Episode Transcript
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Thank you very much for your support. This
0:54
is Words Matter with Norm
0:57
Ornstein. We've got the
0:59
votes, and screw the rest of you.
1:02
And Dr. Kavita Patel. These
1:04
might be some of the smaller moments, you know,
1:06
with all the bombshells. Didn't catch people's eyes. Welcome
1:22
to a special combo
1:24
episode of our members
1:26
only and what's
1:28
accessible to anybody who wants
1:30
to listen podcast called
1:32
Words Matter from the DSR Network. This
1:34
is a special edition
1:37
because Norm Ornstein and I are
1:39
discussing some of the very important
1:41
arguments that were made on
1:43
Tuesday, March 26th during
1:46
the Supreme Court hearing of
1:48
the plaintiffs' Hippocratic Alliance, the United
1:50
States v. or actually I've got it
1:53
the wrong way, I think, Norm, right?
1:55
Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v.
1:57
the United States. the
2:00
correct order of plaintiff and defendant. And
2:03
it's such a special episode that we wanted to just
2:05
make sure, one, everyone could listen to it. And
2:07
two, we're going to try not to do
2:10
what's probably easy to find on your favorite
2:12
social media platform. But we want to try
2:14
to highlight some of the issues, as Norm
2:16
and I discussed them, around
2:19
topics that might not necessarily
2:22
come to the front of your Twitter
2:24
threads. And so Norm, I think, first
2:26
off, impressions that you had
2:29
from listening to the justices and
2:32
just the back and forth between the plaintiffs
2:34
and defendants and the source general, as well
2:37
as all three women, by the way, we
2:39
should point out, that
2:41
were representing the United
2:43
States Food and Drug Administration, the federal government's
2:46
point of view. And
2:48
then two, Danko, which is
2:50
the manufacturer of Niferprex and
2:52
Niferprestone till. And number three,
2:56
the lawyer who was representing the
2:58
Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, in
3:00
this case, the plaintiffs, seven physicians
3:02
who cite standing
3:04
because of potential harm made
3:07
by the FDA's decision to approve
3:09
this and expand access to Niferprestone.
3:11
But all three women, so very
3:13
notable. Norm, your thoughts? Well, first,
3:16
Kavita, when I saw the name
3:18
of the plaintiff, I thought it must be
3:20
a typographical error, because it should be the
3:23
Society for Hippocratic Medicine. But
3:29
I thought the
3:31
Solicitor General was
3:33
brilliant. She had
3:36
such utter command, first
3:38
of all, of the
3:40
facts, including citing out
3:42
of memory footnotes and
3:44
passages. The
3:47
lawyer for Danko was fantastic, as
3:49
well. It's hard for
3:51
me to give any credit to the lawyer
3:53
on the other side, because she happens to
3:55
be married to Josh Hawley, who
3:58
is one of the best lawyers of
4:00
the worst of the worst in
4:04
the Senate right now. But
4:07
I really was first struck by
4:09
the fact that the stars across
4:11
the board, including the justices in
4:14
this oral argument, were
4:16
women, all of them. And
4:20
it took me back to
4:22
an earlier era. Sandra Day
4:24
O'Connor finished second in her
4:26
class at Stanford Law School
4:29
and was only offered jobs
4:31
as a secretary. My
4:34
wife's class, they came
4:36
in in 1970 into Yale Law School, had 28 women out of
4:38
170 plus enrollees.
4:45
Now it's a majority, but you think
4:47
about what we lost. The
4:50
brilliance, of course it's not just the law,
4:52
but in earlier times it wasn't
4:55
as bad as the Taliban or
4:58
other countries like Saudi Arabia,
5:00
excluding all of that incredible
5:03
talent from helping to grow the country and
5:05
the economy. But
5:08
we lost an awful lot over decades
5:10
and centuries. The second
5:13
point is that Sam
5:16
Alito remains somebody
5:18
who I hold in the Senate.
5:22
I've been waiting for this. Okay, yes. You
5:24
know, not only is he corrupt, but
5:28
talk about somebody who comes to
5:30
a case with
5:33
his own preconceived conclusions
5:35
and his ideology and
5:38
then struggles to find a way to cloak
5:41
it in faux originalism
5:44
to justify the conclusion he's already come
5:46
to. This is the exact
5:48
opposite of what you want in a jurist,
5:50
whether it's the Supreme Court or any other
5:53
court. And he was schooled
5:55
today by the brilliant Katanji
5:57
Brown Jackson, among others. point,
6:00
and then I will leave it up to you, is I've
6:03
read the sigh of relief through this
6:05
hearing because a
6:07
good part of it was not about
6:10
the substance, but about the standing of
6:12
these plaintiffs, arguing not
6:14
that they'd suffered an injury, not
6:17
that they were on the verge of
6:19
suffering an injury, but that
6:21
it was all theoretical. And
6:24
I think there are at
6:26
least five and maybe seven
6:28
justices who will argue
6:31
in the end that they did
6:33
not have standing. And that's
6:35
for two reasons. One, I
6:37
think a lot of these justices
6:39
recognize full well the mess
6:41
that they've gotten them into with the Dobbs
6:44
decision, and that if they
6:46
keep doubling down on that, it will
6:48
take a court that is already reeling
6:50
from a lack of legitimacy and disapproval
6:53
by Americans, but
6:55
make it that much worse. And
6:58
the second is, there's no
7:00
doubt to me that down the road, five
7:03
justices or six are
7:05
going to move to undercut the
7:07
administrative state, do away
7:10
with Chevron and other doctrines that enable
7:12
agencies basically to act on behalf of
7:14
the public. The last
7:16
one they want to take on as
7:18
the lead in that is the FDA.
7:22
So I think they're going to punt
7:24
on this one. And frankly, I'm fine
7:26
with that, given the alternatives. So
7:29
just in your estimation, and let me
7:31
maybe it would be helpful since, you
7:34
know, Norm, I don't think we'll
7:37
blame people who are working and
7:39
have like real jobs to kind
7:41
of not necessarily pay attention to
7:43
these topics constantly. So let me let
7:45
me offer like what I would say is
7:47
my there's some beautiful threads you
7:49
tweeted about this, but I'm going to offer kind
7:51
of in the moment, a little bit of why
7:53
we think this is going to be maybe
7:56
I don't know, seven to maybe six
7:58
three, but still in favor. of
8:00
the administration kind of in favor of like
8:03
the FDA holding kind of the standard
8:05
around the FDA. But what I thought
8:07
was interesting is that several kind
8:10
of points that I'm going to give credit
8:12
to Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who
8:14
might, people might be sleeping on
8:16
and thinking she's just going to be kind of
8:18
off, you know, with Alito and others. But
8:21
there's a kind of a narrative that started where
8:25
when Holly, the lawyer for the
8:28
plaintiffs, for the Alliance, where
8:30
Barrett asked Holly how a doctor could
8:32
know that a woman seeking, that was
8:34
in the emergency room seeking kind of
8:37
a DNC had a viable embryo or
8:39
fetus. Couldn't it have
8:41
been a miscarriage? Could it have been
8:43
something else? Or how could that, the
8:45
conscience clause exemption not apply or what
8:47
would be the situation where it's such
8:49
a dire emergency and kind of all
8:52
these things had to come to bear.
8:54
Kagan also again, incredible
8:57
justice follows and says again, and
8:59
she kind of beats this point several times, by
9:01
the way. But in
9:03
this one particular narrative, Kagan kind of says the
9:05
two doctors of the seven
9:07
who are objecting because they were complicit
9:09
in abortions for having to have performed
9:11
a DNC after a woman used misopristone,
9:13
which is what two of the doctors
9:15
claim. And
9:17
Holly couldn't provide really any reason
9:20
why those two doctors with
9:22
their objections should then create
9:24
complete kind of national disruption.
9:28
Then you had Katanji Brown Jackson, Justice Jackson,
9:30
who kind of went on
9:32
to say like, look, DNC's are rarely used.
9:35
There are additional things that are done. Like
9:37
it's not always like a DNC. So she
9:39
wanted numbers and data. Holly kind of sidestep
9:41
that. And then you get
9:43
Clarence Thomas who basically invites Holly to say,
9:45
well, what about the Comstock Act objecting to
9:47
kind of mailing quote, lewd materials that
9:50
are the words used in
9:52
the form of misopristone. Let's be clear,
9:54
an FDA approved abortion drug. So Thomas
9:57
kind of going back to that Comstock
9:59
Act. and then Kagan constantly kind
10:01
of bringing up the very valid point
10:04
about traceability. You have to show in
10:06
order to claim that the FDA kind
10:08
of overstepped, you have to show that
10:10
the injury is traceable to
10:12
this 2016 and 2021 decision
10:15
where the FDA allowed for
10:18
pharmacies to provide these medications with
10:20
their doctor's prescription and then eventually moving
10:22
to telehealth because of the pandemic. Holly
10:25
basically said, I don't need to show
10:27
this direct traceability. We just need to
10:29
show increased harm. We think
10:32
traceability is satisfied by the FDA's own
10:34
words. So I think that this
10:36
is like, and then when she asked to kind
10:38
of Kagan again, what is the harm? What is
10:40
that additional harm? Holly goes
10:42
on to cite studies that have
10:44
been retracted, norm, never peer reviewed,
10:47
and have actually by the publication,
10:49
SAGE publications, been publicized
10:52
and kind of apologies put
10:54
out for these publications not meeting
10:56
standards. And in some cases, the
10:58
studies she's citing are like random
11:01
physician blogs, like just random blog
11:03
posts about how there were these like
11:05
increased ER visits, et cetera. So
11:07
nothing specific, nothing peer
11:09
reviewed, nothing citable. And the reason I
11:12
think that thread of kind of here,
11:14
here, here, here is important. And I
11:16
started with Komi Barrett is because it's
11:18
very clear, like the justices are like, you
11:21
need to show us this link for standing. And then
11:24
you have this random like gas, like
11:26
this kind of bomb of Alito and
11:28
Thomas throwing in Comstock, which I
11:31
had to look up again, because I forgot it's like from
11:33
what, dorm 18, 1890, something like that. And
11:37
never ever been enforced. Never been enforced.
11:39
And again, it was applied not for what
11:42
we're talking about here, but around like
11:44
pornography. Anyway, just you can maybe talk about Comstock
11:46
and what it was meant to be used for, I guess,
11:48
when it passed in the 19th century, I
11:51
can't believe I'm saying that. But how,
11:53
how let's, let's actually connect this for
11:56
listeners, something that I haven't seen any
11:58
commentary today, John. Let's. connect this
12:00
for listeners to the election. Because here's my thought,
12:02
Norman, I want to hear your thoughts. I
12:05
think that if Trump wins, all he has to
12:07
do is put in an FDA commissioner that can
12:09
easily kind of come in and put in back
12:12
incredibly restrictive measures. You can keep
12:14
a drug approved that you can put
12:16
in back incredibly restrictive measures.
12:18
You can paper this to
12:21
essentially make any Supreme court ruling moot
12:23
and accomplish almost the same effect. Right. And my,
12:25
I mean, Norm, I don't see anybody drawing that
12:28
argument and distinction. To me, everything
12:30
that happened today, it felt like one step
12:32
forward. We put Donald Trump in place and
12:34
he put some lunat, you know, lunatunes
12:36
show, which is what will happen in
12:38
charge of the FDA. Guess what happens?
12:40
Not just to mr. Hearthstone. He'll put
12:42
every key. It'll be a he, he'll
12:45
put every drug that deals with choice and
12:47
reproductive freedom under some severe
12:49
REMS kind of risk.
12:52
Um, it's the REMS
12:54
protocol, which is called risk evaluation mitigation strategy,
12:56
which is what's in place for mr. Hearthstone
12:58
in about seven or eight other
13:00
drugs and, and he'll put, he'll
13:03
put that in place. Am I wrong? What
13:05
am I missing? I mean, you're absolutely
13:07
right. Uh, and that, uh,
13:09
underscores the stakes of this, uh,
13:11
election again. I have
13:14
to say watching Holly, uh,
13:16
do all of that made me
13:19
think, well, she probably is the
13:21
ideal partner for her husband, Josh
13:23
Holly, because they both have a
13:25
level of mendacity that is off
13:27
the charts. Um, and
13:29
you know, the other thing that struck me
13:32
is that, uh, the rigorous studies
13:34
about mecca for stone and the,
13:36
uh, getting it by mail show
13:39
that adverse effects are something like 0.3%. Not
13:43
even 1%. My guess
13:45
is that a whole lot of other
13:48
drugs that you and
13:50
I and others get through the
13:52
mail from our pharmacy benefits managers
13:54
have significantly higher rates of adverse
13:57
effects and all you have to
13:59
do. is listen to
14:01
any of the TV commercials about
14:04
these popular drugs, which explain the
14:06
adverse effects. You're not explaining them
14:08
because they only affect 0.3%. So,
14:14
you know, this thing is
14:16
absurd. Fortunately,
14:20
I think Barrett,
14:22
who is showing to me signs
14:24
that she, more than any of
14:26
the other conservative justices, including
14:30
the Chief Justice, is growing
14:32
more and more sensitive to the
14:34
damage to the integrity of the
14:37
court that comes from
14:39
these radical decisions and
14:41
is trying to find a way
14:44
to create a different balance. I
14:46
hope I'm right about that because
14:48
on the whole, she aligns with
14:50
the rest of the radical justices.
14:52
But I'm hoping that increasingly, we're
14:55
gonna see the two worst,
14:57
Thomas and Alito, end up
15:00
on the wrong side of
15:02
many seven-two decisions, further
15:04
discrediting them as if we needed any further
15:06
evidence. I also was impressed with Gorsuch. I
15:08
mean, he didn't speak much, but I don't
15:11
know if you agree, Norm,
15:13
but I thought that Gorsuch and Comey,
15:15
which we kind of knew about Gorsuch,
15:17
right? Like we didn't, and
15:20
by, oh, now I'm thinking in real time. Where
15:22
was Kavanaugh? Was he not, what happened to Kavanaugh?
15:24
I didn't hear a word from Kavanaugh. Was
15:26
he there? He must've been there, right? To
15:29
be sure, I was
15:31
mostly listening on cable news where they went
15:33
in and out and parked. No, I listened
15:35
to the whole thing. Because I
15:37
had to cover it, like, well, one, I was
15:40
interested in, too. I had the time. I listened
15:42
to the entire thing. I
15:44
don't remember Kavanaugh speaking. No,
15:46
I didn't see Kavanaugh at all. I will
15:48
say with regard to Gorsuch, one
15:50
of the real strong principles
15:53
of the more conservative justices
15:56
has been to use standing
15:58
to greatly... limit the
16:01
access to the Supreme
16:03
Court of a whole
16:05
host of cases. Now, for the most part,
16:07
those have been cases that
16:09
benefit corporations and rich
16:11
people, but I
16:14
think Gorsuch, at least in this case, is
16:16
being a little bit more true to
16:19
the principle that you have to show
16:21
real direct harm to
16:24
have standing. So
16:27
I'll take that for now as
16:30
a way out of this. But the
16:32
other thing we ought to mention, Kavita, is, okay,
16:35
we have this case in front of the court.
16:37
We know that when they brought it up in
16:39
the Fifth Circuit, that the radical
16:42
judges there jumped all
16:44
over it to try and achieve
16:47
their goal. But we also know
16:49
that Project 2025 run
16:51
out of heritage with
16:53
the direct involvement of the Trump campaign
16:56
sees a path where
16:58
you start with abortion. It'll move to
17:01
a national abortion ban. It
17:03
will include doing just as you say,
17:06
making sure that Meffa-Pristone is not
17:08
available except under onerous
17:11
conditions, and then move on
17:13
from there to a war against contraception,
17:16
a war against gay marriage, a
17:18
continued war, which will move
17:21
to recriminalize gay sex and
17:24
create a world in which
17:26
the Handmaid's Act will
17:28
look more like paradise, the
17:31
Handmaid's Tale, excuse me. So we
17:34
have to look at this case, and if it ends up
17:36
the way we're hoping it does, breathe
17:38
a small sigh of relief, but remember
17:40
just as you said, all
17:43
of that could disappear if Trump wins
17:45
another term. Yeah, it
17:47
could. And it just makes it even
17:49
more important, I think, just for me,
17:51
it was a really direct line, like while
17:53
I would like to say that today, there was a
17:55
moment today where I felt more, I'm like, oh, thank
17:57
goodness. Right. Like, okay, fine. Put Alito and Thomas. to
18:00
the side, like I said, this could be, you know,
18:02
however this decision comes down, but put
18:04
them to the side. What a great time. But
18:06
I was like, wait a minute. No, this is bad.
18:08
This is still bad. And I can't help
18:11
but to think that like, now that it's
18:13
been pretty clear, like how they might
18:15
lose and on what basis standing, for
18:17
example, that they'll just find a way
18:19
to create standing, right? I mean, it
18:21
reminds me a little bit of like
18:23
during COVID, all the courts that were
18:26
forcing doctors to prescribe hydroxychloroquine inside of
18:28
hospitals, and we had no basis
18:30
for doing it. It wasn't even
18:32
like there was no science binded. It
18:34
was medication used for parasites and horses,
18:37
and people, but not for COVID.
18:40
And we have courts forcing people to
18:42
do things like that. So you think
18:44
about the potential unintended consequences, and they're pretty
18:47
dramatic in this case. Absolutely.
18:50
And, you know, I was reading the other
18:52
day a story about a couple that
18:55
took aquarium cleaner and
18:57
ingested it because it had
19:00
as one of its ingredients,
19:02
hydroxychloroquine, and both died. You
19:04
know, consequences of
19:06
this misinformation and
19:08
disinformation were drastic,
19:11
and not just because
19:13
people didn't get vaccinated or tried
19:15
to rely on treatments that were
19:18
absurd, or actually
19:20
denied to people who needed
19:22
drugs, lupus victims and others,
19:24
the drugs that they needed because people
19:27
scooped them up believing
19:30
that nonsense. You
19:33
know, it's a very
19:35
difficult time. And when I look
19:38
at Alito and Thomas, and I
19:40
look at many
19:42
occasions in which Kavanaugh and
19:45
Roberts have
19:48
joined them, and the
19:52
Gorsuch often as well, it
19:55
takes you to Alice in Wonderland, verdict
19:58
first trial to follow. And
20:00
we have to be very
20:03
aware of, sensitive to, and
20:05
concerned about situations where
20:07
it's clear they bring their ideological biases
20:09
right to the bench and
20:11
then post facto
20:14
come up with rationales. And
20:16
this is something that former
20:19
Justice Steve Breyer in
20:21
his really good interview
20:24
with Kristen Welker
20:26
on Meet the Press. And
20:28
with the book that he's written brings
20:31
out that, you know, his
20:33
pain that they were misusing this
20:36
doctrine for
20:38
their own purposes. Yeah,
20:41
I'm glad you brought up Kristen Welker's interview
20:43
because maybe that takes us into something that
20:45
comes up as a little bit of the
20:47
breaking news while we're recording this, but I
20:49
think it'd be worth getting your take on
20:51
it. And believe me or not, like this
20:53
is actually somewhat related to the Supreme Court
20:56
hearing today because it talks about the
20:59
NBC News hiring and what looks
21:01
like subsequent firing within, you know,
21:03
days of the announcement that
21:06
Ronna McDaniel is a paid
21:08
NBC, MSNBC correspondent. Then
21:10
on Sunday, Meet the Press, there was
21:12
a pretty dramatic intro to Kristen Welker's,
21:15
that same interview of Stephen
21:17
Breyer's that aired that same hour. She
21:19
also had a live on-air interview with
21:22
Ronna McDaniel, but had booked
21:24
that interview prior to learning that she
21:26
was going to be a paid contributor
21:28
for NBC, the employer for Meet the
21:30
Press and for Kristen Welker. And
21:33
that generated so much backlash, so much
21:35
so that at the end of the
21:37
hour when Chuck Todd, who was on
21:39
their kind of roundup panel, basically said
21:41
the network owed Kristen Welker an apology.
21:43
And there was just a flurry of
21:45
both internal and very public and high
21:47
visible kind of proclamations even by all
21:49
the basically female anchors of MSNBC, including
21:52
Rachel Maddow, Nicole Wallace, Stephanie Rule, who
21:54
basically said like not on our network.
21:56
And now as we're recording this kind of
21:58
breaking news, norm that she's been
22:01
let go and that she's retained counsel,
22:03
not a shack. Um, I
22:05
bring this up because we're talking about the Supreme Court,
22:07
but we're talking about the political backlash. We're talking about
22:09
the coverage. You and I have talked about the media.
22:11
We need to do that media episode, but tell
22:13
me your thoughts on this. And I'm not sure
22:15
if you saw that news, but you know, what,
22:17
what a 48 hours it's been
22:20
starting with meet the press and ending
22:22
on the Supreme Court hearing with
22:24
this news after of her being let
22:26
go from NBC. So,
22:29
um, first I've been
22:31
plenty critical in the past of meet the
22:33
press, some of the guests
22:35
that they brought on with some of the
22:37
interviews, uh, that, uh,
22:40
Kristen Welker has done, but I also did that
22:43
in the past with Chuck Todd and
22:45
other moderators, I want
22:47
to give her props for the interview
22:49
that she did with Ronna McDaniel, you
22:52
know, she stopped using, uh,
22:54
Romney because Trump insisted on
22:56
that. I'm guessing that now
22:58
the Romney family is going to insist
23:00
that she not use that name, um,
23:04
but, uh, and
23:06
I'll give props to Chuck
23:08
Todd. What a massive self-inflicted
23:10
wound by a completely out
23:13
of touch leadership at NBC
23:15
news. And you know,
23:17
Ronna McDaniel is likely to walk away
23:19
with $300,000 that she did not earn.
23:24
Um, I actually thought it would be
23:26
better for NBC at this point to
23:28
basically keep her contract going, but
23:31
just not use her on any
23:33
shows so that she couldn't then
23:35
dance off and become a commentator
23:37
somewhere else. Uh,
23:39
and she will probably find some right
23:41
wing network, uh, to do so. It's
23:44
funny you say that. I actually said the same thing
23:46
to a colleague who works at NBC. I
23:48
said, why not? You're going to
23:50
have to pay her either way. You've got a
23:52
contract. Yeah. Why not just keep her and never
23:55
put her on TV because all contracts, including even
23:57
my own has like a carve. You can't go
23:59
on any. other network.
24:01
And you would imagine she's got that same exclusivity on
24:03
there too. And so I'm a
24:07
million thousand. I love that
24:09
idea of keeping her on. Not sure that... Although
24:12
I think there's something just deplorative about
24:14
keeping someone on a payroll and handing them
24:16
free money like that, which is I'm sure
24:19
where some of this comes from. There's
24:22
more to this than just the
24:24
insensitivity of hiring somebody. And
24:26
this pushback
24:29
from Frank Luntz and others, Greta
24:31
Van Susteren, they're trying to
24:34
silence conservative voices. No, they're
24:36
trying not to put on
24:39
and legitimize serial liars and
24:41
election deniers and insurrectionists. She
24:44
actively tried to alter the
24:46
election results in Michigan. So
24:49
it's a very different case. But then
24:51
you look at the reality that Kristen
24:53
Welker was blindsided by her own network,
24:56
that all of the other anchors and
25:00
others had no idea. But
25:02
also all of the
25:04
people who are on as paid contributors, my
25:06
guess is that very few of them make close to
25:08
$300,000 and they've laid off plenty
25:12
in the name of fiscal responsibility.
25:14
So the direct slap at so
25:16
many people, and there's one other
25:18
point we ought to make here,
25:20
which is that this is not
25:22
a new thing. And
25:24
there is some reality
25:27
to the struggle that
25:30
television networks and
25:32
newspapers with op-ed pages have,
25:35
where they want to represent all
25:38
of the different elements in the political
25:40
arena. But you go back to CNN
25:44
hiring Jeffrey Lord and Corey
25:46
Lewandowski and others, who they
25:48
then had to fire when
25:50
their scandals emerged and
25:52
other networks doing the same thing.
25:55
Some of the absolutely cringe-worthy contributors,
25:58
paid contributors, on
26:00
op-ed pages like the Washington Post, Hugh
26:02
Hewitt being a good example, but I
26:05
can go on with more and the
26:07
times and others as well. And
26:11
it's tough, but you can
26:13
find legitimate conservatives.
26:16
I applauded the New York Times
26:18
when they hired David French, who
26:20
has proven to be an enormous
26:22
asset, a conservative, but who is
26:24
an honest figure out
26:26
there. You can find
26:28
people who represent Republican
26:30
viewpoints, conservative viewpoints, without
26:32
pandering to the worst
26:34
instincts, and NBC News just
26:37
soiled itself over and over again with this
26:39
one, and it's not going to be forgotten.
26:42
I think it's the one that's not going to be forgotten. And
26:44
also, I can tell you
26:46
that my guess, and I'm not no
26:49
firsthand knowledge, but nor am I guessing that all
26:51
of this is done because there's this pressure
26:53
to kind of appear. I
26:56
don't even know what to say. Balance for provide
26:58
diverse perspectives, something like that. Well,
27:00
there's a way to provide. I know
27:03
that this goes without saying, you and I
27:05
know some Trump officials who could provide some
27:07
very diverse perspectives who would actually be like
27:09
somewhat, you know, one I'd be more interested
27:12
in hearing from and could actually
27:14
be like productive in conversation, not
27:16
someone who actually has supported not
27:18
just election deniers and
27:20
Donald Trump, but gone out of their way
27:22
to not say anything about January 6 until
27:25
lo and behold, she was relieved of her
27:27
RNC duty. And she can make a convenient
27:29
comment such as, well, you know, when you're having
27:31
to act on behalf of like a larger group,
27:33
you take one for the team. But now I'm
27:35
my own person. Give me a break. I mean,
27:38
so I can't, I can't help just
27:40
following orders, just following or like, sorry,
27:42
not me, you know, not it. I mean,
27:44
it's just a well in
27:47
any case, it's, we'll see. I went to
27:49
when do we think that we might expect
27:51
a ruling norm that is going back to
27:53
the Supreme Court case? It'll
27:57
take a while. And yes, it'll take a
27:59
while in. part because it's
28:02
going to have to be very carefully
28:04
crafted to get that
28:06
super majority of justices. And
28:10
I would guess, as
28:12
somebody not on the inside, but
28:15
having seen a lot of these arguments go forward,
28:18
that they're going to try and base their
28:20
ruling entirely on the narrow issue of who
28:22
has standing. Not weigh
28:24
in on Ephr of
28:49
justice is all. Justice is, I loved that. I know
28:51
that was when she won like, you know, it's
28:53
like, I love this woman. She's amazing. By the
28:55
way, I was like, everybody has an opinion about
28:57
doctors, but I don't mind if it's Katanji Brown
29:00
Jack. That's okay. Who
29:03
is by the way, married to a physician
29:05
or husband is an orthopedic surgeon, I believe
29:07
at George Washington University. So, all
29:10
right, well, that's that's our wrap for our
29:12
combo episode. We hope that listeners learned
29:14
a little bit and got a
29:17
little bit more ficed to keep fighting
29:19
and making sure that we get some
29:21
folks out to vote because I hope
29:23
we painted a pretty clear picture. I
29:25
want to thank you, Norm, for joining
29:28
me. Thank everyone for listening. It would
29:30
be helpful if you could rate, review,
29:32
subscribe and share this podcast on your
29:34
favorite podcast player. And
29:36
if you like this and want to get
29:38
more of a conversation, return as a
29:40
member and you can get bonus segments
29:43
and certainly access to past bonus segments,
29:45
as well as future events that
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are exclusive to members only. Words
29:50
Matter is a production of the DSR
29:52
Network. Our executive producer is Chris Cutmar
29:54
and our producer for our podcast is
29:56
Riley Fessler. Our next episode of Words
29:59
Matter will be in in and on
30:01
your podcast feeds around April
30:03
4th. See you then.
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