Ep 149 ｜ Want a Tyrannical King？ The Left's Court-Packing Plot Ensures It ｜ Mike Lee ｜ The Glenn Beck Podcast
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 16 minutes
Words per Minute
159.8391
Summary
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Texas) joins Glenn Beck on the Glenn Beck Podcast to discuss his new book, Saving Nine, which details how the Supreme Court is being used by the left to further their agenda and destroy American liberty.
Transcript
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Earlier this month, someone leaked Justice Samuel Alito's draft opinion to overturn
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Roe v. Wade. In the 233-year history of the Supreme Court, there have been a handful of leaks.
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Not many, but some, including news about Roe v. Wade in 1973. It was leaked about an hour before.
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But this is the first time that a leak has included the draft decision. In other words,
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this leak, unprecedented. As a senator, today's guest has watched the collapse from the inside.
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Before he was a senator, he served as a clerk for Justice Samuel Alito, when Justice Alito was still
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a judge on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. In his latest book, Saving Nine, it is a must-read,
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the fight against the left's audacious plan to pack the Supreme Court and destroy American liberty.
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This is probably the most perfectly timed book that I've ever seen. It documents the left's
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mission to pack the Supreme Court, their latest attempt to politicize it, and destroy it.
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But the Supreme Court isn't supposed to be political. It's something you feel when you walk
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up those stairs, or should feel. As today's guest writes in Saving Nine, when climbing those stairs,
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you find yourself leaving the swamp of Washington, and often the petty political conflicts that abound
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behind. And you enter a higher plane of existence. That's what you're supposed to feel. But once again,
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politicians, activists on the left are making exceptions for themselves. Today, fascinating conversation
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on the Glenn Beck podcast, Senator Mike Lee. It's getting hot outside, and really, at least in Texas,
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like about a thousand degrees once you fire up the grills. But with summer upon us, I am willing
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to, for a steak, I am willing to fire up the grill and stand in the heat. If you are looking for the
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My good friend, Mike Lee. How are you? Doing great. It's good to be with you. Um, your book
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is, um, I think you have taken it, and you can be at any level and read it. Not know much
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about the Supreme Court, not know much about even our history and why, um, what's happened
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in the last hundred plus years. Uh, or you can be somebody like you and know a lot and
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still learn something. I think that's, uh, that's a lot because, um, the Supreme Court
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is so important right now. And I don't think most people have any idea what it's supposed
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That's right. And it's important for us to understand what it is and what it isn't right
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Especially because there are people on the streets protesting, you know, and I think
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it's only going to get worse. And, uh, we have to know what the facts are.
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That's right. And that's why I dedicated an entire chapter simply to explaining what the
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court is and what it isn't. In chapter one of Saving Nine, I talk about the fact that it
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has a limited role. It operates in a rear view mirror sort of way. Its job is to decide what
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the law says, what the words enacted into law meant at the time they became law.
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So let me, let me ask you a couple of things on that. Um, it, it is the weakest. It's not
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three equal branches, right? It's, it's weaker than the other two. It's just a check on the other
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two by far the weakest of the three branch, just a check on the other two. And, and really
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even narrower than a check, its job is to resolve disputes. The law says X and we disagree
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about what X means and which way the law cuts. Uh, you and I can have that resolved in court.
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Ultimately the Supreme court of its federal law. Okay. So the Supreme court is supposed to,
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you just said, supposed to look back at what these words meant when they were written.
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Yes. That is a originalist point of view. Yes. Then there's the contextualist, right? Is that right?
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Yeah. Some would call them purpose of us. Uh, but people who would say, let's look at what
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the purpose of the law is. Others still would, if they're looking at provisions of the constitution,
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talk about a living constitution. Correct. One that the ought to change what they mean by that
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because the constitution can change. Article five of the constitution provides the mechanism for doing
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that. But that's, they want to change it to the court. That's an amendment. That's an amendment.
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Constitution. Um, the, is this unusual as a nation that we, we look to the meaning of what it originally
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meant? No. So the rest of the world does that as well. Well, look, I, I don't concern myself with how
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other courts operate. What I know is that our Supreme court functions under our constitution and our
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constitution places defined limits around judicial authority. And so within the United States, we,
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we do, and we always have sought to try to define what the statute means within our court system.
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And what that means is you have to look at the original public meaning, the understanding of the
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public, of what those words meant at the time they were drafted and put either into the law or into the
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constitution. All right. So let's, let's use a real life example because so many people today are
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saying, you know, uh, this isn't, this is a democracy and, and how can the minority rule the
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majority? Well, first of all, they're talking usually about the Senate. You lost 51 to 49.
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That's a majority. You know what I mean? Right. Um, and, um, we are not a majority rule kind of
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country. Are we? No, we're not. And most of the time when people raise that argument about the
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Senate, that the Senate is anti-democratic, they're talking about the fundamental structure
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of the constitution that they don't like. What they're saying is if theoretically it's possible
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to secure a majority of the votes in the Senate without those States holding the majority in the
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Senate, representing a majority of the population of the United States. Yeah. That was the whole idea.
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That was the whole point. We were going to have one, uh, chamber of the legislative branch that
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would, uh, be allocated according to population. We've got 435 seats currently. Those are allocated
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according to population revised every 10 years. The Senate was always to be a place where each
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state would be represented equally. In fact, if there's one kind of constitutional amendment,
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that's preemptively unconstitutional, you can't change that feature of the constitution
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that entitles each state to equal representation.
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But they did change the Senate, the way it was elected, the way they're chosen. Yes. Because it
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was never meant to be a public, uh, election, right? Well, your, your, your state house selected.
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Yes. Prior to 1913, 1913 one was when the 17th amendment was ratified. And, uh, prior to that
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time, U S senators were chosen by state legislatures since 1913, with the ratification of the 17th
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amendment, they've been elected popularly within each state. So was that a good change? Do you think?
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Look, it is, it is water under the bridge. I do think we lost something. I think we, I think we also
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importantly gained something. If you look at it from a progressive view, we gained a national
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look instead of a local look that the idea was that person, uh, is selected by the state and is
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just doing what's right for his or her state, right? And accountable subject to being fired
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by the state lawmakers within that state. Correct. They were there to represent the states as such.
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And so since then we haven't had that not coincidentally, we've seen a drift away from the
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Senate looking out for the interests of the states as states. Okay. So everything began to change
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really in the progressive era. And the one thing I think Mike, I love about you is you hate Woodrow
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Wilson as much as I do. Um, and, and FDR, no love loss for FDR, especially when it comes to the
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Supreme court. So can you give us a brief, cause you, you spent a lot of time on FDR and I, and I want
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to get into that cause I think it relates to today a great deal as you point out. Um, can you tell us
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who we were before the progressive era? Uh, like I think the Supreme court at the beginning met in a
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closet, uh, in the basement of the Capitol pretty much. Yeah. And it was FDR that changed that and
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gave them this big grand building, which changed people's perception of, of the Supreme court. Right.
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Yeah. So to be clear, uh, the, the wheels were set in motion prior to FDR's presidency for them to have
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their own building, but, but yeah, it gave them a, a, a sense of who they were and perhaps a sense of
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jealousy, not wanting, uh, to have their parade rained upon. But yeah, prior to the progressive era,
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uh, you had a country in which we recognized top to bottom that the federal government was not a
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general purpose, national government. This was one of the most fundamental principles of the American
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revolution. And that was built into the constitution. We, and then guaranteed or tried
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to guarantee with the bill of rights. Yes. And culminating with the 10th amendment that made
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abundantly clear, made expressly clear what was implicit in the text of the original constitution,
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which is that the federal government would have powers that James Madison described as few and
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defined. And those reserved to the States were numerous and indefinite. Most government power
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was not to be exercised in Washington because this is why we fought the revolution. We weren't just
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tired of singing God save the King at the time. We weren't just tired of having a monarchy. It was
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much more than that. It was about the fact that we were subject to a large distant national government
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that knew no boundaries around its authority and didn't respect local autonomy. So again, let's go back
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to what looks to be, um, the verdict, maybe, um, the verdict on Roe versus Wade. And I want to get into
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all of the details on that, but if I'm not mistaken, the, the walk away from me reading the decision is
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this is highly controversial and different States and different populations have a very different look
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at it. And it's not in the constitution. So it should be decided by the people, not a court of
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unelected men and women. Yes. Right. That is exactly right. A 10 year old when properly informed
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can answer that question. And in fact, I know that because as a 10 year old, the first conversation I
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remember having with my dad about Roe versus Wade, uh, he seemed pleased when I said, that's kind of
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strange because it seems to me that this is a legislative decision, not a judicial one and it ought
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to be a state, not federal. He was happy that, uh, yeah, yeah. My kid's on the right track. Uh, he'll never
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date, but he's on the right track. Um, the, uh, okay. So if I'm read, am I reading it? Explain how I, I, I, I'm
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misinterpreting this. It seems to me that they're saying this is not in the constitution. So it, it's the
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10th amendment. It's got to go back to the States, right? Yeah. But the first thing that people in
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Congress and the Senate did was try to make a federal law on it. If it's not in the constitution
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and it belongs with the 10th amendment, can Congress on this or anything else pick that up
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and make it a federal law? They shouldn't, uh, they shouldn't, they wouldn't be able to, but for the,
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the, the deviation away from the constitutional norm that we saw during the progressive era
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that we've been stuck with ever since. So in theory, you could see Congress adopting a very
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aggressive reading of the commerce clause. Uh, one that I talk about at some length in, in chapters
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four and five of saving nine, they could in theory address that they could also, Congress could adopt
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restrictions on abortion when it comes to federal funding of Planned Parenthood, federal funding of
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other programs within the United States and overseas, the so-called Hyde amendment and Mexico
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city policy, uh, things like that are plainly within the federal government's jurisdiction.
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But yeah, this was interesting because you have the Supreme court saying this now needs to be sent
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back to the people's elected lawmakers, right? Typically that's going to mean the States. I mean,
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we've got general power over, um, you know, uh, us military installations, district of Columbia and things
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like that. But for the most part, this ought to be decided by state lawmakers, not federal ones.
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The Democrats swoop in right after this opinion leaks and they say, we're going to make this federal
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by statute. We're going to reinstate Roe by statute. And they tried to do that, but they went 10 steps
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further. Their version of this was not just Roe type protections. It was any and every abortion up to
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the very moment of birth is now lawful and no restrictions, uh, time, place, manner, proximity
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to hospital, uh, uh, health and safety regulations. None of those can apply. No bans on sex selective
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abortions or abortions targeting down syndrome babies. You can't do any of that. Fortunately,
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it failed, but they think this is somehow the imperative, uh, of, of the world to do this.
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And I find that stunning, by the way, they're substantially to the left of where the American
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people are. Oh, they're way out of step. And I hate to say way to the left. They're just way out
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of step. The American people, it's like 12% of the nation is for that. Um, and you know, I can get 12%
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of the population to agree that we never went to the moon. That's right. That's right. Because most
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people intuitively understand regardless of their own religious beliefs, uh, about when life begins
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or their own other personal beliefs, most people, even those who believe in abortion as something
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that they want to protect, we'll acknowledge that there comes a point as you get closer and closer
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to full term, right? That this becomes indistinguishable from infanticide. Yes. Some of us would draw that
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line a lot closer to the beginning than others, but almost all Americans will say there does come a
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point where you've got to protect that unborn human life because it is a human. It is a person.
00:16:52.780
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Let's go back on how the government, uh, and we can, we can either, can we start with the three
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musketeers and the, and the four horsemen? I don't think most people even know anything about that.
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Yeah. Look, it's, it's very important. And I talk about this in, uh, chapter chapters three, four,
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and five of saving nine about the fact that at the time that FDR, uh, Franklin D Roosevelt was
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president as he was beginning his second term in office, he had suffered a series of setbacks,
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uh, setbacks by the Supreme court because it was under FDR that we started expanding. FDR said,
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uh, look, I'm not content with having the federal government be a limited purpose government.
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I want it to have the power to solve all sorts of social problems. I want it to regulate all kinds
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of markets, uh, uh, labor manufacturing, agriculture, mining. These are all things that have historically
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been regulated at the state level. I don't want to do it that anymore that way anymore because we're
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in a crisis, the great depression. So in a crisis, before we say a crisis, it, he defined it with
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emergency powers, right? Then this, all of this stuff started with just him seizing the power away from
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Congress under emergency powers. Yeah, there was some of that, but a lot of this he did through
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statute, uh, because the same framework wasn't in place as is now giving him power to just issue
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executive orders willy nilly. Uh, so all of this started with statutes where he was trying to
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regulate this and that labor manufacturing, agriculture, mining, all these things that
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while economic were not interstate commerce, he got smacked down in case after case, uh, cases like
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Carter versus Carter coal company, uh, Schechter poultry, all these cases where the Supreme court said,
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you've overreached, you can't do this. He got tired of it by the beginning of his second term,
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he had had it. So back to your question, you had these, um, um, loosely speaking three camps
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on the Supreme court. You had his closest allies who we call the three musketeers.
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We have his arch enemies who we call the four horsemen of the apocalypse. My favorite of whom
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was George Sutherland, uh, Utah, the only Utah ever to serve on the Supreme court. And I graduated
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from the Supreme court of Brigham Young university, uh, who had previously been a Senator from Utah.
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They were steadfast proponents of the constitution and they weren't about to let FDR just run over
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them. And then you had two sort of unaffiliated, unaffiliated justices, those who were holding
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their cards close. Um, and, uh, uh, uh, those two, uh, were, were, were Charles Evans Hughes and Owen
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Roberts. They were sort of floating out there in the middle. Nobody knew which way they were going
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to go. So there was this constant tension. A lot of these cases had been decided against FDR's
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interest, uh, because of the fact that, uh, the two floaters or some combination of them joined with
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the, the four horsemen and they toppled, uh, pieces of legislation that were in fact unconstitutional.
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That's what led us to FDR's court packing plan. That's why he did it. He was tired of those people
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doing it. So what did he do? He started up by trying to delegitimize the court, certain members
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of the court in particular, especially the four horsemen. He tried to denigrate the whole, the
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court as a whole, as an institution. And it culminated, of course, in his introduction and
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support for legislation that would give him the power to pack the court appointing additional
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justices. If we can go back in time and you can read it in time magazine, you can read it in, uh,
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New York times, um, of the era. We try to go back and we, we could say, Oh, FDR is a fascist or
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whatever. At that time, fascism and communism weren't, didn't have the stigma that they have now
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because they were new. They were modern. Yeah. And hadn't killed everybody yet. Okay. Um, and so it
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wasn't a bad thing. I, I give the, some of the early progressives, uh, some benefit of the doubt
00:22:08.860
because it was new and it was scientific. Uh, you know, it, it's an early algorithms, you know? Uh,
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and, uh, and so they took this on. He really thought, I think that it was the new way to rule
00:22:26.020
just through managerial, um, uh, managerial process before he gets in, how much damage had
00:22:35.520
been done. Did we have these big, um, uh, administrative arms? No, no, no, not at all.
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It was anathema to the structure of the constitution. It didn't work. That's why you had to do
00:22:53.180
some, some real massive surgery and, and, and not therapeutic surgery, destructive surgery
00:23:01.400
on the system in order to even allow this. We did not have an administrative state. What we had was
00:23:07.200
a system that said, you've, you've got three branches of government. I think they're best
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described as, uh, two pens and a sword. You've got the legislative branch that says what shall be,
00:23:17.440
what will be, uh, going forward, sets the ground rules. You've got the executive branch that wields,
00:23:23.180
the sword. And then you've got the judicial branch that wields a different kind of pen,
00:23:27.900
a backward looking pen to decide what the law meant. As of the time it was put into law and on
00:23:35.640
that basis, resolve disputes. So the pen is veto. Yeah, no, the, the, I mean, sorry, the sword.
00:23:43.240
Yeah. The sword is the veto, but so the, there's one feature of the legislative power that the
00:23:49.680
president has, and that's the veto pen. But aside from his veto pen, he does also wield that pen.
00:23:56.740
The executive branch is the sword, meaning that's where the action is carried out. It's the executive
00:24:01.560
branch that has the power to enforce the law. Okay. And so my point is this, all this administrative
00:24:06.300
bureaucracy, it's all a creature, uh, that lurks within the executive branch. But when Congress
00:24:15.260
passes a law, it has the sole lawmaking power. Article one, section one, clause one, and article
00:24:22.260
one, section seven, make clear that you cannot pass a federal law. You cannot make a federal law
00:24:28.200
except it's through Congress. And article one, section seven makes clear that the only way to do
00:24:33.180
that is you have to pass the same proposed law, a bill in the house and in the Senate, the same text
00:24:39.140
that's got to be then submitted to the president for signature veto or acquiescence. So unless you do
00:24:44.620
that, there is no federal law. Okay. Hang on. And it's my understanding that the veto is really
00:24:51.080
is, is supposed to be exercised by the president if he feels it's unconstitutional, right? It's not
00:25:00.060
like, I don't agree with any of this, right? Right, right. Exactly. The president's job is
00:25:05.340
supposed to be that and a guard for the constitution, the first guard, right? And until relatively
00:25:12.540
until the last few decades, it was understood that the president should independently assess
00:25:18.900
constitutionality. George Washington made an inquiry, I believe it was in 1793. Uh, he wanted to
00:25:26.600
find out prospectively whether some of the proposed actions within his administration were constitutional.
00:25:31.760
He reached out to the court seeking an answer. Uh, I talk about this in, uh, in chapter one of
00:25:38.400
saving nine. Um, they responded by pointing out, look, we can't do this. That's an advisory opinion.
00:25:43.880
You're asking us to give an advisory opinion. We can't do that. We can only decide ripe cases
00:25:49.240
and controversies between individuals after government, uh, has acted in one way or another.
00:25:54.560
Uh, uh, my, my point is, uh, there is simply to say that because of that separation of powers,
00:26:03.280
every officer within the federal government who's required to take an oath under the constitution
00:26:07.440
is expected to do this. It's only in modern times that we've started to think of the constitution
00:26:12.700
as if it were a judicial document. It's owned, it's defined in every instance by the nine lawyers
00:26:19.740
wearing robes on the Supreme court. I don't mean to denigrate them or their role only to point out
00:26:25.360
what the court is and what it isn't. It's not there to decide what it says in every instance. It's just
00:26:30.880
there to decide specific disputes. All right. So, um, when the, um, when the court started,
00:26:42.700
to go awry, um, it, it was disputes over things like coal companies, um, and, um, can we regulate
00:26:54.540
them? The commerce clause was forever changed. I don't remember the case, but you talk about it
00:27:00.500
with a farmer, right? Yes. The wheat. Yeah. Well, record versus Philburn. Yeah. Thank you. Uh,
00:27:06.820
a horrible decision, but a decision that highlights, uh, the problem with this. This is why we have
00:27:14.120
OSHA and everything else in our lives, right? Yes. Okay. That's what leads to all that. Explain
00:27:18.660
that. Okay. So what is the commerce clause? Yep. And then how did it change? The commerce clause,
00:27:27.140
article one, section eight, clause three gives Congress the power to regulate trade or commerce
00:27:34.180
between the states, uh, with foreign nations and with the Indian tribes. Uh, it was always
00:27:40.680
understood. It was understood at the time is giving Congress the power to make sure that
00:27:45.180
interstate commercial transactions could take place uninhibited by state authority. It was there
00:27:51.060
to protect against economic balkanization. We didn't want States erecting trade barriers such
00:27:58.220
that we couldn't function with a national because we were a, we were really 13 separate countries.
00:28:05.720
And at the time before, uh, the constitution there, the federal government couldn't solve
00:28:12.640
debates or, or, or disputes between the states. Right? Yeah, that's right. Right. Right.
00:28:18.360
So after the revolution, we won the war, we put in place this document called the articles of
00:28:22.300
confederation. It was a very loose, it's almost a treaty between 13 nations. And it didn't have,
00:28:27.820
for instance, the states had power to print their own currency, which was then also a trade problem.
00:28:35.960
That's why the constitution says only the federal government can mint money. Right. Right. And
00:28:41.920
they were taxing each other's goods, which made them like 13 separate isolated economies. We
00:28:47.100
couldn't survive that way. It's the principal reason why the founding fathers converged, convened
00:28:52.400
in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 was to deal with that very problem. So they gave Congress this
00:28:58.380
power for the next 150 years or so. It was understood that that gave Congress the power to regulate,
00:29:04.540
uh, interstate commercial transactions and channels and instrumentalities of interstate commerce.
00:29:10.960
So what did that mean at the time? Like to, uh, regulate interstate transactions mostly meant that
00:29:19.260
they could get rid of, they could preempt out state laws that were erecting trade barriers,
00:29:23.540
uh, against interstate commerce. It could also regulate things like interstate canals or roadways to make
00:29:29.340
sure that, uh, commerce didn't get stuck, that states weren't interfering with it that way.
00:29:34.520
Uh, and for the most part, it was just understood that that's what it meant. And this is one of the
00:29:39.520
things that kept, uh, the federal government within its lane is that none of the enumerated powers in
00:29:45.260
article one, section eight was expanded as being limitless because the minute you have that, then
00:29:51.780
the 10th amendment means nothing. The minute you have that you're no longer of a limited purpose
00:29:57.620
federal government. You're a general purpose national government. So all of a sudden FDR comes along
00:30:04.320
and he says things like labor, manufacturing, agriculture, mining, always subject to state
00:30:10.380
regulation, not federal, except in rare instances where we're talking about, uh, one of those
00:30:15.740
activities inside of the district of Columbia, for example, but he said, I want to save America
00:30:22.460
from the great depression to do that. I need these sweeping new powers started pushing the limits of
00:30:28.940
the commerce clause. The court pushed back and said, no, that's not what it means. And that's
00:30:34.080
when FDR said, I'm going to pack the court. I'm going to remake the court in my own image.
00:30:40.100
I'm going to give myself authority to appoint more justices, not because they're understaffed,
00:30:45.320
but because I want to change the outcome for my own political purposes. So that's where we get to
00:30:51.240
this moment. I pinpointed even before the 1942 case of Wickard v. Philburn, we can talk about that
00:30:57.400
more in a minute. The seeds for that case were, were planted, uh, seven years earlier,
00:31:03.900
five years earlier in a case called NLRB versus Jones and Laughlin steel company decided April 12th,
00:31:10.420
1937, incidentally, right in the middle of the debate regarding FDR's court packing plan.
00:31:19.920
FDR wanted to delegitimize, denigrate, and ultimately change the court to its benefit.
00:31:24.240
And that's when justice, associate justice, Owen Roberts flipped his vote. He had previously been
00:31:31.360
with the four horsemen and standing up for limits on, on federal power. He switched his vote at the
00:31:38.180
last minute and redefined the commerce clause to give Congress the power to regulate anything,
00:31:49.240
Yeah, it, it happens. Apparently these things are inherited. Maybe they're related somehow.
00:31:55.600
I've, I've never checked. I'm going to look into this now. We'll find out. But regardless,
00:32:00.460
history doesn't repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes.
00:32:03.060
And so then, um, in the case with the farmer years later, that's a pushback.
00:32:10.380
Yeah. In the case with the farmer, they pushed it so far. This guy named Roscoe Filburn. Roscoe
00:32:19.120
Filburn, uh, was a farmer in, uh, what's today a suburb of Dayton, Ohio. He was fined many thousands
00:32:26.940
of dollars, a lot of money in those days. Uh, uh, his, his offense against the federal government,
00:32:33.120
he was not a kidnapper, not a bank robber, uh, not a smuggler. No, he, he grew too much wheat.
00:32:38.340
He grew more wheat than the experts, uh, in the U S department of agriculture using their authority
00:32:44.300
under the agricultural adjustment act of 1939 thought was appropriate for any farmer to grow
00:32:50.000
too much wheat. So they find him thousands of dollars. He had a good lawyer and he decided to
00:32:56.080
challenge this law, but he said, look, um, the wheat that I grew in excess of the federal grain
00:33:02.960
production quota that you gave me never entered interstate commerce. In fact, it never entered
00:33:09.900
commerce at all. It never left my farm. I used that wheat, the wheat that I grew in excess of the limit
00:33:16.580
you gave me to feed my family, my animals to use the remainder as seed for the next season.
00:33:22.400
The Supreme court in this act of, uh, of Franklin D Roosevelt induced post court packing, uh, uh,
00:33:32.640
consolidation of power mentality. The Supreme court said, ah, but by growing that wheat and using it
00:33:39.340
on your farm, you still affected interstate commerce because you would have otherwise had to buy that on
00:33:44.520
the open market. And just like butterflies flapping their wings in the Amazon have an effect on wind
00:33:50.280
currents in Florida. Uh, so too, your failure to buy that incremental wheat on the open market
00:33:57.480
is subject to Congress's control because it substantially affects interstate commerce.
00:34:02.800
What this shows is that since 1937, certainly since 1942, when that case was decided, but really since
00:34:09.400
1937, Congress can regulate basically anything as long as it can identify some impact on interstate
00:34:16.740
commerce. Throughout the whole world, the leading cause of death is abortion in the U S murder has
00:34:24.600
become a wholesale business since Roe versus Wade. We've killed over 63 million children, nearly 25% of
00:34:32.580
pregnant mothers don't choose life. There's a ministry out there. It's called pre-born and pre-born and
00:34:40.560
blaze media have partnered up to rescue 50,000 babies from abortion in 2022. And it's really easy to do.
00:34:48.240
They're the direct competitor to plan parenthood, the largest provider of free ultrasounds in the U S. So
00:34:54.500
they know when you let a woman see her baby or hear the heartbeat, she's 80% more likely to choose life for
00:35:03.280
her baby. I've talked to some of these remarkable mothers and their children. Uh, it is, this is the
00:35:10.780
best thing you can do really is when the mother chooses life, we all win. We all win. By the way,
00:35:19.360
they also, uh, provide maternity, baby clothes, diapers, car seats, counseling, all free of charge.
00:35:26.100
Pre-born has a passion and I know you do too. I want you to donate now use the keyword baby or go to
00:35:34.800
pre-born.com slash Glenn pre-born.com slash Glenn. So let me go here. This is a strange jump, but, um,
00:35:45.240
the Supreme court just a few days ago, um, sided with Biden on the, right. Did I write it?
00:35:56.100
Put it down the, yeah. Um, the, the social cost of carbon, um, because of wildfires, sea rise,
00:36:07.080
hurricanes, floods, um, they say there is a, there is a, uh, a real social cost to carbon. Uh, and so
00:36:17.560
they, it's going to allow them to regulate everything, everything Supreme court. It was stopped lower court
00:36:25.260
and the Supreme court just said, no, we agree with that. Yep. What does that mean? So I haven't read
00:36:30.300
this particular case yet. I assume it involves the EPA and it's, uh, authorities under the clean air,
00:36:35.380
all of it. Um, this is the natural outgrowth of the cases we just discussed because what happened,
00:36:42.340
and this was all a feature, not a bug to FDR. This was about consolidating power, not just to
00:36:48.940
Washington, but also to him personally, to the presidency directly, because once Congress had
00:36:56.720
this virtually unlimited power to legislate on any topic they wanted, as long as they could connect
00:37:01.940
it to interstate commerce, he knew as turned out to be the case that Congress couldn't handle all
00:37:07.560
the ins and outs of a painstaking line drawing that has to be done with legislation. So Congress would,
00:37:13.760
and ultimately did delegate these difficult decisions to executive branch agencies to the
00:37:19.460
point where we now pass laws that say in effect, we shall have good law in area X. And we hereby
00:37:25.140
delegate to department Y in the executive branch, the power to make interpret and enforce federal law.
00:37:31.760
I remember that's what happened in that case you're describing. I remember, um, reading Obamacare
00:37:38.200
and page after page after page says, uh, this will be defined and enforced by the, uh, secretary of,
00:37:48.760
of health and human services. I'm like, that's insane. Yeah. Yeah, it is. And as I recall,
00:37:55.840
it may have been, I think it was about a thousand times in the affordable care act when they had
00:38:00.640
delegated that out. Right. And it happens every day. And that's why in our government more and more,
00:38:06.800
it seems you can't pin anybody down. You can't blame anybody because you don't know who did that.
00:38:15.300
Right. You had some faceless bureaucrat. Right. And that's why in the case that you're describing,
00:38:21.700
and again, I haven't read this one, I assume it has something to do with the clean air act and EPA's
00:38:26.560
enforcement of the clean air act. But in effect, it's a slight oversimplification, but what Congress
00:38:31.020
has done is to say, we shall have clean air, something we all want. We hereby declare as Congress,
00:38:36.420
we shall have clean air. We hereby delegate to the EPA, the power to make and interpret and enforce
00:38:42.340
rules that are in effect laws that tell us what clean air is, what pollution is, what amounts to
00:38:48.980
a pollutant, what happens to polluters. And at that point, everything is in their power. Everything is
00:38:54.500
in their discretion. And then when people are harmed by this, if all of a sudden they adopt a radical
00:39:00.680
view of what a pollutant is, and they adopt some new definition, people come to members of Congress
00:39:07.720
and complain. Members of Congress, including some who may have voted for the law in question,
00:39:12.340
will beat their chest and say, yeah, it was barbarians at EPA. Do you know what I'm going
00:39:16.320
to do? I'm going to write them a harshly worded letter as if that were our job. But still, we continue
00:39:23.680
to delegate fundamentally legislative power. So that's why I explained in Saving Nine why this is
00:39:31.360
so much, it's about so much more than court packing. What they did the last time they tried
00:39:36.000
to pack the Supreme Court allowed FDR to consolidate power in Washington and more power within the
00:39:41.760
executive branch. So when I say, you know, I said to President Trump, you'll, you'll only have four
00:39:48.780
years. If you win, you'll have four years. You have to fire and shut down all of this,
00:39:57.520
all these administrators, you know? And he said, I can't do it. I can't do it without,
00:40:03.060
with a Congress or, I mean, a Senate run by Mitch McConnell and congressmen like I had last time.
00:40:09.700
He said, I need people on this, on the same track that will, because they have the, the power to fire
00:40:16.280
fire and close things down. But you talk like that and most Americans feel like you're a nut.
00:40:24.420
We have to have all of these administrators. Yes. They say we have to have the administrators
00:40:31.080
because they have confidence in those administrators expertise. You see, this is part of the progressive
00:40:37.180
vision. The progressive vision is we're going to leave governing and governance decisions to the
00:40:42.780
experts because we, the unwashed masses are incapable of such action. The problem is
00:40:48.860
their version of the law and of lawmaking is unconstitutional and we have to be prepared to
00:40:57.240
call it out as such. It is also antithetical to, I mean, one of the things that I loved about when we
00:41:05.960
were constructing the jury trial is how Thomas Jefferson, there was, you know, a debate, should
00:41:11.760
we get the experts to be the jurors? And Thomas Jefferson said, no, I'd rather have farmers than
00:41:17.820
scholars. There's something about a man who has his hand in the dirt all the time that roots him into
00:41:24.500
truth and common sense. And that's true. We had a, you know, I think it was, I think it was Jefferson
00:41:34.280
and then again, Churchill that said, you can always trust the American people to do the right thing
00:41:39.780
after they've done the wrong thing. They wake up and go, ah, we'll do the right thing. This new system
00:41:48.040
sees people outside of government as flawed and idiots, but anybody in these positions is genius.
00:42:00.440
Yes. And in effect, we've now replicated the very type of system that we despised when our national
00:42:09.080
government was based in London. It's consolidated, relatively limitless, run by people who are experts
00:42:15.920
detached from the people, relatively unaccountable to the people. And that's a problem.
00:42:21.820
When Venezuela packed the court, I think they have now 42 judges. What happens to countries that
00:42:33.980
Their courts become a rubber stamp, a rubber stamp for the political authorities in charge.
00:42:39.700
And Venezuela is not the only example of this. I mean, at the same time,
00:42:43.220
FDR was experimenting with court packing here. Uh, uh, other efforts, uh, one way or another to
00:42:51.720
give military figures or dictators control of their system of government, uh, in Italy and in Germany,
00:43:02.300
uh, Hitler and Mussolini were doing their own things to try to throw off the objectivity,
00:43:07.040
neutrality, and independence of their court system. So this is just what you do. If you regard
00:43:12.920
yourself as having a, uh, a mandate from, uh, from God, a mandate, uh, uh, from principles of
00:43:19.000
whatever, uh, ambitions you have, it's what you do. You consolidate power because you're right and
00:43:25.700
nobody else gets it. That's what you have to do. You can't have an independent, neutral judiciary
00:43:31.160
and be a tyrant. It doesn't work, which people would self-select right now. I think our problem is
00:43:40.100
especially the left, but there are those on the right too. I'm going to force everybody
00:43:47.940
to live my way and the way I want. I'm going to force the people in Texas to live the way that,
00:43:57.000
that California lives. Well, I don't live in California for a reason, right? You know,
00:44:02.700
it's got the greatest weather who wouldn't live in Colorado in, in California if you could, if it
00:44:08.840
wasn't insane. Right. And I don't mind Californians and San Francisco, do what you want. Poop in the
00:44:16.440
streets all you want. I'm not going to come and visit and I won't live there. You know what I mean?
00:44:20.600
But that was kind of the, the genius of this system that we're all little laboratories. It's like,
00:44:32.540
I didn't have a problem with Mitt Romney's stupid healthcare up in Boston. I mean, intellectually I
00:44:37.800
do, but I never spoke out against it for Massachusetts. You want to do that? Do that.
00:44:43.600
Right. Except now we're on the hook for people. Now, if you do a bad idea, the federal government's
00:44:51.120
going to come in and bail you out and I'm paying for that. Well, I could have had the sunshine
00:44:57.140
and the high taxes, you know, and just been part of California. If I, if I wanted it, I,
00:45:05.160
I wanted to live in a place that was sane and knew that this financially is going to be a wreck
00:45:10.020
at some point. That's right. None of this works unless you adhere to the central promise of the
00:45:15.880
constitution, which is to say, we're going to allow you to govern yourselves on most issues
00:45:20.940
locally. We will join together. We will have a unified government hitting with a closed fist
00:45:26.420
at a national level, only with respect to those areas that we're going to define as national,
00:45:31.080
which are narrow. Trademarks, copyrights, and patents, interstate and foreign trade,
00:45:36.680
military matters, granting letters of mark and reprisal, immigration laws,
00:45:40.020
bankruptcy laws. That's about it. Um, you talk a lot about the, the commerce clause,
00:45:46.300
but there's something else that you are working. Cause I've, I've been thinking we're seeing a lot
00:45:54.040
of things change in the Supreme court. I mean, I'm seeing the, the ninth circuit court of appeals
00:45:59.300
and I think I've slipped through a wormhole. When did they start making sense? After four years of
00:46:05.680
the Trump presidency, we got some really good nominees on that court. Uh, people like my friend,
00:46:10.960
Ryan Nelson on the ninth circuit from Idaho, um, uh, champions of Liberty who, uh, and people who
00:46:18.920
believe first and foremost in the constitution and in their oath to it, they believe that their job is
00:46:23.880
to interpret the law based on what it says rather than what it means. It's made a huge difference,
00:46:27.940
huge difference, huge difference. Um, but it's causing, uh, consternation with the left who has had the
00:46:40.920
courts their way for quite some time, uh, that will force everybody. And, and now they're saying
00:46:47.360
the courts have changed and they're saying, no, you don't have the right to, to do that. Can you explain
00:46:55.760
what a natural right is and how you don't have to believe in God for a right? Yeah.
00:47:05.980
We believe fundamentally that our, our, our rights exist. They exist in the abstract. I believe,
00:47:11.580
and I, and I believe you believe that our rights come from God, whether you believe in God or not,
00:47:17.300
there are certain rights that just exist because they are there because we exist. Those rights aren't
00:47:24.800
given to us. They're not, uh, uh, a generous bestowal by government. They just exist. And so
00:47:32.020
one of the things the constitution does is explain what inalienable means. Inalienable,
00:47:37.900
something that can't be taken away. Uh, in, in this context, when we speak of rights,
00:47:43.700
we should speak of rights in the sense that we're identifying things that the government can't do
00:47:48.400
to you, not things the government must provide to you. When we talk of those things as rights,
00:47:53.920
that's not it. It's not it. It's the things that nature's God or nature, right? Right. So if it's
00:48:02.500
happening in the animal kingdom, a bear can maul another animal or a animal that happens to be mad,
00:48:10.280
a man, maul them to death in their cave, because you walked in going, I want to pet the baby bear,
00:48:18.180
right? That's a natural right. Well, that's a natural law. If you walk in. Yeah. A natural law,
00:48:23.780
which gives us the natural right. Correct. Right. And you don't need God to tell you or any
00:48:29.920
politician. Everybody knows. Of course you walk into that and they're going to maul you to death.
00:48:35.220
And if the bear knew how to make a gun and use a gun, he would probably shot you. Right. And if
00:48:41.340
you've got a weapon and the means by which to defend yourself, you have a natural right to defend
00:48:46.080
yourself against a beast, against a machine, against other humans. Right. Okay. So that's what
00:48:51.940
natural rights are. Yep. Okay. So, um, now go back to what we were discussing on how, you know,
00:48:59.700
what a, how you know what a right is. For instance, everybody's saying Roe versus Wade. Um, I have a
00:49:07.760
right to an abortion and the Supreme court said that's not anywhere in the constitution. We can't
00:49:15.380
find that. Right. And if they can't find it, then it absolutely does belong to the state. Yeah. Right.
00:49:23.160
Yeah. But it doesn't make it a right. That's right. That's right. The fact that you like something,
00:49:27.640
the fact that you want it to be available to people or that you think it would be good policy
00:49:31.980
for a given thing to be available. That's not a right. That is a policy choice. They are different
00:49:39.640
things. Do you have a right to your own body? Yeah. I mean, the best description, the best summary
00:49:46.920
of natural law, um, derived from the writings of John Locke and others is in the declaration of
00:49:54.060
independence itself, inalienable rights, uh, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,
00:49:59.980
uh, elsewhere described in the due process clauses of the fifth and 14th amendments,
00:50:05.080
life, liberty, and property. Um, government can't take those things away from you without due process
00:50:12.540
of law. It can't interfere with those. And ultimately it is the job of the government to protect life,
00:50:18.560
liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. So those are our natural rights. They, they exist
00:50:27.600
because we exist. Now on the constitution, we have a number of rights that are spelled out
00:50:33.660
in the bill of rights that say things that the government can't do to us. Government can't tell
00:50:39.200
you when, whether, how, uh, or how not you're going to worship or believe. Can't tell you what to say
00:50:46.720
or not say. Can't take away your right to bear arms. Can't subject you to unreasonable searches
00:50:51.980
and seizures. Uh, uh, uh, uh, can't do those things without a warrant. Can't make you testify
00:50:57.940
against yourself. Right. Can't try you without a jury unless you request it. Exactly. So those are,
00:51:04.060
those are our rights that we've specifically protected in the constitution. And then the 14th,
00:51:10.460
those are all, uh, protections as against Congress, as against the federal government.
00:51:15.040
Um, so can states violate those? No. See, that's, that's, that's, that's where this gets
00:51:22.980
interesting. The 14th amendment comes along after the civil war and the 14th amendment also contains
00:51:29.940
a due process clause. Uh, you can't deprive someone of life, liberty, or property without due process of
00:51:36.080
law. It was later interpreted to mean that most of the substantive protections in the bill of rights
00:51:43.620
are incorporated by the 14th amendment and, and applied by the 14th amendment as operating against
00:51:51.400
the states. Meaning it's not just the federal government that can't mess with your freedom
00:51:56.000
of religion or your freedom of speech or of the press or your second member rights. It's
00:52:00.860
also the states. And so, but in examining those and examining how this works and how the states are
00:52:07.560
prohibited, the court will look to whether a particular right is deeply rooted in our nation's history and,
00:52:15.560
and traditional and whether they are essential to any scheme of ordered liberty. And so in going through,
00:52:24.840
uh, my, my former boss, Justice Alito, for whom I clerked twice, first when he was on the third circuit
00:52:29.880
and later when he was on the Supreme court, wonderful human being, a real role model and mentor to me,
00:52:35.880
did a masterful job of outlining all of this in his draft opinion that was leaked. And he explained,
00:52:41.600
you know, going back to 700 years of Anglo American legal jurisprudence, there's nothing in there that
00:52:49.100
identifies this as deeply rooted in our nation's history and tradition or essential to any scheme of
00:52:55.800
ordered liberty. It doesn't meet any of those characteristics, nor is it even uttered or hinted
00:53:03.020
at in any protection of the bill of rights or elsewhere in the constitution. All right. So I,
00:53:08.640
I look at this as two separate human rights. I believe the baby is a human. So those rights have
00:53:15.920
to be protected no matter what the mom wants to do. Okay. Um, and the left tries to make it about my body,
00:53:23.300
my choice, which doesn't seem to apply when it's a vaccine. My question is, do you have a right to
00:53:32.580
your body or can the government say you are putting this in your body? Because if they can say you have
00:53:40.420
to put it in your body, can't they say you absolutely, uh, have a right to take something
00:53:47.680
out of your body? Yeah. You have rights that in here in the, uh, protection of life, liberty,
00:53:54.960
and property. Those are liberty interests. It takes something into your body. You know that it,
00:53:59.880
whatever that thing is, if it's not supposed to be in there, it could kill you. That could take away
00:54:04.040
your life. Uh, if you just prefer not to have that thing in your body, it's a pretty substantial
00:54:10.000
invasion of your personal liberty and autonomy. And so the, the, the, the government's going to
00:54:16.600
have to make a pretty hefty showing as to why they need to be able to do that. So yeah.
00:54:20.440
Did they do that for COVID? Do you think? Uh, no. Yeah. I mean, particularly with the COVID vaccine
00:54:27.280
mandates is one of the gravest usurpations of power I've ever seen to look at the presidential,
00:54:34.740
uh, uh, abuses of power of this magnitude. We have to go back to 1952 to find a, uh, an analog
00:54:40.860
where Truman seized every steel mill in America to support the Korean war effort. But even that
00:54:46.180
doesn't even come close to how sweeping and dastardly this was by the way, uh, president Biden in
00:54:52.140
ordering, um, tens of millions of Americans to be vaccinated against their will. He swept aside
00:55:01.460
the vertical protection we call federalism that makes most government powers state rather than
00:55:06.840
federal. He swept aside the horizontal protection of separation of powers because he was exercising
00:55:11.480
effectively legislative authority, not executive power. He doesn't, he's not a legislator. Uh, and he
00:55:18.660
also violated, uh, substantive protections in the constitution, in the bill of rights, among others,
00:55:24.940
um, uh, freedom of religion. Many people have religious objections. He swept all those aside and said,
00:55:30.640
look, um, I just really want everyone to get this. All right. Cause he declared an emergency or
00:55:36.200
Donald Trump declared an emergency, right? Yeah. And so he could do that under emergency orders
00:55:42.460
the way he interpreted it. Or, or so he claimed. Yeah. Right. And the, and what he claimed was the,
00:55:50.000
the emergency temporary order, the most sweeping among those vaccine mandates was by OSHA.
00:55:55.180
OSHA's enabling statute gives OSHA the power to issue these temporary emergency orders. Uh, and it's
00:56:06.400
another example of bad lawmaking brought about by bad jurisprudence and enabled by the Supreme Court's
00:56:12.880
unwillingness to stand up to things like this. So Congress passes a law saying OSHA will have the
00:56:18.280
power to make good policy on safe workplaces. And then they run roughshod even over what scarce
00:56:26.920
limitations can be found in that. And the president directs OSHA and OSHA dutifully complies
00:56:32.900
by saying, look, if you're any company with more than 99 employees, you've got to fire everyone who
00:56:40.040
hasn't been vaccinated. And if you don't fire them, we're going to issue crippling fines, fines that
00:56:45.460
would cripple literally any company, not just in America, but in the world. We, we, we looked at
00:56:50.680
those and we had to make a decision as a business. Well, it's father's day. And trust me, if you're
00:56:56.600
going to get your dad's socks, all men want three things in socks, comfort, durability, and never
00:57:03.240
having to worry about any of that stuff again. It's kind of a life philosophy. This year's, uh, this
00:57:09.600
year, dad's got enough on his plate. Uh, he's got enough ties, flashlights. Why not get him
00:57:14.720
socks? And I don't mean ordinary socks. That's as bad as a flashlight or a tie. I mean, grip,
00:57:22.180
grip six socks. They're comfortable, they're durable. And best of all, they're made here
00:57:27.780
in America. These, this came as a surprise to me. They're all wool. I thought I knew what
00:57:34.140
a wool sock was like. And I would never have said this because they're, um, they are moisture
00:57:41.200
wicking. I think is what they call. I wear them all the time, but in the summer, I would
00:57:46.640
never think put on a wool sock. These are great. And they're knitted on special machines
00:57:51.100
that make them thinner than traditional wool socks. And they're made from a fine micron
00:57:56.940
wool, which means they don't itch. They're really comfortable lifetime guarantee grip six.
00:58:02.920
You can find them now. Just go to grip six.com slash back grip six.com slash back.
00:58:10.960
So let me go back to, you know, the one thing that Donald Trump told me, he said, uh, I knew
00:58:17.260
I would, you know, not be popular. I knew I'd have to fight. He said, but I didn't realize
00:58:22.740
I was going to fight for my life and my family's life every day from every side. Now, part of
00:58:29.980
that is, I mean, he likes confrontation, you know what I mean? Um, I think he lives on that,
00:58:36.980
that he thrives on that. Um, however, he had no idea about the deep state and this is all
00:58:44.580
the administrative arms and they don't care. They don't care who's elected president. And
00:58:52.360
I thought, how are we going to get past all of this? And I thought first commerce clause,
00:58:58.100
do we get, can we get a good case in front of the Supreme court, but the reigns act is the way
00:59:07.220
to do it. The reigns act is the way to do it. This is a legislative proposal. That's very simple.
00:59:12.700
It's purpose is elegant. Put lawmaking power back in the hands of elected representatives.
00:59:19.480
Because this is something in the constitution, the framers never,
00:59:23.220
they thought everybody would be so jealous of their power that no branch would give their power
00:59:30.500
up. Right. Right. They didn't foresee the day when the elected federal lawmaker would decide,
00:59:36.060
you know, what I really want to do is skate through, uh, an easy next election. And it's easier to get
00:59:44.300
reelected perpetually. If you're not the one actually making many laws because laws are controversial.
00:59:50.380
So we'll just make other lawmakers instead of making laws. They didn't foresee that that broke
00:59:56.540
the circuit that, that got rid of the circuit breaker on the Congress protecting its own power.
01:00:03.120
Because you don't, they're not using the power of the purse. Exactly. Which is the way to stop it
01:00:07.620
because we don't have a budget anymore. Right. Right. And then they're, they're not having to make
01:00:12.020
the laws. So what the hell are we even hiring these people for? It's an excellent question. And that's
01:00:17.080
why we need the reins act. The reins act would say, whenever these new executive branch regulations
01:00:22.100
come out that are just federal laws, they shouldn't be self-executing. They shouldn't take effect
01:00:28.200
unless or until both houses of Congress have affirmatively enacted them into law. But see,
01:00:33.540
all of these things, Glenn, the erosion of our bill of rights, the creation of other rights that are not
01:00:39.140
rights at all, resulting in the taking of innocent human life, the erosion of federalism and separation
01:00:46.640
of powers, our rights. They're all part of the same thing. They are all the outgrowth. They're all
01:00:50.900
the consequences that we're living with from FDR's desire to pack the Supreme Court in 1937.
01:00:56.920
That effort failed. And this is why I wrote Saving Nine. It's about so much more than court packing.
01:01:02.620
Wrote Saving Nine because all of this ties back to that. We're still living today
01:01:06.840
with what happened then when he tried to pack the court. He failed, but he succeeded in scaring
01:01:12.760
Owen Roberts, Justice Owen Roberts, enough to change the Constitution. Ever since then,
01:01:18.100
we've been living with it. Think of it this way. $31 trillion in debt. We have regulatory compliance
01:01:24.520
costs that cost the American economy, hardworking Americans, more than $2 trillion every year.
01:01:31.640
Everything you buy is more expensive because of those regs. Most Americans work for many weeks,
01:01:38.360
many cases, many months out of every year just to pay their federal taxes. It's about half the year.
01:01:43.700
About half the year. All of this is the result of FDR's failed court packing plan. Failed legislatively,
01:01:51.280
succeeded in every other way. So really, Obamacare is the same failure. The court stopping that.
01:01:57.880
Yes. Because John Roberts, we know, was afraid of tainting the court or having troubles or having
01:02:05.320
people lose faith in the court. That's right. That he rewrote it himself, which is not their job.
01:02:13.600
John Roberts, and I was raised to always refer to them by their title. I should say Chief Justice
01:02:19.480
Roberts. But in this instance, he was not acting as Chief Justice, even while claiming to be. He was
01:02:25.220
acting as John Roberts, the guy, because he took lawmaking power. He rewrote Obamacare, not once,
01:02:32.220
but twice in order to save it from two independently fatal constitutional abnormalities that either of
01:02:39.740
which should have sunk it. This is the same legacy that really is the consequence of the first
01:02:49.140
Robert Roberts. Exactly. Exactly. It's the same legacy. They're more concerned about preserving
01:02:54.720
what they view as the court's institutional reputation. The problem is, is nothing has a
01:03:02.380
reputation anymore because no one stands for anything. Mike, and you know what's so crazy is
01:03:09.520
you're seeing this. You see this in, in your own race. You are the most rational, reasonable guy I
01:03:19.760
know. It's so easy to predict what you're going to be for and what you're going to be against
01:03:25.660
because politics doesn't play a role with you. Not that I've seen. It doesn't play a role with you.
01:03:31.000
You know, oh, this one's going to cost me. You know what I mean? But you stick to the constitution.
01:03:37.160
That's why I think you have a decent reputation. Nobody else seems to be doing that. And, and you are
01:03:47.260
under attack in Salt Lake, like crazy from, from a media that is owned by the church, both of us go to.
01:04:01.480
And they're calling you a radical. And I don't know how, Mike, I have no offense. You've never been
01:04:11.840
a radical. You, at what was it? Nine. You said to your dad, wait a minute, that should be a
01:04:19.140
legislation. That's not a radical. No, I don't think that's radical to, to try to support that
01:04:27.380
document. And those set of rules that have protected the American people for nearly two
01:04:33.220
and a half centuries. It's, it's not radical, but yeah, in many places, look, our, our, our media
01:04:39.100
establishment in this country is run by the left in Utah. It's particularly acute because we're a
01:04:43.920
pretty conservative state. We're a state inhabited by, uh, between three and three and a half million
01:04:48.380
people who love and revere this country and the constitution. And yet with the exception of, um,
01:04:54.960
uh, uh, two radio talk show hosts, uh, uh, my friend Boyd Matheson and, and, and our, our mutual
01:05:02.400
friend, Rod Arquette, two radio talk show hosts. Other than that, our entire media establishment in
01:05:07.600
Utah leans solidly to the left. Yeah. Not liberal broadcast television, radio, the whole bit, not just
01:05:13.760
liberal, but solidly progressive. Right. And, uh, that's, uh, it makes things tough. That's why I'm
01:05:20.720
glad you exist. I'm glad there are a handful of people nationally who can still amplify the truth
01:05:27.620
and are still willing to stand up for the constitution, even when, especially when it's
01:05:31.480
difficult. I will tell you though, that, I mean, we need to be able to count on somebody standing up
01:05:41.080
in media. And I don't know if it's, you know, you just, uh, keep going to the barrel for the new
01:05:46.860
apples, the new journalists. That's too late. I, I, I'm working right now with some, um, people
01:05:54.340
just to, just to question, what are we doing? You know, we, we are the industry, the entertainment
01:06:05.540
industry keeps getting either the people who couldn't make it or had the spine to stand up.
01:06:13.900
And that's few and far between, uh, or the people who are really accomplished that don't have anything
01:06:19.740
to lose anymore. You know what I mean? We have to go to the tree and we have to start training those
01:06:26.380
people. And I hear from people in the media all the time, Glenn, you got to hire the journalist.
01:06:31.400
Why? Why? If you know, it's poison, why? There are other people who can speak truth. There are
01:06:42.400
other people who know how to write, who don't come from that tree. And it's one of the advantages of
01:06:48.200
these innovations in technology that we've seen in recent years. Uh, there are now other ways of
01:06:53.820
disseminating truth that don't necessarily require a printing press that don't necessarily require all
01:07:00.240
the things that you used to have in order to speak truth to masses. But it's one of the reasons why
01:07:05.020
you've seen efforts by, uh, Google and Facebook and, and Twitter and other entities to, um, sort of
01:07:12.660
snuff out, uh, uh, take out the oxygen, uh, from those entities. But it's also why I'm so disappointed in
01:07:20.700
organizations like the Deseret News, you know, better a, your owners at least know better. Uh, and, uh,
01:07:29.240
why aren't you going to the tree? Right, right. And a lot of people don't question them because if
01:07:36.420
they believe in their owner's ability to discern truth, they'll assume that that discernment
01:07:43.480
transfers to the owned entity, which it does not. Um, okay. Um, let's just go over a couple of things
01:07:52.760
here before we wrap it up. The, what's coming this summer? First of all, we will see a decision
01:08:00.560
by the Supreme court in the Dobbs case, an abortion ruling between now and the end of June. I personally
01:08:06.720
wish, uh, that the court had issued its ruling immediately. I, I, I don't think the sun should
01:08:12.700
have gone down the next day before they issued at least a per curiam unsigned order saying,
01:08:18.040
here's the result. Rose overturned full opinions to follow later. Your guess, uh, my guess is June
01:08:23.560
30th because decisions like these tend to be drawn out until the last weekday in the month of June,
01:08:29.980
the court adjourns, uh, that way they can get out of town that way they can get out of town. But
01:08:34.780
they're really controversial ones are always drawn out because the way the court works,
01:08:39.100
you know, you don't issue an opinion until every justice is comfortable signing on to whatever
01:08:44.060
opinion he or she will sign on to at the end of the day. Your gut tells you which direction five
01:08:50.060
to four, possibly six to three in support of justice Alito's opinion, six to three chief justice
01:08:55.600
Roberts could end up joining it. I hope that he will. I think that he certainly should justice
01:09:01.320
Alito's opinion is correct. Well, I hope that I can get together a flying monkey army like the
01:09:08.540
witch did in wizard of Oz, but that doesn't mean it's going to happen. It could happen. You look at
01:09:12.940
the questions that chief justice Roberts asked at oral argument on December 1st of last year in the
01:09:17.380
Dobbs case, they indicate along with other things we've seen from him, he does know the difference
01:09:22.900
between legitimate constitutional analysis and made up policy agenda, uh, uh, uh, material that was
01:09:31.440
sort of passed off as constitutional jurisprudence. Okay. So they issue it. Are we going to find out,
01:09:36.640
are they going to punish the person that leaked? Cause I, I believe, and I think you believe
01:09:41.000
absolutely they know by now they have to know. I think they know. I, I think they haven't told us
01:09:47.180
yet in part because they don't want to, uh, shine too much of a spotlight. Do you think they've even
01:09:54.140
told anybody in, in the inside with the trust? I heard justice Thomas the other day, he said,
01:09:59.680
we're forever changed because we don't have trust now. Oh yeah. Look, this is, this is going to have
01:10:05.400
lasting consequences, uh, and not pleasant ones. There's always an air of trust. When I clerked at
01:10:11.860
the Supreme court, there was an air of trust between the justices with the law clerks, free flow of
01:10:17.060
information and exchange of ideas. It was good. It was a good thing. Not everyone always agreed,
01:10:22.180
but, but it got to better outcomes, better opinions that were sharper because of that dialogue. This will
01:10:29.000
be harmed by that. The, uh, some of the other cases that are coming out, ones on guns, dramatic
01:10:36.240
case on guns, right? Right. It's bigger than the Heller case. I, I, I think it could end up being
01:10:43.080
as big as possibly bigger than the Heller case. Uh, at least in the sense that it, um, it has the
01:10:50.640
potential to be a case that if decided the way I think the court will decide it, will allow the Heller
01:10:57.740
case to finally have its full impact. In other words, in this case, that's pending in front of
01:11:02.600
the Supreme court, uh, state, uh, New York state rifle and pistol association versus Brune. Uh,
01:11:11.740
the state of New York tried to take the second amendment right to bear arms and limit it to those
01:11:18.620
people whom the state deemed sufficiently in need of government guns to justify it, giving the state
01:11:24.980
sweeping, subjective discretionary powers to decide, okay, Glenn, you may have a gun. Yeah. You,
01:11:31.540
you, people don't like you. And, uh, uh, so we can have a gun, but he might turn to Stu or,
01:11:37.540
or Pat, the same state official in New York and say, no, you don't really need it that much. You're not
01:11:43.400
as well known. Uh, just, um, you know, be careful and, uh, try to wear a helmet when you're outside.
01:11:49.300
Mm-hmm. That's the kind of sweeping power they gave him. Now I, along with a number of my colleagues
01:11:54.760
submitted a friend of the court or amicus curiae brief, uh, written by a fantastic lawyer named
01:11:59.340
Gene share, a mentor of mine, making the case that the second amendment doesn't give that discretion
01:12:06.580
to a state. In fact, the whole point of the second amendment was to make a deal. So the second amendment
01:12:14.980
as incorporated against the states by the 14th amendment says that that negotiation, that, um,
01:12:21.800
balancing of interest has already been struck. The founding fathers knew when they wrote this,
01:12:27.280
when they wrote the second amendment and when they ratified the 14th amendment, a long time later,
01:12:30.820
they knew that there are safety interests, that this is a balancing of interests that yes, some bad
01:12:37.400
things will happen if we let people have guns, but that on balance, it's better if you let them have
01:12:42.800
guns. I think the court is going to amplify these sentiments. It's going to embrace them and it's
01:12:48.720
going to ultimately empower the Heller decision. Um, when you look at, um, the state of the world,
01:12:58.700
the power of the public private partnership. Now that we're in ESG, um, the federal reserve, the idea of
01:13:12.040
a fed coin, all of these things that are really truly at our doorstep, people who aren't paying
01:13:20.240
attention, think that it's, oh yeah, well that's, no, it's here. Um, and, um, if God forbid, we go into
01:13:31.660
an emergency on food, energy, or war, which all are at least maybe not likely, but very well could happen. Um,
01:13:45.520
how do, how do, how do we brace for this, Mike? How do we, in, how do we get past an emergency
01:13:53.480
like this intact? Well, first of all, we have to remember the risks of emergencies. My wife has two
01:14:01.900
fundamental tenets that, uh, I believe in my wife, Sharon's very wise. Um, all socialism starts out as
01:14:08.960
emergency socialism and socialism is never for the socialist. We have to be aware of these grave risks
01:14:14.980
that we face if we run headlong into that. Next, we have to remember that sometimes the only thing
01:14:20.300
standing between us and the dangers associated with the excessive accumulation of power in the
01:14:26.420
hands of the few and all the things you just described, these emergency sweeping actions
01:14:31.300
in response to this or that crisis, they all have that in common. The best bulwark we have against that
01:14:38.460
is sometimes the courts, the Supreme Court in particular. And in order to exercise those
01:14:45.980
powers, to be that control rod that steps in and says, no, we're not going to let this proceed because
01:14:49.840
this violates about 10 different features of our constitution. You've got to have an independent
01:14:54.820
federal judiciary. This is not merely an academic exercise. This is one of the reasons why we've been
01:14:59.820
the biggest economic powerhouse the world has ever known. It's also have an independent court system.
01:15:04.420
Right. And it's also why our constitution, the average length of a constitution for any country
01:15:09.940
is 17 years. Right. Right. Not ours. 235 years. Yeah. And, and it's worked. It's, and regardless of
01:15:19.380
whether you, you believe like I do, that it was written by wise men raised up by God to that very
01:15:23.420
purpose, it works. So, but in order for it to continue working, we have to have an independent federal
01:15:29.520
judiciary, the court packing plan that the left is pushing president Biden, many of my democratic
01:15:37.540
colleagues in the Senate, most of them in fact, and their counterparts in the house. It is there to
01:15:42.860
destroy that and to consolidate power. We can't let that happen. Even if it fails legislatively this
01:15:49.240
time, as it did with FDR in 1937, it will leave another lasting mark. One that could saddle us with
01:15:55.780
something else horrible, just as it did last time when FDR tried this. And that's why I wrote saving
01:16:00.600
nine. But always we have to keep in the front of our minds that we shouldn't trust government.
01:16:07.800
Government is not a deity. It doesn't have eyes with which to see you, arms with which to embrace
01:16:12.360
you or a heart to love you. Government is just power. It's just force and it's got to be controlled.
01:16:18.620
That's why these separation of powers, that's why these, all these protections in the constitution
01:16:23.260
matter. And they're not just academic. Mike Lee. Thank you. Thank you.
01:16:33.100
Just a reminder, I'd love you to rate and subscribe to the podcast and pass this on to a friend so it