And I am glad to say I have been proven terribly wrong. Terribly wrong.

Terribly, terribly wrong. I should have followed Ann on the TV just to sweep up the gigs that she turns down. That's not technically true. It is totally true. So you forget. No, I went to work for the Center for Individual Rights. That's what I did know. I went to work for Center for Individual Rights and Rights for Human Events.

I worked unpaid part-time for MSNBC just to get flights to New York. Wow. But I may have said I was going to be a part-time unpaid commentator to get flights to New York. We'll work at MSNBC for food. You just held up a sign. All right, John, dive in now because I'm siding with Anne. Fix that if I'm wrong. Dude, she was very persuasive. John, you have your work cut out for you here. So let's start – so first of all, just to take the broader point, the 14th Amendment of course is written about much more than just giving the freed slaves their rights. So, for example, if you were pro-life, for example, the 14th Amendment is where you get the argument that the fetus has rights

under the Constitution not to be killed by the state or by individuals. It's much more than about the rights of freed slaves. But let's look at the text. So the text of the 14th Amendment says, all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens. So if it were not for that last phrase, subject to the jurisdiction thereof, it would be clear that everyone born in the United States is a citizen regardless of where your parents are from. And this was the rule from the beginning of our republic all the way to the Civil War, the 14th – and he's right.

The 14th Amendment overrules the legal system that exists in slavery. The blemish was Dred Scott because what the republicans – the 14th Amendment is the greatest achievement of republicans. What the 14th – Dred Scott had done and said, well, slaves are born in our territory, the United States. But Dred Scott said they're not citizens. They can't ever be citizens. So the 14th Amendment in that text is trying to overrule the great blemish on our constitutional law from Roger Taney and Southern Democrats and Dred Scott, which was to say, we're going to pick and choose who gets to be citizens, even if you're born here.

So that had been the rule ever since the beginning of the country until today, until, I'm sorry, the Civil War, until Dred Scott. So then the 14th Amendment's language overruled that. And so the question is, does this phrase, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, which sits on top of the people born in the U.S. language, does that give some big exception to that rule? For example, that would say you have to be a citizen or you have to be a legal alien. I don't think it does. And I think that that phrase actually has three narrow – it creates three narrow categories. One is for diplomats, which Anne mentioned.

Another one would be for enemy soldiers on our territory. And the third big one, which Anne mentioned, were Indians. And the reason why is because Indians were on our territory, born on our territory. And the third big one, as Anne mentioned, were Indians. And the reason why is because Indians were on our territory, born on our territory, but our laws didn't reach them then because they lived in other parts of these reservations where Indian law governed. Other than those three exceptions, the text of the Constitution says jurisdiction means within the territory. There's nowhere else in the constitution that that phrase jurisdiction means what – and let me say Anne is not coming up with some kooky arguments. These are the arguments that were made by the dissenting judges in the case she mentioned, the case of the Chinese citizen – the Chinese citizen – a Chinese child whose parents were Chinese citizens who came to California.

He was born here. It's called Wong Kim Ark. It's 1898. In that case, the Supreme Court basically adopted the view I'm putting forth. And the dissent in that case are putting forth, agree with the view that Anne's putting forth. But that's why I say the Supreme Court decided the issue was squarely presented then. There were no illegal or legal immigrants back then in 1898 because there was no federal law making those definitions. Everybody was coming into the country. And the dissenters criticized the Supreme Court for exactly the same thing Anne is saying. The Supreme Court said, this is a kid. His parents are Chinese. They're not U.S. citizens. The kid's born in the U.S. He's still a citizen. And that's been the rule ever since in the United States too. So Rob, you should always trust your initial instincts

and not be swayed. I made a lot of money at the craps table with you, John. I don't know. I full-time paid pundits on MSNBC. So, okay. So Ann, let me ask you this question. Assume that John is correct only in the last part of his argument, counterargument, that you and he are rehashing elegant arguments for and against that were made before the Supreme Court. Assume that's true. who I know that you are cheering for, starts deportation proceedings or whatever he's going to do and that there's a Supreme Court challenge, which I think would be inevitable. I think we'd all agree that is going to see the constitution and interpret the constitution your way and not the way they did bajillion years ago back in the cobwebby days. That's a, that's a legal phrase. Okay.

Back in the cobwebby days. Intellectual. I don't want to like, go ahead. He's one of my favorite phrases of all time, cash money. That was in the intro. Did that short circuit you for a minute? It's the best

phrase there is. You know, Rob's still trying to figure out how we got the Philippines, because that was 1898, too. Yeah, right. I'm sorry. I have to say quickly why John is wrong. First, you have to understand the Yeah, right. you know, Asian people, whatever, that sort of thing is strictly removed from our Constitution because our Constitution is a Constitution for all men for all time. And so they had to free, give citizenship to freed slaves without saying, we're talking about black people here.

And you, like O'Reilly, you, you, excluded the very last words, which is a citizen of the country and the state in which they reside. Now, that was to make sure, again, the Democrats would treat freed slaves as citizens within the state. But that gives us something, too, the state within which they reside. I mean, I think it was as elegantly phrased as it could be to talk about freed slaves without saying black people. And as for there being no such thing as illegals back then, well, for one thing, so why would you say that would be included? I mean, what if Martians appear? Well, of course, Martians are included here.

Well, I mean, I just, at most, that's a toss-up if it's true, but people were excluded. They would be. You could have people sent home for being, well, we certainly drove out the Tories up to Canada and they were driven out of their homes. And not much longer than that, there were specific checks, or at least not much longer than the 14th Amendment, the case interpreting it.

Yeah, you had people check for contagious diseases and communist ties and so on and so forth. Why this would win at the Supreme Court is because, for one thing, Justice Roberts thinks it should be. It's nonsense. And how do we know that? Because when – that's Chief Justice – because when the Bush administration was trying to sell him to us, for some reason they nominated someone without a paper trail

when we had a Republican Senate, which you may recall annoyed me at the time. That's when you want to be nominating your borks and not your stealth candidates. But, you know, some of us were annoyed by that, and so the Federalist Society types were rushing out, producing his conservative documents. So one of the documents he wrote,

because where this nonsense comes from and why people think it, it's a footnote in a Justice Brennan opinion, Plyler v. Doe, from 1982. So, you know, that's our long constitutional history of giving illegal, treating illegal alien children as if they're citizens. It was dicta. It wasn't part of the ruling. The court has never ruled on it. It's never been argued.

It was dicta in a footnote, tan tan of Plyler v. Doe. And the day that decision came down, John Roberts was working in the SG's office, and he, along with Carolyn Kuhn, also a big hero to us Federalists, as is John Yoo, wrote a memo to the SG saying we should have submitted briefs in this case because, as I think you will back me up on, an awful lot of bad Supreme Court law comes from not particularly talented state attorney generals being so proud that they get to argue a case in front of the Supreme Court. They make all the wrong arguments. They cite none of the correct cases, but they get to be written up in the local paper. I argued a case before the Supreme Court.

This is why sometimes these pro bono briefs can be very important if the court reads them. And that was something now Chief Justice John Roberts mentioned in his memo to the Solicitor General saying the briefing from Texas was terrible. This was a results-oriented decision. We say we don't want judicial activism. The holding of the case was that Texas had to pay the schooling costs of illegal aliens. Closely divided, 5-4 decision. John Roberts said we should have intervened.

We could have won this case. He was asked about it at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, and he defended it, saying his position on Plywood v. Doe, which is the lesser, it certainly includes the larger of the footnote that suddenly announces out of the blue

after 150 years, oh, and the kids would be illegals, our citizens too. He defended it to Senator Durbin saying, look, this is a five to four decision. My position is the mainstream position too. John, Peter here. Here's what Anne has established at a minimum. And I know she's established it because you yourself granted it to her. She has established that her position is not crazy. And what that means is that everybody who's been saying Donald Trump doesn't know the Constitution, Ann Coulter doesn't know the Constitution, Bill O'Reilly is a legal scholar by comparison with Donald Trump and Ann Coulter, all those people are wrong. Ann and Donald Trump have an argument.

It was an argument that you yourself called elegant and that you said were taken up by dissenting justices. What their argument comes down to is that a Supreme Court case in 1898 was badly decided and you yourself grant, because you said so, that they have an argument. That's a pretty big concession already. Now let me go after you to see if you're willing to make another one, John. I said Anne was elegant. I didn't say her argument was elegant. You granted her.

Actually, Rob said elegant. I am. She is. I admit it, especially when she's firing on a gun range. I've seen those photos. I admit it, especially when she's firing on a gun range. I've seen those photos. I've seen that video. So here's the next question. Here's the next question. Then the next question is, set the legal arguments dating back to 1898 aside.

We know that anchor babies exist. I can remember having a conversation with Pete Wilson not long after he stepped down as governor of California. And he said all the way back in the 1880s when he was still mayor of San Diego, it was a problem in San Diego hospitals because women would come north across the border, nine months pregnant to have babies in San Diego. This has been going on for a long time. It's got to be a phrase for that. Maybe a voting metaphor. We can argue about the numbers, but as a matter of policy, isn't Ann, on the very face of it, correct? There is no argument in justice or history or morality for permitting people to come across the border. And as Ann puts it, I'm willing to use the term anchor baby on my own. But to say drop a baby to get citizenship, I'm going to impute that one to Ann.

But isn't she right about that as a matter of policy, John? OK, so first I think I want to concede what you said, which is true, that Ann's argument is not crazy and who's the other guy? Oh, Trump. Trump's argument is not crazy. This is an argument that's been made since the dissent in the 1898 case and I respect it. There's actually – the funny thing is if you look it up, the people who really first developed this argument are two bleeding heart liberals from the 1990s named – you don't need to know their names. Anyway, one of them was a professor of mine at Yale. So I remember hearing this argument in the – when I was in law school. So it's been around for a long time. It's a very

serious argument. So I'm not – I don't think Anne is crazy on this. I actually generally don't think Anne is crazy on most things, except when she criticizes her old friends like me. So what's the real argument? Is this a bad as a matter policy? So the first thing I would say that you would need to know how many children are actually being born in the United States in this manner, and whether it really is such a large proportion of the number of illegal aliens in the country. If the country feels that it's a big problem, then you can do all kinds of things to stop

it, which don't involve changing the Constitution and the understanding of our law for hundreds of years, which would be don't let their parents become citizens then. Take control of the border. I mean, I think the obvious first thing you do is take control of the southern border and the northern, all our borders, and then control the flow of illegal immigrants in that way first. I think this is a weird way of getting at this big problem by pressing on one of the far down the road consequences of allowing people to come across the border and get benefits in the country without any legal status. So I think that's focusing on just one of the many consequences of the problem, not

the actual main problem. To me, it seems like this is – and then the larger question, immigration. I mean I understand people in the country are upset about immigration. It's often an issue that comes up when economic times are tough. You look all around the rest of the world. A lot of countries wish they had our problem. A lot of countries where their populations are shrinking, they're trying like hell to get people with talents and skills to move here. I think that's really how we ought to redo our immigration system is not to necessarily cut down on the

number of aliens and permanent resident aliens and people allowed to become citizens, but to make sure that the right kinds of people, people big job skills and resources to the country. I would actually be in favor of letting more people in the country, people with advanced degrees, people with resources. I looked up on Wikipedia, so it must be true. It says that we only allow about 1 million people to go from alien status to citizenship a year. We're a country of 350 million people, and we're adding one-third of one percent.

I'm not good at math because I'm in law, but that sounds like one-third of one percent to me. That seems actually strangely abnormally low to me. I think that we should actually put more people in the country. You're a Bush guy, John. I don't know. Is that what he says? I don't know.

Roughly. Roughly. Well, I guess on this one, I'm with know. Is that what he says? I don't know. Roughly, roughly. Well, I guess on this one I'm with Bush. Okay, and he says you're at your most elegant when you're on a shooting range. Open fire. I am very, very elegant on a shooting range. First of all, I want everyone to acknowledge the enormous patience I have just exercised, and I am not a blabbermouth, and I will only interrupt John Hugh in order to correct whether I was frivolous enough to take a job as a full-time pundit. However, I think I've let this conversation get away from us, and I have not made myself clear.

The 1898 decision was about legal immigrants. I do not think they are citizens under the Constitution. That is where I agree with dissent. That is where the Yale Law Journal agrees with the dissent. And by the way, we wouldn't have the problem of anchor babies, but for Wong Ark Kim, that 1988 decision, where it was very important that the parents had been here legally, had been gainfully employed, were not diplomats, and had given birth here, well-known and inspected by our customs official or whomever inspects people coming over on boats from China.

That was a very important part of the decision. That was legal immigrants alone, the children of legal immigrants. If that had not been the case, we never would have had Justice Brennan's 1982 footnote, because he was the child of legal immigrants. He would not have been a citizen. And I like that policy. That's what I think the Constitution says. No, anchor babies, and there is nothing offensive about anchor babies. There is nothing racial about it. There is nothing sexual about it. It's a boating metaphor. 1982 footnote, not 1898, 1982. You were writing speeches for Reagan then. That's how recent it is.

Or was that Peggy Noonan? 1982, dicta in a footnote, the court has never ruled on whether the children of illegal immigrants are citizens. By running past the border patrol, evading them, dropping a baby, the illegal alien gets to say, ha ha, you didn't catch me, I get to be a citizen in your country and start collecting welfare. 71% of families headed, households with children, headed by illegal aliens are collecting government assistance. There are at least 300,000 a year here, and the idea that a country has, a country like ours, the most magnificent country in the world, although worse it's slipping away from us, that we have no say

over who becomes a citizen, and citizenship is a game of Red Rover with the Border Patrol. No, that is based, no one ever thought the children of illegal immigrants were citizens until that dicta, irrelevant chit-chat from Justice Brennan, anchor baby, was slipped into a 1982 opinion. That's our long constitutional history of anchor babies, 1982. Let me respond to that. So I do have to say Anne was just on the range there with the gun set to automatic fire, it sounds like. Yeah, but I was holding my tongue to show how polite I was. That is true. You took your turn. I'm very – so let me just say that – so first of all, when I'm talking about the

constitutional history, it's just not Supreme Court decisions. This is the practice of our government and our states for a long time. It was – the rule was changed by Dred Scott and that was the 14th Amendment tried to overrule. The second thing about this – Anne is completely right that to focus on this 1898 case, she's right that the Chinese parents of the kid were in the country legally, but that was because there's this weird law that was only passed about the Chinese called the Chinese Exclusion Act, which prohibited any Chinese person from becoming a citizen and blocked future immigration from China at that time. And so at that time, generally, there was no legal or illegal alien or immigrant structure in our country. There had been no federal laws passed. And if you read the Supreme Court case, I think fairly read, the majority doesn't care.

They don't make a big deal about whether the parents here are legal or illegally. You can say, well, the facts of the case were different. But if you read the case, it doesn't matter to the majority. That's why the dissent was so pissed off. That's why the Yale Law Journal was so pissed off. And then ever since then, our government has made the citizenship decision this way. So let me just – this last bigger point about, well, this is taken out of our hands and people are playing games with us.

It's not taking out of our hands. I mean, it's in the constitution. I mean, the constitution is our highest law and it's the ultimate expression of what the American people want. And the American people put that broadly and is right. The initial purpose of the 14th amendment

was just to make sure that blacks had the same rights as citizens. But if you look at the ratification history and what people were saying who wrote the amendments, they wanted to grant rights to a much broader – to all Americans. They wanted to make sure no state could play games with the rights of American citizens. And part of that, those games, were deciding who gets to be a citizen or not and playing favorites between ethnic groups, between different nationalities. And I think that's what the Constitution in part was meant to do. So I don't think that – I don't think some kind of technocratic leader, the bureaucracy or Justice Brennan has taken this question out of our hands. This has been the unbroken practice in our country for well over 100 years. I think it goes all the way back to the revolution.

But even if it doesn't, it goes back at least to 1898. And if Congress wants to get rid of it, they can pass a law and try to spark a new case and see if it gets re-argued. I think – and this goes back to Rob's original question. I think if President Trump and Attorney General Cruz – I heard you going off on the last podcast saying, what's this Cruz fellow for attorney general? God save us all. That would be unusual. But yeah, so the – I didn't say that.

No, no, I did. Rob's on this campaign to draft Ted Cruz as attorney general. Whoever president. Well, so let's – I think that challenge would lose. I think the Supreme Court would strike that law down, and I don't think it would be five to four. I don't even think it would be close. Let me ask that question.

This is a very circular argument to keep asserting that it's part of the Constitution and it isn't part of the Constitution. And what you just said about the dissent and Wong Art Kim is not true. It's not like they said, oh, and it would be fine if he were an illegal alien. It was a big point with them that his parents were legal immigrants, gainfully employed, not diplomats. The fact that they did not anticipate Mexicans running across

the border and dropping babies 100 years later, you're just grasping onto that. You keep talking about the tradition and the behavior. Well, for nearly 100 years, after Wong R. Kim, nobody thought illegal aliens, the kids of illegal aliens, were children. It was dicta in a footnote of a 1982 opinion. And it has never been ruled on by the Supreme Court.

It is not in the Constitution. And one more point. The dissent in the Yale Law Journal were not saying, oh, you have not considered the case of illegal aliens. The complaint was you have not considered we're not a monarchy. Okay. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I would bring a magazine with just far in excess of the bullets. I am now running in front of the bullets now.

I want to change – I want to just ask two questions. One, and you don't have to give me a long argument. Just your gut feeling. Understanding this Supreme Court as so constituted, upheld Obamacare, upheld gay marriage, upheld disparate impact under this chief justice. What do you think the chances are that this Supreme Court on a percentage basis would agree with – would agree that anchor babies are not citizens and culture? After the court first found that sodomy could be a criminal act and a few years later said that you were not allowed not to give affirmative action on the basis of homosexuality, I cannot make predictions about what any court will do. I can predict that if we don't stop current immigration,

we're going to have a court of nine Ruth Bader Ginsburgs. And ten Jorge Ramoses. And the most cited federal judge, Richard Posner on the Seventh Circuit, whom every lawyer knows and is widely considered the smartest federal judge who was no social conservative. He was one of the first appellate judges or courts to support constitutional right to gay marriage, constitutional right to partial birth abortion. And he signed on to an opinion a few years ago. I'm still talking. I know. He signed on to an opinion a few years ago for a concurrence, he wrote, for the sole purpose of saying this is not required by the Constitution.

Congress, pass a law and put an end to this nonsense. And the Chief Justice, having written the memo denouncing Plywood V. Doe, the 1982 decision that gave us anchor babies, not an 1898 decision, makes me think that we have a very good chance since, yes, the ACLU, in a book written by John Yoo, will appeal the law. Okay, so you're saying greater than 50% it would do? Greater than 50%? Oh, no. With the caveat, yes. Okay, with the caveat.

John, what do you think? Oh, I think it would be less than 10% chance because you have four liberals – four liberal justices who would vote to uphold what I've argued. And then at least – I think you'd have at least two or three conservative justices who would. So if you wanted to – so if you wanted to – Not Clarence Thomas. All right. So if you wanted to – if you believe that this is an important issue for the future of the country, and I think Anne has said it's the most important issue, and if you want to make sure that the next president appoints whatever judges possible, the most conservative judges, which candidate now running for president do you believe has the conservative bona fides the sort of long time or at least bedrock conservative values to appoint the most conservative judges who would rule on this issue your way i'll tell you who it ain't it ain't donald trump all right and i mean i

don't know what he thinks about a lot of things and he seemed to choose but no one knows what kind of judges he would appoint. Okay, Anne? I think you're missing the forest for the trees. If Donald Trump does not get elected and end our current immigration policies, all we are going to have is President Obama's, because the entire country will be California, and Republicans will never win another presidential election. So you're looking at this kind of short term. I disagree that Trump would not appoint good judges or justices and judges.

I think he loves America and cares about America and isn't bought by donors like most. He would turn it in. He would turn the judicial selection practice into a reality show. He'd make it like The Apprentice. He has Federal judges carrying out menial, humiliating tasks for him. Fire all of them but one and appoint him to the Supreme Court. One last question. You know, for people who call Trump bombastic, I certainly hear a lot of bombasta

name-calling. You bring it out of me. All that matters is immigration, because that determines who votes, and anyone looking at the state of California, the state that gave us Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, and now what? The legislature is led by an anchor baby, literally an anchor baby.

A Republican can't be elected statewide here. And I know you guys have to go. I just have one. Really, this is a personal question. I have not asked you this. I only have seen you in a few months. You've met the guy. I have not met the guy.

You've been with him. You've hung out with him a presidential candidate. I never thought he'd run. I always thought he was kind of gauche. I would not. Even the first week when he came out with that Mexican rapist stuff, and I'm always the one arguing to conservatives, don't vote for the novelty candidates. It's got to be a governor or a former governor.

You're wasting our time with, you know, Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson, Herman Cain, blah, blah, blah. But as he's gone on, and I've looked into things he's said in the past, I mean, the most important, who votes in a country determines everything else. Everything else. Obama never would have been elected without immigration. Romney would have won a bigger victory than Reagan did in 1980 without immigration. No, this has got to stop. And looking back, I mean, he's always cared about

Americans first. Well, I won't go through it. You can follow my Twitter feed. But I will tell you, at least two years ago, he's been fantastic on illegal immigration. When he is one of the glamorous New Yorker types, none of his friends, none of the people around him agree with him. He is his own man, more than the rest of the Republicans. They're the ones who ought to be, you know, they're always eating the corn dogs to show what regular Americans they are. He's the one with the glamorous New York City lifestyle and he's the one who cares about regular Americans.

Okay. I'm done. That was my question. James Lylex here. I've just been away. I went to get coffee for 40 minutes. What'd I miss? We decided Trump was going to appoint you to the Supreme Court. Wonderful. When it comes to Trump being a conservative, a lot of people look at things like his love of eminent domain to get what he wants for his business. There's that famous case of him trying to get the old lady out of her apartment so he could put in a better driveway apron for a casino. And look at that and say, you know, here's a guy who simply wants to use the power

of the office for cool stuff that we like. When I, you know, it's no longer a matter of saying Obama is ruling by decree. We've accepted that we rule by decree and now we just want a guy to do our stuff. That's a feeling that a lot of people have. Anne, is that true or is this somebody who scrupulously respect the individual rights in all respects? I think he does, but he cares about the most important things that no one else cares about that Americans have been begging for for 30 years now. We keep saying – and no one has spoken to white America probably since Ronald Reagan ran. What is embarrassing about white votes?

Why shouldn't we care about a white roofer? And he's going to get a lot of the black vote too. If it's not Hillary, I predict Trump wins the black vote against any of the other Democrats. I agree. There is resentment back there about people who

feel like they should have an instinctive – But it's not resentment. I mean I'm doing fine. I just want to save the country. No, there is resentment. I mean there's a quiet resentment amongst people who sort of feel as if they should cringe in apology for their own culture and they don't want to. I get that. But there's also a lot of nativism out there. I mean, if you read a lot of the tweets, and I know it's not indicative, but the huge

cuckservative movement that accuses everybody of being a race traitor until they're – unless they're 100 percent behind Donald Trump, there is an element to which he is appealing. And I'm not saying that that disqualifies his ideas. But I am saying – well, I'll ask you this, the MSNBC question. Do you think that we would be having this conversation if we were talking about 300,000 Canadian babies a year who snuck over the border and their parents were working in the oil fields in North Dakota? That's an unfair way of putting it, but, you know. Are 71% of them collecting welfare? Are they committing gang rape,

incest rape? Are they committing massive financial frauds, ripping off the Medicare system, the Medicaid system, identity theft? No, they're not. Of course it makes a difference that they are peasant cultures. To say that that is a race thing, no, that is slanderous. We are bringing in peasant cultures, whether it is from Bangladesh or Pakistan or Latin America. We are bringing in, especially a large part of my book, cultures that have not made the advanced scientific discovery that women are human beings, that children are human beings.

They are dumping shocking amounts of misogynistic crimes on this country and the financial crimes that our police system is simply not set up to deal with. So to say Canadians, it's just because they're white. No, it's because they come from an Anglo-Saxon Protestant Catholic tradition. We don't have to worry about them running off and fighting with ISIS and so on and so forth. This is a cultural issue. And yes, the country has been being changed in a way that is very damaging to Americans, but fantastic for the Democrats and the rich.

I understand that. And that's the response that I expected. And I think you're right. The question is, do you think Donald Trump is the guy to make the case for the distinction between culture and race? In other words, well, he may grasp it, but does he have the rhetorical gifts, shall we say, to actually explain it to people in a way that isn't predicated on simply entertaining them with a brilliance in the glory of Trump.

I mean, I don't see an incisive – I think he has so far. I mean, he keeps – you can cite some random snippy tweet calling him a race traitor. There's nothing racial about conservative. I don't particularly like the term because – Well – I mean, I like the concept, but I don't like the term. But no, we've been betrayed over and over and over again.

I mean I told people vote for Mitch McConnell, vote for John Boehner. Give Republicans one more chance. Well, we did and they blew it. John, we'll give you the last word since we started with Ann. Thank you. I also left for 40 minutes to get a coffee. First, I think a lot of what Ann's complaining about immigrants is not just the case

with immigrants. I mean, it seems to me like that guy Jared from Subway did all that stuff too. We can't get rid of him. We're stuck with our own criminals. We don't have to bring other criminals in. Hey, I'm talking here, I think.

That's a great line you used. Anyway, I think that – look, these are arguments that are made against immigration historically in our country. I don't think that they're accurate in large respect. I think, of course, there are going to be cases where immigrants do terrible things or cases where American citizens do terrible things. I don't think that means we have to cut off all immigration to the country or start enacting highly restrictive immigration quotas or change our fundamental constitutional rules that we've had for hundreds of years. I mean, it's obvious we need to secure the border, but I wouldn't do it because

I think people from less developed countries, obviously people from less developed countries are going to be the ones who want to emigrate to the United States more because they want to get a better life. I mean, if they're just like us, they're not going to emigrate. That's why, even so. So I don't think that this is an argument for cutting off immigration. I think we'd still have a country of like 100 million people if we adopted these policies 100 or 150 years ago. What we have to do is just be more careful I think about controlling the border and being more careful about who comes into the country as an initial matter. A lot of Anne's arguments have to do with that, not with the number of children that they have once they're in the country, which I don't take to be a very high number compared to how many aliens we have in the country or how many people are becoming citizens every year. I think we're really talking about a far, far downstream consequence. It's

strange it's become a symbol of the immigration debate when what should really be the issue is how do we control the borders and how do we decide how many people get into the country in the first place the one thing that's clear is you have to read my book john you oh i will i agree with that i'm expecting my free signed copy no you gotta pay the only time no cash money from you and you got a hard back you've got to buy two of them because you've got to leave one in the post office. This is the only piece of mail that's going to come from Ann Coulter's house into the city limits of the last ten years. That's true actually. It'll burn.

It'll burn the fingers of your letter carrier as he carries it to you. He'll realize that inside this like shipping pack there's something. Guys, we've got a run, but we're going to let you stay on the line. Give you your own Skype channel and you can argue for the next 45 to 50 days or so. And then give us a transcript and we'll read it out loud over the internet.

Thank you both for this. It's been great fun. Thank you. Thank you, John Yu. Thanks, guys. You know, and it was Can I just say, this is the definition. That was a definition of a civil conversation right there. Yes guys. Bye. You know, and it was, can I just say, this is the definite, that was a definition of a civil conversation right there. Yes,

it was. Well, yes, I mean, I, and I've heard, but I liked on you. Oh,

wait a minute. She's still on. Oh, no, goodbye. That's not fair. I was, I,

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today. I asked that question about nativism because you can't tell me that that's not a part of the debate for some. And I'm not saying, as I said, it doesn't disqualify the argument. But in the modern political context, you can't talk about immigration like this without knowing exactly how it's going to be perceived and packaged to the rest of the electorate. And that's the hard

part. And I think it's a legitimate question to say whether or not Donald Trump is the guy to make the case. I'll ask you, do you think that Donald Trump is good for bringing the case and setting it on fire? Or do you think he's the guy who maybe having brought the case should cede it to people who can – I don't know, call him the electorate, make the case with a little bit more finesse. We're not really talking about finesse anymore, are we? Peter? No, we're not. Donald Trump is the only one making the case. Yeah.

I'm very happy to let the primary voters sort this out. But between now and the primaries, you know, my position – I think on balance he's doing more good than harm actually. I agree. I'm also surprised that I agree – two things. One, I sort of generally trust Republican primary voters. I mean I think they make the best choice of the choices that are offered. I don't – I can't remember a time when I thought that the candidate that they selected wasn't among of the people running probably the strongest candidate to run in the general. Just in my sort of just going backward in time. The second thing is I – the only thing I find irritating about the people who love Trump so much is that they're the ones who would be yelling at me its social views and to sort of think anew and to sort of break free from its sort of sclerotic Washington mindset, Donald my Twitter feed, et cetera, are agreeing with me because right now he feels to me like he's just Nelson Rockefeller with a wall. You know what? I've been puzzled about this myself.

Polls show that he's outpolling Mike Huckabee among evangelicals in Iowa, which means people are forgiving him a lot. They're not taking – A lot. Everything. Yeah. And so I think I think it's because I feel it myself. I'm willing to say that when Trump mouthed off on this issue or that issue in the past, and I mean, all the past right up until the last month, that was just Trump's mouth.

It was a mood. It was an attitude. It was positioning himself. Now, look at the man. You can tell from his eyes. He actually thinks he's running for president. Now he's getting serious. And when he released that paper on immigration, as Mark Krikorian pointed out, it had big holes in it. It was thin. It was unclear in some ways. But it was a six-page, pretty carefully thought out policy document. And that means that he has produced the most expensive policy document of all 17 candidates on the republican side right now he's produced one i in other words i believe people have the feeling i have the feeling that in some fundamental way he's becoming serious about

policy for the first time in his life he He's produced one. Let's see what he produces. I think people are willing to – That scares me, right? It scares me as a – even a rhino squish that I am. It scares me that there's the guy who – and look, Anne's argument is a good one, which is that, hey, listen, immigration is everything. If you don't control the borders of your country, if you don't know who the citizens are, then you may as well just give up your whole country.

Nothing else matters. If you don't control the borders of your country, if you don't know who the citizens are, then you may as well just give up your whole country. Nothing else matters. All right. I'm willing to entertain that as an idea. But it just scares me that you have a guy who really like the single-payer business and he just feels to me like a northeastern liberal businessman who's kind of like going to figure out how to make a compromise out of everything, which is the one thing that all of his supporters say he'll never do. But he already – when asked if would he rip up the Iran deal, he said, no, no, I'd work within it. I had dinner with a guy who was a Clinton administration official, was a liberal, liberal democrat a week and a half ago who said, I think that Trump actually would be a pretty good president. So there's a bombastic and probably a little rude and all sorts of things, not great. But there's – I just am surprised.

It's just sort of astonishing to me that all of the stuff that three months ago, four months ago we were told were just absolute dealbreakers from Republican primary voters, from conservatives, from movement conservatives are now not only not deal breakers but they don't matter at all. It doesn't matter that your – his attempts to talk about his religious faith are comedy. They're ludicrous. But they don't bother me. But I'm surprised they don't bother Iowa voters or Huckabee voters. Where was – I saw a clip. He was trying to talk about religion for the first time. And he said, oh, I love my religion.

I've got a great religion. I've got a terrific. It was exactly the same vote he would use about talking about his car or his or his or his apartment at Trump Tower. It was just amazing. I got lots of Bibles and I keep them in a very special place, a very nice place, he says. I mean, look, I mean, I'm not and that's not a criticism of the guy at all. But I'm just surprised that the people who I thought for whom those things would be – well, not that. Or suddenly it's – that doesn't matter. The tax raising stuff does bother me.

The eminent domain stuff does bother me. I think those are frankly the casualties of what it takes to be a successful real estate developer and businessman. The pulling American naval influence out of the Pacific doesn't bother you perhaps? Well, yeah, but I don't know if I believe that he's got a fully formed foreign policy. He seems to believe that we can send troops in and destroy ISIS. Little things like that. OK, yeah. I mean those are not – I'm not fully comfortable with the idea of President Trump and that's why I want Ann Coulter to tell me no.

Listen, I sat with this guy for half a day flying around doing campaign stuff and you would be surprised. He's a movement conservative or as close as possible. Or if she told me, Rob, you are still a rhino squish compared to Donald Trump. That's fine. I don't want to vote for anybody more liberal than me. I define the outside for me. That's a very fair position. Well put.

You define the outside for me too, Rob. That should be everyone's policy. Anne did not say – she did not reassure you on that point. She didn't reassure me on that point. She did not say, no, no, no, no. I know him. I've talked to him. The way she was – well, I think she was frankly wrong about this, but she certainly was insistent about Mitt Romney. No, no, no. When he called himself a moderate, that was just because he was running for governor of Massachusetts. I know this man. I've spent time with him. He's a conservative. She didn't say anything like that about Donald Trump. So there. He's not – It's fun though. I think that all the pundity type people just need to chill a little bit.

I think this is going to be – this is interesting. It's a psychic break from the lockstep Republican attitude. It's a great psychic break from the idea that, oh my god, we have to do this for two years. It's going to be really boring. The audience wants something different and interesting. They want to shake it up and they're shaking it up and they're shaking it up I think in a not destructive way, it's about an issue, an issue they care about and you know, not so bad. At least I'm trying to say that. I don't know. Is that, I feel

like I'm not persuading anybody. No, no, no. It's because that's, that's about, that's about the best that can be said right now. You've spoken about as well as I would speak at my best, yes. Which means we're fumbling around. But the whole thing is a play. Well, a play in what sense? In that it's just a mere theatrical bagatelle that we watch with amusement, crunching our popcorn, or something that actually is a little bit more serious than a fictional construct, but it has a definite effect on the world in which we're going to live.

Well, we'll find out, won't we? And I'll tell you what, everybody should go to Ricochet and talk about this, and please, by all means, make the worst possible assumptions about people on the other side, because that's the way that the conversation really advances, and we all end up on the same side at the end. No, don't. That's what Rico that the conversation really advances and we all end up on the same side at the end. No, don't. That's what Ricochet is for. Not slinging mud, but carefully and respectfully listening to the other side.

And then saying something gets taken out by the editors. But, you know, we'll see. You can go to the member feed as well and debate any side issue that you wish from culture to politics to music to sports. That's what it's there for. And we are here for you, or rather we were, because now we're done. Thanks everybody for listening.

Thanks to thegreatcourses.com slash Ricochet for your $10 four course bonus. And of course, henrys.com slash Ricochet for five bucks off the greatest shave you'll ever have. Rob, Peter, what a hoot.

See everybody in the comments at Ricochet. We'll see you next week. Next week. Born down in a dead man's town The first kick I took was when I hit the ground Ended up like a dog, asked to be too much Till you spent half your life just to cover it up now Born in the USA I was born in the USA

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