Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello.
Welcome to the call it like I see it podcast.
I'm James Keys, and in this episode of call it like I see it, we're going to consider the recent rulings by the Colorado Supreme Court and the main secretary of state that Donald Trump is ineligible for president and to run for president under section three of the 14th amendment of the Constitution and discuss the conflict that this, you know, presents between kind of our democratic ideals and our allegiance to the Constitution.
And later on, we're going to react to the reports that 2023 was once again the warmest year on record in terms of, you know, since we've been keeping records of these things.
Joining me today is a man who's been bringing in New Year's in style for decades. Tunde yogo and Lana Tunde. Were you able to party like it's 1999 once again? This year?
[00:01:11] Speaker B: No.
Cause in 1999, I was 21 years old, and I partied hard. Oh, okay.
[00:01:20] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: And a few nights ago, I was 45, so that's the difference.
[00:01:28] Speaker A: No mosque? No mosque.
[00:01:30] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. No mosque, for sure. So I had a good time, but it just wasn't crazy.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: There we go. All good.
[00:01:37] Speaker B: All good.
[00:01:38] Speaker A: All right, now, we're recording this on January 2, 2024. And based on how 2023 ended, it certainly appears that 2024 is going to be a pretty crazy year. Now, we already know we have our next presidential election, which always makes things a little bit more interesting, scheduled for this November. But there's been an unusual and unexpected development, at least unexpected for most of us, get thrown into the mix. And that is, you know, and that could a development that get up in many people's expectations.
You know, recently, the Colorado Supreme Court, as I mentioned, and also the main secretary of state, ruled to remove Donald Trump from the presidential primary ballot just on a finding that he is ineligible for president based on the reconstruction era 14th amendment of the US Constitution, particularly section three, which says that anyone who, essentially that anyone who has previously held office and swore allegiance in the Constitution and then engaged in insurrection can no, can, then not be eligible for office for the United States once again. And so it's those three characteristics, or those two characteristics having previously been an officer and then sworn allegiance and then engaged in insurrection. So they're saying that Trump was previously president and then he engaged in insurrection, so therefore, this provision bars him. Now, everyone acknowledges this was put in place primarily in respect to the Confederacy, but it's on the books. It remains in place. And so it looks like it's going to have to make force many Americans to choose between their passions and their constitution. So, to get us started, Tunday, what are your thoughts on the insurrection, this insurrection clause in the 14th Amendment, and how it is appearing to be that it's going to be applied, or it may be applied in this case?
[00:03:21] Speaker B: It's a very good question. I say that as you ended your comments there, made me realize that, yeah, people are approaching this in a certain way, and it's a good point.
This is where we do have to question our passions versus, as you put it, our passions versus the constitutional order, let's say. And what's interesting is, admittedly, the constitution, kind of like the Bible in a certain sense, is a framework, and it's a guidepost for how we should conduct ourselves, you know, the Bible from a religious standpoint, or any scripture for a religion. And then here it's supposed to be a secular version of that for how to run our society here in the United States.
[00:04:11] Speaker A: It's the ultimate law of the land, you know? Ultimate law of the land. You know, what it says is what it is, the law of the land, you know, suppose.
And, you know, all men, actually.
[00:04:21] Speaker B: Well, let me. Let me just kind of dig on that a bit. I use the word secular on purpose and not to disrespect religion, because the founding fathers of the United States all believed in God. They wrote that, you know, pretty extensively, and they all were christian or deist, you know, and believed in the judeo christian order. Let's. Let's say it that way, right? So no one can deny that, or we're not wanting to deny that, but what they saw was the need to have a rule of law that was not tied to a religion. Because every time you tie religious law to running a big society that has a bunch of different types of believers within the society, then you run into problems because everyone interprets religion differently. And it's interesting, James, just on the weekend, I was reading an article about the Methodist attacking the Baptist for something. And it just, you know, it just was a good reminder that within Christianity itself, there's been a lot of infighting between the different denominations. So having law from a constitution that's separate than anyone's religion is supposed to alleviate the inability to get past certain debates and be able to function, you know, run the society. Now, you said a good thing as I wrote it down here. Why is this even a question? This is, again, what happens when we don't immerse ourselves in our own country's history. Because, you know, I know this isn't to talk about the civil war. But this is all coming out of the civil War. The 14th amendment, the citizenship by birthright is one issue that I know we'll cover. And then, to your point, the insurrection. The idea that we had a group of Americans who decided to band together and form something called the Confederacy or the Confederate States of America, and they attacked the United States. And so because of that, there were many people who were serving in the us government at the time before the secession of the Confederates. And once the war was over, the country had to figure out, how do you deal with people who are part of our country and who were actually part of the government at the time of the beginning of the civil war. But they decided to go against the United States. They fought for what happened, what turned out to be traitorous group, an enemy of the country from within. How do you deal with that? And the country was only about 70 years old, so this was, you know, the first time we had to address these questions. Yeah, so that.
[00:06:45] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, the key piece there is it didn't. Everybody in the confederacy isn't implicated by this. It was only the people who were in government already in the us government. And so, seemingly having already taken a position that, hey, they're with the US government, and then to say, oh, you're with us, and then you go against us. And, I mean, there's a couple of things. I think one of the pieces I want to just expand upon briefly is when you said as far as the. While the people that the founding fathers were people who had religious beliefs and, you know, talked about those religious beliefs, they wrote the constitution specifically to not be a part of those religious beliefs. And a core piece of that is that the core. The point of the constitution is what they had observed throughout, you know, through these human societies is that people's passions oftentimes ended up determining what would happen. Like the mob would get mad or a king would get mad, or a priest would get, you know, feel a certain way about something, and then people would just act in a way that was inconsistent or that was just whatever felt good in the moment. And so the point of preparing or having a document be your guiding principle, being your ultimate law of the land, is that it says what it says. And so ideally, you get more consistency. People can know what to expect and so forth. So it's to get the passions out, you know, and say, okay, wait, you. If you're going under a rule of law society, and then how you actually feel about something is less important than what actually the what actually the rule and the law says how that should be dealt with. And so that's why I said this is going to raise a really interesting, I think, expression of that because there are people on the right that don't want Trump out. There are people on the left, they're like, hey, I don't know. I don't necessarily, I don't like taking him off the ballot. Or, you know, they come up, you know, when people don't like something, they're going to come up with justifications that sound like they rationed it, reasoned it out, you know, but they really just don't like it. You know, we talked about that in, you know, the righteous mind when we did that book, a white right a while back. So ultimately, we have a lot of people that are just that I don't like the idea of this or uncomfortable with it, and they're coming up with reasons why they don't like it, but ultimately they don't like it. But that's the interesting thing about the constitutional system, is that you're supposed, there are things that the law, by operation of the law happened that you may not like. And, you know, you're going to have to choose at that point, basically, are we going to try to just ignore the law, or are we going to try to, are we just going to, you know, stay consistent with our, our constitution, which is what we supposedly, you know, is what the United States is based on, is, you know, we pledge allegiance to this flag, you know, all that stuff. But all of that is, you know, the Constitution is all of that stuff. So all that is organized under. I should say so. Yeah. I thought it was a good point that you raised as far as getting the passions out. And just before I can get back to you, I want to define one thing, and that is insurrection because it's referenced. And so it's not just any disagreement you have with the government. Cause what comes up here is, oh, okay, well, freedom of speech and yada, yada, yada, which is another ideal we have. And to define insurrection, and this is coming from Oxford languages, is a violent uprising against an authority or a government. And so there's, there's a violent component there. And so for this, for all of this stuff to matter, what we have to find out or what the two things need to be determined is what did someone, whether it be Donald Trump or someone else, already swear an oath to defend the constitution? And then did they engage in insurrection or give comfort, you know, to others who did? And so that's really, that's the legal mechanism. But again, most people aren't getting really deep into the legal mechanisms of this. You know, it's kind of people sign what they want, but so looking at that definition and all the things at play here, you know, kind of what are you comfortable with the decision that we're going? And after I just said whether we're comfortable with it doesn't matter. I know, but are you comfortable with it? Do you like the way things are going? Or, you know, like, do you have your own misgivings about this?
[00:10:30] Speaker B: Yeah. So I have, you know, my own discomfort with it, yeah. As much as I do believe what I saw on January 6 was an insurrection, I don't like the idea of someone being taken off a ballot where the voters aren't able themselves to decide if they want this type of behavior to continue.
[00:10:54] Speaker A: Meaning just that's very normal like that. Is that when I said the conflict of our democratic ideals, that's your democratic ideal right there, being like, whoa, hold up. So I would think that many Americans would have comfort in that.
[00:11:08] Speaker B: And that's kind of where I'm going with it, is that, you know, you would hope that we all, in a democracy, I think we're, whether people want to say the official definition is a certain way or not, we all feel like it is majority rule, that if a majority of voters support something, that will happen. And in this way, what I'm saying is the way of being, of our leadership is the United States. So if Americans overwhelmingly like to have a president that doesn't accept his election loss results, that, you know, continues to attack the successor administration in a very, like you said in one of our recent shows, constant campaign mode. This is very new to the american system. I mean, we've definitely, in our lifetime, have never seen any president continue for years after they're out of office to just deride the country, right. And say this whole system is bad under this person and all this stuff. So if Americans like that, I mean, my personal opinion is they should be able to continue to have that right. We should be able to through elections. If people want Donald Trump back, the majority of Americans, I believe they should have him back. If they don't want him back, they shouldn't have him back. And I think by doing what we've seen already, taking him off the ballots and primaries in two states, if he were to lose the 2024 presidential election by and was held off the ballot in these two states, it gives him room to argue that he was usurped and all that, and we continue down this road of this continued distrust of the system and maybe even expands the distrust. So that's the part of me that says, as a kind of, like you said, a normal human being in this environment saying, if I believe in democracy, I'd like to see the voters have the full say. Now, that's the one side of my brain. The other side, because I can walk and shoot gun, is say, you know, this guy clearly did things that he intentionally attacked our norms and our system, and he lied about an election result. And it's evident that he lied. And it's evident that anybody that was of any credible nature, including his attorney general rolling Barr, his vice president, all the lawyers in his outfit that he first had before he fired them all and stopped listening to him, anyone who was trying to get to him to tell him the truth, he ignored their, you know, he ignored that advice and kept seeking yes men that would do his bidding. So, and I know we'll get into some of that. So the answer is, yeah, I'm torn in a sense, because you're right. If I look at the actions and the behavior of former President Trump, I do believe he incited the violence on January 6. And I do believe he knew he lost the election fair and square and he was just upset about it and didn't honor the peaceful transition of power that has been a staple of the United States historically. So in that sense, I think, yeah, he should be. He's fine leaving him off the ballot. But in the other sense, as someone who embraces democracy, I feel torn.
[00:14:14] Speaker A: That's what I said. I would think most Americans would have that. I would think most of, I would want Americans to have that kind of conflict, you know, like, in the sense, because, yeah, it does feel, I'm offended by the idea of taking someone off the ballot who, you know, otherwise would qualify, so to speak. I like, we had to be careful with that, though, because, again, yes, the majority rules, but in a constitutional system, the majority rules subject to the constitution. The majority can't vote to institute slavery because we have the 13th Amendment. And so it doesn't matter with them. 80%, 90% of people can say, yeah, let's have slavery. And the constitution says we can't. So, you know, the majority can't rule to take away, you know, freedom of speech or that for the majority can't vote to have an official religion because those things are barred in the constitution. So it's, it's always subject to the constitution. But I'm made uncomfortable by taking someone off the ballot. I'm made, I'm equally made uncomfortable, though, with efforts that are made to disenfranchise voters, to take voters off the rolls and just block voters from voting. And so all of that stuff makes me uncomfortable. And that happens. And I've had to live with discomfort for decades on that because people's efforts to try to influence elections by limiting who can vote and so forth. But that's where you have to square it. I mean, of all that, people are going to hear a lot of arguments on why this is important or why this isn't important or why this is legitimate and why this isn't legitimate. What I'm always looking for, though, is whether these are, whether these arguments are principled or whether it's about trying to find a way to just let the passion through. And it's like, I don't like this. So therefore, I'm going to come up with a reason in order to say it's wrong. Because the principle, to me in this case, I don't like the idea of removing someone if they're 35. Again, there are other qualifications for president that somebody could be removed from the ballot from. If you're not 35 and you try to start a presidential campaign, they'll remove you from the ballots, you know, no matter how many signatures you have and so forth. So if you're 35 or if you're, if you're 35, if you're a natural born or you're a citizen born here and lived here for 15 years, or I think it's 15 years, you know, all these other constitutional qualifications for president, then I'm uncomfortable taking them off, taking somebody off the ballot. But I have to, if I'm going to say that, you know, I am, it's, if I support the US Constitution and that is, you know, again, like that, that's the ultimate law of the land, then I have to put that aside and say, okay, on the principle, it's a principle thing. On the principle that this is what the law says, then, you know, this person shouldn't be there anymore. Otherwise the law does, the constitution does allow for amnesty for this. You know, I know you wanted to get into that. If he can get two thirds vote and I think both houses of Congress, then he can get that, then that wipes it away. So to me, that's the response that not all of this, you know, all this legal or this complaining and whining and, you know, woe is me, yada, yada. I should be, hey, he should be trying to get the, the Senate in the House if everybody feels like this, get the Senate in the House to waive the requirement for him, which is called for in the constitution.
[00:17:16] Speaker B: Yeah, well, that would actually take understanding the system and working so that that may not happen. I don't hold your breath on that.
[00:17:24] Speaker A: But that would, that would take respecting the system, which is what we're talking. It's not respecting the system if you lose and just say, hey, I'm just gonna try to bum rush this thing, that's not respecting the system. So it's a continued lack of respect for the system. And so it's that the system would take steps to defend, or has mechanisms in place and would take steps to defend itself against someone who is hostile to the system. I mean, that makes sense.
[00:17:46] Speaker B: Well, it's really, I mean, you bring up something interesting, which is, you know, I know, not the base of our discussion, but it's really, if you go 30,000ft with what you just said, it's just, you know, this tug of war for the emotions and the spirit of the american voter. You know, you're right. Who's gonna win? Is it gonna be fealty to a person and that kind of way of thinking and idea, or is it going to be to the system and saying.
[00:18:08] Speaker A: Well, it's not just that, though, because remember, there are people on, of course there are people on the right or republicans that are crying and foul, but there's a lot of people in the democratic party that are like, oh, I don't know if we should be doing this, you know, like this. We need to beat them at the ballot box and, because that's what's best for the nation. And like, there are a lot of people I've seen on different sides that are, that are coming down saying, hey, I don't think, no, I get it.
[00:18:29] Speaker B: But once you and I get it, I mean, look, even preparing for today, I learned more than I knew before preparing for today. So not everybody is out there with a show like ours, you know, gonna steep themselves in this type of information and background on this topic. But I just think that, you know, there's enough public information, let's just put it that way, that's credible and from credible sources that it's pretty obvious that there was a campaign, like you said, to attack the system of the United States and there has been no evidence even, I mean, we are in January of 2024, so we are now literally three years from the January 6 insurrection, January 6 of 21, and there still is yet to be any evidence that former President Trump has really shown that somehow he's right, that the election was stolen and that, you know, there's still no evidence. Right. So the bottom line is that without, with a lack of evidence, then it clearly appears to be fabricated. And, you know, one of the things that in looking at and going back to kind of the why the insurrection, we all think of just the January 6 attack, but what was really the purpose of it? The purpose was to try and get the vice president, which thankfully he didn't go along with this scheme, to not certify certain electors from certain states, which would then defranchise the will of voters in those states who actually cast votes for Joe Biden. Donald Trump was trying to get that, you know, other politicians with power to lie and say that, no, that actually wasn't true. These are the actual electors that are actually valid when they weren't.
[00:20:16] Speaker A: So I think you're making this issue more complicated than anything, man. Like, whether he lied isn't that important right now. Whether he was, whether, you know, like, that's a, you know, you either, you know, you either do your business or get off the potential, you know, like type of thing, he lied, he could or he couldn't prove when he had the chance, you know, in court and all that stuff, he didn't prove it. So it's over. It's not like we're not waiting for him to prove it anymore. He had a shot to prove it. He failed. So that's it. And so he's continuing on this path. Whether he lied and whether what all the stuff they were trying to do in order to actually maintain power, which, there were other things beyond the violent insurrection, there were other things they were doing. There was like, you talked about the fake elector scheme, all this stuff, but none of that really matters to the issue at hand. All that matters right now is did he previously swear an oath to defend the Constitution? He was an officer, you're president. And did he engage in or support others who were, who engaged in a violent insurrection? That's it. All the whys don't matter because the law doesn't get into all of those whys. It matters. Did he do it or not? And I mean, and that's why I wanted to read that.
[00:21:20] Speaker B: But I think that's where I think we're both kind of coming to the same conclusion. The evidence that I'm bringing up of things like the elector scheme and all that all contribute to the why that it says yes, but the why this isn't led to a violent insurrection because.
[00:21:34] Speaker A: The idea was a liability kind of thing. Like, let's say, like that this is a strict liability. Like, the why he could have been right. But if he engages in a violent insurrection after having previously sworn an oath, the 14th amendment bars him from running again. Like, it doesn't matter. Like, it. What matters is, like, you read the text. None of that other stuff matters.
[00:21:52] Speaker B: It's a very interesting tale that I thought about in preparing for today. Do you know what his first, honestly, I remember this was a few weeks ago. The first attempt to come back at this issue was he tried to say that he never swore an oath to the constitution.
[00:22:07] Speaker A: Yeah, I do remember.
[00:22:07] Speaker B: Remember. I mean, that's the interesting tell.
[00:22:10] Speaker A: Well, no, it was. He said he never. Yeah, exactly. Like, instead of saying something else, it.
[00:22:14] Speaker B: Was initially like, oh, no, I never said it. And remember on the news for, like, two days, there was pictures of him.
[00:22:19] Speaker A: A little more nuanced. Yeah. It was that he wasn't an officer or that he, you know, his oath wasn't what the ones they were talking about. So it was. But nonetheless, I mean, this is what this is. This being applied to him is the same, essentially the same thing as Jefferson Davis not being able to hold office again, who was the president of Confederacy after the, you know, after the civil war. Jefferson Davis can't go back to being a senator or whatever. He can't run for president or stuff like that. And I don't think if you frame it that way, I don't think people would think it's crazy like that. But Jefferson Davis never picked up a gun and shooting at Union soldiers, soldiers and so forth. Again, it's very easy to let other things kind of confuse the matter. And honestly, the people who don't want to have the 14th Amendment do what it's supposed to do here are the ones that try to make it more complicated, typically, because it's like, it really isn't that complicated, though. And, I mean, and again, I'm not comfortable with the idea of moving them off the ballot, but when I look at what the stuff says and what I saw happen, it's like, oh, well, I don't see there's much leeway here. So. But briefly, we'll get to this.
Just in the opposition, you know, whether it be the, like you said, the putting one man on a pedestal, the idolatry or the fear, intimidation, or making Trump a martyr, or people that say, hey, we got to beat a populist in the ballot box. Do any of those stand out to you as either particularly concerning or particularly thoughtful or particularly just notable in any way?
[00:23:47] Speaker B: No, I think it's, it's, look, this is not abnormal. When you do have, you know, ambiguities and you have.
[00:23:57] Speaker A: There's no ambiguities, man.
[00:23:59] Speaker B: Well, no, I mean, people just don't.
[00:24:00] Speaker A: Want, just don't want to do it.
[00:24:01] Speaker B: Yeah, well, what I'm saying, I mean, look at the part of the conversation we just got finished with. I mean, I assume that the fake electives and all that would lead you to a conclusion, not you personally, but lead one to a conclusion that this all stems from one man's attempt to stay in power when there was no reason to write that it was no evidence that he should stay in power.
And that's what I mean, seeing all this.
[00:24:30] Speaker A: Well, no, no, let me say, because we had this conversation offline, so what the conversation was because you were bringing up, hey, the fake electors. Like, that's, that's bad stuff, too. But the distinction there is that the fake electors, all the other stuff that was happening, all the lying, all the different stuff, those are potentially crimes. And so you can be charged for that kind of stuff. The Constitution doesn't say if you commit a crime and during an election or after an election, that you can't run for president anymore. Like, that's not that when we're asking the question of, is this person eligible to run for president again, then we're looking at that constitutional qualification in the 14th Amendment. Whether someone fake electors is just not just, but it's just defrauding the United States. Like, so you could be charged with a crime, maybe you have to go to jail or something like that, but you can still run for office if that's all you do, you know, so again, that's why you got, it's important to keep this stuff clear. What we're talking about isn't whether or not a crime, so to speak, was engaged in defrauding United States, doing, you know, did all this deception, fraud, all this. It was just whether insurrection was engaged by anyone, because the people who stormed the Capitol, any of those who weren't officers of the United States previously, they could run for office, but only the people who had taken an oath before to, you know, to support, defend the Constitution and been a part of that insurrection, whether it be, you know, organizing and sighting or actually running through the gates, you know, those are the people that are implicated by this 14th amendment. But. I'm sorry, go ahead.
[00:25:50] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I mean, that's, that's that's pretty much this, everything that we're talking about. It was what makes this so nuanced, because number one is, I think, you know, everybody that wants to look this, this objectively and is not being a sycophant that just can't say, Mister Trump's never done anything wrong. I mean, even I personally know supporters of his, which they'll acknowledge and say, yeah, of course he's done wrong things and he's done this, but I still like him. I was like, okay, at least you can acknowledge that he's, you know, he's, he hasn't been perfect. So the point is, is that like we're saying that there was violence on a day, you're right, there's an insurrection or clause against insurrection.
Violence did happen. Can you tie the two directly? That Mister Trump knew violence was going to happen and didn't stop it, or that he incited it to happen and all that, that's actually the process that's being played out now. That's actually, I mean, this is, again, let me step back what I was going to say, because I was going to go Yoda on us and go with the fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering. There's a lot of fear out there and the fear has been ginned up by people's media ecosystems and whatever they're looking at. So Mister Trump built a lot of fear with his accomplices in the media over, during that period of time in 2020 that the election was being stolen and the country was going to hell and all this, right? There's other people out there now that are full of fear that if he gets back in office, that the country's going to go to hell and all this. So we're all operating on any side of this argument. Most people are coming from a fear angle, which means that they're probably a bit angry about it, which means that they're probably going to hate the other side and not want to listen to anything and blah, blah, blah. Right? So what I'm saying is that because there's, we're all not we personally, right, but a lot of people, what we're losing here is nuance, the ability to nuance. This is a very complex and serious conversation. And so that's where I'm going with this, is that if you look at, I went and looked at the nine page filing that Jack Smith did, which is the prosecutor in DC that's specifically, you know, bringing this case, you know, I guess he's the lead attorney on this case. And what I realize is the grand jury represents the cause.
[00:28:11] Speaker A: He's not, he's not on the 14th Amendment, you know, court of Columbia.
[00:28:16] Speaker B: Yeah. The USA versus Donald Trump.
[00:28:18] Speaker A: So him. Oh, so the crimes of defrauding. But again, that's different than whether or not Trump.
[00:28:25] Speaker B: No, but he gets into it, is my point.
[00:28:27] Speaker A: But again, I mean, I think that. I see, I don't think we're losing nuance. You know, I think that what it is, basically, is that we are losing principle. If you're. If you remain principled here, then you focus on the key things, you know, like, and again, not to knock you, but in that case, the Jack Smith stuff is not particularly relevant here. Like the Colorado, you know, district court level, appeal court level, all of those found. And then the Supreme Court found that he engaged in insurrection. So if somebody's gonna argue that he didn't engage in insurrection, then, yeah, he'll have a chance to do that before the US Supreme Court. He's been unsuccessful with that. And there have been some states, though, where they didn't make the step that the Colorado Supreme Court did either, for whatever reason. But again, as far as what stands out in terms of the opposition, what stands out to me is the idea that all of them are disregarding principle for what they think. Something they think is more important. Whether it be the people who just support Trump, whether. Okay, I just like Trump. So therefore, I'm gonna disregard the principle that we're a nation of laws and not a nation of men. And the 14th Amendment says what it says, I'm gonna disregard that. And I'm going to say that this shouldn't apply to him for. And I'll make up some reason to sound like I thought about it, but really, I just don't like it. But equally, the people who are saying, no, the way to defeat a populist like Trump is at the ballot box. It's a. It's a dangerous. It's bad news to try to take this person out and just taking them off the ballot, that's. That person is afraid. One, you know, what they're saying could be true, but that person is setting aside the principle of we are, the constitution's, the supreme law of land, because they think politically it would be better for the country if we don't follow the principle. So they're on opposite sides of the spectrum. One of them is, you know, loving Trump, one of them saying Trump is bad, but they're both saying, hey, let's put aside our print the principle of rule of law and let's do something that we think is, you know, not as, not as scary or that we like better, that makes us feel better. We've seen the star here and make Trump a martyr. Yeah, you might, you know, but if you're going to be, if you're going to be principled, if you're going to be principled, sometimes you have to do things that you're not crazy about doing. So to me, I look at the people who oppose it from the republican side or from the democratic side as like, yeah, you guys are all doing the same thing. What it is is that they come up with different rationalizations depending on what side, whether they want him in power again or they just want him to run and then hopefully lose. But it's all about setting aside the principle and getting to something that you want again, regardless of whether you might be making a good point, but you're still setting aside principle, you know, so just let's not, let's not be unclear about that. So I think the principal piece is what really stands out to me about that.
[00:31:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:13] Speaker A: Before we move, well, I was gonna say just, I wanna keep us moving. The Supreme Court, you know, we know this is going to the US Supreme Court. Supreme Court's taken a beating over the past few years. And, you know, like, it's not necessarily looked at in the same way that it has been historically. And not to say that they've always been, looked that great, but I mean, they were for, in many respects, I guess maybe up until Bush v. Gore, you know, like they were trying to hold an image of being above politics. But your thoughts on their role here, you know, like, and then just kind of the timing of it all and, you know, just throwing it to, you know, just on, on the Supreme Court piece and that this is good. They're ultimately going to be the ones to decide this. You know, they, the hand grenade has been thrown to them.
[00:31:55] Speaker B: So, you know, no, it's interesting, man. I mean, look, reading, and I know you'll post the actual, the Jack Smith case, the link to it, because in reading that document, I mean, it's evident that it's, because it's a good reminder not only of what I already said, but I mean, he gets into how former President Trump has been supportive of the January 6 rioters, has commented he'll pardon them, that he knows that his supporters listen to him. When you look at his behavior that day, how long it took him to tell people to go home. So it all leads to this idea that the president was supportive, that people were violent on his behalf, even though there's no evidence to support their violent behavior. And so that, to me, is very interesting. So that, again, the reason I bring it up after your specific question here is it appears that there is a legal case that has been made that looks to me like it's everything I saw with my own eyes and everything I experienced since. Remember, that's the case.
[00:32:56] Speaker A: That's just you. The Colorado Supreme Court, the Colorado appeal court. There's courts of law that have looked at that and, you know, like, it's. Yeah, it's.
[00:33:05] Speaker B: Well, that's what I'm getting at is.
[00:33:07] Speaker A: Well, just to your point, to tie something else that you said earlier. Yeah, it does. Even Trump's arguments against the application of the 14th amendment against him don't seem to focus mainly on that. He didn't engage or assist people engaged in insurrection. It seems to be like, oh, no, I wasn't an officer. Like, he's making all these other arguments. Exactly.
[00:33:24] Speaker B: Well, it's like the classified documents argument, right? He never said, oh, I don't have them, or, I didn't take him. He just decided to say, okay, well, they're mine. Now that you saw that I got them, it's like, okay, well, your answer kind of tells you that you did it. You don't deny that you took the classified information. So here's the same thing. So I bring all that up to say, yeah, my opinion is, yes, the supreme Court has a huge role here because as we're saying, they are the supreme court. Right?
[00:33:51] Speaker A: They're the top.
[00:33:53] Speaker B: Yeah, they're the top judicial body in the country. So they're the ones that have to give us the answers. And I know we talked offline about this. I mean, my thing is, I'm not here to say that they should support what Colorado or Maine have done or that they should be totally against it. They should just, they should make a decision so the country knows what to do. So all other 50 states can have some sort of guidepost and this doesn't keep happening. Imagine if this happens in another three, four states over the next two months as you're getting really into the primary and people are showing up to vote.
[00:34:25] Speaker A: So people don't know what they're going to say. You mean like.
[00:34:27] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:34:28] Speaker A: Like if this.
[00:34:29] Speaker B: And there's the logistics.
[00:34:30] Speaker A: I was.
[00:34:30] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I was just saying the logistics just for people to, you know, we all know the real world. I watched the secretary of state of Maine. She said, she goes, I made this decision, but it's not final. I'm waiting for the upper courts to rule. And she said, she goes, so I have not instructed our vendors and contractors to go ahead and start producing the ballots with people's names on them because I want a ruling. But we only have so much time. And so I think that what the Supreme Court needs to do, which I don't understand, why they haven't in both this case and Trump's immunity case, you know, does he get immunity or not? You know, it's nine human beings, that's it. And they're pretty smart. They're all judges that are at the top of their game. I don't understand why they literally can't just go on a retreat one day somewhere in Virginia or Maryland, you know, a couple, an hour drive outside of DC, and just sit down in a room and say, guys, we gotta solve this for America, and we gotta put all our little, you know, whatever differences we got. Cause you're right, they have become politicized, unfortunately. But I'm disheartened. And this is something that is. I saw an article on the weekend. I just decided, wow, this might be interesting, once you decided to bring the Supreme Court into this. They have a year end report every year, and of course, the chief Justice John Roberts signs up in this year, year's year end report. His whole primary thing was artificial intelligence.
[00:35:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:57] Speaker B: He didn't talk anything about the ethics issues that they really have that are serious.
[00:36:02] Speaker A: He didn't talk about this stuff, these constitutional questions.
[00:36:06] Speaker B: Yeah, these huge constitutional crisis that we're about to unfold and say, you know, we're taking it very serious. We want to show the american people that we have the best in our. So, yeah, I am concerned that the Supreme Court appears to have abdicated their responsibility and they're going to take up cases that have to do with easements and eminent domain and environmental stuff and all that before they take up a case. And that's what I'm saying. I mean, I know this isn't about the show, but the immunity case is very important to me because them kicking that can down the road means Trump may be the nominee before they decide.
And on this one, I feel like with this insurrection thing, one thing that for those that do want to spend the time to read the clause of the 14th amendment, the clause on the insurrection, it states, anyone who engaged in insurrection, it doesn't say it's been convicted. The Supreme Court, if they want to give Trump a little favor, they could easily just say, okay, we're going to rule because that was an actual war. And this and that. We're going to interpret that. They, you know, they had to really? Because I was reading that Ulysses S. Grant pardon all the Confederates except the top 500, and they said that actually let another 150,000 confederates just go, you know, and then they could assimilate back into the system. And so that's what I'm saying, is that the supreme court could do something is, I guess.
[00:37:22] Speaker A: Well, yeah, I mean, I think they have to do something is really, like, they have to do something, and to your point, they have to do it fast. Like, this is not one to just take, you know, and then, hey, we'll get to it when we get to it, because this is an election year, and at minimum, it's a disservice. It's a disservice to everyone. Yeah, the uncertainty. The uncertainty is the worst part. Like, okay, these constitutional questions have been made or been raised. They are the ultimate authority on what the constitution. Not just what it says, but what it means. And so, yeah, the constitution doesn't say convicted. You know, it doesn't. You know, it says that engaged so that it can be read and has been read to not require conviction. If they want to reinterpret it, it wouldn't be the first time the Supreme Court reinterprets something to say something different because of the current makeup of the court or whatever, then while legal, people might think that that's disingenuous or say, oh, I thought you guys were originalists, or texts, you know, looking at the text only and, oh, you're a hypocrite. All of that stuff. People can say all that, but at least we'd have certainty at that point. Or if they want to stick. Stick to just the words and say, hey, you know, or stick to the idea of states rights, they say, hey, you know, like, we just. These. If these states decide this is what it, you know, this is what happened, then we'll stick with it. But the uncertainty is what is, I think, the most corrosive. We can recover from a decision in any direction again, and that's not to say that we would agree. Most of us or a lot of us won't agree with whatever decision they make. But ultimately, the indecision is what is the most harmful, and I think it was fair to bring up the immunity thing in this sense, because it's the same kind of thing. The indecision is what is the most corrosive to the system. You make a decision, you make it swift and you stick with it. Then at minimum, people can get their outrage processed and then we can get back to business, so to speak. But as long as this stuff hangs in the air and people don't kind of know, you know, like, where's the solid ground? Where should we be? You know, I'm talking all this principal stuff. But again, like you said, they could come back and say, okay, well, yeah, we interpret the word engaged to mean they were convicted in a criminal court. And it's like, all right, well, you. That's not what it says, but that's what you're saying it means. So that ends the argument, though, you know.
[00:39:34] Speaker B: But, you know, there's a precedent for this, which is. I just keep thinking as you're talking, which is the 2000 election. And by precedent, I mean, not that it was exactly the same or that the circumstances were exactly the same, but the precedence, that there was something, right, hanging chads on a ballot. And the question was, what do you do? This ballot looks like someone may have tried to vote for this person but is not punched all the way through. Remember the dimple, then the chads and all that's the hanging chads and all that crap.
Somebody had to make a decision, right? Like, does a little imprint mean it's a vote or does it have to be punched all the way through? And the Supreme Court stepped in.
[00:40:14] Speaker A: Let me add a decision because I think it's an excellent point. The Florida Supreme Court made one decision, and this is in December. And they're like, look, you know, we're going to try to count every vote to the best of our ability. And so they ordered to recount. They're like, if it's, if it's pushed, you know, whatever that was. Florida to Supreme Court. The US Supreme Court quickly came in and said, no. That way they made up some, it doesn't. It deprives others. Some. This is all in the state of Florida, as I said. Well, it doesn't give equal protection to some people in Florida versus other people in Florida. Some counties are, if they're more forgiving with how they're tab, you know, tabulating it, if it's not poked all the way through. So Florida has to stop counting. And that was their decision, but a lot of people disagreed with it, but they made it quickly and then the country could kind of, okay, get. Calibrate itself and say, okay, all right, this is the decision. This is what we gotta roll with. There's nowhere to go beyond the Supreme Court to his credit Al Gore, who. I mean, that's a much closer thing. And, you know, like, Al Gore was like, all right, we'll honor it. You know, we'll do the transition of power. He didn't call, you know, thousands of people to the Capitol to rush the building, you know, like, so. And we moved on as a country. Like, there are people who are still upset about that, but they gave us certainty. So I think that's the key piece is that they did it quickly and they moved, and then the country was able to kind of move forward.
[00:41:32] Speaker B: But as you're saying it, and then I know we want to move to part two. And I'll leave my parting comments here.
Number one, you bring up something that I can see it. It's two important parts that it took. One was the system working efficiently, which to your point was the supreme Court. They stepped in, said, okay, we're going to make a decision here. Not everyone's going to like it, but we got to make a decision. Right? And then the second part was a part I alluded to earlier about kind of norms. And then we had a politician who, again, he acted in the traditional norms of the american system, which was to allow the power to transition and just let it go. You know, I'm sure Al Gore was unhappy. 537 votes.
[00:42:12] Speaker A: Well, yeah.
[00:42:13] Speaker B: In a state that cast 6 million votes.
[00:42:15] Speaker A: Well, the decision the supreme court made was without precedent. And it was. You talk about all that. We've never seen this stuff before. That was something we had never seen before. And it counts. Stop counting the votes immediately.
[00:42:27] Speaker B: 537 votes ahead for George Bush with 6 million votes cast in the state. So, yeah, Al Gore had a right to be upset, but he behaved under our traditional norms of the american system. And to your point, you know, people were unhappy, but the system moved on. That's the contrast to the day. Do we have a supreme court that seems for whatever reason, to be incapable of moving fast on anything? And then the second thing is we have a politician here who's the subject of all this, who has broken the norms of our traditions. And so when you, when you put those two together, we're here. And my final point is, as I'm reading and doing and looking at this legal stuff, what I realize is part of, I think this moment for all of us as Americans is not so much. You said this on a recent show about looking in the past, and you're right. Like, we do gotta look at the past and we'll look at precedent and legal stuff and all that. But part of this is just what kind of like, discourse and way of being together do we want to have going forward as Americans? And that's why I say, like, the nuancing of engaged versus convicted, or is how much violence or not violence. At the end of the day, we all, we all have been experiencing this last three years together, and it's just we want to continue to allow people to run for office in our country that continually attack the system. And how healthy is that going to be in the long run? So. Well, but that's kind of the way.
[00:43:53] Speaker A: That'S a fraught question, though, because do we want to allow it? Well, yes, unless there's some reason legally or constitutionally that, you know, that bars them from doing so. Your question is, do people want to keep voting for people like that?
[00:44:06] Speaker B: Because ideally that's what I'm saying.
[00:44:08] Speaker A: It is a separate voters send a, like, the system should allow it unless there's a law or a constitutional amendment that has been violated. If somebody wants to, somebody's 32 and wants to run for president, it's not like overly dramatic. If they're like, nah, you can't run for president. You're not 32. It says in the constitution they can't. But should the voters continue to throw support behind people who are hostile to the system? Essentially. And that raises a deeper question, though, because that raises, or the assumption there is that the voters aren't hostile to the system as well, you know, so, and that's the, that's what we're going to see over the next few years, looking forward, is how many people have become hostile to the system and saying, hey, the system doesn't give me what I want. I want a society that looks like this or that. You know, there were people, I were, you know, like, we're governed by religious law or yada, yada, yada. And if they become hostile to the system, then, yeah, this is the kind of politician that they want.
[00:45:01] Speaker B: So since I'm over 35, I'm gonna have my 25 year old son run for president in 2028, and he won't be 35. So I will make sure that we.
[00:45:13] Speaker A: Try and break all those anti democratic people. You can go at them then.
[00:45:17] Speaker B: Yeah, break the constitution.
[00:45:20] Speaker A: But now, our second topic, second topic today we wanted to discuss was just entering 2024. The reports have been coming in. They've been rolling in for a while just because it was kind of clinched a while back. But a lot of literature out there on 2023 being the warmest year on record, and this is obviously not in the billions of years that the earth has been around. But this is just in, since we've been keeping records.
And so, you know, like, I'm gonna, I don't necessarily want to guide this in a particular direction, but just your thoughts on seeing that the warmest year on record, and one of the things that was noted or that has been noted is that the rate of increase in temperature continues to rise. And so it's not a, we go these gradual curves or whatever like that. It's like there's gradual curves. Gradual curves gradually. And so, you know, we got this, this super sharp, you know, incline that we're on. And so just, hey, there's anyone who is kind of concerned or wants to act on the climate is kind of already there. Anybody who doesn't for whatever, you know, they've come up with their rationalizations or whatever and they're not really going to be moved. Oh, yeah, more news that, you know, the climate's warming or whatever, they're not going to be moved on that. So the kind of the battle lines, people are entrenched kind of where they are now.
And so I'm not going to get into necessarily like, oh, what do you think? Is it really happening? But just more so that we're just, we continue down this march of a warming planet and, you know, we're like, so just your thoughts?
[00:46:45] Speaker B: Yeah, man. I guess maybe just because we're still on the flow of a dialogue here, I couldn't help but think when I saw some of these headlines, it reminds me of the headlines from kind of the topic one generally, like, democracy being at risk and this kind of global risk of democracy. And you're right, it's like, all right, all these headlines, you know, all this, all this doom and gloom and all this. And I think we as a society, because I feel it in myself, you can just kind of accept that, okay, maybe it's inevitable. Maybe it's inevitable that the earth will just heat up and we're not going to stop burning fossil fuels and all that.
[00:47:20] Speaker A: We're not going to stop.
[00:47:21] Speaker B: And maybe it's inevitable that these democracies will collapse and they'll have an entropy and, you know, there'll be a great democracies again 500 years from now, now when I can't see them. So, so, so it's kind of like, yeah, it's like I'm beginning to be a bit apathetic towards, unfortunately, towards some of this climate alarmism and which I tend to agree with. Like, that's my point. I feel weird saying this. I totally believe the science of climate change, that its humans have influenced it through the burning of fossil fuels since the start of the industrial age, you know, 150 years ago. And if you just look at the information, it makes sense and it all adds up from a kind of scientific standpoint. And it's, and it's withstood the scientific method. And I don't have time on this discussion to get into all that evidence. And we could probably do all.
[00:48:06] Speaker A: There's no point because, you know.
[00:48:08] Speaker B: Exactly. Because the people that would watch it are people that agree with us probably, and the people that disagree think it's a hoax anyway. And so, and so that's kind of my point is, Sam, I'm looking out and I'm just realizing like, and then to see recently, and I appreciate this because I think everybody should be part of a discussion. If you're trying to solve something big like this, that's global, but it's almost like now we're this recent one, this cop 27 conference was held in one of the biggest fossil fuel producing nations in the world.
And it's just like, you know, we've gone from a, trying to like say we want to rid ourselves of this type of energy over time to just saying that, okay, maybe we can't just. So, yeah, that's a, feel like we're gonna keep going this direction.
[00:48:57] Speaker A: No, I see. I wouldn't call it apathy because if I, if I'm in a democratic society, if I'm given the choice to support a politician who says that, you know, hey, let's try to do something about climate change versus one who says, hey, it's, it's, it's, you know, it's b's, it's not real. I would support the one who says, let's try to do something about it. So, I mean, it's something I care about. But I share your kind of almost like, throw your hands up like, hey, this looks like this train is just not going to stop. Like, I think industry has us in a way, you know, big industry has us in a way that it's just like the, there's not going to be, I don't foresee there being sufficient political will at any point in the near future for us to fundamentally make the kind of fundamental changes that need to happen or even really get, push them down the road fast enough to make any real difference. And what's, what I'm reminded of, actually, we did, you remember we did a show on the book sapiens a while back. And one of the things that talked about was anytime human beings, homo sapiens, showed up in an environment, they changed the environment. They forever changed it. You know, they altered the environment. And then, so it looked one way, then they showed up, they changed it. You know, these large animals, you know, these super marsupials in Australia, before there's humans, humans show up, they kill them all, and then they adapt to the new, you know, environment, so to speak, that they're in. So humans change their environment. It essentially, it appears like it was only a matter of time. Like we do it to micro environments everywhere we show up. So it seems like if we're on the earth and there's enough of us, it was going to be inevitable that we're going to change the macro environment and we'll just have to adapt to whatever's left after that. And it'll be hard, it'll be, you know, it'll introduce difficulties, you know, like weather patterns will change, you know, like wet areas where you can grow food will change versus others. All of that stuff will change. That'll create a lot of political upheaval, a lot of suffering and things like that. But it just seems like that's what's going to happen. And I imagine if you go back into ancient times, there were people saying, hey, maybe we shouldn't kill all of these animals.
Let's not kill all the woolly mammoth, let's save some of them. And then, you know, like, and those people lost.
They lost the ark.
[00:50:57] Speaker B: You know, it's a good example, actually. There's a real microcosm or ecosystem of that, if you're familiar, and a lot of the viewers and listeners familiar with the famous Easter island that has those big heads on it. Yeah, apparently they assumed that that island, like the main island itself, might have had update, a population of update thousand at one point. And they think it was the same thing, just kind of deforestation and just that they sucked the resources of that island just dry. And eventually, and then they believed that they started infighting and basically killed themselves off, in a sense. So instead of.
[00:51:34] Speaker A: I'm sure that's happened more than then, though.
[00:51:36] Speaker B: Exactly.
No, man, it shows that they had trade and maritime, you know, they had the ability, like they got there on ships, that they clearly had the ability to leave. My point is. So that's what, again, too unlike us, where we can't leave the earth anytime soon, even with a choice to probably leave and explore somewhere else, there's enough people that say, nah, this is my home, you know, how humans are. I'm not leaving and all this. And then, you know, there's no people there now.
[00:52:03] Speaker A: Like, I feel like maybe we're missing the larger arc that we're on here and that. Yes. There. And I'm not. I think the fight is righteous to try to live in a more sustainable way, you know, like, I think it's a good idea if you, if you live somewhere, it's a good idea to try to take care of it a little bit, you know? But, yeah, it doesn't seem like on balance, human beings are very capable, you know, of doing that. There's plenty of people who want to do that, but the people who don't care either seem to outnumber or out. They, they are able to. To win out over the people who do, you know, or maybe less. People who don't care to ruin something than it does takes people who care to preserve it.
[00:52:43] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I think the problem is for us is that you've made this joke before. The earth's gonna take care of itself.
[00:52:51] Speaker A: Yeah, earth is gonna take care of it.
[00:52:52] Speaker B: I think that's your point about our climate patterns have changed like they have been. It'll get hotter, we'll have stronger hurricanes and typhoons and all that stuff might.
[00:53:01] Speaker A: Get drier in places where we like to grow food.
[00:53:03] Speaker B: And at this point, it's undeniable. I mean, you know, we just had basically a tropical storm here in south Florida two weeks ago in the middle of December. Again, these are things that are unheard of, you know, and this type of climate that you have almost a hurricane type force winds this late into the year. And so I read an article, which was interesting to me. This shows me why this is so difficult. It was talking about how the holiday season creates this huge amount of trash. And it's from the LA Times. So it's about the Los Angeles, I guess, the greater Los Angeles area.
[00:53:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Trying to deal with all that. Yeah, yeah.
[00:53:37] Speaker B: And it says. So these are numbers from, of course, a year ago. It says the city collected 2.4 tons of cardboard in December 2022, compared with 16.42 tons in January of 23. That's just cardboard. That's not plastic, that's not metals. From 2 billion to 16 billion. Sorry, two tons to 16 tons just in a month because of the holidays. Then it said January also saw 96.78 tons of Christmas trees. So I started thinking in my mind about the environment. I just thought, honestly, okay, I know LA is a big metropolitan area in the United States, but it's one of several. We got New York, Chicago, down here, South Florida. So I'm thinking, man, that that increase in tonnage in just that one month is crazy because that's all got to go somewhere, right? That goes to landfills and in the ocean and all that. And then I thought about 96 tons of Christmas trees just in the LA market. Then I thought, man, that's amazing. There's obviously going to be a lot more than that in the whole United States. So then I started thinking, so hold on. How many freaking millions of acres do we have just to plant and harvest Christmas trees for one day in a year?
And you see, what I'm saying, James, is it's not the people in the Middle east. It's not someone else out there that's going to drive this off a cliff. It's us as individuals, us as consumers.
Because if I try to run for office saying, hey, you know what? It might be better if everybody actually got a classic Christmas tree that could last ten years, and let's.
[00:55:09] Speaker A: You'd be a part of the war on Christmas at that point, correct?
[00:55:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
Let the soil recover. Maybe we could plant different kind of plants that actually could feed humans, you know, or maybe we could do something, you know, and obviously, you know, are we recycling these trees or is the wood going for pulp or something? There's all kind of ways you could play this, but people would say that I'm anti Christmas. If I said, we need to stop rapping with gifts of plastic and all this stuff, and there's these tons, so.
[00:55:36] Speaker A: People would say that I'm, bro, we already know this. If you say, let's use paper straws instead of plastic straws, people would call you accounting, you know, so it's just.
[00:55:45] Speaker B: That'S why I say I'm much less optimistic on this and that's, I'll just finish here. Because of us, the consumer, we don't want to change.
[00:55:55] Speaker A: I think that's what it is. Like, it appears like the people who are trying to say, hey, let's make the change now, it appears like they're going to lose. And it appears like throughout history that's what's happening. But the reason why it seems like is that human beings on mass don't change until they have to, you know, and then, so like, it seems like we just have to wait. Well, we don't have to wait. We can always try. We can. We should try. But we're, as a species, we're gonna have to wait until we mess things up and then it'll force the changes, and then we'll just be left with something that is lesser than it could have been if we would have changed earlier. But that seems to just be the way that human beings on mass operate. You know, like, we just, we go, we come in, we change it, and, you know, you know, when they stop killing woolly mammoths, when the woolly mammoths stopped before, so that's just how it goes. And so, but I think, I mean, that's such a pessimistic message to begin the year with. So the point being that beyond that, though, is that I don't think this is going to be the end of human beings, but what it will do is change the way that we operate. It's going to force changes, and changing and stuff can be difficult, it can cause strife and so forth. But ultimately, it will be something that human beings, if you go by the historical patterns, we'll find a new normal after that, you know, but nonetheless, I do want to again emphasize that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try, because however much we can do now before we are forced to change is going to be, is going to make it more pleasant for the time after we're forced to change. So, but let's, let's close up from here, man. You know, happy new year to everyone. We appreciate every joining us on this episode of call. Like I see it, subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it, tell us what you think, send it to a friend. Until next time, I'm James keys.
[00:57:39] Speaker B: I'm Tunde Avalana.
[00:57:41] Speaker A: All right, we'll talk to you next time.
