Misleading and Evasive

Blanche and Trump last week, all in our new Main Justice episode

Hi folks:

Last week, all eyes were on Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s confirmation hearing to lead the Justice Department. Mary and I begin with our takeaways: from Blanche’s “evasive, hyper-technical non-responses” to why his close relationship with Donald Trump led to a moment where Blanche referred to himself as currently “his lawyer” before quickly correcting himself to put it in the past tense — a Freudian slip if ever there was one.

We then turn to Trump’s Thursday night address, where he claimed that U.S. elections have been compromised for years. Separating fact from fiction, we look at what Trump’s undermining of public confidence could well portend for the upcoming midterms. His speech in our estimation is not just about his being able to say the midterms were rigged; it could be much more insidious.

Mary and I then highlight reporting from The New York Times indicating a slew of cases brought by ICE against protesters and immigrants are falling apart in court and even before. (A link to that NYT reporting is HERE.) We discuss how we see this phenomenon, and relate it to two updates: (1) a new civil lawsuit by former Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, who is alleging the government and private parties are conspiring to suppress criticism of Israel from pro-Palestinian demonstrators and (2) a speech by Secretary of State Rubio vilifying so-called leftwing advocates with truly dangerous implications for the First Amendment rights of us all.

Finally, to see the collapse in court of many of the administration’s efforts, a new report from Just Security, appropriately entitled “Zero Evidence,” is well worth a read. It can be found HERE.

Thanks for listening and thank you for supporting my new book, Liar’s Kingdom, which I was so reminded of when listening to Blanche and Trump this week. The book addresses how we can regulate false speech by candidates and politicians, as other countries do, so we don’t have to put up with what we are experiencing daily here in the United States. If you want to pick up a copy you can do so HERE. Thank you to everyone who has made the book a #1 bestseller on the NYT list, Amazon list, and Publisher’s Weekly list. I am so very grateful.