Ep 266 — Trump Says LOVE ME On The Taxpayer Dime

Law and Chaos

The episode explores a series of legal and political controversies surrounding the Trump administration's use of executive power. The hosts

Key takeaways

• A jury ordered Apple to pay $5.7 billion to Taktion for infringing on haptic patent technology.
• The Trump administration is utilizing 'pocket rescissions' to unilaterally cancel nearly $1 billion in congressionally allocated funds.

Main topics

• Executive branch budget maneuvers
• White House media access disputes

Notable quotes

When you prostitute your institutions of justice, it has these long-term effects.

Conclusion

The episode serves as a critique of the erosion of institutional norms

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) But when you prostitute your institutions of justice, it has these long-term effects, right? Now these guys are coming back and saying, well, the DOJ says this case wasn't reasonable to start with. Give us money. Speaker 1 (0:11) And Speaker 3 (0:12) I don't think it's going to work, but we should never have been in this position. Hear, Speaker 1 (0:16) hear. Speaker 3 (0:28) Welcome to Law and Chaos, where Trump is running nonpartisan campaign ads, the January 6th rioters want judges in D.C. to award them reparations, and Brett Kavanaugh has had it up to here with the Eighth Circuit. We've got a lot to cover, so let's get after it. Speaker 3 (0:48) Hey guys, I'm Liz Dye and with me as always is Andrew Torres. Andrew, how are you? Speaker 1 (0:52) Well, I think you know how I am, but I am excited to be here with you doing the show. Speaker 3 (0:58) This is, I mean, it's good that no one else is here with us in the studio because we have horrendous cold, both of us, and we're just like... It's like a full atmosphere of sneeze in here. So super fun. I had to get the dog walker and I was like, do not come in my house. I will let the dog out in the yard. Do not come in here. Speaker 1 (1:18) Well, that was very socially responsible of you. And I have to say the other thing I'm really, really excited about is that Liz, you and I. both read the book By the Fire We Carry by Rebecca Nagel. She is a journalist. She's a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. She's the host of the podcast This Land. And that podcast tracked the litigation that became the Supreme Court's 2020 decision in McGirt versus Oklahoma. And we're going to do a deep dive into that story, kind of cover the litigation, the legal aspects. of this really, really fascinating story. And I'm excited to bring that to our listeners. Speaker 3 (1:55) I absolutely am. So that show's going to run sometime in the next two weeks. And so if you want to read in advance and keep your eye out for it, we both learned quite a lot from it that we did not know, even though we consider ourselves to be Supreme Court watchers. So definitely can recommend, and we're going to talk Speaker 1 (2:15) a lot about it. Okay. Speaker 3 (2:17) We're Speaker 1 (2:17) going Speaker 3 (2:17) to talk about Eighth Circuit. We're going to talk about the January 6th rioters. But first, we're going to talk Speaker 1 (2:22) Ducket Speaker 3 (2:23) Alerts. All right, let us start with a big mazel tov to former Missouri Attorney General and now former FBI Assistant Director Andy Bailey. He announced this morning that he is resigning from the bureau to spend more time grooming his cats. Speaker 1 (2:37) I guess he got tired of waiting for Kash Patel to get fired. Although, you know, I would bet that Patel gets hustled out the door after the midterms. Speaker 3 (2:45) I mean, maybe. A counterpoint, if Democrats take back the Senate. Donald Trump's not going to be able to confirm a replacement? Well, Speaker 1 (2:52) he can use the Federal Vacancies Reform Act. Speaker 3 (2:54) Yeah, maybe. I mean, sort of. I know what you're saying, that you can substitute out anybody who's been Senate confirmed. So I can't. Like, who would be the worst person? RFK Jr.? I'm trying to think who would be Speaker 1 (3:05) worse Speaker 3 (3:06) who has been confirmed to Speaker 1 (3:08) something. Was Jay Bhattacharya confirmed by the Senate? I mean, he might be worse than RFK Jr. I think he already left government. Speaker 3 (3:14) I know. I'm like, you know what I'm betting? I bet that they just make. Todd Blanchard, one of his deputies. Speaker 1 (3:19) Oh, yeah, Speaker 3 (3:19) give Speaker 1 (3:19) five more jobs. Yeah, Speaker 3 (3:20) for sure, for sure. I mean, isn't Marco Rubio, like, head of USAID and the State Department and the archivists? Speaker 1 (3:27) Marco Rubio, lowest attendance record in the Senate, now has eight jobs in this administration. Sure, why not? Speaker 3 (3:33) Yeah, I mean, but if Bailey had stayed put... He probably could have, you know, slid into that job, gotten the keys to the kingdom. Speaker 1 (3:42) Yes, but that might not have been all he had hoped for. I mean, because if Democrats retake the House of Representatives, they are going to rain down an avalanche of investigations on this administration, right? And I think that Bailey... Maybe he was also a little wary of winding up with Kash Patel either trying to pin the blame for everything that's gone wrong at the FBI on him or, you know, just noping out, leaving him holding the bat. Neither of those are great options. Speaker 3 (4:10) I mean, is Andy Bailey smart enough to think that many moves in advance? I have seen zero indication from his prior career that he is just affecting to be stupid. This is a guy who sued Starbucks for defrauding consumers because they didn't have enough white baristas. He's like Timu Ken Paxton. Speaker 1 (4:28) You know, I hear you, but he was smart enough to get out of the way of something. And I suspect that we're going to find out what that is in a couple of days, by Wednesday at the latest. If there's one thing that is a constant about people in D.C., it is that they love to leak about Cash Patel. Chug! Chug! Chug! Okay, next up, on Friday, a jury in California ordered Apple to pay $5.7 billion to a company called Taktion for infringing its patents on the vibration actuator. I mean, what's that when it's Speaker 3 (5:03) at home? Speaker 1 (5:03) It's the buzz. Oh, I get it. So if I can actually take like 30 seconds to geek out here, the patent that Taktian owns is for the mechanism that controls that vibration. They invented it for high-end headphones. So think about it like hitting a gong, right? Like there's the original tone and then there's several extra seconds as it keeps vibrating. But that is really not desirable in the case of haptics. You don't want your phone or your gaming headphones buzzing and then kind of like... petering out, right? So Taktion's patents are for this mechanism that uses magnetic fluid to both stop the vibration and control it more precisely. It's really cool. And that's what they say that Apple infringed for multiple years of iPhones and Apple Watches. And on Friday, the jury agreed with them. Speaker 3 (5:51) Well, that is nice. I do appreciate them stealing that particular feature that wakes me up when I fall asleep with the phone in my hand because I'm like... inadvertently highlighted something. Well, Speaker 1 (6:00) then it's all worth it. Speaker 2 (6:01) I guess so. Speaker 3 (6:02) Okay. An Speaker 2 (6:03) update on the White House Speaker 3 (6:04) media ban, where Trump borrowed CNN, MSNOW, and Politico. As you know, Judge Tim Kelly issued a temporary restraining order blocking it on due process grounds, after which the White House did indeed restore the 76 affected reporters' access to the campus. But it is still barring those reporters from Air Force One and the Oval Office. And CNN is apparently still locked out of pool duties. Speaker 1 (6:26) Yeah, I don't understand that last one. But remember that CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox all split the cost and responsibility for following the president around and supplying high quality footage of his every emanation. That got replaced for a few days by Real America's Voice and Lindell TV. And they said, we could totally pick up the slack. Output to date has been, let's say, lackluster. Yeah. Inaudible. Yeah. And we've heard some examples of it, and it is comical. And then the White House attempted to launch Trump TV on YouTube, but it's been like rerunning his 2015 campaign speech, things no one wants to watch. So perhaps. The Trump administration has a strong incentive to just let this grievance go and let things get back to normal. But thanks to the D.C. circuits ruling last year in a case called AP versus Sputowich. They actually might succeed in arguing that the administration can exclude disfavored networks from the Oval Office and from Air Force One. That case was the one where Trump tried to block the Associated Press from the White House because it would not change its style guide to say Gulf of America. And it got before a terrible panel at the D.C. Circuit, two Trump appointees, Naomi Rao and Gregory Katzis. They invented this distinction between. the spaces accessible to the media generally, and the more private spaces of the White House. And they said it was fine for Trump to exclude the AP from those private spaces as retribution, even on the basis of viewpoint discrimination. So, yeah, it's good in the Oval Office, but not in the Brady briefing. Speaker 3 (8:16) This is a ridiculous ruling that is going to kind of reverberate in... truly negative ways for a very long time. Speaker 1 (8:21) Yeah, until Democrats expand the Supreme Court and overturn it. Okay, that's where we stand. I was hoping that the media plaintiffs would have filed their motion for preliminary injunction by the time we recorded on Monday night, but as you guys know, a temporary restraining order lasts for 14 days, so there will be a hearing quite soon to see about the entry of a permanent injunction. I'm wondering if they're going to make that this continuing exclusion, at least, you know, of CNN from the pool, like an issue in that motion for a preliminary and then permanent injunction? Speaker 3 (8:57) Yeah, I mean, during the hearing, Ted Boutros, who represents the media network, said, look out, Your Honor, to Judge Tim Kelly and said, look, there are going to be further shenanigans. And there have been. And there have been. I think it's almost certain that they will refer to that exclusion in the motion for preliminary injunction, which, rudely, they did not file in time for us to record. Speaker 1 (9:15) Agreed on all counts. Speaker 3 (9:17) Okay. Next up, the artist Dua Lipa is suing Samsung for using a photo of her on packaging for its televisions without her permission. She would like $15 million, please. Speaker 1 (9:27) You know, when you dropped this case into our work slack this morning, I was like, wait a minute. There must be more to this case. It cannot possibly be the case that a giant multinational company just slapped a major artist's face on its product and then... didn't pay her and tried to say, oh, it's fine, it's fine, because, you know, your face doesn't imply endorsement. And anyway, you can't trademark your face. Speaker 3 (9:52) And yet, that is exactly what happened. Speaker 1 (9:55) It's so funny story, because one of the seminal appropriation of likeness cases in the Ninth Circuit involved a robot in a blonde wig and a dress next to a game show wheel. The plaintiff was Vanna White. She won on appropriation of likeness. Any guesses as to who the defendant in that case was? Speaker 3 (10:16) Was it Samsung Speaker 1 (10:17) Electronics? Ding, ding, ding. So, yeah, they had this ad that ran in 1988 that they were using to sell VCRs, and they used this robot Vanna White. The 1980s were weird. Yeah. Speaker 3 (10:29) I mean, Vanna White is still turning the letters. VCRs have, of course, gone the way of the dodo. Speaker 1 (10:34) And Samsung is apparently still using artists' images and likeness. Without their consent. It's the Speaker 3 (10:40) circle of life. Spin the wheel of life. Speaker 1 (10:43) Okay. Now, let us turn to the Law and Chaos doofus of the day. You Speaker 3 (10:49) doofus! Speaker 1 (10:51) And today's winner is Kansas Senator Roger Marshall. Marshall is facing an unexpectedly vigorous challenge from Democrat Adam Hamilton. In fact, the latest Emerson poll had Hamilton up a point. I'll believe it when I see 10 more. But still, like, Marshall was. Not happy when the New York Times published a story on all the patients that he sued for unpaid bills back when he was just a simple country OBGYN. In fact, dozens of his patients were actually arrested when they missed court dates in their collections cases. This Speaker 3 (11:29) country is Speaker 1 (11:29) so f***ed up. Yeah, and yet the right wing is somehow puzzled that all the young people aren't having babies. Speaker 3 (11:35) Yeah, so they can't be sued by their OBGYNs. Big mystery here. So, of course, Hamilton cuts an attack ad with one of these women saying she was arrested when she was pregnant because she failed to make a $50 payment. To which Marshall first posts Hamilton ad a lie. Documents from the case in Barton County show that the debt the patient owed was $3,596.49, not $50. And it notes that a judge ordered that she appear before court because she had failed to appear in court 16 times in a three-year period. You Speaker 1 (12:05) know... If Hamilton's campaign had deliberately misstated the dollar figure under the, you know, Lyndon Johnson theory of, I know, I just want to make him deny it. Copulating with a farm animal, yeah. That would have been a masterstroke. But I think this is just inadvertently, right? Like, to be clear, one, that $50 payment was actually won in a series of structured payments towards servicing that larger $3,500 debt. That, Senator Marshall, is often what people who can't afford to pay large bills wind up negotiating to do. And number two, even if he were right, like, how is it better to say, oh, I didn't have her locked up for 50 bucks. I had her locked up for $3,500. Like, you're still admitting that you had your poverty-stricken patients locked up for uncollectible debts for you delivering their... Like, debts, by the way, for which you charged an 18 % annual rate of interest, which would be usurious in many states, including Maryland, plus court costs. This senator just confirmed that he locked up his own patients for being too poor to pay him for delivering their babies. Speaker 3 (13:19) That would be doofus enough. And yet the Kansas Reflector reports that the Marshall campaign actually sent the Hamilton campaign a cease and desist letter saying the unmistakable message to a reasonable viewers that Senator Marshall caused a pregnant patient to be arrested and jailed for missing a single $50 payment. That message is false in every material respect. Speaker 3 (13:44) A Speaker 1 (13:45) way to ensure that the last five weeks of the campaign will be fought