 esteemed colleague and friend Jeff Fortnoy, probably our leading attorney here in Hawaii on First Amendment and related issues. And Jeff has just achieved something that has been a great deal of work, but it's a work in progress as we understand it, which is getting the records of the State Department of Education to enable evaluation and assessment of kind of what they're doing and where they're going. Fair statement, Jeff? Sure. Okay. We have Ben Davis from University of Toledo School of Law. Ben has been a true epitome of exactly what John Lewis eulogized as making good trouble for many years. I've been a disciple of Ben's in doing that and a longtime, lifetime friend of his and also a Jim Alpini former dean at North Illinois and South Texas. And now a man whose perspective has the panoramic view of all of this. Chuck, I also want credit for keeping Ben out of trouble. Here he is. It's a Toronto story. We've got that under consideration, Jim, but we're excited yet whether that keeping Ben out of trouble is a credit or a devil. So gentlemen, with all that has gone on, including yesterday, where are we headed? What do we need to be mindful of? Anybody? Well, I'll tell you. I'll tell you. Unfortunately, I was playing with my radio on the car today coming in and I hit a station which I didn't even know existed and it's conservative talk. And for five minutes until I couldn't listen anymore, this guy went on and on about how the media and the Democrats have misportrayed what happened yesterday with these patriots and compared it to the way that they protected the Black Lives Matter protestors and nothing's changed. And frankly, listening last night on CNN and MSNBC, they did the opposite. They kept talking about how the police and the government handled yesterday compared to the way they handled the protests like in Portland. So despite all the good things that have happened in the last 48 days and the horrible thing that happened yesterday, I don't think the country has moved one inch towards a better resolution, but hopefully better days are ahead. But listening to conservative radio today, I was appalled. Fair statement. So what might that look like, Jeff, and how might we get there? That where? When you got, you know, the other thing that's happened recently is over the holidays, I read the first volume of the John F. Kennedy biography, which is phenomenal. It is 700 pages and it only takes him from his birth through his election to the Senate. But a lot of it dealt with Joseph McCarthy and things I never knew. Maybe you guys, Ben and Jim and you, Chuck, knew that Jack Kennedy was a supporter of McCarthy because of the Irish Catholic vote in Massachusetts. And it was only at the very end of McCarthy's reign of terror that Jack Kennedy had the profile and courage to kind of suggest that maybe it was time to shut him down. I think that's where we are now. And as Mitch McConnell just finally seen the light, and other Senate Republicans, but if you watched any of the House, 140 House members still voted to have a commission investigate the election. So I think we're right where we were during Joseph McCarthy, except we have thousands of people who have been misled and are willing to take to the streets and engage in anarchy. Yeah, I think that's correct. I'd like to look at it through a different set of lenses though. You may recall that after Watergate, we talked a lot about what are the lessons we've learned from this. And in fact, the phrase post-Watergate phenomenon has become part of our lexicon. We talk about things close to my era, for instance, was the fact that all the cover-up people during Watergate were lawyers. There were 17 lawyers, I think, including John Dean that covered it up. And so the American Bar Association reacted to that by mandating the teaching of legal ethics in law schools. And in fact, in some ways, that's how I became a law professor. I was teaching as an adjunct at a local law school in Chicago, and they asked me to teach professional ethics. I said, you know, when I went to law school, we didn't even have a course in legal ethics. And he said, yeah, none of the regular faculty know it either. So I'm coming to you because I was part of an organization that did need to know something about the rules of professional responsibility. But at any rate, I started teaching professional responsibility. But that was a post-Watergate phenomenon. It's now mandated not only by the law schools, but all are most of the continuing legal education programs require the teaching of legal ethics. So I think that we need to think about, you know, what does all this mean, and how do we try to deal with it? One of the things that I think is almost impossible to deal with, but I need to mention it, is the fact that we should build in some protections that keep us from having a narcissist elected president. When you think about it, the fact that Donald Trump is clinically a narcissist, I mean, he was unwilling to accept defeat. That's a classic symptom of narcissism. Everything he does is narcissistic. But how do we assess that in a candidate for president? I don't know. Does the media work on that? I don't know. But it's something I think we need to look at. But the difference, Jim, between now and Watergate, and that's why I went back to McCarthy, because I think that's a much better reflection of where we are now. Watergate was a was a legal and a political issue. People weren't in the streets supporting Richard Nixon. Most people cared less about it. The media didn't. Lawyers didn't. Politicians did and didn't, depending upon when they saw the light. But now you've got tens of thousands of people in the streets and 71 million people voting for a certifiably crazy president and his enablers. That's the huge difference. And how many of those 71 million mean? Well, probably 80% and just believed in the economy and things like that. But what we saw yesterday, we haven't seen since the War of 1812. And then what, there were 30? I don't know how many people stormed the Capitol then, but they were from another country. They were redcoats. I mean, that's where I think this country is horribly divided. And it's the public that I'm concerned about. Yeah. So let us take another, maybe another way of looking at all this is, I think it's been declared that John Ossoff and Raphael Warnock won the two Senate seats in Georgia. So the sort of right wing wall of the South has been broken into significantly. And when I was watching that, I was impressed by the fact that I think the fall off from November was not as bad as it could have been. And that in fact, there were a whole bunch of new voters who were voting in the, in the runoff basically as opposed to even in November. So you see this kind of earth shaking development across the South. I think some people even went so far as to say to have a, was it the first Black since since civil war and to have a Jew be named as the senators from Georgia, which used to be the center of segregation was like amazing, right? You know, but the interesting thing was, and this is not coming from me, but I thought it was really profound last night with all the talking heads. There was one that just was to me so persuasive about where we are. A lot of people talking about the return of Jim Crow. I don't think that's the case. I don't think it's the South. It's what's happening in places like the South. That's what's causing this divide. It's rural versus or urban. It's the white Christian population in rural areas that feel that they have lost control or are losing control of their country to blacks, to Asians, to, you know, to Latin American, to, you know, that's where this country is in a terrible divide. It's rural or urban. It's white Christians versus what I just said. How do you remedy that problem, which I think is now dividing the country in terrible ways? And just look at the representatives yesterday who voted, you know, for the Republicans, South Dakota, North Dakota, Kansas, you know, it's not like it used to be right in the 50s and 60s where you had the races South. And I mean, that's how I see it. That's true. But I still wanted to say that the certainty, so to speak, that the Southern strategy would work for purposes of having a South Dakota Republican, it's been broken. That has been broken in a big way. And that is very significant. I saw a tweet from Sherilyn Eiffel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, who's headed it, where she said that, you know, those two votes showed just why, from 1865 to 1960, there was such a virulent effort to repress black voters in the South, because black voting power was a threat to exactly the kinds of people that you're describing. And so to me, you know, it's like that the organization that led to all that happening was actually a moment of quite amazement, really, and optimism, especially because I saw these two candidates on the Republican side who were just incredibly corrupt. And I think that people could see through it. And then the fact that Purdue comes from, what is it, the sort of Georgia royalty, right? Because his brother or uncle was the governor and all that. And even he got kicked out, I was like, well, this is great. So let me start with the optimism, okay? Now, Jeff, I'm going to go farther. Yesterday, I'm going to have a little fun with you all. It's nothing to do with the sun. It just happened in the Capitol this time. You guys remember the Michigan State House? You remember the Ohio State House? Remember these things happening? You remember that the police in all of those places did not slow down? And this is the kind of classic white privilege argument that you're going to see everybody say. And I've seen many people say that magically, they're saying, I felt like I was watching a Casablanca the other day when at the end there where the inspector says we're going to round up the usual suspects. The FBI is asking people to tell us who was in the, who broke in. I'm watching the video. There was even a guy sitting in one Pelosi's office. He gets escorted out. I'm thinking that guy should be picked up and have been arrested then. Now we're going to try to find him. I mean, it's absurd. The other thing is with regards to the whole structure of protection of the Capitol, the request that was made the day before for National Guard by the mayor of D.C. that was not listened to, the delay in providing everyone. I told people on a contract to the survey, you know, you watch the state supported violence is going to happen. I know it. That's where it starts. And here we had it. Here we had it. That was truly state supported violence in the sense that Trump was absolutely inciting and encouraging it. And so it happened and the state powers essentially stepped away because they didn't think white people would act this bad. Well, I think a lot of people in America who've dealt with the history, I said, well, there's been a lot of times when this has happened. I'm not saying all white people are bad or anything like that. I'm just trying to say that this kind of violence, you know, I lived in Boston during the busing stuff with Lisa Meday Hicks, was running around trying to get people riled up, or you can pick any period of time. So what you just saw was just a kind of violence that's been there for as long as we can remember that had just erupted in another way. Yeah. But Ben, until yesterday, and I agree, the Michigan is an example, but you'd have eight or 10 people living out in the woods that would grab their rifles and try to keep federal agents, for example, from taking their land. Right, Bundy. But, you know, you'd have the lone terrorists that would blow up a federal courthouse. You don't have that anymore. You've got masses of people who are unhappy, are willing to listen to whatever they can find that meets what they believe. It's not 10 or 20 or 50 or 100 or 200 people or 2000 yesterday. It's tens of thousands. It's hundreds of thousands. It's millions. It's millions. So I guess Chuck's first question, which I can't answer, is what's going to bring the country back? What's going to bring these two warring parties? You know, you keep hearing people talk about civil war and obviously it makes good headlines, but let's not get absurd. But you've got two countries now. You've got two countries living within one border. What do you do? Well, you know, the thing I would disagree with you on, Jeff, is that this is something new. This is not new. The massive part of it is new. Well, no, it isn't. Those people were lying. They may have been lying dormant. It might have been a dormant, silent, silent majority before that. And then we had the great enabler in the White House and he brought it out in them. So I think that the thing that's new or was new is that we had someone at the top of the system, the president of the United States, who was acting in bad faith, who is a narcissist, who enabled these people. And so I think in a rule of law democracy, no matter how good the structure is in everything, you still have to depend upon the good faith of the people that are elected to be in our leadership. And I think Biden, I think, will live up to that. I think things will look different, but that doesn't mean those people aren't still there. They're just going to sleep for a while, Jeff, you know. But that's why I mentioned listening just this morning for five minutes to one conservative radio station. Sure. Nothing changed. Nothing. No. And Jeff, I will go further. I see this on my Facebook. It's a classic autism, right? Which is that, well, you saw all those things that happened with those Black Lives Matter demonstrations. But that whole thing, the whole race thing in this country, right? I mean, it's just like the serpent that's always there, right? I mean, it just plays itself out in different ways. It morphs itself into different things. How the police responded to these protesters as opposed to other protesters. And there's also whether the protesters are coming from the left or to the right, you know, there's all these things that keep playing out. How is this going to change in the future? I don't know. But where I remain optimistic, I'll tell you this and you'd love this. And I say this to people is that, you know, when I first, with 1961, I integrated the first school, I would estimate that probably in 1961, just my anecdotal sense, 90, 95% of white people despised Black people. Okay? Then around 1983, you remember when Harold Washington went for the mayor's shop in Chicago? I heard Andy Young say that he thought that 25% of white people would be open-minded enough to vote for a Black man. And that to me was enormous progress, okay, in terms of dealing with this stuff. Today, I don't know what the numbers. Sometimes I say it's 50-50. I don't know. Sometimes I looked at the numbers of who voted for Trump and it was 57% of white people voted for Trump and 43% voted against them. And I say, you know, maybe it's 50-50. And, you know, yes, these folks are out there. Yes, they're hurting. Yes, they're going to do their thing. Trump played an absolute race card the entire time for his complaints about the election, picking six states. And every state where he picked, it was places that had significant Black voters. And this gets back to the Sherilyn Eiffel point, which was that this is the part of kind of repressed Black voting power that's been around forever. Now, my problem now is that there are going to be people who are going to say, we have to relook it. I didn't want anything to happen with regards to any commission or anything being set up, because not a jot of sort of compromise, because the commissions are set up to keep playing with the rules post Shelby to disenfranchise Black and poor voters. I mean, that's just what that's the game that the Republicans have been playing and will continue to play. And the way the game is played is so magical in terms of all the different ways you can screw with people's vote, right? And the flexibility given by Shelby. But, you know, I think that that's the battle, that's the political battle that will go forward. And it's just a question again, the question of people of good faith who realize this kind of nonsense is going on and who call it out and defend again. I'm so sad. I just had one thing. Okay. I'm waiting for us to see what happens with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund suit against Trump for voting rights at violations that is in the US DC district court right now. That's where it's going to be. The blood is going to be on the floor in there with regards. Okay. So let me give you a stat that I heard on election night in Georgia. I'm just repeating it. I haven't attempted to verify it. On the polling that was done, 67% of white college educated men voted for the two Republicans. What does that tell you about what you're talking about? 50%. 67% of college educated whites voted for those two criminal senators in Georgia. Let me tell you why. You do know LBJ's famous aphorism, right? You guys do know this one, which was that he said way back in the day that if you made the lowest white man feel like he was better than the best colored man, not only would he give you his money, but he'd give you his wallet if he can get somebody to look down on. This is what people have been drinking on for 400 years, right? 400 years. And you know, understand, and especially if you're a white male, you know, that's part of what you were told or imbibed with. It's the college educated part that threw me. I could understand 60%, 67% of whites with a high school diploma or less college educated. Now, I don't know if they meant to say something else, but I couldn't believe it when I heard it, and I heard it. So we'll see. But I'm just pointing out that, yeah, it was great result in Georgia, unbelievable for the country over the next four years. But it's not because the white folks have changed their view. It's because tens of thousands of disenfranchised minorities got the right to vote. That's why the race came out the way it did. Yes, but also 33% of the white men. Thank you. You may say that's not exactly what I was going to point out. 50 years ago, no one in their right mind could imagine that 33% of the white men in Georgia voted for a black man or two. That's some progress there. There's no doubt about it. The one thing I'd like to address that we haven't addressed is should Trump in these next two weeks be held to account and how? Well, the answer to me, and I'm going to let you guys do it, is yes, and I don't see how. All right. I'm going to say yes. Obviously, minimally a censure, but you know, I did a study at one point about remove impeachment post off after someone has left the presidency. And yes, you can impeach somebody after they've left the office. And then they, you know, and the consequences is they cannot hold a position of public trust ever again. And I say, yeah, impeach them. I mean, how much do you need to impeach somebody? I'm forgetting about the 25th Amendment thing, although they're interesting game on the 25th Amendment, which is why what you guys, I guess this is where I'm coming from a different view from you guys. Why stir up? Why poke the bear? I mean, wait, wait, let me finish for a minute. And then I understand, you know, we're trying to bring the country together, not further divided. Do you know what would happen if they started an impeachment proceeding again with 71 million who voted for them? I just don't see it. I think we got to try to forget about Donald Trump, try to get through the next 13 days and then make him a black mark in the history of the United States. I don't get it. I think. All right. I will respond to Jeff. Go ahead. I'll respond. I remember this. You remember Nixon and you remember with the pardon to heal the country and all that? How did that work for us? How do you know? How do you know? Wait a minute, dude, you remember the torture and oh, we're not going to go after the Bush folks because quote unquote, heal the nation? I'm going to say to you, I don't know what I'm going to say to you, those 75 million people may be pissed off, but it's their problem. That's their problem. What, what, what do, what can, does, can America stand to have this? You know, what, what do we stand to have this? What do we gain by now engaging in an impeachment proceeding? What, what do we gain? He's gone. He's gone. Yeah. His damage has been done. Oh, and no, actually his damage hasn't been done. Continue. Partially done. I'm going to say to you, you, when it all comes out and everything I've seen so far tells me this, the damage is amazing. It's amazing. And it's like if there was a time to impeach a person for something, I would say in a separation of power setting, somebody who lets his supporters attack the seat of the legislature. If that's not a case where they get impeached, I don't know when it is. I'll lead to the side, the fact the guy might get prosecuted by the state of New York and all that stuff. Okay, that's a whole nother level of our federalism. We'll let Jim break the tie. We'll let Jim break the tie. Yeah, I gotta go with Ben on this. No, then forget it. We need somebody else. Let me, let me throw something out. No, no, guys. We're in our last minute. As good as impeachment or 25th amendment removal might be, what if the real remedy is to cut him off from the money and the donors to get across to them that there is no more return on investment? That cuts off his followers because you're not going to get 140 Republicans backing him up if he no longer controls the money and the donors. That I think is the strategy. That's the tactic. That's the area to attack effectively. You want to clean him out legally after? Fine, but get that first. Well, yeah. Carl Bernstein on CNN this morning was talking about putting him in a constitutional straight jacket. I'm not sure. He wasn't very specific about what he meant by that, how we get to that point. But he was basically saying, you know, that as you said, as you're suggesting, Chuck, behind the scenes, people should get together and decide that he can't, he should be neutered. Just qualify him from contribution. Okay, so I'm only going to say this. Can we do this up front for once? Can we do it transparently and up front? Look, I just want to say this. There's no question that Trump was the great enabler, but we're ignoring Fox. We're ignoring hundreds of conservative radio stations. We're ignoring Facebook and Twitter. And I just don't think like some people believe that when you cut the head off the snake, the snake dies because there are amphibians who regrow their tails. And I think Trump's gone, the great enabler's gone, but there's plenty of other people stepping up to say what he would say, including last night in the Congress. Yes. Remember the fish stinks from its head. Gentlemen, January 21st, 10 a.m. Hawaii time, 2 p.m. Central, 3 p.m. I hope we have something to talk about. Thank you all. Thank you. Now we'll stay on for a little debriefing. We're getting to be quite a point-to-counterpoint. I like it. We're having fun.