Audacious Provocation Featuring Guy-Uriel Charles and Rick Roberts

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Welcome. I'm Eric Fleming, host of A Moment with Eric Fleming, the podcast of our time.

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The following program is hosted by the NVG Podcast Network.

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Hello. Welcome to another moment with Eric Fleming. I am your host, Eric Fleming.

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And so today's episode is going to be called Audacious Provocation,

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and you will understand why as we dive into the interviews.

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I have Guillermo Charles, who is a Harvard Law School professor.

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He is the co-author, co-editor of America Unfinished, along with Alexandra Notapoff.

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And so you've heard from Alexandra earlier, and now I guess we're kind of closing

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out the America Unfinished series of interviews with Professor Charles as he comes on.

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And again, I'm really, really honored that we were able to make that happen.

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Shout out to Lyssa for making that happen.

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And, you know, hopefully we can get a lot of those people back on the podcast

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to talk about different issues.

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Then we're going to have a friend of the podcast, Rick Roberts,

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come back. Rick is an economics professor at Monmouth University.

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He worked for the Federal Reserve for a long, long time.

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And the students are really blessed to have somebody like him teaching.

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And we are blessed to have somebody like him come on the podcast repeatedly,

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to explain all this economic jargon that's out there.

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You know, he makes it plain. And so I hope this interview continues that tradition

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in making things plain, especially as we're leading up to the elections.

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So I just want to also give a shout out to Leonard Young.

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Mr. Young is over the MBG Podcast Network, which a moment Eric Fleming is a part of.

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And he let us know that there's going to be some upgrades and changes.

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If you follow them on social media, you're seeing the rollout now.

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And, you know, I'm honored, you know, that our podcast is part of that new rollout.

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And just really, really privileged to be a part of that network.

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And so just want to make that mention.

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Www.momenteric.com. That's the website for the podcast.

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You can use that to support the podcast financially.

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You can use that as a reference point. You can use that if you want to be a guest.

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It's a very, very versatile website, but you'll learn a little bit about me and.

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And, you know, you can find episodes and, you know, check and see who's been

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on the show, all that kind of stuff. It's really, really cool.

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So please, please, please take advantage of that resource if you want to dive

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into more about what A Moment with Eric Fleming is all about.

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All right. Now that I've done all that, it's time to go ahead and kick this episode off.

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And as always, we kick it off with a moment of news with Grace G.

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Thanks, Eric. Death Row inmate Krista Pike is critically ill after surviving

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two botched lethal injection attempts in Tennessee.

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New Jersey Lieutenant Governor Dale Caldwell resigned following an ethics investigation

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into sexual misconduct allegations.

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The family of Renee Good sued the Trump administration after an ICE agent fatally

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shot her earlier this year during a Minneapolis immigration protest.

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New York Governor Kathy Hochul appointed State Attorney General Letitia James

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as special prosecutor to investigate the alleged 2024 gang rape of a Cornell University student.

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The U.S. Justice Department will not reopen a criminal probe into former Federal

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Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

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President Trump rejected an Iranian proposal to end regional fighting and reopen

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the Strait of Hormuz within seven days.

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Passengers aboard a Fly Dubai flight safely reached Israel after customers and

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crews overpowered a radicalized co-pilot who stabbed the captain in an attempt to crash the plane.

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The Senate passed the bipartisan Protect College Sports Act to establish national

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regulations for athlete compensation, transfers, and antitrust protections.

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Former Dallas police officer Amber Geiger was granted parole after serving seven

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years of her 10-year sentence for the 2018 murder of her neighbor, Botham Jean.

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Former Florida Deputy Eddie Duran was acquitted in the 2024 fatal shooting of

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U.S. Air Force Airman Roger Fortson.

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The Supreme Court temporarily reinstated a Trump administration policy,

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allowing rapid deportations of migrants to third countries, pending formal arguments in December.

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President Trump seeks to unilaterally withhold more than $800 million in Congress-approved

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spending on immigration, race, and education programs.

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A severe nor'easter killed one person while causing widespread coastal flooding

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and over 100,000 power outages across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic.

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And Pennsylvania's measles outbreak grew to 977 cases.

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I am Grace Gee, And this has been a Moment of News.

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Thank you, Grace, for that moment of news. Now it is time for my guest, Guy Uriel Charles.

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Guy Uriel Charles is the Charles J. Ogletree Jr. Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.

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He also directs the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice.

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He writes about how law mediates political power and how law addresses racial subordination.

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He is the co-editor with Alexandra Nadapoff of the book America Unfinished,

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250 Years of Law and Governance, an essay collection from Harvard Law School faculty.

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Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest

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on this podcast, Guillermo Charles.

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All right. Gheiriel Charles. How are you doing, Professor? Are you doing good?

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I'm doing well. Thank you so much for having me, Mr. Fleming.

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Well, I am honored to have you.

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And this has kind of worked out as a bookend, because I had Alexander Natapoff

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on to kind of kick off, and I've had the privilege of interviewing some other

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contributors to America Unfinished.

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So now, since you were the co-editor, we'll close it out with you,

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and it just worked out that way normally how i start off the interviews is that

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i i issue a quote for the guest to respond to,

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and the first well i do two icebreakers so the quote is first and the quote

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is once people have that sense that their voice is being recognized then,

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they then are more willing to move to consensus.

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Once people feel that their ideas are respected, I think that you will find

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a move toward cooperation.

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People are much more conciliatory once they feel they've been respected.

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That's the threshold we need to get to, the idea of respecting different viewpoints.

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Hmm. So he's like for me to react to that quote. Yeah.

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Sure. I mean, I think there's a lot to be said in that quote.

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I mean, in many respects that you could kind of think about,

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that's what democracy is really about.

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Democracy is about the fact that you have people with different views,

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and then they're trying to figure out how is it that people who are very different

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from each other, no matter,

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where it is that they're coming from, they just have different views about.

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How to go about the world, what the meaning of the good is, and how to get there.

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And the first step that is really important is that people have voice,

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meaning that they get to express their ideas and their understanding.

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And if they don't have that voice, if they don't feel like they're being,

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that they have an opportunity to be heard and that they in fact are being heard,

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then they will be unwilling to cooperate.

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So it will basically be okay fine if you're not going to listen to me i'm not

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going to listen to you and then now we basically have a fight

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over who is strongest because some some way somebody has to have their way some

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faction has to have their way some group has to have their way and then it just becomes

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a determination of who is strongest and who can use whatever conception of force can come into play.

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So I think that quote says a lot about what it means to be in a civilized society.

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And the first step of that is people need to be heard.

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And then you have a chance at getting their cooperation and you have a chance

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at maybe even getting compromise.

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But you don't you don't get it without the opportunity to be heard.

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And in fact, feeling that and understanding that your voice matters and that it counts. Yeah.

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Usually I try to find a quote from the guest, but that quote was from Lonnie

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Guineer. And I thought that was very, very appropriate based on what you were talking about.

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In your essay. So, Mal, the next icebreaker is what I call 20 questions.

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So, I need you to give me a number between 1 and 20. Mm-hmm. All right. Eight. Okay.

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What is one thing you hope the current administration will do or not do during

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the remainder of their turn?

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Well, the not do is pretty easy.

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The not do especially with the midterms coming up,

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or the version of the not do is similar with the will do will do is respect

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the results of the election the not do is not interfere with a free and fair election okay,

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so i've heard alexandra's side of the story so now i want you to tell me your

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version of the origin story for america unfinished.

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Sure the the book came I'm a bad because first, and that up off,

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walked into my office one day and then said, Hey, I have an idea and then express what the idea was.

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Maybe we've been colleagues and friends for a very long time.

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And quite frankly, even before she, you know, said, you know,

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kind of like, I have an idea. It's a little bit crazy.

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You know, I was like, ah, it doesn't matter. I'm in.

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And then she articulated what the view was. Look, this is an important moment.

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We talk a lot about academic freedom. We talk a lot about with our students

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what this moment means and how to respond to it.

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And the thought was, look, we should do something together as a faculty that meets the moment.

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So the moment, you know, it can be is really in the eye of the beholder.

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So, yes, it is the 250th anniversary.

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But yes, also, it is a question about what does rule of law mean today?

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Yes, it is the role of the Supreme Court in the sense that the court and its

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rulings for some people have gone beyond the pale.

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Well, yes, it is about executive power. Yes, it is about the role of the United States and the world.

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Yes, it is about the end of the Voting Rights Act.

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And in some ways, the end of the civil rights framework and what it means to

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be a person of color, a black person in the United States of America in 2026, right?

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So it all depends on what you mean by the moment.

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And wherever it is that you're coming from, person of color or not,

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liberal or conservative.

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You're concerned about the court, lawyer or not, average citizen who's kind

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of worried that the people in power are not listening to you.

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So for a lot of people, whatever the moment means, a lot of different things,

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depending upon what their vantage point is.

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But it's clear that for many people, for a lot of people, there is a question about the moment.

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There is a question about a crossroad and how do we think about that crossroad.

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And particularly for those of us who are lawyers and law professors,

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the role of law and rule of law, the role of law and legal governance,

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the role of law and the American constitutional system.

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And so it did seem to be fitting to bring the faculty together and to think

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about what we, especially we as Harvard Law faculty, have to contribute to,

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whatever one's interpretation is of the moment. Yeah.

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Why is the concept of one people the most audacious provocation of America?

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So think about the difficulty of carrying out any enterprise,

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right? Whatever it is that you want to do, all right?

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And the idea of doing it as a collective action, so within a family,

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choosing a restaurant, right?

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All right. Sometimes those mundane tasks sort of reveal the difficulty of collective

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action because everybody has a different view.

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Everybody has different preferences and we're all wedded to those preferences.

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Right. And then we can escalate the task to greater levels of difficulty.

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So restaurant to vacation to moving. All right. Right.

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Assuming that the whole family has a choice and a say, and then go beyond the

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family to a workplace, go beyond a workplace to local governance,

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go beyond that to a house of worship.

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So making a set of collective choices in whatever unit, whether small,

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medium, or extremely large, is extremely difficult. Okay.

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Now imagine doing whatever the collective choice is with a bunch of people.

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So it's not just the family. It's not your family.

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It's now you bringing in some other families from the neighborhood.

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Okay, well, imagine not just some families from the neighborhood,

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but some families from the city, right?

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Or even broader than that. The point is the task of doing something collectively

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is really, really hard, even with people who agree with one another.

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But now think about doing a really hard thing with people who are very different

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from each other and who have different views about how to do that hard thing.

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And that hard thing that we're talking about is self-governance or democracy.

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Which in many ways is a relatively new human invention, because for a lot of

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human history, we've been ruled in large part by whatever force.

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So the force of the king, the force of the of the religious leader or whatever

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force, but not this idea of we are going to mutually submit to one another

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to decide where we want to go

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and that everybody gets something resembling an equal say.

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So that idea, that first step is a really difficult one.

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And then the next step is, oh, we're going to treat our differences as if they don't matter.

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Even though we are really different from one another, we're going to collectively

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think of ourselves as one people.

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And even 250 years later, we saw the Vice President of the United States talking

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about heritage Americans.

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And the real question is, who is an American? Even 250 years later.

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Some people want to debate this idea that, well, in order to be a true American,

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you have to have a certain look, a certain history, a certain way of speaking.

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So from the point of the essay is to note that from the very beginning,

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you had differences in America, and basically people regarded those differences

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as immaterial, and that we're going to treat

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those differences as if they didn't matter, that we are one people.

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And this idea you could build out of many, one, for the task of self-governance

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is, if you really think about it is not just a provocative in terms of like,

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are we really going to do this?

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Right. Are we really going to allow other people or if we're going to define

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other people to have a say in our destiny?

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So are you going to give a vote to your neighbor as to how you run your family?

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Right. That just is a crazy idea. And the idea that, oh, we're going to treat

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differences as that they don't matter, that we truly really are one people and that we're going to.

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Do this exercise in self-governance together, right?

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That's a provocative concept because for a lot

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of human history, we've really divided ourselves, not just into our tribes, into our clans,

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but in narrowly as much as possible, as opposed to the American idea of taking difference

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and saying those differences are not going to matter.

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We're going to treat those differences as if they're irrelevant and really say

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that we're one people who are going to mutually submit to one another for the

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purpose of self-governance.

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That, in many respects, is radical and crazy.

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But that's the American experiment. Yeah, that's what they wrote down, right?

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That's the declaration. And I was teasing Professor Natapoff about how come

00:21:24.576 --> 00:21:28.866
the focus, her focus is on the Gettysburg Address and not the preamble to the Constitution.

00:21:29.255 --> 00:21:32.843
So, of course, it was refreshing to me to see you refer to the preamble,

00:21:33.203 --> 00:21:38.488
because I think that that is as much of a guide, but, and you refer to it as

00:21:38.488 --> 00:21:40.714
a credo document, and I totally agree with that.

00:21:41.224 --> 00:21:43.371
But like you said, they wrote that down.

00:21:44.033 --> 00:21:50.791
That's the objective. So, yeah, it may be a crazy idea, but that was the goal that you set.

00:21:51.204 --> 00:21:53.537
And that leads me to my next question.

00:21:54.031 --> 00:21:59.035
Why should we not limit our evaluation of the American project by its deficiencies?

00:21:59.802 --> 00:22:05.380
Well, I mean, I think we should recognize the deficiencies of the American project.

00:22:05.633 --> 00:22:11.483
There's no doubt about that. And it has had legendary defects.

00:22:12.145 --> 00:22:18.356
And at the same time, we should recognize the successes of the American project.

00:22:18.909 --> 00:22:23.239
And at the same time, it has had legendary successes.

00:22:23.622 --> 00:22:29.664
Right. So you take a fledgling a group of people, 250 years later.

00:22:31.218 --> 00:22:38.513
They declare 250 plus years ago that they're breaking away from an eminent power.

00:22:38.513 --> 00:22:45.033
250 years later, and much less than that, they become and they are recognized

00:22:45.329 --> 00:22:48.181
as the superpower in the world.

00:22:48.552 --> 00:22:54.167
Within that, they have brought together people from all parts of the world, right?

00:22:54.359 --> 00:22:57.720
Some who are obviously imported against their will.

00:22:58.004 --> 00:23:04.398
Undoubtedly, without a doubt, that has been a long problem and a key deficiency

00:23:04.838 --> 00:23:06.746
in the American enterprise, right?

00:23:07.342 --> 00:23:13.800
While at the same time, those people who were formerly enslaved have gone on

00:23:13.800 --> 00:23:20.940
to play critical roles in all aspects of the American experiment, right?

00:23:20.940 --> 00:23:27.376
From running the country to being governors and senators, but also to being

00:23:27.584 --> 00:23:32.345
leading people in legal institutions and economic institutions and,

00:23:32.940 --> 00:23:37.533
tech institutions, to being the core of the federal workforce,

00:23:37.771 --> 00:23:43.660
to being the core of the state government, to also being individuals,

00:23:44.280 --> 00:23:49.870
who in various aspects make the country work, not to mention the role that they

00:23:49.870 --> 00:23:55.029
play in setting American culture, not to mention the role that they play.

00:23:56.360 --> 00:23:57.929
In American entertainment.

00:23:58.173 --> 00:24:04.370
So there are various aspects of a people who were once regarded as second-class

00:24:04.370 --> 00:24:08.866
citizens being a core fabric of the American experiment.

00:24:09.074 --> 00:24:14.206
So we must recognize both the deficiencies. We have to be honest about that.

00:24:14.409 --> 00:24:16.929
But we also have to be honest about its successes.

00:24:17.190 --> 00:24:23.750
And both enable us to determine how far we have to go and in what direction

00:24:23.750 --> 00:24:25.865
we need to keep pressing. Yeah.

00:24:26.714 --> 00:24:32.083
You make the argument that mutual and collective flourishing is the metric for

00:24:32.083 --> 00:24:35.123
assessing national and constitutional success.

00:24:35.576 --> 00:24:40.022
My question is, can that truly be achieved in a capitalistic society?

00:24:41.897 --> 00:24:45.993
Well, sure. I mean, I think it can be achieved in a capitalist society and in

00:24:45.993 --> 00:24:50.616
other societies. That is the question we have to ask ourselves. And this is a point.

00:24:50.854 --> 00:24:57.490
And I'm making a provocative point. I'm making both a normative point and descriptive one.

00:24:57.855 --> 00:25:04.533
That is, we ought to understand the success of the American enterprise from

00:25:04.533 --> 00:25:08.964
the vantage point of how well does it work for everyone, right?

00:25:09.277 --> 00:25:14.571
We shouldn't understand it from the vantage point of how well does it work for some, okay?

00:25:15.087 --> 00:25:20.863
And now, secondarily, we can also say, even within a capitalist society and

00:25:20.863 --> 00:25:23.653
system, that But overall,

00:25:24.273 --> 00:25:30.163
when you look at the various successes and even in some of the places in the U.S.

00:25:30.163 --> 00:25:37.136
That struggles the most, overall, we do better than many, many parts around the world.

00:25:38.378 --> 00:25:43.935
So the American experiment as a general matter has not only worked for Americans,

00:25:44.260 --> 00:25:49.973
but in some respects it has also worked for non-Americans and people overseas given the

00:25:50.373 --> 00:25:53.783
technology that has been developed here, the medicine that has been developed

00:25:53.783 --> 00:25:55.873
here, the various approaches,

00:25:57.033 --> 00:26:02.439
to governance that has also been developed here that has been exported and shared elsewhere.

00:26:02.905 --> 00:26:08.838
So now, that doesn't mean, for example, that we can't do better in terms of,

00:26:09.613 --> 00:26:15.223
leveling off the burdens that are disproportionately borne,

00:26:16.253 --> 00:26:21.473
by folks on the bottom end of the socioeconomic class ladder, right?

00:26:21.473 --> 00:26:25.713
So it is, should be a task.

00:26:25.713 --> 00:26:31.643
It is and ought to be the task of assuring that our sisters and brothers who

00:26:31.643 --> 00:26:38.253
are less well off, that we're providing a type of safety net and support network.

00:26:38.253 --> 00:26:42.643
And if you want to call that democratic socialism or you simply want to call

00:26:42.643 --> 00:26:49.606
that soft capitalism, whatever you want to call it, I think there's something to be said for it.

00:26:49.890 --> 00:26:55.153
But I think judging by the numbers, it's pretty clear that.

00:26:56.573 --> 00:27:02.733
From that aspect that capitalism has done some work, while at the same time

00:27:02.733 --> 00:27:05.965
it has its costs, and we have to be honest about that as well.

00:27:06.331 --> 00:27:14.243
But the basic idea is whatever our economic system is, we should assure that

00:27:14.243 --> 00:27:19.113
it works as well, that it works collectively, right? Right.

00:27:20.033 --> 00:27:25.693
And I think there's a lot to be said for dealing with the rough edges of our

00:27:25.693 --> 00:27:27.696
current economic system.

00:27:27.888 --> 00:27:36.113
You know, you're a sports fan, I am sure, even in what is supposed to be a cutthroat

00:27:36.113 --> 00:27:40.759
capitalist, supposedly meritocratic framework,

00:27:41.433 --> 00:27:43.333
there are soft edges.

00:27:43.333 --> 00:27:49.143
The rough parts are smoothed out, right? Meaning that there is a salary cap

00:27:49.143 --> 00:27:50.545
in a lot of sports leagues.

00:27:50.836 --> 00:27:56.310
There are various rules to assure. So in some sports leagues,

00:27:56.915 --> 00:28:01.079
The group that finishes at the bottom gets to draft first, right?

00:28:01.129 --> 00:28:04.909
That doesn't happen in every major sports league, but it happens in some.

00:28:04.909 --> 00:28:09.699
There are attempts to level the playing field because we also recognize that

00:28:09.699 --> 00:28:15.069
you can't have true competition if it's simply purely cutthroat, right?

00:28:15.809 --> 00:28:20.739
So even within a capitalist framework, one has to think about how do you smooth

00:28:20.739 --> 00:28:23.611
the edges? How do you level the playing field?

00:28:24.269 --> 00:28:28.149
And that still is that one version or another capitalist. But if you want to

00:28:28.149 --> 00:28:30.361
call it something else, perfectly happy with that.

00:28:30.980 --> 00:28:35.389
Yeah, it's like revenue sharing, a lot of things. That's why even though I'm

00:28:35.389 --> 00:28:37.209
a sports fan, you are correct on that.

00:28:37.209 --> 00:28:43.909
I am a big fan of baseball because you can look at a team like Pittsburgh and

00:28:43.909 --> 00:28:47.749
they have like the lower salary every year, average salary.

00:28:48.429 --> 00:28:52.579
And then they can show up one day and beat the Dodgers who are paying everybody

00:28:52.579 --> 00:28:53.849
a hundred million dollars. Right.

00:28:54.320 --> 00:28:58.459
So, you know, it's it's like you said, it's that possibility.

00:28:58.459 --> 00:28:59.985
And that's why I love that answer.

00:29:00.218 --> 00:29:03.129
I love the way that you initially responded to us. Of course we can.

00:29:03.129 --> 00:29:07.873
You know, because capitalism doesn't have to be cutthroat.

00:29:08.539 --> 00:29:11.959
I think, you know, there's certain elements of it. But I think when you're talking

00:29:11.959 --> 00:29:16.743
about uplifting a nation and the people in that nation.

00:29:18.053 --> 00:29:22.303
The wealthiest nation in the world should be able to make sure that all of its

00:29:22.303 --> 00:29:24.769
citizens are taken care of.

00:29:25.482 --> 00:29:29.183
That's correct. That's right. I mean, so, for example, in the U.S.

00:29:29.183 --> 00:29:34.294
Context, there's some things that we think of, say, universal health care or right to education.

00:29:34.683 --> 00:29:41.113
And we want to say that that is against either the capitalist system or the American ethos.

00:29:41.413 --> 00:29:44.281
And I think that those are things that are false.

00:29:44.582 --> 00:29:49.300
The right to universal health care or right to education are all compatible

00:29:49.584 --> 00:29:51.778
with a capitalist environment.

00:29:52.040 --> 00:29:58.243
And we do have and we see elements in our capitalist system.

00:29:58.243 --> 00:30:04.993
We have antitrust laws as one example. We see elements that enable fair competition,

00:30:05.573 --> 00:30:08.694
that allows for upward mobility.

00:30:08.984 --> 00:30:14.975
And so the idea that our definition of fairness or capitalism or meritocracy

00:30:15.213 --> 00:30:21.573
means only cutthroat, I think that is inconsistent with our history and our practices. Yeah.

00:30:22.473 --> 00:30:26.914
All right. So, you believe the race-based model of the Voting Rights Act has

00:30:26.914 --> 00:30:29.439
run its course. Why do you believe that?

00:30:30.289 --> 00:30:36.864
So, if you think about when the VRA was first enacted, let's say for two reasons.

00:30:36.864 --> 00:30:41.524
So, let me just outline the reasons for you. When the VRA was first enacted

00:30:41.524 --> 00:30:47.474
in 1965, the world, the United States looked very, very different.

00:30:47.880 --> 00:30:53.884
For the most part, you had a very dominant racial majority.

00:30:54.504 --> 00:31:00.716
White Americans were somewhere around 90, 88% of the population.

00:31:01.041 --> 00:31:07.914
Then you had a large racial minority, African Americans, and then the smaller

00:31:07.914 --> 00:31:09.794
groups of other racial minorities.

00:31:09.794 --> 00:31:17.103
And for the And for the most part, the problem of voting was of the majority

00:31:17.365 --> 00:31:19.134
doing everything that it can.

00:31:19.134 --> 00:31:23.284
This was specifically the history of the South, but not just of the South.

00:31:23.284 --> 00:31:29.648
Doing everything that it can to deny or deprive the minority of voice, right?

00:31:29.834 --> 00:31:31.895
So you can't even vote.

00:31:32.214 --> 00:31:36.266
And if we allow you to vote, we're going to dilute your vote.

00:31:36.626 --> 00:31:41.849
And make it as ineffective as possible. That was the history.

00:31:42.192 --> 00:31:46.499
And the government could not be trusted. You couldn't trust the Mississippi.

00:31:46.499 --> 00:31:50.574
You couldn't trust Alabama. You couldn't trust North or South Carolina,

00:31:50.888 --> 00:31:54.841
because as soon as you turned around, they were going to pass a new law.

00:31:55.774 --> 00:32:02.344
Specifically aimed at trying to either deny vote to Black people or dilute their

00:32:02.344 --> 00:32:04.853
votes if they couldn't outright deny it.

00:32:05.079 --> 00:32:11.250
So they would employ literacy tests to make it either harder for Black people to register to vote,

00:32:11.914 --> 00:32:18.604
by giving them a harder test or simply denying them the right altogether by

00:32:18.604 --> 00:32:22.323
saying, look, you didn't pass the test, whether you pass it or not.

00:32:22.572 --> 00:32:28.470
Or if you got a, if you went to court and you got a judgment against the registrar.

00:32:29.314 --> 00:32:34.594
Or the county board, they resigned en masse, and so you couldn't enforce the judgment.

00:32:34.809 --> 00:32:36.660
That was the story.

00:32:36.916 --> 00:32:41.310
And at the same time, you had a constitutional framework that understood

00:32:41.583 --> 00:32:46.123
racial discrimination as being the problem of the 20th century,

00:32:46.361 --> 00:32:51.979
if not the problem of the 19th century as well, leading into the 20th century.

00:32:52.221 --> 00:32:58.534
And the constitutional law at the second half of the 20th century, was,

00:32:59.003 --> 00:33:04.664
protective of the framework of the VRA in order to address the problem of racial

00:33:04.664 --> 00:33:08.944
discrimination, specifically against African Americans, not just African Americans,

00:33:08.944 --> 00:33:12.453
but as it turned out, of course, Native Americans as well,

00:33:12.737 --> 00:33:14.717
and Latinos as well. All right.

00:33:15.112 --> 00:33:17.907
Come into the 21st century, we have a very different country.

00:33:17.907 --> 00:33:25.897
We have a country that, you know, and depending upon how the demographics go, in 20, 25 years, well.

00:33:26.437 --> 00:33:31.867
Could be a majority-minority country, meaning that the majority of people in

00:33:31.867 --> 00:33:37.897
the United States in 25, 30, 40 years, again, depending on where the demographics

00:33:37.897 --> 00:33:40.790
go, are likely to be people of color.

00:33:41.040 --> 00:33:46.694
So you don't have an 89, 88, 90% white country.

00:33:46.988 --> 00:33:50.998
You have a bunch of racial minorities. So African-Americans,

00:33:51.289 --> 00:33:56.887
12, 13% of the population. Latinos are now the largest minority group.

00:33:56.887 --> 00:34:00.536
Asian-Americans are the largest growing minority group.

00:34:00.763 --> 00:34:06.037
So you have a very different country than you did before, whereas before the

00:34:06.037 --> 00:34:12.082
problem was the South in particular intending to discriminate on the basis of race.

00:34:12.431 --> 00:34:18.867
Now, you still have a voting problem, but it really is a bunch of groups competing

00:34:18.867 --> 00:34:23.297
for power and using the rules to,

00:34:24.337 --> 00:34:28.338
manipulate the rules in order to maximize their ability to hold on to power.

00:34:28.737 --> 00:34:34.317
But as importantly, you no longer have a constitutional framework and a constitutional.

00:34:35.977 --> 00:34:37.849
System that is responsible.

00:34:38.867 --> 00:34:44.427
Of racial discrimination that sees racial discrimination as a problem that then

00:34:44.427 --> 00:34:46.694
recognizes that we need to make,

00:34:47.547 --> 00:34:52.997
allowance for racial equality to give Congress the power to resolve the problem

00:34:52.997 --> 00:34:54.228
of racial discrimination.

00:34:54.544 --> 00:35:00.147
And so what some have viewed as the race-based exception to,

00:35:00.567 --> 00:35:03.807
if it was an exception, you could argue that it was an exception.

00:35:03.807 --> 00:35:07.467
It was simply an expression of racial equality, but whichever side of that that

00:35:07.467 --> 00:35:11.327
you're on, that framework is no longer there.

00:35:11.327 --> 00:35:14.267
You have a Supreme Court that doesn't believe that racial discrimination is

00:35:14.267 --> 00:35:19.765
a problem, has implemented a colorblindness view of the Constitution.

00:35:20.031 --> 00:35:25.216
So what that means is you can't have a Voting Rights Act that is race-based

00:35:25.464 --> 00:35:31.345
because the court has functionally outlawed that framework. So you need something else.

00:35:31.629 --> 00:35:35.279
And my project, which I started with the co-author, You know,

00:35:35.907 --> 00:35:40.027
I've been writing about this for 15 plus years. We've been seeing that this

00:35:40.027 --> 00:35:42.423
is that this is where the writing on the wall was going.

00:35:42.656 --> 00:35:45.047
And so say, hey, you need a different model.

00:35:45.372 --> 00:35:49.347
And now it's very clear that that's the writing is actually on the wall and

00:35:49.347 --> 00:35:51.547
that you, in fact, need a different model.

00:35:51.814 --> 00:35:57.647
And so you can't go back to the race-based framework, partly because it will

00:35:57.647 --> 00:36:03.547
be hard to define what voting discrimination is when you have a world.

00:36:04.907 --> 00:36:13.261
Of smaller racial minorities, but also because of where the constitutional jurisprudence is as well.

00:36:13.516 --> 00:36:15.513
Yeah, that's...

00:36:17.026 --> 00:36:21.106
I get where you're coming from with that. And, you know, one of my rules is

00:36:21.106 --> 00:36:26.009
that once you've been a guest, you got an automatic open invitation to come back.

00:36:26.496 --> 00:36:30.815
So that might be something we might need to come back to because I really,

00:36:31.487 --> 00:36:39.646
I really, I understand, but I'm a little concerned. But we'll deal with that later. I mean.

00:36:42.106 --> 00:36:45.546
If you want to talk about it now. No, no, no, no. We are limited time and I

00:36:45.546 --> 00:36:48.806
got a bunch of other questions, but I, but I, but I get what you,

00:36:48.806 --> 00:36:53.413
I get what you're saying. I get your argument and, and, and I'm not necessarily against it.

00:36:53.558 --> 00:36:56.316
I just, I want to flush that out a little more.

00:36:56.949 --> 00:36:59.160
At some point, I'm happy to. All right.

00:37:00.341 --> 00:37:05.060
What is proportional representation and how can it guard against racial discrimination?

00:37:05.748 --> 00:37:13.245
Sure. So, I mean, the simple way of thinking about it is when,

00:37:13.565 --> 00:37:17.664
let's say there are 10 of us in a room,

00:37:18.287 --> 00:37:23.174
okay, we're trying to decide how to divide a pie, the pie.

00:37:23.877 --> 00:37:30.575
And, you know, and one version of the world is, hey, let's cut the pie into 10 equal pieces.

00:37:31.655 --> 00:37:36.435
And everybody gets what we're decided as a fair share, proportional share.

00:37:36.435 --> 00:37:45.103
There are 10 of us, cut the pie into 10 equal pieces, and we all get, you know, 10%, right?

00:37:45.412 --> 00:37:51.660
Okay, the other idea is, hey, we're trying to divide the pie,

00:37:52.153 --> 00:37:59.881
and what I'm going to try to do is I'm going to try to get as much of the pie as possible.

00:38:01.345 --> 00:38:05.204
So if I can get 30% of it, I'm going to try to get 30% of it.

00:38:05.597 --> 00:38:08.825
If I can get 40% of it, I'm going to try to get 40% of it.

00:38:09.127 --> 00:38:18.455
That means that if I get 30%, I'm leaving 70% to be shared by the remaining 9 out of the 10 people.

00:38:19.436 --> 00:38:28.345
Okay, so our current system basically allows for groups to get more than their

00:38:28.345 --> 00:38:30.151
fair share of political power.

00:38:31.418 --> 00:38:36.748
If I can draw a district, a map, let's say I'm a political, I'm political party

00:38:36.748 --> 00:38:40.138
A and you're a political party B, you represent political party B.

00:38:40.138 --> 00:38:42.674
We have two political parties in our, in our jurisdiction.

00:38:42.982 --> 00:38:48.962
If I can draw the map to get me 60% of political power or 70% of political power,

00:38:49.338 --> 00:38:55.433
the current rules enable me to do so. The only thing that will stop me are the politics, right?

00:38:55.683 --> 00:39:00.938
Either the limits on if I draw them, if I do it too much, people are going to

00:39:00.938 --> 00:39:07.048
revolt or there might be a backlash because, you know, what if there's a political

00:39:07.048 --> 00:39:10.539
wave that comes and I cut the slice too thin?

00:39:10.875 --> 00:39:14.178
Okay, but there are no legal rules, right?

00:39:14.178 --> 00:39:20.848
So under the current framework, it's first past the post, single member district,

00:39:20.848 --> 00:39:27.133
which means that, hey, I could draw the map to maximize my political power and get more.

00:39:28.098 --> 00:39:31.348
Than I would be proportionally allowed to. All right.

00:39:31.824 --> 00:39:34.928
The idea of proportional representation is basically simple.

00:39:34.928 --> 00:39:41.408
You should get the amount of political power that represents the proportion

00:39:41.408 --> 00:39:49.668
of the ideas and preferences that you have in the district and the jurisdiction and the state, right?

00:39:49.668 --> 00:39:53.598
So if you're 10%, then you get 10%.

00:39:53.900 --> 00:39:59.868
If you're 30%, you get 30%. If you're 40%, right? So it's a different idea of

00:39:59.868 --> 00:40:06.928
fairness. It is fair political power is what your population is represented

00:40:06.928 --> 00:40:08.621
in the jurisdiction and the district.

00:40:08.999 --> 00:40:13.388
And what it does is, and this is how it protects against racial discrimination,

00:40:13.388 --> 00:40:16.449
is basically, let's say, African-Americans are.

00:40:17.115 --> 00:40:22.800
They are, they represent 20% of the population. They vote as a block.

00:40:23.202 --> 00:40:27.033
They, they, they form a certain type of ideology.

00:40:27.346 --> 00:40:31.165
Well, if you're, if the system by which you divide political,

00:40:31.165 --> 00:40:36.515
you determine political power is one of proportionality, whatever that group

00:40:36.515 --> 00:40:38.127
is, is what it's going to represent.

00:40:38.743 --> 00:40:43.245
So, so you don't even have to think be race-based. You simply have to say,

00:40:43.245 --> 00:40:47.238
okay, well, what are the groups in our society, right? There are 10 of us.

00:40:47.429 --> 00:40:52.885
All right. So now we divide the pie, 10 equal pieces. And that's the basic idea

00:40:52.885 --> 00:40:54.305
of proportional representation.

00:40:54.544 --> 00:41:01.115
It's an idea of fairness in terms of how you allocate political power or how

00:41:01.115 --> 00:41:04.110
you translate vote into seats.

00:41:04.888 --> 00:41:08.445
Yeah, because there's different variations of that. And that's also something

00:41:08.445 --> 00:41:12.817
we can come back and get into a little later. But I wanted to pick your brain when I had the chance.

00:41:13.294 --> 00:41:16.195
But there's variations of that. Like in Maryland, for example,

00:41:16.195 --> 00:41:19.156
when they redistrict, they only redistrict Senate districts,

00:41:19.691 --> 00:41:26.302
and then each Senate district elects four delegates to serve in the House of Delegates in Maryland.

00:41:27.233 --> 00:41:32.765
The Democratic Party, when they decide how many delegates states can have,

00:41:32.765 --> 00:41:39.175
it's based on what percentage did that presidential candidate the election before get.

00:41:39.175 --> 00:41:44.925
So if the presidential candidate only got 45 percent then you know in the scheme

00:41:44.925 --> 00:41:49.975
of things you can't have more delegates in your state than a state that gave

00:41:49.975 --> 00:41:53.745
the president 60 or 70 percent right so,

00:41:54.445 --> 00:41:58.545
i i see where that's going and one of the things i had noticed was like the

00:41:58.545 --> 00:42:04.469
states like wyoming or north dakota somewhere like that they only have one congressperson,

00:42:05.108 --> 00:42:09.185
don't touch them but it was like states that have multiple, that's where that

00:42:09.185 --> 00:42:12.084
proportional representation would be tested on.

00:42:12.711 --> 00:42:16.293
Yeah, that's correct. I mean, so the basic, I mean, there are different,

00:42:16.999 --> 00:42:23.568
ways to do proportional representation. But the real basic idea is the result

00:42:23.568 --> 00:42:28.645
is to proportionately approximate and turn,

00:42:29.608 --> 00:42:33.991
votes into representation or seats in the legislature.

00:42:34.409 --> 00:42:38.868
Now, there are some things, you know, some groups are going to get a minimum.

00:42:38.868 --> 00:42:46.608
So, for example, Even if we did the House of Representatives or we.

00:42:48.488 --> 00:42:52.658
Amended the Constitution and changed the Senate, you're still going to have

00:42:52.658 --> 00:42:56.048
to give a certain minimum to a particular group.

00:42:56.048 --> 00:42:59.318
So you have to determine what is that level of threshold, right?

00:42:59.318 --> 00:43:02.838
So that threshold, you're going to give some voice to the smaller groups,

00:43:02.838 --> 00:43:05.173
and you should have to determine where that is going to be.

00:43:05.769 --> 00:43:08.519
But basically, the idea is.

00:43:11.044 --> 00:43:16.718
The more votes that you have, then the more seats that you should get.

00:43:16.718 --> 00:43:22.515
And there should be proportionality between votes and seats.

00:43:23.084 --> 00:43:26.788
As I said, there are multiple mechanisms of how you get there.

00:43:26.788 --> 00:43:32.648
There are different systems. There's what I've called open list, closed list.

00:43:32.648 --> 00:43:36.923
You could do a mixed member system. So there are lots of variations,

00:43:37.185 --> 00:43:45.888
but the basic idea is one of fairness, and it defines fairness as proportional power. Yeah.

00:43:46.826 --> 00:43:50.438
All right. So let's get to this election before I let you go.

00:43:51.112 --> 00:43:54.980
Are you worried about Todd Blanche, Pete Hegzeff, Kash Patel,

00:43:54.980 --> 00:44:00.766
and Markway Mullen using their respective agencies to impact the upcoming midterms,

00:44:01.363 --> 00:44:03.220
or are they just saber-rattling?

00:44:03.849 --> 00:44:05.840
You know, I think that's a great question.

00:44:06.680 --> 00:44:14.930
You know, you've posed this question perfectly because there are many times

00:44:14.930 --> 00:44:18.427
in which it really does seem like this is saber-rattling.

00:44:19.241 --> 00:44:24.248
And that to the extent that either ICE would show up,

00:44:25.233 --> 00:44:34.351
or National Guard or armed forces would show up all in violation of federal law, that that would be,

00:44:35.565 --> 00:44:36.907
a threshold.

00:44:38.268 --> 00:44:40.853
That just cannot be breached, right?

00:44:41.748 --> 00:44:45.308
So, in some ways, it really does seem like saber rattling.

00:44:45.884 --> 00:44:49.630
Now, on the other hand, you know, we still remember January 6th.

00:44:49.952 --> 00:44:56.078
We also have heard the president saying that the federal government should take

00:44:56.078 --> 00:45:01.478
over state elections and state election apparatus and maybe even seize ballots.

00:45:02.788 --> 00:45:06.785
So you want to be on guard, but also recognizing.

00:45:08.508 --> 00:45:13.588
That what some of the things that we're worried about are so beyond the pale,

00:45:14.208 --> 00:45:19.428
that they seem fantastical, that it would just be crazy to worry about them.

00:45:19.707 --> 00:45:23.878
That to the extent that people are talking in crazy talk, that's not possible

00:45:23.878 --> 00:45:25.382
within the American context.

00:45:25.655 --> 00:45:29.782
So it's really hard to know which side to be.

00:45:30.020 --> 00:45:35.138
Now, I think I think the one thing that I would say is you can't take anything

00:45:35.138 --> 00:45:42.118
off the table while trying to also be very realistic about what could happen.

00:45:42.559 --> 00:45:49.356
OK, if the Democrats achieve the majority in both house in both houses of Congress,

00:45:49.907 --> 00:45:54.858
should they focus on laws that lead to mutual and collective flourishing that

00:45:54.858 --> 00:45:56.565
will be vetoed by this president?

00:45:57.233 --> 00:46:02.127
Or should they pursue measures of accountability that may further divide the nation?

00:46:02.400 --> 00:46:07.779
So, all right, another tough question. This time, I will give you a much more direct answer.

00:46:08.075 --> 00:46:12.747
Because the last question, I think, is hard to know, because I think there's

00:46:12.747 --> 00:46:14.054
a lot of saber-rattling.

00:46:14.321 --> 00:46:16.547
But here, I actually have a view.

00:46:17.547 --> 00:46:24.108
And I don't think this is the moment for what some would call accountability.

00:46:24.653 --> 00:46:30.077
I think the nation is still too divided. You know, so the most that I think

00:46:30.077 --> 00:46:33.647
Congress, if the Democrats take over Congress, I think the most that they could

00:46:33.647 --> 00:46:35.981
do is provide information.

00:46:36.583 --> 00:46:40.875
All right. So I think that's important. So maybe hold holding hearings so that

00:46:40.875 --> 00:46:46.085
people will know, maybe even something resembling a truth commission,

00:46:46.085 --> 00:46:50.075
not the reconciliation part, but just a truth commission.

00:46:50.075 --> 00:46:52.374
Look, let's just find out what happened.

00:46:52.833 --> 00:46:56.585
But in terms of other things, and of course, there are some legal limits.

00:46:56.585 --> 00:47:00.805
The court's decision in Trump versus the United States imposes some limits on

00:47:00.805 --> 00:47:04.435
what the federal Congress can

00:47:04.435 --> 00:47:08.983
do in holding the current president and his administration accountable.

00:47:09.314 --> 00:47:15.475
But I also think politically that is likely to backfire, that I think what they

00:47:15.475 --> 00:47:21.275
ought to do is to show the nation that they can govern and the nation's best interests.

00:47:21.275 --> 00:47:25.697
So let's address the economic pain that people are feeling.

00:47:26.825 --> 00:47:34.953
Let's attempt to impose some limits on a president's ability to start a war.

00:47:35.266 --> 00:47:41.155
Let's address some of the worries that people have about how do you deal with

00:47:41.155 --> 00:47:49.272
technology and the importance of AI and technology, but also some of the fears, whether it is on,

00:47:50.645 --> 00:47:53.225
the relationship. between AI and the economy?

00:47:54.185 --> 00:48:00.145
Will AI displace humans across various job categories, right?

00:48:00.145 --> 00:48:03.905
So how much of that it is that we should be worried about and what is it that

00:48:03.905 --> 00:48:10.425
we need to do about it and anticipating where some of these problems are going to be, right?

00:48:10.425 --> 00:48:16.348
So there are lots of substantive areas in which that demand good governance.

00:48:16.610 --> 00:48:19.405
And I think that's where the focus ought to be. Now, you know,

00:48:19.845 --> 00:48:23.885
I don't get paid to provide political advice, so one might take those with a

00:48:23.885 --> 00:48:27.407
grain of salt, but I think it would be a mistake to try to.

00:48:28.506 --> 00:48:33.716
Impose what for some will be accountability, what others will view as retribution,

00:48:33.716 --> 00:48:37.106
especially in a moment of significant economic pain.

00:48:37.680 --> 00:48:41.586
Yeah. I, you know, I'm, I'm one of those people that believe we can walk and

00:48:41.586 --> 00:48:47.846
chew gum at the same time, but I think what the, the, the, the,

00:48:47.846 --> 00:48:49.318
the approach that you have,

00:48:50.004 --> 00:48:54.045
it just kind of reminds me of in, in the political parties,

00:48:54.826 --> 00:48:59.506
when, when they have their conventions, their main function now is not to nominate

00:48:59.506 --> 00:49:03.274
a candidate because that's already been decided by the primary elections,

00:49:03.896 --> 00:49:05.683
but it's to create a platform.

00:49:06.397 --> 00:49:11.606
And I think what the Democratic, if the Democrats have control of both houses

00:49:11.606 --> 00:49:15.900
of Congress, I think that should be a national platform committee.

00:49:16.272 --> 00:49:22.336
I say, these are the ideas that the next president should do because they can

00:49:22.336 --> 00:49:25.937
pass the bills and Trump's going to veto everything that they bring out.

00:49:26.585 --> 00:49:30.840
But if they set that platform, then I think the next president,

00:49:31.084 --> 00:49:35.576
Democrat or Republican, probably going to be a Democrat, would say,

00:49:35.576 --> 00:49:39.009
OK, this is the agenda that's been out there.

00:49:39.409 --> 00:49:44.286
And then that president can, you know, decide which part of that agenda they're

00:49:44.286 --> 00:49:46.712
going to push for during their term in office.

00:49:47.287 --> 00:49:51.947
And I think that'll be more useful than, you know, which I think,

00:49:52.371 --> 00:49:55.691
you know, but on the same time, as well as having a truth committee.

00:49:56.351 --> 00:50:02.486
If you decide, okay, well, Mr. Hegzeff, the way that you handled the situation

00:50:02.486 --> 00:50:07.834
in Iran, you're not capable of a job if you want to impeach somebody like him.

00:50:08.487 --> 00:50:13.006
I think the American people are kind of like, okay, even if it's under the delusion

00:50:13.006 --> 00:50:16.440
that it's like, well, impeaching him will make my gas prices lower.

00:50:17.014 --> 00:50:22.007
I don't think that'll be as divisive as, say, going after the president himself.

00:50:22.425 --> 00:50:25.758
So, but that, I mean, that's debatable.

00:50:26.530 --> 00:50:29.913
And I don't get paid to give anybody a little bit of advice either.

00:50:30.442 --> 00:50:35.207
But, you know, I think it's a discussion that needs to be held by those people who are running.

00:50:35.858 --> 00:50:39.904
And then especially who they select as their leadership once they get in there.

00:50:40.484 --> 00:50:44.180
All right, Professor, I'm going to let you go. But I got to give you this challenge

00:50:44.180 --> 00:50:46.504
before you get out of here.

00:50:47.119 --> 00:50:49.621
And the challenge is to finish this sentence.

00:50:50.237 --> 00:50:51.943
I have hope because.

00:50:52.780 --> 00:50:56.930
That's great. Okay. I mean, I have hoped for a lot, a bunch of reasons, but,

00:50:57.489 --> 00:51:03.512
You know, I have the privilege of teaching some amazing and incredible students,

00:51:04.210 --> 00:51:12.225
and the vast majority of them are serious about doing something to change the world.

00:51:12.822 --> 00:51:17.899
And I think when you have a group of dedicated young people who are serious

00:51:17.899 --> 00:51:20.529
about changing the world, that gives hope.

00:51:20.936 --> 00:51:27.156
I have hope because in many respects, I think the ideals of the American experiment,

00:51:27.656 --> 00:51:33.648
are noble ideals, and those ideals still inspire.

00:51:34.300 --> 00:51:39.689
I also have hope because I'm a student of the civil rights movement.

00:51:39.689 --> 00:51:47.909
And when you think about where Black people were on the eve of the Civil War, or where you think,

00:51:48.509 --> 00:51:55.619
where they were on the eve of the 1960s revolution of the various statutes,

00:51:55.619 --> 00:52:02.809
the 64 Civil Rights Act, 65 Voting Rights Act, 68 Fair Housing Act, etc.

00:52:03.789 --> 00:52:11.619
And you think about the amount of religious faith as well as political faith

00:52:11.619 --> 00:52:16.899
that it took to march against violence, right?

00:52:16.899 --> 00:52:23.429
Literal state violence, knowing what your ancestors endured and that they've

00:52:23.429 --> 00:52:28.044
been enduring for decades, if not for a century,

00:52:28.849 --> 00:52:35.037
but to still be able to say we shall overcome, not as.

00:52:35.909 --> 00:52:39.089
Both as a faith description, right?

00:52:39.089 --> 00:52:43.299
Sort of like, and we shall overcome as, hey, we are going to because I'm predicting

00:52:43.299 --> 00:52:46.778
it, but also because we're going to make it happen.

00:52:47.247 --> 00:52:56.574
So given that history, I think that one should continue to have hope.

00:52:57.083 --> 00:53:01.237
So, you know, so for many reasons, I think we have age.

00:53:01.237 --> 00:53:05.547
I think what the civil rights movement teaches us is something both about faith,

00:53:05.547 --> 00:53:10.397
but also about agency that in many respects, we create some of,

00:53:10.997 --> 00:53:16.407
the reality, the political reality, the change that needs to happen and the

00:53:16.407 --> 00:53:20.947
recognition that that justice does come.

00:53:21.237 --> 00:53:25.737
Right. So sometimes I'll talk to my students and I will tell them about from

00:53:25.737 --> 00:53:31.557
at least from my the way what I take is inspiration from the black experience and growing up,

00:53:32.337 --> 00:53:38.571
and in that environment, both its cultural aspect as well as its religious aspects.

00:53:38.802 --> 00:53:42.407
So the idea that joy comes in the morning, right?

00:53:42.407 --> 00:53:47.037
So yes, even though that there are things going on in the darkness in the middle

00:53:47.037 --> 00:53:52.157
of the night, but you can have hope because tomorrow will be different,

00:53:52.557 --> 00:53:57.689
both as a function of faith, but also as a function of agency. Yeah.

00:53:58.322 --> 00:54:00.975
All right. So Professor Guillory-O-Charles.

00:54:01.961 --> 00:54:05.695
How can people outside of enrolling in Harvard Law School get in touch with

00:54:05.695 --> 00:54:08.878
you, and how can people get America Unfinished?

00:54:09.855 --> 00:54:13.835
Well, I think my hope is that Professor, well, I'm sure Professor Nadevoff said

00:54:13.835 --> 00:54:18.704
this, which is that the MIT Press, fantastic press.

00:54:20.025 --> 00:54:26.585
Will make America Unfinished free access after six months of publication.

00:54:26.585 --> 00:54:28.000
I think it's in February.

00:54:28.250 --> 00:54:32.455
And so that means that anybody in the world could just go on the web and grab

00:54:32.455 --> 00:54:38.285
whatever it is that they want, read it for free, don't have to pay anything for it.

00:54:38.285 --> 00:54:42.885
So if you don't have, I think it's $26 to buy the book now, just wait a few

00:54:42.885 --> 00:54:44.239
months and it's going to be free.

00:54:44.500 --> 00:54:48.111
And part of the idea is to make this as freely available for everyone.

00:54:48.430 --> 00:54:51.899
The thing about being an academic, especially a legal academic,

00:54:52.212 --> 00:54:54.238
my information is all over the web.

00:54:54.569 --> 00:54:56.477
So my email address is there.

00:54:57.325 --> 00:54:59.067
My work is there.

00:55:00.185 --> 00:55:07.005
So being a legal academic means that it's very easy for people to find my work

00:55:07.005 --> 00:55:10.296
as well as my information to get in touch if they need to.

00:55:10.894 --> 00:55:15.145
Well, Professor Charles, it's been an honor to meet you and to talk to you and

00:55:15.145 --> 00:55:16.860
to have you come on the podcast.

00:55:17.400 --> 00:55:22.055
And I'm serious. It's like, you know, you have an open invitation to come back.

00:55:22.055 --> 00:55:28.535
So I hope that you accept that invitation and we'll get together again sometime soon.

00:55:29.161 --> 00:55:31.965
All right. I look forward to it, Mr. Fleming. Thank you so much for having me.

00:55:31.965 --> 00:55:35.930
It's also my honor and pleasure. All right, guys. We're going to catch you all on the other side.

00:55:55.464 --> 00:56:00.945
All right, we are back. So now it is time for my next guest, Rick Roberts.

00:56:01.752 --> 00:56:05.176
Rick Roberts is a specialist professor in the Department of Economics,

00:56:05.176 --> 00:56:10.096
Finance, and Real Estate at Monmouth University, teaching courses in a variety

00:56:10.096 --> 00:56:13.855
of areas, importantly, macroeconomics and money and banking.

00:56:14.836 --> 00:56:19.219
Rick is a former 20-plus-year executive of the Federal Reserve System.

00:56:19.684 --> 00:56:22.910
Across his tenure, he headed the New York Central Bank's,

00:56:23.410 --> 00:56:29.876
Credit Risk Management during the 2008 financial crisis, led the payment system's

00:56:29.876 --> 00:56:36.912
risk area, chaired key system committees on counterparty risk identification and mitigation,

00:56:37.406 --> 00:56:43.796
and oversaw the preparation of FOMC monetary policy briefing materials for the

00:56:43.796 --> 00:56:46.119
president of the Kansas City Reserve Bank.

00:56:46.786 --> 00:56:51.636
Moreover, he took a brief break from the Fed in the early 2000s to start and

00:56:51.636 --> 00:56:54.906
run a boutique subprime mortgage hedge fund.

00:56:55.547 --> 00:57:00.286
Rick has published a variety of articles on topics, including monetary policy,

00:57:00.286 --> 00:57:03.790
money and banking, and the U.S. economic outlook.

00:57:04.231 --> 00:57:10.181
His 2016 book, Firewood Held, was a top 20 business book in China.

00:57:10.761 --> 00:57:15.286
He holds an MBA with honors from Columbia University and an economics degree

00:57:15.286 --> 00:57:18.702
with high honors from Pennsylvania State University.

00:57:18.928 --> 00:57:23.886
Ladies and gentlemen, for the third time, I have the distinct honor and privilege

00:57:23.886 --> 00:57:28.166
to have as a guest on this podcast, Rick Roberts.

00:57:39.109 --> 00:57:43.724
All right. Professor Rick Roberts, how you doing, my man? You doing good?

00:57:44.347 --> 00:57:50.818
Eric, how are you? Good to chat. Yeah, I know that this is the school year and

00:57:50.818 --> 00:57:55.658
you're trying to get exams and grades together and all that.

00:57:55.658 --> 00:58:02.018
The kids are worried, but this is usually a fun time of year for you, isn't it? It is. It is.

00:58:02.798 --> 00:58:06.397
The beginning of a semester is always fun, particularly the fall semester.

00:58:06.821 --> 00:58:09.003
You know, new energy on campus.

00:58:09.619 --> 00:58:13.638
Everyone's enthusiastic. And you're right, we're coming up on the first exams

00:58:13.638 --> 00:58:17.588
already, the first midterm. So time flies when you're having fun,

00:58:17.588 --> 00:58:20.230
I guess, right? That's exactly right. That's exactly right.

00:58:20.724 --> 00:58:23.898
All right, look, so I'm going to do something a little different because you're

00:58:23.898 --> 00:58:28.008
a regular on the program, but I do want to start with a quote,

00:58:28.008 --> 00:58:30.541
but I'm going to do it this way.

00:58:31.144 --> 00:58:35.847
President Trump said, when asked about the nation's economy,

00:58:36.492 --> 00:58:41.153
I've done a very bad job of explaining how good the country is doing.

00:58:41.722 --> 00:58:46.533
The country's doing better than it has ever done. Is he right?

00:58:48.083 --> 00:58:53.443
Well, I'm sure he and his supporters think he is right.

00:58:53.762 --> 00:58:57.640
The evidence on how the economy is doing is mixed.

00:58:58.498 --> 00:59:04.723
I'd say, you know, in terms of the job market, the labor market clearly has

00:59:04.723 --> 00:59:08.423
weakened under Trump, particularly recently.

00:59:08.870 --> 00:59:13.997
I mean, we shouldn't get fooled by a low unemployment rate, meaning that the,

00:59:14.212 --> 00:59:16.099
you know, the job market is great.

00:59:16.662 --> 00:59:21.851
You know, I think in July and August of this year, employment is down by,

00:59:22.188 --> 00:59:25.880
I think, a combined 60,000 jobs or so.

00:59:26.257 --> 00:59:29.452
And the payroll growth has been, you know, minuscule.

00:59:30.065 --> 00:59:34.893
So we're not looking at a, I guess what I'd call a recessionary labor market,

00:59:34.893 --> 00:59:38.113
but we're certainly not looking at a booming one either.

00:59:38.453 --> 00:59:42.253
And there's some causes to that we can get into a little later.

00:59:42.253 --> 00:59:46.033
But, you know, if I'm talking at a high level in terms of how the president's

00:59:46.033 --> 00:59:50.540
economy is doing, one area I pull out is the labor market. And I'd say,

00:59:50.911 --> 00:59:55.410
you know, it's not as great as you might think looking at the unemployment rate.

00:59:55.921 --> 01:00:01.503
And then inflation, you know, God, I think last time, last couple of times I've

01:00:01.503 --> 01:00:07.123
been on over the last few years, it's, you know, it remains uncomfortably high.

01:00:07.123 --> 01:00:11.189
The inflation problem isn't solved by any means,

01:00:11.773 --> 01:00:18.562
and we remain substantially above the Fed's target of 2%, which frankly,

01:00:18.834 --> 01:00:22.445
they haven't met for, I think, going on five years now.

01:00:22.909 --> 01:00:29.193
So the Trump economy, in terms of employment, not bad, but not as great as he

01:00:29.193 --> 01:00:31.149
might want you to believe.

01:00:31.938 --> 01:00:38.282
Inflation, you know, still sticky, still too high, still, you know,

01:00:38.282 --> 01:00:42.544
a thorn in the side of most Americans and a painful thorn, if you will.

01:00:43.095 --> 01:00:49.319
And, you know, that's continued bad news, although not all of President Trump's fault.

01:00:49.812 --> 01:00:53.109
Okay. So why is 2%?

01:00:54.072 --> 01:00:59.257
Why is the 2% inflation rate to target of the Federal Reserve under Chairman Walsh.

01:00:59.991 --> 01:01:09.152
Yeah. So historically, and maybe this goes back to the 90s under former Chair Greenspan, but 2%,

01:01:10.061 --> 01:01:15.509
was chosen, not quite a number pulled out of the air, but pulled out of the air.

01:01:16.492 --> 01:01:21.372
Against the backdrop that some other countries were also targeting, 2%.

01:01:21.392 --> 01:01:28.223
2% is thought of as a, you know, a low level that allows for some price increases.

01:01:28.478 --> 01:01:35.850
After all, we want our economy to grow and a growing economy has increased demand.

01:01:36.042 --> 01:01:40.071
You know, as people make more money, we're making more goods so they can buy more.

01:01:40.343 --> 01:01:44.227
And that naturally pushes up inflation a little bit, increased demand,

01:01:44.827 --> 01:01:49.155
but not too high where It starts to be, as it is today, a major,

01:01:49.602 --> 01:01:55.487
you know, thorn in the side of most consumers or many consumers anyway.

01:01:56.898 --> 01:02:02.972
You wrote on September 11th that the Fed should wait to vote on interest rates

01:02:02.972 --> 01:02:06.819
until after the PCE price index was released.

01:02:07.555 --> 01:02:15.456
The PCE price index increased 0.3 percent in August, which was less than expected.

01:02:16.187 --> 01:02:20.370
So my question is, is that good news for consumers, banks, or both?

01:02:21.124 --> 01:02:25.819
Well, yeah, that's a great question. What I was saying in that article,

01:02:25.819 --> 01:02:29.979
which as it happens to be the case, isn't always the case, however, that, you know,

01:02:30.539 --> 01:02:37.909
I was dead on with was that the Fed was about to raise interest rates because

01:02:37.909 --> 01:02:43.453
primarily they said inflation was too high and they were looking at data that said it's too high.

01:02:43.767 --> 01:02:49.357
And that article was saying, look, I don't want to be too common sense oriented here, but.

01:02:50.459 --> 01:02:55.319
The new inflation numbers are coming out in two weeks, and they're going to

01:02:55.319 --> 01:02:59.989
be recalculated to correct for some errors in the prior data.

01:02:59.989 --> 01:03:04.439
So, you know, what's the rush to raise interest rates? Why don't we just wait

01:03:04.439 --> 01:03:10.114
two weeks, get the new data, and see what the data suggests inflation is running at?

01:03:10.567 --> 01:03:13.599
That's what I was saying. The data did come out, as you mentioned,

01:03:13.599 --> 01:03:15.149
and the data were softer.

01:03:15.149 --> 01:03:20.979
You know, inflation was not as high as what the Fed had thought it was a couple

01:03:20.979 --> 01:03:26.009
of weeks earlier. So, you know, in my opinion, and this may be too much inside

01:03:26.009 --> 01:03:28.467
baseball, but I think they raised interest rates.

01:03:28.960 --> 01:03:31.599
They were too quick to raise interest rates there. They should have weighed

01:03:31.599 --> 01:03:34.729
it. And had they weighed it, possibly they would have sat tight on interest

01:03:34.729 --> 01:03:40.891
rates, which are, as you know, very high and going higher. Yeah.

01:03:41.634 --> 01:03:47.669
What is the practice of forward guidance and has it outlived its usefulness?

01:03:47.669 --> 01:03:51.450
And the reason why I'm asking that is because when Chairman Walsh,

01:03:52.068 --> 01:03:58.409
I guess that's how you pronounce his name, he was speaking to folks in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

01:03:59.799 --> 01:04:08.367
And he was basically, he was making the argument that forward guidance was needed after 2008. Yeah.

01:04:09.251 --> 01:04:15.906
To get out of that recession. But as of now, we don't need that anymore.

01:04:15.906 --> 01:04:17.796
So what's your take on that?

01:04:18.507 --> 01:04:24.096
I mean, I tend to agree with my former colleague from the Fed,

01:04:24.636 --> 01:04:27.998
although we were at different locations, Chairman Warsh.

01:04:28.974 --> 01:04:36.945
Forward guidance came about largely during the financial crisis.

01:04:37.467 --> 01:04:45.480
And it was intended to tell the market, look, here's what the Fed is doing today.

01:04:46.060 --> 01:04:51.196
And here's what we're going to be doing over some horizon in the future in terms

01:04:51.196 --> 01:04:56.236
of interest rates. So look, things are bad enough. And they were back then, right?

01:04:56.716 --> 01:05:02.046
You recall, as I do, the great financial crisis, things were bad enough.

01:05:02.046 --> 01:05:04.676
So the Fed was more or less saying, look, work.

01:05:05.322 --> 01:05:10.930
Don't be worrying about what we're going to do over the next two, three years or so.

01:05:11.308 --> 01:05:15.849
Count on us keeping interest rates low. We're not going to raise them.

01:05:15.849 --> 01:05:18.689
We promise we're not going to raise them. And you make decisions.

01:05:19.345 --> 01:05:23.298
Sound decisions, based on knowing that we're not going to raise interest rates.

01:05:23.559 --> 01:05:26.409
We normally don't tell you what we're going to be doing that far out.

01:05:26.409 --> 01:05:32.289
But in this situation, times are bad enough that we think we need to let you

01:05:32.289 --> 01:05:34.589
know so that you can plan.

01:05:34.929 --> 01:05:40.669
And in doing your planning, hopefully prudently, you'll help us dig out of this

01:05:40.669 --> 01:05:48.386
hole, you know, the Great Recession there during the 08, 09, 10 time period.

01:05:48.723 --> 01:05:52.734
So, you know, the Fed did something new. They told the market,

01:05:53.314 --> 01:05:56.089
here's what we're doing today. And they always do that, right?

01:05:56.089 --> 01:06:00.209
They have a meeting eight times a year, and they announce what they have done

01:06:00.209 --> 01:06:02.262
in terms of interest rates and why they did it.

01:06:03.269 --> 01:06:07.486
But up to that point, they were normally quiet about what's going on after that.

01:06:08.148 --> 01:06:12.359
In this case, during the financial crisis, they said, look, we cut interest

01:06:12.359 --> 01:06:15.639
rates, and normally we don't say what we're going to do in the future here,

01:06:15.639 --> 01:06:19.630
but times are bad enough that we're going to tell you what we're doing. And they told them.

01:06:19.874 --> 01:06:24.219
And that came to be known as forward guidance. So it was initially thought of,

01:06:24.219 --> 01:06:28.877
at least in my opinion, as something that was temporary and offered,

01:06:29.173 --> 01:06:32.064
you know, in the midst of a crisis, right?

01:06:32.337 --> 01:06:36.929
Well, the crisis eventually passed, but the forward guidance continued and the

01:06:36.929 --> 01:06:38.571
market kind of got hooked on it.

01:06:39.262 --> 01:06:43.348
You know, the market wanted to know what the Fed's going to be doing over the

01:06:43.348 --> 01:06:46.958
next couple of years. And.

01:06:49.245 --> 01:06:55.158
You know, it's a crazy game, even on both sides, because the Fed doesn't know,

01:06:55.858 --> 01:06:58.668
what it's going to be doing in a couple of years. It kind of depends on what

01:06:58.668 --> 01:07:02.820
the economy is doing and so forth. So they really can't say. They're just guessing.

01:07:03.355 --> 01:07:08.298
And the market takes that guess and kind of runs with it like it's gospel sometimes.

01:07:09.178 --> 01:07:15.018
And Warsh's opinion is, you know what, we shouldn't be telling them what we're

01:07:15.018 --> 01:07:18.258
going to be doing in the future because we have no clear vision of what's going

01:07:18.258 --> 01:07:21.584
to happen in the future. And we react to what's happening in the market.

01:07:22.066 --> 01:07:28.478
So, you know, Chair Warsh feels that he's going to, there's a need to pull back

01:07:28.478 --> 01:07:31.444
on forward guidance or basically eliminate it.

01:07:31.816 --> 01:07:36.159
And that's where, that's the environment we're in right now. Dan.

01:07:36.821 --> 01:07:41.898
All right. Like when President Trump advocates vociferously for lower interest

01:07:41.898 --> 01:07:47.062
rates, is he doing that for political reasons or personal wealth reasons?

01:07:47.584 --> 01:07:52.575
Because he's he's a different kind of dude, regardless of how you feel about him.

01:07:53.068 --> 01:07:56.458
He's basically the wealthiest man ever to be elected to office.

01:07:56.946 --> 01:08:01.509
So he's of a different class than most people that serve.

01:08:02.089 --> 01:08:06.513
So is his motivation based on,

01:08:07.128 --> 01:08:11.314
you know, trying to get him and other Republicans elected or reelected?

01:08:11.818 --> 01:08:17.263
Or is his mindset what's good for me and the people in my economic class?

01:08:18.209 --> 01:08:25.304
Right. It's at least the former, you know, wanting to get elected and the folks

01:08:25.304 --> 01:08:27.149
in power to stay in power.

01:08:27.706 --> 01:08:32.844
And, you know, there's, you know, evidence, you know, supporting the latter

01:08:32.844 --> 01:08:36.791
as well in terms of how those, some of these decisions would,

01:08:37.118 --> 01:08:42.063
you know, benefit his wallet and maybe the wallets of his friends.

01:08:42.533 --> 01:08:49.184
But it's at least the former. And in that way, you know, politicians want to

01:08:49.184 --> 01:08:53.234
be reelected, right? Want to be reelected. And who votes them in?

01:08:53.854 --> 01:08:58.917
It's you and I. And so they need to keep us relatively happy.

01:08:59.404 --> 01:09:05.277
And, you know, if you think about it, most people, most of the voting public

01:09:05.597 --> 01:09:08.673
prefer lower interest rates, right?

01:09:09.394 --> 01:09:13.764
Maybe they'll be able to pull the trigger on that house they've been eyeing

01:09:13.764 --> 01:09:17.904
instead of renting, you know, for years and years, or maybe they need an upgraded

01:09:17.904 --> 01:09:21.314
car. And if the interest rates are lower, maybe they can afford the monthly

01:09:21.314 --> 01:09:24.324
payment and so forth. You know, very few people go to bed at night.

01:09:25.011 --> 01:09:28.780
Praying for higher interest rates, right? If anything, you know,

01:09:28.780 --> 01:09:34.080
they're neutral, but maybe on balance, they prefer interest rates are lower, right?

01:09:34.500 --> 01:09:37.085
Their lifestyle might improve as a result.

01:09:37.619 --> 01:09:41.138
So lower interest rates keep the public happy.

01:09:41.486 --> 01:09:45.230
And to the extent that the folks in power can say, you know,

01:09:45.230 --> 01:09:51.260
I'm responsible for that, you know, they would maybe have an inkling to vote

01:09:51.260 --> 01:09:54.750
for those folks in power as, you know, keeping rates low.

01:09:54.750 --> 01:10:04.410
So I think politicians in general like lower interest rates and Trump is not unusual in that regard.

01:10:04.410 --> 01:10:11.220
What's unusual about President Trump is the way he voices his opinion about

01:10:11.220 --> 01:10:12.500
probably all things, right?

01:10:12.840 --> 01:10:17.646
And also the Federal Reserve and interest rates and things like that.

01:10:17.913 --> 01:10:25.030
He, you know, in today's age, he's, you know, just blatantly stepping up to

01:10:25.030 --> 01:10:30.860
the microphone saying that, you know, former pal wasn't, former chair pal was an idiot.

01:10:30.860 --> 01:10:33.538
We need lower rates and, you know, he should be fired.

01:10:33.944 --> 01:10:39.340
Tweeting out some negative things where, you know, and having been in the Fed

01:10:39.340 --> 01:10:42.040
for many years prior to Trump, you know.

01:10:43.000 --> 01:10:48.823
I feel really confident that all presidents have a preference for lower rates

01:10:48.974 --> 01:10:54.280
and all in their own way communicate that to the Federal Reserve.

01:10:54.280 --> 01:11:00.800
But maybe in prior times, it would be, for example, maybe President Obama's

01:11:00.800 --> 01:11:03.630
chief of staff would pick up the phone and call the,

01:11:04.482 --> 01:11:09.186
chair Bernanke or chair Yellen's chief of staff and, you know,

01:11:09.186 --> 01:11:12.290
and voice some concerns and nobody would hear about it.

01:11:12.719 --> 01:11:16.476
You know, it was done quietly behind the scenes where president Trump is more

01:11:16.476 --> 01:11:21.726
out front and being, you know, a little less hidden and, you know,

01:11:21.726 --> 01:11:23.802
and more powerful with his words.

01:11:24.476 --> 01:11:29.646
So he wants lower interest rates, certainly because that will help Republicans

01:11:29.646 --> 01:11:31.996
in the upcoming elections.

01:11:32.296 --> 01:11:36.636
And, you know, but as your, your second question about me, I don't know if it

01:11:36.636 --> 01:11:40.304
was tongue in cheek or not, probably not, is that certainly,

01:11:40.589 --> 01:11:45.199
you know, there's some financial windfall that results from, from that as well.

01:11:45.728 --> 01:11:51.216
Yeah. I think he's because that's a unique position. It, and you can interpret

01:11:51.216 --> 01:11:55.546
it as tongue in cheek if you want to, but, but, but seriously,

01:11:55.546 --> 01:12:00.350
I, you know, we've never had a president that's been as wealthy as him.

01:12:00.880 --> 01:12:07.357
And so, you know, I don't know his financial acumen.

01:12:08.424 --> 01:12:15.002
As far as, you know, how that benefits him and his investments and all that kind of stuff.

01:12:15.559 --> 01:12:20.171
But it's a unique situation where it's like, like you said, we've never had

01:12:20.171 --> 01:12:26.450
a president that just blatantly said, hey, y'all need to lower these interest rates, you know?

01:12:26.984 --> 01:12:33.545
And it's like, so is his, you know, is his motivation like, okay,

01:12:33.980 --> 01:12:38.549
you know, I'm going to be like any other politician or is his motivation,

01:12:38.815 --> 01:12:40.436
look, I got skin in the game.

01:12:41.691 --> 01:12:45.361
So that's, that's why I'm pushing it. That's why he's being loud about it.

01:12:45.361 --> 01:12:49.329
So that's, that, that was kind of the, and I wanted to pick your brain on that.

01:12:49.852 --> 01:12:53.841
Yeah, I got, yeah, for sure. And I think that's, you know, the feeling if we

01:12:53.841 --> 01:12:58.741
just cut the world into Democrats and Republicans, which, you know,

01:12:58.741 --> 01:13:01.594
we really can't, but just for our little chat here, we can.

01:13:01.890 --> 01:13:06.721
I would say that, you know, Democrats say, you know, his reasons for pushing

01:13:06.721 --> 01:13:10.727
lower interest rates are, you know, involve both of those categories.

01:13:11.103 --> 01:13:16.403
And maybe Republicans might say just category one, just the election stuff.

01:13:16.728 --> 01:13:24.459
You know, they'd be a little less adamant that it has to do with his financial windfalls. Yeah.

01:13:25.255 --> 01:13:31.624
All right. So this is a question I think every voter is trying to decipher.

01:13:32.354 --> 01:13:37.898
If the Strait of Hormuz was open tomorrow and all tariffs were removed today,

01:13:38.293 --> 01:13:41.434
how long will it take for the inflation rate to lower?

01:13:42.796 --> 01:13:48.813
It's going to take a while. You know, it would, we'd see some near-term drops,

01:13:49.473 --> 01:13:51.663
in the price of gasoline and so forth.

01:13:51.663 --> 01:13:57.653
But these oil prices don't just impact, you know, where we most immediately

01:13:57.653 --> 01:14:02.993
think of it and have been hit maybe most immediately in the pocket at the gas pump, right?

01:14:03.873 --> 01:14:07.233
It impacts other goods and services, most goods and services,

01:14:07.233 --> 01:14:12.709
really, because, you know, the price of oil goes up and then oil is a,

01:14:12.929 --> 01:14:14.773
it certainly hits your gas tank, right?

01:14:14.773 --> 01:14:19.233
But oil is also used as an input to many manufacturing processes,

01:14:19.233 --> 01:14:24.769
whether it's, you know, as simple as, you know, to heat a plant or maybe petroleum,

01:14:25.212 --> 01:14:27.940
inputs into making a product, that type thing.

01:14:28.190 --> 01:14:33.263
Transporting your goods. Once you make it, you got to ship them off to the store

01:14:33.263 --> 01:14:35.875
and deliver them by Amazon and so forth.

01:14:36.310 --> 01:14:41.583
You know, that all takes gasoline. And so goods become more expensive as well.

01:14:41.868 --> 01:14:48.653
So the oil price increase phenomena, if you will, has impacted direct oil prices,

01:14:48.653 --> 01:14:53.323
but then kind of these second order effects into, you know, goods and services

01:14:53.323 --> 01:14:56.103
in the economy because of some of the reasons I just mentioned.

01:14:56.103 --> 01:15:02.297
So the quick ones that we'll adjust will be at the pump.

01:15:03.853 --> 01:15:07.603
It would be more of a near-term improvement if the straight opens. Yeah.

01:15:08.336 --> 01:15:12.040
And then, of course, prices are going to go down in world oil.

01:15:12.740 --> 01:15:18.094
And the reason is because it's a basic supply and demand issue, right?

01:15:18.669 --> 01:15:22.930
All of a sudden, the supply of oil increases.

01:15:23.075 --> 01:15:27.812
If the Strait of Hormuz opens, it will increase noticeably.

01:15:28.096 --> 01:15:34.487
And whenever the supply of anything increases for a given level of demand,

01:15:34.725 --> 01:15:37.161
usually you see prices down, right?

01:15:37.161 --> 01:15:42.201
If you have too many products on the shelf and not enough demand to get rid

01:15:42.201 --> 01:15:45.361
of them, so your supply is up, how do you get rid of them?

01:15:45.361 --> 01:15:49.941
You lower the price. So whenever in economics, whenever supply goes up, prices go down.

01:15:49.941 --> 01:15:55.811
So we'll see prices go down first at the oil, at the pump, and then more slowly,

01:15:55.811 --> 01:15:57.581
we got to unwind these price,

01:15:58.201 --> 01:16:03.041
increases that have been embedded into goods and services already because of

01:16:03.041 --> 01:16:05.441
some of the reasons I mentioned earlier.

01:16:05.441 --> 01:16:10.331
They use petroleum as inputs to their production, you know, the transportation

01:16:10.331 --> 01:16:13.524
to get their goods delivered or to the store shelves, et cetera.

01:16:13.947 --> 01:16:19.181
So maybe, you know, if it's a permanent opening, and there's many things that

01:16:19.181 --> 01:16:23.241
impact the price of oil, but assume that that's a meaningful impact,

01:16:23.641 --> 01:16:26.641
it would be first at the pump and then later at goods and services.

01:16:27.041 --> 01:16:33.528
All probably will work their way into the system within a year or so, I'd say. Okay.

01:16:33.847 --> 01:16:37.153
So not in time for the election. is what you're saying. Not in time.

01:16:37.774 --> 01:16:41.761
Although, you know, if they're smart on either side of the aisle,

01:16:41.761 --> 01:16:46.221
and it happens to be Republicans now, but they would be, hopefully, get that open.

01:16:46.221 --> 01:16:50.121
And then, you know, just at the time when people are filling up their tank on

01:16:50.121 --> 01:16:55.920
their way to the polling, to the voting booth, they notice a sharp drop, right?

01:16:56.187 --> 01:17:05.475
So the timing of a gasoline price decrease could, you know, favor those in power.

01:17:07.941 --> 01:17:09.736
If it happens while the voters...

01:17:10.469 --> 01:17:15.704
Figuratively anyway, are on their way to the voting booth.

01:17:16.044 --> 01:17:21.411
Yeah, because I tell the story a lot. It was a guy that was our Attorney General, Mike Moore.

01:17:22.067 --> 01:17:26.424
And some people may be familiar with the movie The Insider, which was about

01:17:26.424 --> 01:17:29.305
the tobacco companies and how they were doing that.

01:17:29.694 --> 01:17:34.404
And so Mike Moore was kind of the lead state's attorney among all the other

01:17:34.404 --> 01:17:38.025
state's attorney generals that filed a lawsuit.

01:17:39.204 --> 01:17:44.404
And Mike would never run for governor. He served for like 16 years as attorney

01:17:44.404 --> 01:17:47.929
general and people were trying to get him to run for governor. He would never run.

01:17:48.434 --> 01:17:52.845
And he basically said, what would happen? I get out there and run.

01:17:53.112 --> 01:17:57.224
Somebody on their way to voting decides to buy a pack of cigarettes and realize

01:17:57.224 --> 01:17:58.516
they're higher than they were.

01:17:58.864 --> 01:18:02.554
They're going to blame me. And so I can't win. And he would never run for governor

01:18:02.554 --> 01:18:06.538
because of that fight he led dealing with big tobacco.

01:18:06.968 --> 01:18:13.274
That's interesting. I definitely understand if for some reason those oil prices

01:18:13.274 --> 01:18:17.454
drop and people go to their gas pump and they're like, oh, okay,

01:18:17.454 --> 01:18:20.593
well, maybe they're getting to act together and they might decide to vote for

01:18:20.883 --> 01:18:21.632
the Republicans. Right.

01:18:22.464 --> 01:18:24.163
Yeah. That's great. Yeah. Yeah.

01:18:25.156 --> 01:18:29.837
What would be the economic impact if diesel exports were banned?

01:18:29.837 --> 01:18:33.677
And that's been, speaking about the Republicans, there's been a lot of Republican

01:18:33.677 --> 01:18:38.838
candidates, especially in states like Iowa and Kansas, who have really been

01:18:39.053 --> 01:18:41.287
pushing the administration,

01:18:42.367 --> 01:18:45.398
to ban exporting diesel fuel.

01:18:46.947 --> 01:18:49.303
In hopes that it would lower the prices.

01:18:49.681 --> 01:18:51.846
But what would be the impact of that?

01:18:52.409 --> 01:18:55.158
So I think, you know, the idea is

01:18:55.455 --> 01:19:03.682
that leaves more supply domestically for domestic buyers of diesel fuel.

01:19:03.880 --> 01:19:08.977
And, you know, when you have more of a supply of anything, normally the price

01:19:08.977 --> 01:19:11.752
will moderate or maybe decrease.

01:19:12.182 --> 01:19:15.171
So, you know, I think that's the thinking there.

01:19:15.899 --> 01:19:20.611
I'm not a huge fan of intervening in markets like that, but,

01:19:21.068 --> 01:19:27.520
you know, the administration is in terms of, you know, limitations on exports,

01:19:27.921 --> 01:19:30.870
tariffs that have been implemented.

01:19:31.298 --> 01:19:36.647
So I would tend to stay away from that, although, you know, there would be a

01:19:36.647 --> 01:19:40.147
short-term gain in terms of probably lower prices.

01:19:40.147 --> 01:19:45.067
But over the long run, you know, whenever you get the government monkeying around

01:19:45.067 --> 01:19:48.797
too much in markets, I mean, there's always a need for the government to keep

01:19:48.797 --> 01:19:50.927
an eye on markets and sometimes get involved.

01:19:50.927 --> 01:19:55.357
But if they're involved too much, too detaily micromanaging things,

01:19:55.357 --> 01:20:00.704
it's usually a bad outcome over the long run, sometimes with a short-run benefit.

01:20:02.639 --> 01:20:08.707
You know, Trump's tariffs have, you know, they're a legitimate inflation concern,

01:20:08.707 --> 01:20:12.667
right? He imposed all these tariffs, and most folks...

01:20:13.820 --> 01:20:21.421
Including myself, said, you know, these are going to be paid by consumers one way or another.

01:20:22.936 --> 01:20:27.563
And, you know, as it turns out, they have bled into prices for U.S.

01:20:27.563 --> 01:20:31.033
Consumers, and that's part of the inflation problem today.

01:20:31.033 --> 01:20:36.593
I think the New York Fed did some research here recently about who ultimately

01:20:36.593 --> 01:20:38.503
bore the cost of all these tariffs.

01:20:38.503 --> 01:20:44.513
And, you know, the evidence points to substantial pass-through of those costs

01:20:44.513 --> 01:20:47.603
to U.S. importers and consumers.

01:20:48.252 --> 01:20:52.353
So if, you know, if we're trying to get inflation back to 2%,

01:20:52.353 --> 01:20:56.530
you know, deliberately raising the cost of imported goods is,

01:20:56.959 --> 01:21:00.343
you know, is not a, it's an additional headwind, I guess I'd say.

01:21:00.343 --> 01:21:03.453
It's going to, you know, flies in the face of trying to get inflation down.

01:21:03.873 --> 01:21:05.481
It pushes inflation the other way.

01:21:05.951 --> 01:21:11.680
Yeah, yeah. All right. How has the rapid progress of artificial intelligence,

01:21:12.196 --> 01:21:16.016
impacted economic growth? And is it a good thing?

01:21:17.003 --> 01:21:19.906
Well, I think the news...

01:21:20.568 --> 01:21:27.948
Is out on is it ultimately a long-run good thing, but it certainly seems promising

01:21:27.948 --> 01:21:33.853
with a lot of caveats in there, as any new technology typically has.

01:21:34.277 --> 01:21:37.934
You know, we need to be careful with it. Do we need, here's a place where,

01:21:38.408 --> 01:21:41.658
you know, in my opinion, there's probably, you know, and I'm,

01:21:42.178 --> 01:21:46.676
more, as you may know or do know, tend to be more of a free market guy than,

01:21:47.147 --> 01:21:49.448
getting the government involved in every single little thing,

01:21:49.448 --> 01:21:53.458
but in, you know, with AI, there's probably a need or there is a need for the

01:21:53.458 --> 01:21:58.478
government to get involved to, you know, put some guardrails in there to.

01:21:59.258 --> 01:22:03.468
You know, at least regarding safety and some of the concerns that we have that

01:22:03.468 --> 01:22:09.278
are coming out here recently in terms of, you know, AI going berserk and causing all sorts of problems.

01:22:09.278 --> 01:22:15.110
So, you know, I see the AI gurus coming out and saying, oh, you know,

01:22:15.308 --> 01:22:20.158
basically trust us, You know, we want things to go well and we're going to be

01:22:20.158 --> 01:22:22.378
very careful as we proceed.

01:22:22.791 --> 01:22:27.388
And, you know, having as an old timer and been around for a while here,

01:22:27.388 --> 01:22:31.688
I've seen a, you know, a number of situations over the years where it's the

01:22:31.688 --> 01:22:35.415
old trust us, we understand, we're going to be careful.

01:22:35.937 --> 01:22:39.748
And, you know, ultimately it ended up blowing up.

01:22:39.748 --> 01:22:46.318
I mean, even the, you know, even the mortgages that became easy in the 90s,

01:22:46.318 --> 01:22:52.458
1990s and so forth with little regulation and, you know, they all blew up and it led to the,

01:22:52.818 --> 01:22:54.878
in part to the financial crisis and so forth.

01:22:54.878 --> 01:22:58.428
So I think there's a role for government there to get in and check AI a little

01:22:58.428 --> 01:23:04.168
bit, not to stymie it, but to, you know, put some important guardrails in there.

01:23:04.168 --> 01:23:06.128
And maybe we're moving in that direction.

01:23:06.668 --> 01:23:12.758
I hope so. In terms of the economy itself, I mean, I think we expect and are

01:23:12.758 --> 01:23:17.678
starting to see productivity increase. We've seen economic productivity,

01:23:18.098 --> 01:23:19.562
you know, the output per year.

01:23:20.190 --> 01:23:24.828
Person, you could think of it as, increase with increased use of AI.

01:23:25.793 --> 01:23:31.633
And, you know, that's a good thing. Of course, whenever there's a productivity

01:23:31.633 --> 01:23:36.028
increase or an increased use of new technology, even when computers,

01:23:36.573 --> 01:23:40.942
came out, personal computers and smart computers and so forth.

01:23:41.634 --> 01:23:46.873
You know, whenever this improved technology comes along that makes things more

01:23:46.873 --> 01:23:50.208
efficient and we're more productive and this, that, and the other thing.

01:23:50.370 --> 01:23:58.224
Don't forget, just on the other side of that nice story are people who are being displaced, right?

01:23:58.584 --> 01:24:05.733
Jobs are being killed that were held, that were formerly held by people involved

01:24:05.733 --> 01:24:08.908
with these goods that are getting replaced, right?

01:24:09.256 --> 01:24:16.794
So, you know, AI is moving the economy along, but let's not forget who's getting left behind there.

01:24:17.187 --> 01:24:24.333
At a minimum, it's folks that are losing their jobs because of AI or are no longer able to get jobs.

01:24:24.333 --> 01:24:31.133
For example, some new college graduates are finding it more difficult to get

01:24:31.133 --> 01:24:35.988
entry-level jobs because guess what? AI is now doing the entry-level jobs.

01:24:36.370 --> 01:24:43.693
So there's a lot of real stories that we can't skip over just looking at economic

01:24:43.693 --> 01:24:45.353
productivity numbers and you

01:24:45.353 --> 01:24:49.013
know, running around, giving people high fives, we're excited about it.

01:24:49.013 --> 01:24:53.593
Sure. That's good news, but there's some bad news on the backside and we need

01:24:53.593 --> 01:24:57.973
to take care of those folks, you know, whether it's through retraining,

01:24:57.973 --> 01:25:02.943
giving them a new skillset or other programs of that sort.

01:25:02.943 --> 01:25:07.803
So it's kind of a two-sided coin right now, but I think over the long run,

01:25:07.803 --> 01:25:14.725
we'll figure that out and AI will end up being, you know, a net plus for sure. Okay.

01:25:16.116 --> 01:25:23.125
Among registered voters in an August Reuters-Ipsos poll, 37% of poll respondents

01:25:23.125 --> 01:25:27.415
said Democrats had a better plan, policy, or approach to the U.S.

01:25:27.415 --> 01:25:31.370
Economy, compared to 36% that picked Republicans.

01:25:31.886 --> 01:25:37.673
So my question out of that is, does voter confidence have an impact on the economy?

01:25:38.544 --> 01:25:42.271
It does. It's a great question. And yes, it does.

01:25:43.155 --> 01:25:47.751
Just, you know, you can think if you and I were business owners, for example,

01:25:48.128 --> 01:25:53.855
if we're feeling positive about the economy over the next five years,

01:25:53.855 --> 01:25:59.350
three to five years, we're apt to maybe do that expansion of our,

01:25:59.991 --> 01:26:03.161
operations or our plants to grow our business, right?

01:26:03.879 --> 01:26:11.555
And so forth. So I think, you know, most people's actions today are based in

01:26:11.555 --> 01:26:15.935
part anyway, on what they think is going to happen in the future, right?

01:26:15.935 --> 01:26:20.184
If you think, geez, I'm not sure about the economy.

01:26:20.526 --> 01:26:24.143
I might get laid off, you know, Joe and Sally up the street,

01:26:24.421 --> 01:26:27.516
you know, Joe lost his job. Sally got laid off.

01:26:27.847 --> 01:26:33.145
Maybe let's hold off on that new car or let's hold off on that vacation,

01:26:33.145 --> 01:26:36.795
right? It's based on your decision today is based on what you think is going

01:26:36.795 --> 01:26:38.929
to happen in the future in part anyway.

01:26:40.142 --> 01:26:45.715
So yeah, I think, I think consumer and businesses views of the future most definitely

01:26:45.715 --> 01:26:49.830
impact, impact the economy. It's a great question. Yeah.

01:26:50.469 --> 01:26:54.405
All right. So we're going to close it out with this. And I don't know if I,

01:26:54.405 --> 01:26:58.340
if I ever posed this challenge to you or not before on the show,

01:26:58.973 --> 01:27:01.806
but I've been asking guests to finish this sentence.

01:27:02.175 --> 01:27:04.247
I have hope because.

01:27:05.393 --> 01:27:10.622
I have hope because the United States is based on, you know,

01:27:10.622 --> 01:27:12.156
democratic principles.

01:27:12.720 --> 01:27:18.002
And, you know, every so often with presidents, it's every four years,

01:27:18.901 --> 01:27:21.235
we go back to the box to vote.

01:27:21.734 --> 01:27:27.572
We've had a period of time to look at the individual in office's policies and

01:27:27.572 --> 01:27:30.363
their impacts and so forth. And, you know, we can vote.

01:27:30.791 --> 01:27:35.432
Do we like them? we vote yes for him or her or their successor.

01:27:35.432 --> 01:27:38.854
And if we don't, we can vote no and go with the other team. So,

01:27:39.250 --> 01:27:43.332
you know, we have that coming up, whether or not we're in love with what's going

01:27:43.332 --> 01:27:46.000
on or not in love with what's going on.

01:27:46.551 --> 01:27:50.672
I always have hope that, you know, the world's not going to end in a short period

01:27:50.672 --> 01:27:53.682
of time. We're going to have an opportunity at the ballot box,

01:27:54.562 --> 01:28:00.955
minus any shenanigans, to, you know, change things if we think they need to be changed.

01:28:01.566 --> 01:28:05.742
All right. Well, Professor Rick Roberts, I am I'm really glad that I was able

01:28:05.742 --> 01:28:09.980
to get you today and to have this discussion.

01:28:10.376 --> 01:28:15.772
And I really wanted to stress the points about how voter confidence impacts

01:28:15.772 --> 01:28:22.062
things, because a lot of times people think they don't really have a say so in the process. But if.

01:28:24.362 --> 01:28:31.632
People feel that things are okay, then they're going to do things to show that.

01:28:31.632 --> 01:28:35.942
They're going to buy the more extravagant gift. They're going to take the trip.

01:28:35.942 --> 01:28:41.426
They're going to make a major decision on a purchase, whether it's a house or a car.

01:28:42.035 --> 01:28:47.132
And a lot of people don't get that disconnect. And so I'm definitely glad that

01:28:47.132 --> 01:28:52.322
you addressed that. And then the other thing was, you know, about the straight,

01:28:52.322 --> 01:28:54.304
because a lot of people are upset.

01:28:55.467 --> 01:29:00.921
That we're at war, and especially now that it seems to be impacting what's going

01:29:00.921 --> 01:29:02.931
on with them, the same with the tariffs.

01:29:03.489 --> 01:29:10.201
And so I just, I definitely wanted somebody with your expertise to address those things as always.

01:29:10.201 --> 01:29:14.641
And I really appreciate the fact that you follow the rule that you have an open

01:29:14.641 --> 01:29:18.711
invitation to come back, because I think this is your third appearance on the podcast.

01:29:19.245 --> 01:29:23.981
It is. Yeah. So I just, anytime you come on, my man, I am really,

01:29:23.981 --> 01:29:25.307
really appreciative of that.

01:29:25.846 --> 01:29:30.792
And I tend to learn things every time you come on. So thank you.

01:29:32.011 --> 01:29:34.938
If people want to reach out to you, how can they do that?

01:29:35.602 --> 01:29:38.817
You can find me at the business school at Monmouth University,

01:29:39.398 --> 01:29:43.420
rroberts at monmouth.edu.

01:29:44.543 --> 01:29:50.291
So now, while I was citing that article, are you a regular contributor to that?

01:29:50.651 --> 01:29:53.818
And what is the name of that publication?

01:29:54.451 --> 01:30:00.451
Oh, I do. You know, and you know me, if I see something that's bothersome where

01:30:00.451 --> 01:30:04.091
somebody's regularly getting something wrong, if it's important enough,

01:30:04.451 --> 01:30:08.271
I'll write an op-ed. I tend to crank a lot of those out here recently.

01:30:08.911 --> 01:30:14.110
And I do publish in, I have a fairly regular column in Real Clear Markets.

01:30:15.071 --> 01:30:18.471
So that's out there. If you just search Rick Roberts or Richard Roberts,

01:30:18.471 --> 01:30:22.923
Real Clear Markets, you'll find my author's page.

01:30:23.398 --> 01:30:24.981
And I'm probably every week or

01:30:24.981 --> 01:30:29.882
two, I'm publishing something out there of interest to the general public.

01:30:30.045 --> 01:30:34.691
Yeah. So I definitely wanted to highlight that. Well, Rick, thank you again

01:30:34.691 --> 01:30:36.331
for coming on, man. I appreciate it.

01:30:36.822 --> 01:30:42.911
Anytime, Eric. I always appreciate you and your audience and your insightful

01:30:42.911 --> 01:30:45.457
questions. They're always spot on. Thank you, sir.

01:30:45.909 --> 01:30:48.335
All right, guys, and we're going to catch all on the other side.

01:31:00.196 --> 01:31:07.458
All right, we are back. So I want to thank Guillermo Charles and Rick Roberts

01:31:07.458 --> 01:31:08.948
for coming on the program.

01:31:09.932 --> 01:31:20.178
Professor Charles made a compelling argument about one people and reminding

01:31:20.178 --> 01:31:23.302
us that that is our mission and our goal in the United States.

01:31:24.672 --> 01:31:30.298
And I appreciate Professor Roberts for coming back onto the program and doing

01:31:30.298 --> 01:31:36.219
what he always does and making economics simple to understand for all of us.

01:31:37.330 --> 01:31:41.408
It's always a blessing to have people come on.

01:31:41.408 --> 01:31:46.388
It's really a blessing to have people repeat as guests.

01:31:46.388 --> 01:31:53.128
So I look forward to the day when I can have Professor Charles back on And I

01:31:53.128 --> 01:31:57.919
always look forward to having Professor Robert on the podcast.

01:31:59.104 --> 01:32:06.200
All right. So real quick, I got some thoughts about, you know,

01:32:06.830 --> 01:32:11.242
if you remembered in Grace's news segment,

01:32:11.949 --> 01:32:18.041
two significant things happened as regards to law enforcement shooting black folks. Right.

01:32:18.776 --> 01:32:23.613
The young lady, you remember, who went to the wrong apartment and shot the man,

01:32:24.170 --> 01:32:27.739
in his own apartment while he was eating ice cream, both of them, Jean.

01:32:28.500 --> 01:32:32.908
She's getting out of jail. She was sentenced to 10 years. That was the lady,

01:32:32.908 --> 01:32:36.488
you remember, the black judge, the female judge, came down and hugged the woman

01:32:36.488 --> 01:32:38.139
and gave her a Bible and all that stuff.

01:32:39.281 --> 01:32:43.004
She sentenced her for 10 years. She could have been in jail for 48 years.

01:32:44.651 --> 01:32:48.480
That's what the prosecutors were going for. And they only gave her 10.

01:32:49.066 --> 01:32:52.751
And so after seven years, she's out, right?

01:32:55.275 --> 01:33:02.310
And then the deputy who killed Airman Fortson in Florida, he was acquitted.

01:33:03.164 --> 01:33:09.460
So he's not going to jail at all in Florida, right?

01:33:10.076 --> 01:33:16.367
And so, you know, it's just, I want to keep y'all abreast of stuff like that.

01:33:16.367 --> 01:33:21.671
And then in the shadow of, you know, the grand jury in Mississippi not finding

01:33:21.978 --> 01:33:28.587
any criminal charges in the death of Nolan Wells, just keep these things in mind.

01:33:28.587 --> 01:33:35.767
And, you know, it would be nice to get to a point where we just look at each

01:33:35.767 --> 01:33:40.726
other as Americans and do things that's for the common good.

01:33:41.420 --> 01:33:51.857
But, you know, we've got to get to a point where law enforcement and people

01:33:51.857 --> 01:33:54.158
of color are not adversaries.

01:33:55.011 --> 01:33:58.947
There used to, you know, there was a brief moment in time. Let's say that.

01:33:59.586 --> 01:34:04.463
There was a moment, there have been some moments in time where the tensions were not as high.

01:34:05.089 --> 01:34:11.277
But in my lifetime, and this is, you know, somebody who's been in law enforcement

01:34:11.277 --> 01:34:15.707
and been an advocate monitoring law enforcement, right?

01:34:17.252 --> 01:34:24.626
But tensions are very, very high, and we've got to take steps to figure out how to mitigate that.

01:34:25.700 --> 01:34:32.377
And, you know, it's through training, through getting rid of implicit biases,

01:34:32.377 --> 01:34:33.615
all those kind of things.

01:34:34.451 --> 01:34:37.473
We've got to figure out a way to do better.

01:34:38.858 --> 01:34:45.235
That's just where we are. So I just thought I'd highlight that.

01:34:46.193 --> 01:34:51.437
The other thing I kind of want to touch on that has always been a sore spot

01:34:51.437 --> 01:34:54.349
for me has been the death penalty in the United States.

01:34:55.641 --> 01:35:03.157
We had the situation where the young lady was, forget her name,

01:35:03.157 --> 01:35:04.814
she committed a very heinous act.

01:35:05.775 --> 01:35:12.417
Her and her love interest, and another woman kidnapped a woman in Tennessee

01:35:12.757 --> 01:35:17.900
and brutally tortured and killed her all because of jealousy, right?

01:35:18.968 --> 01:35:26.548
And so the other young lady that was involved that was an accomplice got off,

01:35:27.138 --> 01:35:33.729
because she basically turned state witness against this woman and her boyfriend.

01:35:35.953 --> 01:35:41.652
And then, you know, this woman and the boyfriend confessed that they did do what they did.

01:35:42.477 --> 01:35:50.761
So the boyfriend got life without parole, but this lady, she got the death penalty.

01:35:52.198 --> 01:35:57.127
And, you know, through all of the appeals and all that stuff,

01:35:57.127 --> 01:35:59.995
she was scheduled to be executed this past week.

01:36:00.837 --> 01:36:03.670
And Tennessee screwed it up.

01:36:06.860 --> 01:36:10.436
And it was a lot of machinations going around legally. Last minute,

01:36:10.436 --> 01:36:12.380
you know, he always tried to get the stays.

01:36:13.776 --> 01:36:19.676
And it looked like it was going to normal thing.

01:36:19.676 --> 01:36:24.976
It's like, stay Supreme Court. Nope, we're not staying at Peel Court.

01:36:24.976 --> 01:36:27.966
Nope, we're not staying at Supreme Court. Nope, U.S. Supreme Court.

01:36:27.966 --> 01:36:28.842
Nope, we're not staying at.

01:36:29.278 --> 01:36:35.034
Go ahead with the execution. But then the federal appeals court said, hold up. Wait a minute.

01:36:35.741 --> 01:36:44.386
We might need to check or, you know, hold us up because there was a concern

01:36:44.386 --> 01:36:47.600
about her mental acuity, right?

01:36:48.445 --> 01:36:52.096
But then the U.S. Supreme Court overturned that, and so they went ahead with

01:36:52.096 --> 01:36:54.546
the execution, and then they couldn't do the execution.

01:36:55.902 --> 01:36:57.962
They botched it twice.

01:36:59.622 --> 01:37:07.002
You know, now she's in critical condition. I think she's on a ventilator. in Tennessee.

01:37:09.230 --> 01:37:13.420
Which always gets me to the point is, why do we do this in the first place?

01:37:13.891 --> 01:37:19.407
Why do we feel that we got to kill people who kill people?

01:37:20.098 --> 01:37:28.518
Why? It's the most amazing paradox that all of these Christian nationalist people

01:37:28.674 --> 01:37:34.438
or these evangelicals or whatever, it's like, oh, yeah, I for an eye.

01:37:34.658 --> 01:37:37.137
Yeah, we should kill them. Yeah.

01:37:37.917 --> 01:37:41.365
And it's like, and they say it, and there's this big cross right behind them.

01:37:42.586 --> 01:37:47.835
And the cross was what they used to execute Jesus, right?

01:37:48.634 --> 01:37:51.752
That was the form of capital punishment in the Roman Empire,

01:37:52.325 --> 01:37:58.146
to nail somebody to a cross and leave them hanging up there for hours until

01:37:58.146 --> 01:38:01.143
they died of dehydration or whatever, right?

01:38:02.203 --> 01:38:08.336
It was torture and ultimate death. And that very symbol is what the Christian

01:38:08.336 --> 01:38:13.136
church uses as, you know, a testament to their faith.

01:38:14.165 --> 01:38:16.998
And it all depends on what part of Christianity. If you're Catholic,

01:38:17.451 --> 01:38:23.256
Christ is still on the cross. If you're Protestant, the cross is bare because

01:38:23.256 --> 01:38:26.180
Jesus overcame it, right? That's what you're taught.

01:38:27.311 --> 01:38:34.084
And so to use that as the symbol, the weapon that was used to,

01:38:34.693 --> 01:38:37.102
or the method that was used to kill Jesus.

01:38:38.324 --> 01:38:42.519
You embrace that in your religion and then you go out and say,

01:38:42.810 --> 01:38:47.041
yeah, we should kill other human beings that commit crimes.

01:38:47.837 --> 01:38:53.846
It would seem to me that the Christian church would be the largest group of

01:38:53.846 --> 01:38:57.981
folks against the death penalty, a billion plus strong worldwide.

01:38:58.469 --> 01:39:01.295
It would seem to me that would be logic based on.

01:39:02.591 --> 01:39:08.130
The symbolism, and the knowledge of the true story. But that is not the case.

01:39:09.198 --> 01:39:13.251
The most fervent Christians out here, especially those that are in politics,

01:39:13.251 --> 01:39:16.750
are like, oh, no, we need to kill them, shoot them, gas them,

01:39:17.603 --> 01:39:20.370
put the needle in them, whatever, right?

01:39:21.315 --> 01:39:22.847
And that's insane to me.

01:39:24.093 --> 01:39:32.037
And, you know, part of, I guess, was a testament to the influence that I had.

01:39:32.455 --> 01:39:37.395
It's that me and another gentleman who was Catholic, who was a fellow Democrat,

01:39:38.179 --> 01:39:45.338
white man from the, well, the hills area, I won't say the Delta, but close enough.

01:39:46.738 --> 01:39:51.179
You know, we co-sponsored legislation to end the death penalty in the state of Mississippi.

01:39:51.887 --> 01:39:55.986
And we were able to have a hearing, right?

01:39:56.108 --> 01:40:02.679
We actually got the judiciary in bank to meet and have a hearing on our legislation,

01:40:03.780 --> 01:40:05.544
because we were at a critical point.

01:40:06.191 --> 01:40:10.621
We saw what was coming. There were European countries that were manufacturing

01:40:10.621 --> 01:40:14.620
the drugs that are used for the lethal injection.

01:40:15.719 --> 01:40:19.626
And the European Union was like, we're going to stop doing it.

01:40:20.200 --> 01:40:24.003
And we're definitely going to stop exporting it around the world.

01:40:24.598 --> 01:40:26.886
And the primary customer was the United States.

01:40:27.690 --> 01:40:32.921
So seeing that the shortage was happening, this was the time for the iron to

01:40:32.921 --> 01:40:38.452
strike. Now, remember, this is over 20 years ago that we were having this fight.

01:40:39.544 --> 01:40:45.731
And today, in the year of our Lord, 2026, we are still botching executions in the United States.

01:40:45.731 --> 01:40:49.901
We are still trying to carry out executions in the United States of America.

01:40:49.901 --> 01:40:53.901
There was a period of time in my lifetime that there were no executions in the

01:40:53.901 --> 01:40:56.477
United States of America. Every state had outlawed it.

01:40:56.873 --> 01:40:59.531
There was no constitutional amendment. There was no.

01:41:00.769 --> 01:41:04.637
Federal law. It was just each individual state made a decision.

01:41:04.637 --> 01:41:07.196
We're not doing that anymore. Right.

01:41:07.902 --> 01:41:10.677
But now they were doing some other stuff like in South Carolina,

01:41:10.677 --> 01:41:14.143
they were castrating people, but that's a whole nother conversation. Right.

01:41:14.824 --> 01:41:19.216
And they weren't doing the chemical gastration. They were doing the old fashioned way.

01:41:20.232 --> 01:41:27.697
You know, I just I just think from a perspective of whether you're a spiritual person or not.

01:41:29.257 --> 01:41:35.877
Revenge is not justice. Because killing the other person doesn't give their family closure.

01:41:36.598 --> 01:41:42.621
Because they ask the members of the family to witness the execution. Why would you do that?

01:41:43.580 --> 01:41:49.269
You know, you think you're giving them satisfaction by watching another person die?

01:41:49.664 --> 01:41:51.666
The person that they love died.

01:41:52.555 --> 01:41:57.317
And now you want to give them satisfaction to watch the person that was accused

01:41:57.317 --> 01:42:00.809
and convicted of killing them, watching them die.

01:42:01.835 --> 01:42:08.237
You know, we satisfy our lust for revenge through movies and TV shows.

01:42:08.237 --> 01:42:12.327
You know, these action shows where the hero gets beat up or somebody in the

01:42:12.327 --> 01:42:16.429
family gets kidnapped and then, you know, they get the bad guys in the end.

01:42:16.592 --> 01:42:22.347
Even our superhero movies, right? It's like you got the good guy trying to protect

01:42:22.347 --> 01:42:26.059
the world from somebody that's trying to take over the world or the universe or whatever.

01:42:27.704 --> 01:42:31.837
That's where our fix comes in. But when we start applying that to public policy,

01:42:31.837 --> 01:42:35.263
that is a problem. That is a major problem.

01:42:36.890 --> 01:42:41.620
And even more so now, the fact that we seem to be inept in carrying it out,

01:42:42.633 --> 01:42:46.456
because this is not the first botched execution in the state of Tennessee.

01:42:47.043 --> 01:42:50.607
It's not the first botched execution in the United States.

01:42:51.479 --> 01:42:56.414
And that should be a sign that we need to stop that, that we need to stop.

01:42:56.414 --> 01:43:02.214
It used to be a time where executing people was public, right?

01:43:02.214 --> 01:43:07.614
Whether it was legal or illegal, right? The legal way was like there's a courthouse

01:43:07.614 --> 01:43:13.083
in Natchez, Mississippi, the old courthouse. You can go down and you could see from the street.

01:43:13.188 --> 01:43:19.272
It's like you take a tour and there's like a room where they kept a prisoner.

01:43:19.969 --> 01:43:25.054
And then, you know, back in the day, you know, they didn't have the electric

01:43:25.054 --> 01:43:26.645
chair. So they hung people.

01:43:27.098 --> 01:43:31.614
So you could see from the street that person, you know, when that person got

01:43:31.614 --> 01:43:34.277
hung inside of the building, in the room.

01:43:34.938 --> 01:43:38.460
It would drop to the floor and that person would hang and everybody would see it.

01:43:39.134 --> 01:43:42.669
And okay. Then when they had the electric chair that traveled,

01:43:43.087 --> 01:43:47.837
right, when they started using electrocution as the form of execution.

01:43:48.853 --> 01:43:51.534
The chair would travel to different counties.

01:43:51.534 --> 01:43:57.794
So there's a replica of the electric chair that used to travel the state in

01:43:57.794 --> 01:44:01.904
that same room. And so instead of hanging a person, they would sit the person

01:44:01.904 --> 01:44:04.365
in front of the window and electrocute them.

01:44:05.229 --> 01:44:09.384
So that the citizens could see that he was executed. And there are countries

01:44:09.384 --> 01:44:12.904
like Saudi Arabia. It's like a big event in Saudi Arabia. If they execute somebody

01:44:12.904 --> 01:44:17.654
in Saudi Arabia, it's like pageantry involved with it, right?

01:44:17.654 --> 01:44:19.320
And it's on national television.

01:44:20.222 --> 01:44:23.734
Now, they claim it's a deterrent to crime there, but I think it's more of the

01:44:23.734 --> 01:44:28.619
culture rather than them cutting somebody's head off, right?

01:44:29.382 --> 01:44:33.212
Now, I would not want to do anything to warrant my head being cut off,

01:44:34.230 --> 01:44:37.758
but they still have thieves and you know,

01:44:39.081 --> 01:44:44.498
You know, they cut their hand off, right, for stealing. That's what they used to do.

01:44:44.713 --> 01:44:49.780
I don't think they do it now, but they used to do it. But I think crime is deterred

01:44:49.780 --> 01:44:54.330
in those kind of situations because their incarceration rates are not that high

01:44:54.330 --> 01:44:56.271
and all that. And it's because of the culture.

01:44:57.118 --> 01:45:01.230
If you go to Dubai, which I have not, but I have witnesses, people that have

01:45:01.230 --> 01:45:03.851
gone, there are no homeless people in Dubai.

01:45:04.825 --> 01:45:10.410
So that's going to be a decrease in crime because you have, you don't have people

01:45:10.410 --> 01:45:15.247
desperate trying to find a place to stay or eat or whatever. Right.

01:45:17.420 --> 01:45:25.460
So culture has a lot to do with crime and the need for greed and all that kind

01:45:25.460 --> 01:45:27.560
of stuff. That plays a major role in crime.

01:45:29.175 --> 01:45:36.490
You know, and man, if you go by the biblical documents, man has been killing

01:45:36.490 --> 01:45:38.524
man since Cain and Abel, right?

01:45:39.185 --> 01:45:46.528
And even then, even then, God did not strike Cain down. He exiled him, right?

01:45:47.392 --> 01:45:52.060
Sent him to the land of Nod. He put a mark on him. So they know,

01:45:52.060 --> 01:45:53.679
oh, that's the dude that killed his brother.

01:45:54.484 --> 01:46:00.600
But God didn't strike him dead. So where do we get the moral authority to kill

01:46:00.600 --> 01:46:02.402
people who commit a crime?

01:46:03.564 --> 01:46:09.140
And now we're not even getting to that point. Fast forward to Airman Fortson.

01:46:10.994 --> 01:46:17.029
Whose only crime was that he was at home when the police knocked on the wrong door.

01:46:17.681 --> 01:46:19.917
He wasn't expecting anybody to come.

01:46:20.719 --> 01:46:24.061
And he had his gun by his side.

01:46:25.019 --> 01:46:28.461
He didn't have it pointed at anyone. He just had it.

01:46:29.424 --> 01:46:34.038
Now, Florida is a southern state, so people have the right to carry their guns,

01:46:34.038 --> 01:46:36.414
especially in their house, to protect their house.

01:46:36.762 --> 01:46:41.678
So if somebody is coming into their house or knocking on the door because,

01:46:41.678 --> 01:46:46.050
you know, the deputy's attorney was like, well, you know, he shouldn't have had the gun.

01:46:46.509 --> 01:46:51.002
Did that man say he was the police until he opened the door? That was the question.

01:46:51.915 --> 01:46:56.745
Because if the man had identified himself as the police, he wouldn't have had the gun.

01:46:57.381 --> 01:47:00.683
He's military. He respects the authority.

01:47:01.176 --> 01:47:05.338
So if he had been identified as a police officer, he would have answered the

01:47:05.338 --> 01:47:09.878
door and he'd probably be still alive today. But because that man didn't identify

01:47:09.878 --> 01:47:13.298
himself as a police officer, which I still don't understand how a jury in two

01:47:13.298 --> 01:47:15.374
hours didn't cover that.

01:47:17.348 --> 01:47:20.666
Since he didn't identify himself, that man didn't know who that was.

01:47:21.731 --> 01:47:29.035
And I'm sure that's not exactly the safest place because your environment dictates how you act.

01:47:30.083 --> 01:47:35.378
Because if he was in a ritzy kind of condominium, he probably wouldn't have

01:47:35.378 --> 01:47:38.604
answered the door with a gun on the side. Just a thought.

01:47:39.709 --> 01:47:42.958
But because he did that, he got executed, right?

01:47:44.679 --> 01:47:51.492
And we're given license. The family Renee Good is suing because she was executed, right?

01:47:52.175 --> 01:47:55.172
Alex Preddy was executed, right?

01:47:56.057 --> 01:47:58.490
People are being shot down in the streets.

01:47:59.570 --> 01:48:03.669
Some have lived. Some have bullets still in their body because they're in detention

01:48:03.669 --> 01:48:06.216
centers when they should be at hospitals getting surgery.

01:48:07.297 --> 01:48:12.279
But that was an attempted or botched execution, right?

01:48:12.279 --> 01:48:16.969
This whole mentality, this judge dread mentality, where it's like I'm the law

01:48:16.969 --> 01:48:22.219
and the executioner of the law on the street, is a problem in the United States

01:48:22.219 --> 01:48:25.487
of America. It's all right for a comic book. It's all right for a couple of movies.

01:48:25.928 --> 01:48:28.482
But that's not how we're supposed to operate in the real world.

01:48:29.371 --> 01:48:37.862
This whole mindset that I got to kill people to exact justice from people is a flawed premise.

01:48:38.327 --> 01:48:44.881
And when I talk about the legal executions, I'm talking about the lynchings, right?

01:48:45.717 --> 01:48:51.406
Whether it's black people or whether it's Jewish people like Leo Frank here in Georgia, right?

01:48:52.103 --> 01:49:00.371
The lynch mobs, the mindset of this nation when it deals with justice has to change.

01:49:01.481 --> 01:49:08.646
You are given weapons in law enforcement to defend yourself or somebody that's in harm's way.

01:49:09.220 --> 01:49:13.956
It is not designed for you to go out and kill folks because you have authority.

01:49:14.922 --> 01:49:19.849
But there are some people who don't understand it. That's why we have these

01:49:19.849 --> 01:49:21.827
news stories, all right?

01:49:23.015 --> 01:49:27.816
And like I've said before, if it was commonplace, it wouldn't make the news.

01:49:28.088 --> 01:49:32.618
Like when people do good stuff, that doesn't make the news all the time because

01:49:32.618 --> 01:49:34.369
people are expected to do good things.

01:49:35.383 --> 01:49:39.342
It's when tragedy happens, unique situations happen.

01:49:40.054 --> 01:49:43.387
That's what makes the news, right?

01:49:44.416 --> 01:49:52.077
So it's not an everyday occurrence, but one occurrence is one too many.

01:49:53.049 --> 01:49:59.160
Do I need to repeat that? It's not an everyday occurrence, but one occurrence is one too many.

01:49:59.912 --> 01:50:05.419
And we got to get out of this mindset that we got to kill people to exact justice.

01:50:06.460 --> 01:50:07.728
There are some people that depict

01:50:07.728 --> 01:50:13.280
Lady Justice as having the scales in one hand and a sword in the other.

01:50:14.386 --> 01:50:18.200
But most depictions of Lady Justice just have the scales.

01:50:19.299 --> 01:50:25.402
When you see the statues that have the sword in the scales, that's a mindset, right?

01:50:26.456 --> 01:50:31.744
It's not about killing people to get justice. And we got to stop it.

01:50:32.185 --> 01:50:35.428
We got to stop it. We got to stop it.

01:50:36.289 --> 01:50:40.429
This blood lust just has to stop, you know?

01:50:41.424 --> 01:50:48.806
It's like, again, entertainment purposes, we get it. It may not be right. but we're entertained.

01:50:50.016 --> 01:50:53.093
But in real life, not so much.

01:50:53.912 --> 01:50:59.659
It's not entertaining for the state of Tennessee to try to execute somebody,

01:50:59.659 --> 01:51:05.707
and now they got to pay for that person to be in ICU because they screwed up.

01:51:06.410 --> 01:51:09.865
Something that they shouldn't have had the authority to do in the first place.

01:51:10.983 --> 01:51:16.482
We punish people. They are properly adjudicated for their crime.

01:51:17.354 --> 01:51:24.826
We don't get the license then to commit another crime against humanity and then label that justice.

01:51:25.736 --> 01:51:31.796
Pontius Pilate didn't even want to have it. He washed his hands of it.

01:51:32.957 --> 01:51:40.179
But we want to be fully engaged in it. That makes no sense. None.

01:51:41.747 --> 01:51:46.162
And until we get back to that mindset, whatever was going on in the 70s where

01:51:46.162 --> 01:51:51.992
they decided, yeah, we're not going to do that anymore, we're going to have issues in this country.

01:51:52.961 --> 01:51:59.282
We've got to set a standard in this nation that we give a damn about our fellow human being.

01:52:00.264 --> 01:52:03.652
The more we do that, the less we have to deal with crime in the first place

01:52:03.652 --> 01:52:05.472
because we're teaching a mindset.

01:52:05.472 --> 01:52:08.240
But when we have a president that doesn't give a damn about the law,

01:52:08.739 --> 01:52:11.962
and we've got members of his cabinet that doesn't give a damn about the law,

01:52:11.962 --> 01:52:14.748
we've got members of his family that doesn't give a damn about the law,

01:52:15.911 --> 01:52:21.240
there are literally children being raised with that as an example.

01:52:21.640 --> 01:52:23.862
Well, the president of the United States did it. Why can't I do it?

01:52:24.878 --> 01:52:28.992
He called that woman a pig. Why can't I call it one? He's rude.

01:52:28.992 --> 01:52:33.908
He's obnoxious. Why can't I be rude obnoxious? Right?

01:52:34.912 --> 01:52:41.732
Can you imagine if Barack Obama had any of the characteristics that Donald Trump had?

01:52:42.794 --> 01:52:47.152
I would be doing this podcast from another country. They would be ran every

01:52:47.152 --> 01:52:48.629
black person out of this nation.

01:52:49.134 --> 01:52:53.521
Can you imagine if Barack Obama said on January 6th.

01:52:55.846 --> 01:53:02.201
2021, let's go up to the Capitol. And we started talking about lynching and

01:53:02.201 --> 01:53:05.524
killing members of Congress, storming the building.

01:53:06.017 --> 01:53:08.624
That's what Senator Johnson said from Wisconsin.

01:53:09.580 --> 01:53:12.981
He said he wasn't worried because it was white folks. He said now it was black

01:53:12.981 --> 01:53:14.513
folks. He had been scared.

01:53:15.320 --> 01:53:18.050
He said that. Go look it up. He said it.

01:53:18.918 --> 01:53:22.941
Can you imagine how many bodies would have been killed? How many bodies would

01:53:22.941 --> 01:53:26.276
have been strewn about that Capitol building and if it was black folks doing that.

01:53:27.194 --> 01:53:31.441
So why do we tolerate white folks doing it? Why do we tolerate a bloodlust?

01:53:31.441 --> 01:53:36.890
Why do we tolerate bad behavior from certain people when we know better,

01:53:37.413 --> 01:53:39.912
when we're raised better? Why do we do that?

01:53:40.707 --> 01:53:42.855
For power, for money, for greed?

01:53:43.847 --> 01:53:49.360
Because we want to covet something and then we mainstream it and say it's politics,

01:53:50.264 --> 01:53:51.953
capitalism, and justice.

01:53:52.950 --> 01:53:54.251
Greed is not capitalism.

01:53:55.268 --> 01:54:02.536
Rudeness is not a sign of power, and executions are not a form of justice.

01:54:03.555 --> 01:54:10.622
Stop sanguashing stuff. Stop defending the indefensible. Stop.

01:54:11.761 --> 01:54:18.997
If America is going to achieve its desired goal to be the example for the world,

01:54:19.785 --> 01:54:22.455
then we got to stop defending the indefensible.

01:54:23.391 --> 01:54:28.983
We got to stop settling. for what we can get and demand better for each and every one of us.

01:54:29.961 --> 01:54:35.821
That's where we are. And I hope that people, you know, take that to heart when

01:54:35.821 --> 01:54:42.159
they go vote on November the 3rd, the first Tuesday of November in 2026,

01:54:43.129 --> 01:54:46.403
or early voting, which would probably be better.

01:54:47.233 --> 01:54:53.987
But I just want us to really, really reexamine our soul as a nation.

01:54:54.944 --> 01:54:59.937
And stop defending the indefensible.

01:55:01.179 --> 01:55:02.038
All right, that's all I got.