Rational Security: The “Potty Like It’s 1999” Edition

Ingrid and Indeed present here.

“Jobs, by which you don't have a lot of love.”

- Hi, Frise. - What's up? What's up with you? What are you talking about? What's up? - It's a nice thing. - It's a great thing.

- It's a great thing. - It's a great thing. - It's a great thing. - It's a great thing. This is a job for premium products. With real profits, it won't happen. For the industry, try Indeed.

And find a qualified talent with premium products. [MUSIC PLAYING] - Max, the Indeed, either yet of Indeed.au/recruiting. [MUSIC PLAYING] - Hey, everyone.

Scott, our Henderson here. As a senior editor with Laugh Fair,

you might know me as the guy always rambling about treaties

and more powers or perhaps as the host of rational security. What you might not know is that Laugh Fair has been a part of my life a lot longer than I've been contributing to it. Before I came to Laugh Fair, I was a national security lawyer and occasional diplomat working for the government,

both here in Washington DC and overseas. They were the sorts of jobs that wrestled with. Hard, natural security choices of the type Laugh Fair specializes in. Which why Laugh Fair is one of the first things I open when I got to my desk each morning.

From Iran, De Venezuela, De backyard home, those questions haven't gotten any easier. Policy makers, journalists, and citizens all need the sort of deep, non-partisan expertise in Laugh Fair specializes in. Now, more than ever.

Laugh Fair is also a non-profit. Meaning we're committed to keeping all of our core content from getting put behind a paywall. We can't do it without help from the people who read and listen to us. People like you.

So if you can, visit Laugh FairMedia.org/support and join our community of supporters. Just $10 a month will make a world of difference and helping us keep Laugh Fair free to everyone for a long time to come.

I feel like I should let you all know that if I have a little bit of a more craze than usual, look at my eye, my hair is a little more vertical and creamer-like than usual. I have a little bit of spittle jiggling up out of the corner of my mouth.

It's because I'm in my third or fourth consecutive day

trapped in this basement, my basement recording studio, slash my toddler potty training ground over the past weekend. You would think of any day. We can would be the perfect day to teach someone potty training, but it turns out it's really, really makes it really a very claustrophobic experience

that it may have driven me more than little insane over the weekend. So, thank you all for helping me break out and being the first human contact, not screaming at me about the potty or vice versa, I've had in days at this point. Scott, I will take you our rainy day weekend, and I will raise you quarantining with COVID,

which is when we put potty training out of our shelves. That is a different game, I got to the little more claustrophobic. I should know this by now because I have three nieces and nephews, and I feel like, I mean, I've been through the whole potty training thing, but like, what is that? What are the, what's the system here

that you got going on Scott for potty? Yeah, I gotta tell you, if you are, I know one of the best sons in the world, you've not been through the full potty training thing, because it's a whole, the whole thing is all thing. I think the dominant method now is the three day marathon,

where you take all the things off the floor of your house to just your hardwood, you care the least about, take all the kids close out, and they're just naked for three days. And they just kind of like, it just happens, and then you steer them towards the potty.

“So again, that's what I'm in right now, that's my basement.”

Hello everyone, welcome back to Rational Security. The show will be invite you to join members of the Laugh Fair team, as we try to make sense of the week's big national security news stories, whether they are in our livens or not. I am your host Scott, our Andersen thrilled to be back here with you,

and with several members of our Laugh Fair team and friends and family, to talk over the week's big national security news,

joining me for the first time in a little while,

is none other than Laugh Fair senior editor in a bower. I had a thank you for coming back on the podcast, and you're stately brick a state as ever. I'm assuming you're not blazing a fire, because it's like, warm now, but you look like you could be,

and that's the important aesthetic look we get out of the department. I don't think that it's warm, Scott, but we had a terrible, moral day weekend in New York City. It's very cold and rainy, but the next one, the next one, the next one for the first time since 1999,

so I can't complain. Anna, you're not a Hawks fan. Let's go say, have you just adopted the next? I'm jumping on the bandwagon here, Eric. I'm a new New Yorker, so I've got to be a Nick's fan.

“It's a right passage, I think, at this point.”

By the end of this playoff series, Anna is going to have the Patrick viewing flat top straight back from the 90s in celebration and consolidarity with her new team. I have no idea. Those were super rooting for Nick since long before you were born.

Welcome you to the bandwagon. Well, and that other Nick's fan is none other than Laugh Fair's other senior editor.

Eric, thank you for coming on, and assuring both our Nick's dumb.

“And, you know, we're talking about topics once you did a double-header of pieces for us”

or Laugh Fair, so thank you for finding the time.

Glad to be here, as always.

Awesome. And joining us back on for the first time in a extremely long time, back from her new status as my boss, the Brookings Institution, is none other than Brookings senior, not even your fellow. No, you're a vice president.

Well, you're still a senior fellow, right? I never really understood what these were. You're like nine titles. Thank you. I was going to say Molly Rettles, Molly Rettles is back on the podcast.

Molly, thank you for finding the time. Molly, for folks who may not have guessed, is extremely busy these days. So it's hard to get her schedule arranged, so she can make it back on. But it's been such a fun week in Congress this last week or two.

I was going to say it had to make the time. When Scott said that we were going to talk about Yolo Congress today,

“how could I pass up the opportunity to return to rational security in order to do that?”

That's so good. There's so much to talk about. Oh, without further ado, let us get into our topic. We have a lot to talk about. Topic one for this week, the gift that keeps on giving.

Last week, the Justice Department announced the creation of a so-called

anti-repidization fund of nearly $1.776 billion to be precise.

Tax payer dollars, which purported victims of politically motivated prosecutions can apply to receive payments from. It's great as part of a settlement between President Trump and his sons who sued the IRS for $10 billion with leaked of his tax returns. But so far, individuals like pardon January six writers, former Congress

and George Santos, President Trump's former attorney, Michael Cohen, even former FBI director James Coney, have all indicated they may be applying for compensation. And we've seen a belief three lawsuits filed at this point, challenging it on different legal grounds.

How did this sort of fund arise from this settlement, highly on orthodox Middle East? And where do we see the legal challenges and the broader political challenges facing this fund going? Topic two.

Lane Duck around and find out. President Trump's preferred primary picks have cruise to victories in Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Georgia Republican primaries, asking incumbents like Senator Bill Cassidy and representative Thomas Massey that have served as some of the few

voices of descent within the Republican Party within Congress. But Trump's involvement in the primaries has come at a political cost as these outgoing members are now voicing their criticism a little more vocally, and even going as far as to buck the president on certain prominent legislation, most ugly in some of her Cassidy's case,

a resolution relating to the Iran war. What do the close margin in Congress mean? We should expect from this new Yo-Lo set of legislators who have a few months left to disrupt or support President Trump's agenda in Congress before they leave office.

And what does it mean for the broader arc of President Trump's policy agenda in the months and years to come? Topic three. Justice may be blind, but she's got a taste for vengeance. The Justice Department lost two high-profile prosecutions in Tennessee

and Illinois last week. It was, unfortunately, a judge dismissed charges against Kilmar Abrago Garcia. One of the prosecutors had selectively singled him out in response to a civil case against the administration around his improper deportation to El Salvador early in the administration.

And in Chicago, prosecutors had to withdraw charges with prejudice against four protesters. After misconduct, by an assistant New York attorney in front of a grand jury came to light as a trial was about to begin. How did these cases break down and what did the losses say about

President Trump's ability to weaponize the Justice Department against his enemies?

So for a first topic, I want to come and start with you Anna.

This weaponization fund has become such a huge topic of conversation for very good reasons. It's highly strange. It is an unorthodox arrangement, and it seems on its face. It's not even the press release about it.

It's not really hiding the fact that it has a strong partisan valence, even though a strong case has been made by the acting attorney general and others that it's not strictly partisan and Democrats can apply for the organization toward this fund as well. So talk to us about what the settlement arrangement is that we are aware of,

what the fund looks to be structured with and the kind of context that's arising from. Will listen on some of the details for folks who have been following the story. Yeah, so just to kind of set the scene here to give you an idea of how all this came together.

“You might remember a few years ago, there was a series of stories”

about the public card in the New York Times rant about the tax returns of wealthy Americans, and the way that they got those tax returns, including the tax returns of Trump and the Trump family, was because a contractor named Charles Little John basically took that tax information and then leaked it to those publications who then wrote stories about it.

Little John subsequently was prosecuted. He was sentenced to five years in prison. Many years have passed since then, but Trump once he becomes president subsequently in January of 2026, files suit over the leak of his tax

They bring this suit that relates to the leaking of this tax information.

“Now, keep in mind, on its face, this isn't really the craziest suit”

that Trump has ever brought. Because there is, you know, under federal law, you can-- You're a privacy violation. Yeah, and you can bring suit over, you know, the unauthorized disclosure of your tax information.

So it's not totally crazy on its face. The issue for Trump, though, is that he's clearly outside of the statute of limitations. I also will mention as well that the federal government in other cases related to the little John leaks has made the argument that he's a contractor.

He's not an employee.

“And so therefore the United States isn't liable.”

So there's all these defenses that the United States could and very much

would in any normal case raise in defense of this $10 billion suit.

That's the other thing I should mention as well. That the damages sought was $10 billion. The only case that the government had settled in was a case brought by the billionaire Ken Griffin. And in that case, there was no agreement for a monetary settlement.

It was, you know, just a public apology for what happened with the tax returns. All of which is to say that Trump sued in any normal administration. Probably want to go anywhere at a minimum. And what it most you'd probably get would be some kind of agreement for a public apology because that was the precedent.

Now, instead, what happens? This case goes to a judge named Kathleen William. She's in Obama appointee and in the course of the parties indicating that they might have settlement discussions. This kind of raises a red flag for her because you have on one side Trump.

And he's suing his own administration that he controls. And so to her that raises this question of whether the parties are sufficiently inverse in order to give her subject matter jurisdiction. So she asked for briefing on this. She even asked outside counsel to write a brief on this to kind of help guide her in her analysis. But before DOJ ever even gets around to filing its brief with its own kind of position on this.

Before the judge even gets to a hearing to hear questions about this about whether she should dismiss the suit for lack of jurisdiction. We all the sudden have news from DOJ that there's a settlement. Now, the question is what is in the settlement? The settlement agreement purports to not provide Trump and his family with any direct

monetary compensation. Although there's another aspect to it related to a communities that I can let Eric discuss a little bit more, but in terms of the settlement itself, it says, you know, the Trump's

aren't going to get direct compensation, but we're establishing this $1.7 billion fund that is going to go to

people who claim that they have suffered from weaponization. And Scott, you know, you're right that there are having arguments that anyone can apply for this.

“But I think the reality is that, you know, it's very clear who actually is going to be”

eligible in terms of actually receiving funds for a long time. Trump has talked about, you know, how he thinks that many of his allies have suffered from political weaponization. And he's talked about compensating the January 6th. So it seems clear that those are some of the intended beneficiaries. I will also mention that in the settlement text itself, it makes it very clear that although it seems like anyone

Democrat or Republican could maybe be eligible, the text itself mentions something about law fair or weaponization being defined as, you know, the use of the law by Democrat politicians. Like that's the term that it uses. So there's this question of whether someone who has been targeted by a Republican administration would be able to apply for the weaponization compensation.

But we don't know a whole lot about how exactly this is going to operate because the structure is such that it creates this board. The attorney general Todd Blanche is supposed to appoint five people to sit on this board. They are responsible for setting up their own procedures, their own way of doing the claims. And those procedures can, according to the settlement text, remain secret.

and who gets compensation. So that's kind of an overview. And hopefully it gives you good sense of how we got here and what exactly this settlement is. It is a wild outcome, not just because of the ambiguity because the uncertainty about all this structure

because of the lack of a clear relationship between 1.8 billion dollars.

And the kind of harms you would suffer from disclosure of even as a prominent wealthy individual of your tax relief, like, really says, there's just no real correlation there. It's astounding. So Eric, they can do us a little bit more. I know you and Anna wrote a piece on this together.

I should flag.

“I think it's out of the president who sued himself, which is a great piece of welfare”

from what you check out. There is to bring us the other part of the story. This seems like it is a hard thing to imagine with standing scrutiny. Yet, this is the plan that the administration has settled on. So why do they think they might get away with us?

Why do they, why do they, why might they get away with us? And what are the vulnerabilities, the routes of challenge, were likely to see including these three lawsuits that have already gotten filed? Sure. I just want to start off with how they are publicly justifying this.

And what they're doing is they're comparing it to a settlement during the Obama administration in a case called Keep Seagull, which was a long writing class action student involved in claims by Native Americans that the, alleging the Department of Agriculture illegally discriminated against them when issuing loans.

“And the Obama administration settled that case for”

$760 million in establishing a court or proof fund to administer the claims.

And one part of the agreement was that, well, if there's a, if there's a money left over out this fund, it'll go to non-profits working in Native American communities. And apparently both the government and plaintiffs assumed there might be like, you know, a couple of million in loose chains sitting around after all the claims were paid out.

As it turned out, there was around $300 million left sitting around after the claims were paid out, which is obviously a huge amount of money. And not a dime of it would be going to the actual people who alleged that they suffered harm. Some of the plaintiffs tried to challenge that. But judges first, the district judge and then the court of appeals concluded that they were bound

by the, the final judgment years ago that had set up the fund and, and set up the payments out of the fund and the provisions were what would happen if money was left over. So, in essence, the partner of justice is saying, look, here, there's a precedent for when their money need to go to someone else.

“Well, I want my ego to someone else who wasn't involved in the suit.”

Now, there are lots of reasons why that's a bad example to use. I'm not necessarily saying that it was a happy resolution of a case at all. But it was, it's, it's, it's not really at all. It's, this is kind of even worse in that. And keeps you go to the government's set of the case that have been going on for over a decade.

Here, there, there really is, is, is no case other than this kind of collusive lawsuit that

arguably should never have been heard in the first place.

And in fact, the judge judge Williams was quite possibly on the verge of tossing the suit because she concludes, she was seeing poise that concluded that that she did not have a subject marriage restriction because there was not, she would virtually between the parties. Secondly, because, uh, it keeps the go was a class action. Uh, the original settlement was approved by the judge hearing the case, including the provision that

and the left of her fund to go to non-profits. Now, this is far greater than, it turned out to be far greater amount of money than anyone anticipated, but at least the principle was, was established. Well, it was signed off on by a judge. Third, in keeps ago, it was clear in what way the government allegedly violated the law

in a matter that gave rise to the settlement. Here, there's just alleged weaponization. I mean, whatever that means. And, and, and fourth, the government says, oh, in their, in their press releases, they say, well, this is actually better than what happened in keeps ago was any money unexpectedly

left over, goes back to the government rather than being dulled out to the non-profit. Left in the case. But here, the entire anti-weapons andization fund is being given to people not involved in the, the underlying case. And that's the whole ball game.

And then, uh, it turned out that the republicans, as you might imagine, were not happy by the keeps equal settlement. And, there have been back and forth efforts in, uh, the Trump various Trump administrations to prevent any payments that third parties in the future.

as broad as, as the keeps equal settlement.

“So, basically, this is something that they're, they're doing is something that their own administration,”

the own, their very own Trump administration to Trump administrations,

tried to ensure never would happen again.

And, we are kind of in, in, in, undiscovered territory in terms of the, the legal or ramifications. Because it is, is, I would say it's likely it's, it's not entirely clear that this is legal to do. It's one of these things that like, you're, you know, your kids would tell you it was illegal, but then when you get to like, kind of fancy lawyers and judges, they look at the law and they're like, well, it's actually kind of complicated.

It's, or it might be illegal, but they're not going to be a remedy for, for a remedy. Exactly. Yes.

“And, and the, the statute that allows payments in settlements by the United States,”

doesn't say anywhere, you cannot give out minor third parties or you cannot do anything stupid or, or, or,

collusive. You could perhaps make an argument that if there is, if there is, if there is no case, no underlying case, then there is no settlement of a claim that you paid out. But the other hand, the government does often pay claims where there is only a threatened suit. And it could be a threatened suit that may be kind of questionable.

If there's absolutely zero chance of a plaintiff prevailing, then it's, it's presumably legal to pay a settlement. But if there's doubt, you know, the government pays a, in cases of doubt all the time. And I would say it's not 100% clear that this case would have been dismissed on subject matter jurisdiction grounds for, for lack of adversity. Now, the question then becomes, who has standing to challenge a suit, because the mere fact that something is illegal doesn't give me the authority to go into court and file a suit.

I need to have some skin in the game. And generally speaking, standing as a taxpayer does not suffice. I can't go in there and say, hey, my money is being used to fund illegal activity. I need to have what the Supreme Court has called a concrete and particularized injury. So an injury that's, that's real.

It can be, it could be, in some cases, a kind of a psychological or emotional injury, but it has to be sufficiently real and definable. And it has to be particularized, meaning somewhat specific to me. It could be an injury shared by millions by a campaign injury that is shared by every American. And there have been three suits filed so far in somewhat increasing order of plausibility. There is a suit filed by a non-profit called crew that kind of a good government watchdog group.

Citizens were responsibility in ethics in Washington. And their theory of standing seems to be that they, they do love good government work and they file. And that they're, they're harmed by the government's failure to not abide by laws. And more specifically, by apparently not agreeing to preserve certain records regarding the, the slush fund. And this crew is a very frequent foyer or a question.

And we should know crew is representing law firm. And it's all current lawsuit against the State Department. We should note that as a note of disclosure. I did not know that. Wow.

I didn't know that either. Ah, crew is, I'm a little bit skeptical of that theory of standing. It's not, I'm not familiar with it. Maybe there is some precedent there. And there's also kind of a somewhat separate, a ripeness issue there.

A ripeness goes to whether a suit is ready to be, whether the harms that you're complaining about are actually happening yet.

“Or whether you need to kind of wait and see whether they will happen in order to sue.”

And the given that the webization fund has yet to be set its own rules and procedures. It's not necessarily clear that they'll be as bad about record keeping and preservation as crew indicates. And these were all filed I believe on on Friday.

The second lawsuit is filed by a couple of cops who were there on January 6th and who are claiming it's a little bit clever.

They're claiming that not that they are emotionally harmed by money quite possibly been given to people who literally tried to kill them. But that the establishment of the fund is likely to boost death threats against them. And that they have experienced, which I doubt anyone doubt, a lot of threats over the course of the past few years.

I think this is probably a bit too speculative for there to be a claim.

And there's also the further question whether it would be a regressible by a court decision, like if the court then kills the fund because of your lawsuit.

“Is that isn't that going to lead to still more threats against you?”

And you know, there's obviously we don't want there to be like a hechler's veto if you will. And in the law that like you lose your suit just was the bad guys will yell you.

But when the very premise of your standing arguments that you have standing because the bad guys are about to yell you.

It doesn't seem to work if the remedy you request is something that will just further exacerbate rather than. Emiliate that harm.

“The third lawsuit was brought by democracy forward when we've also worked with and represent us in the litigation. So I will note them as well for those.”

Another excellent organization that has done a just tremendous math litigation during the Trump administration. And they are bringing the suit on behalf of a few kind of very different plaintiffs and they have a variety of.

The first standing arguments one is someone who was was fired.

A prosecutor who's fired on January 6th. There are also this is the city of New Haven that claims it is. It has had funds taken away from it because of the Trump administration's crusade against sanctuary jurisdictions. There's also a professor who in in California who was who was in die for for protesting and was tried when he claims was a politicized prosecution. He lost either he was a quoted rather there's a couple of organizations that claim that the existence of the fund will lead to more violence against their members, including the national abortion foundation.

“I I they have someone interesting first amendment and equal protection arguments, which I believe need to research but more to have some sense of their.”

Plots ability one thing that the individual plaintiffs are alleging plus the city of New Haven is that they have experienced weaponization on the hands of the Trump administration that they are not they do not have a chance to. That's interesting that's possible in one possible where buttole on part of the administration might be that well the government is allowed to look at certain harms. One after another and that the government can choose and say that certain harms. We are worthy of creating a fund to remedy and it has this kind of the government spending its money on certain things and it's kind of complicated when you're thinking about that and in terms of not something that Congress as appropriate or the executive branch has.

Has deliberate on but that is a settlement for lawsuit so we'll see how these suits play out should be fascinating. I want to circle back to the legal challenge because there's something here but there's obviously the most vocal response we've gotten this so far has been from a audience one might not expect that Senate Republicans now we don't know exactly what happened but we've gotten these reports including from Senator Ted Cruz is given some of the most like dynamic descriptions of this fairly fiery confrontation between.

Senate Republicans and acting attorney general Todd bunch last week. Molly talked about that and what does it what it means perhaps more importantly for either the future of this particular program or other things that might be in the Senate's control that might give them some leverage over the administration. Yeah so the White House and D.o.J announced on like a so we could go Monday the 18th of May is when the announcement came out about this anti weaponization fund and then on Thursday the 21st.

I think we're going to take a look at some of the top-lanch went to the Senate Republicans regular periodic lunch for folks who don't pay closer attention to the Senate that you need to both parties meet regularly as the Democrats are Republicans for these lunches sometimes they have guests. It's someone like the acting attorney general to talk about something at the White House once. It's got as you indicated the visit by Todd Lange to the Republican lunch was apparently quite I did believe that the first reporting on on this I saw used the phrase it did not go well.

And so lots of Republicans voicing opposition to this this fund and this is you know it's politically important both because like this is a big deal is the thing that the White House is trying to do and for all of the reasons that Anna and Eric have just outlined we really should be concerned about it.

And because they had on the floor an active live bill related to the same topic as this anti-reposition fund they realized that if they tried to continue working on this bill there would be votes on the floor of the Senate for Republican Democratic senators where they would have to take a position on how they felt about this anti-reposition fund. The pressure to have those votes was not only coming from Democrats. So Senator McCasity who I think we'll talk about more in a moment and actually file to himself an amendment that would prohibit payouts from the from this fund that was he was planning to offer to this bill.

And so Republicans sort of immediate reaction to this problem was say okay we can't keep working on this bill which is a really big policy priority we can talk about sort of the series of events that led to Republicans in late May of 2026 attempting to finish the budget for these parts of the Department of Homeland Security that should have been done by October 1 2025. So they this is a big policy priority for Republicans and it got derailed at least temporarily by the fact that the White House made this proposal and it met with really by all accounts like significant opposition within the Republican conference in the Senate.

“And it sounds like we got at least some concessions from Todd Blanche out of this right made some concessions about transparency that they would does some extent share some degree of these reports that's coming forward.”

Senator Bechers are intended to address it that's where we get this talking point about Democrats also being able to apply 100 Biden beings specifically reference as a Democrat who would be eligible for this newly under by nay Democrat or not and you know not not somebody in the alt right kind of community that people assume this is mostly for but was prosecuted under the administration of his father. The Biden administration so a Democrat administration do we have something about what has been may have been a switch the senators and is there any vehicle by which they could actually do anything about it other than you know kind of.

Right about it and as I guess as they're also seeing any echoes in the house at the same time about this content about this. Yeah, so most of the reporting so far has been just content among senators in part because the discontent was sufficient and was allowed to the point that it made Republican leadership sort of make a substantive change in their legislative plans for the end of last week which then had follow on consequences for the House because the original plan was the Senate was going to vote on this.

“Immigration funding bill and it was going to send it over to the House and the House was going to try and force it through and then everyone was going to go on Memorial Day recess and they were all going to be.”

I'm going to be pleased with themselves for finally having solved this particular funding problem at at DHS and so I don't know whether you know negotiations went on over the weekend whether negotiations will continue over the course of this week on exactly what kinds of changes.

The just department could make to this fund that might modify some of these Republican senators.

Don't need to get too far into the procedural weeds here, but suffices to say that if there are enough Republican senators who are upset about this.

“The exact sort of procedural posture and the rules of the reconciliation process don't matter so much like if they have 60 votes so all of the Democrats at enough of the Republicans.”

They could put in the bill something that says you know you can't no payouts from the judgment fund for this purpose they can also if this can if they sort of solve the immediate term problem in the direction of the reconciliation bill and we get later in the year to any number of bills to fund the government either in the near term or the longer term. They're all kinds of places that if Republicans are actually sufficiently upset about this to get together with Democrats and you know saying no to the White House saying no we are not going to do this.

They have those legislative tools available to them exactly what they would look like look a little bit different depending on whether we're talking about the context of the reconciliation bill or we're talking about something later in the year. But it's really a question of kind of political will on the part of their Republicans who seem unhappy about this if they're willing to use the tools they have to push back against the last.

So I want to get back to your little Congress that's our second half I can't exactly before you do that let's spend one minute more on where we think this fund is likely to go.

There's a chance it gets maybe it gets nicks by Congress or sufficiently constrained by Congress that's one possibility we've got this act of litigation.

I know standing is this bar we've seen get raised gradually since part of it in like 1992 right the Lou Honda decision that kind of articulate and crystallize this doctrine this three part test and goes up but it's also one where we see.

“It's a flexible doctrine and usually that's flexibility in the way of court saying I don't want to deal with this I'm going to say there's a standing issue and and exercise a little bit more scrutiny.”

We've also seen courts sometimes going on the other direction like Biden being Nebraska be as a clear as one right where like the Supreme Court said the state agency instrumentality usually gets money about student loans and they didn't but they're not going to look they're going to lose some profit money and that age is the airman's mentality even though it's independent still comes back the state of Missouri Missouri consumer Biden's student loan program right that's the basic standing holding and Biden in Nebraska for its extremely simple I think I was able to have a stretch compared to the usual trajectory of standing doctrine but it's just reflection of the fact that standing doctrine is like a little flexible in this environment like.

There it is so clearly and popular be transparently corrupt and see partisan on its face at least in like the pressing documents.

Do we really think it's likely to be such a major barrier like our courts can be so reluctant to engage on this. And in my mind doesn't it get a little easier as time goes on because once we start seeing actual patterns of paths if you can get the transparency which I actually think is something you might be able to get through litigation because some of this you might be able to get like. The first dictionary right if you're making particularly like a first amendment allegation and you can say well we need to know what what the pat looks like if you can get them transparent that you can show where the money's actually going then you begin to see something like oh.

Competitor standing is one possibility right like I am an organization I'm a democrat coded or otherwise not eligible organization I'm seeing O a and get paid out by this their direct competitor to me they're getting subsidized by the government in a way that I contend as a legal.

“I think that's a valid standing theory so like doesn't this doesn't get this get more tenuous this time goes on once we get past the hypothetical or am I wrong about that like I'm.”

I'm weirdly bullish about the idea that somebody's actually going to successfully sue over this maybe wouldn't withstands the important view but I kind of think.

It's never going to get there because there should be political pressure and everything else but it will be enough to kind of get off the works but it's not like you guys are much more skeptical about that what what is what am I what am I being awfully optimistic about in your view or is that just a possibility we don't know which way it's going to go. I'll start with you Eric just could you tell us up on the standing that's a good question and interest it's it's I don't know. I believe for yourself to sue or to block your competitor from receiving funds and I don't know the answer to the question and those questions and.

I don't know if you take down the whole the whole program because if you if you sue and you get if you're denied on the merits if you will then it's possible for the the whole thing to come.

It's possible to be challenged not just by democrat but by a more mainstream conservative organization if they have the. You know the courage to take flack they could they could challenge money going to O and and that case the the challenge may go more towards the heart of the fund rather than kind of ideological issues. I don't know what's going to happen, we can't we can't guarantee you're not going to get money until you apply so it might be and some weird way easier for a ideological. I don't know it's it's this is this is weird and new and I don't not so sure the administration is going to give in that easily so it may in fact go all the.

So yeah, well we'll have to wait and see to get there though it's going to it is going to have to get through Congress and there's a lot of other stuff happening Congress we still have. current resolutions, trying to push for the termination of U.S. or withdrawal,

“part of U.S. forces from hostilities in Iran. I think is the paraphrase of the language”

of those resolutions. We've got a potential vote on both this additional ZPP funding, ballroom funding. Oh, I know they got dropped up from the bill. I think even before this latest

regarding the Iran war that's still been voted multiple times. Although I don't think we've seen any

concrete indication of when that's coming earlier. They had said before the August recess, so you would expect to get talking to you soon. If they're going to have time to debate and actually enact this thing, because that's where they wanted the money. There's a lot of things on the plate. And of course, I should forget, somebody's confirmation as the Attorney General, uh, eventually, because Tom Plans can only do this so long. Molly, all of this seems like it is ironically

because of President Trump's really dramatic success at shaping the results of Republican primary

“years of the last week or two. Last Tuesday was, I think, what they called mini-super Tuesday,”

right, where that one of the big primary days, where we saw all these people in the Republican

party who have been critics of President Trump at times fall in their primaries. Ironically, because of that control, it looks like it actually be hurting as legislative agenda, right? Like, talk to us about what the prospect of all these things look like under this new Congress, where you have, you know, Yolo Bill Cassidy to joining Tom Tellis in some of his, you know, last gas parrars here among a number of other people who may not be as inclined to go along

with the Trump administration agenda, like they might have been a year ago when they were still contenders. What does that do to the dynamics? Yeah. So here, I think it's helpful to start with a

couple of, I think, important differences between the House and the Senate. So, um, in the Senate,

like the two most consequential political events that have shaped the perspectives of some Republican senators in recent weeks are Cassidy's defeat in the Louisiana Senate primary and Trump coming out last week and then endorsing against John Cornean in the Texas Senate primary runoff.

“It's important here to remember that like Cornean in particular is a well-liked”

longtime senior member of the Senate Republican conference. He's raised a lot of money for Senate Republicans and the idea that despite all of that Trump for reasons we don't need to get into, has decided to insert himself in the race and endorse someone else in that runoff. And I think this has left particularly senators feeling, you know, pretty unhappy with the White House. No, does this mean we're going to see kind of a full-on revolt against the Trump White House? No,

no, it does not. But I do think it is opening up some space for some of these places where there are particular things that enough for Republicans senators are unhappy with. So, the anti-mapization fund that we were just talking about, you mentioned the ballroom funding. So, in the same reconciliation bill, which was moving along to solve a very particular political problem on the part of Republicans, which is that they could not get these particular elements of DHS funded under the regular order

because they would not agree to demands from Democrats related to transparency requirements, all kinds of things flowing from the exercise of immigration enforcement principally in Minneapolis back in January. They had to use sort of a different legislative maneuver where they weren't going to have to overcome the threat of a filibuster. So, that was moving again, driven by some leadership with a particular really narrow focus. They sort of staved off pressure from House Republicans

to make the bill a lot bigger to cover a lot of other things. They said, no, we are doing this little narrow thing. Again, not to say that funding, these parts of the agency is an important, but certainly in the scope of what they could be doing, this is like one very skinny piece of legislation and then the White House comes along and says, actually, we would also like some money in this bill for the secret service listeners may not see my air quotes, but it was really clear.

You can hear the air quotes from the White House's goal in requesting this money was to support the construction of the ballroom where the East Wing of the White House used to be. There were some procedural questions about whether they could do this in a reconciliation bill, but fundamentally, while they were sort of noodling over how to square the procedural circle, it became clear. There were not 50 votes among Republicans in the Senate for funding for the ballroom.

So, that's the thing that some senators were upset about. The Anti-Wapization Fund is something that they're upset about. We have seen in Scots Wheelhouse slowly over the course of the last several months, the number of Senate Republicans who are willing to vote with the Democrats or all of the Democrats, except John Federman, to sort of try and restrict the White House's exercise of

“more powers in Iran. So, we're definitely seeing all of this. At the end of the day, I think it may”

well be the case that Senate Republicans are going to keep sort of pushing, and House Republicans

allowing a number of Southern states to redraw their congressional district lines and ways that

are favorable to Republicans before the midterms, Democrats still have a really strong hand in the

“House going into the midterms. I think House Republicans, particularly the ones from vulnerable districts,”

are just much more laser-focused on what do we need to do to have our truly best shot at keeping the House in November, and that is leading them to, you know, pursue some different things, then Senate Republicans. But here again, I think we are just seeing this point where enough of these Republicans are frustrated, and whether they're not going to sort of make a full-blown break with Trump, but on these particular things where they really do feel like the White House is

overstepping its boundaries, they are willing to push back. Yeah, I would say that like one interesting thing that I've noticed through the years is that it's almost been a superpower for Trump that he legitimately could care less, or could not care less,

“I never know which is the right way of saying, about the fate of the Republican Party. Whereas,”

like most presidents grew up within the party that they belonged to and that they became elected as

member of and care ultimately about what happens. And Barack Obama was not going to knowingly and

willfully do things that would lead to the collapse of his party for his own personal benefit, but Trump just doesn't really care. So pointing out problems to pointing out to him that certain actions would have bad political consequences just is not something that Republicans can do to him. And so he could he's much more able to kind of bring them along because he is basically right or die for himself. And no one everyone broke betting against Congressional Republicans

willingness to buck Trump. And I'm not convinced that this will necessarily be different. I will note and I'm by no means the first person to note this is that to the extent and the

moments when Republicans have rejected things that Trump wants, it's often been by inaction rather than

inaction. They own vote down nominees, rather than nominees are quietly dropped and these are nominees usually on the sub-capital level. They don't affirmatively take up bills that will overturn his priorities, but they just decide literally to go home rather than put something in a bill that would support him. And we may see more of that as the months go ahead. And also we Trump, his political power is waning. I mean not only in the sense of his actual popularity,

but in terms of he's becoming more and more of a lame duck or given the decoration of the White House, perhaps I should call him a lame duck. I'm sorry for that. But after this mid-term elections, there will be I counted it. And if I'm math is right, at most 19 Republicans will ever be running for reelection while he is still president. And that doesn't mean that the rest are going to suddenly start rejecting him, but his force within the Republican Party just

due to the linear nature of time is going to decline. Yeah, I mean it is, it is this classic arc. I feel like we talked about this podcast a lot where the president's powers at its maximum January 20th kind of hits a little bit of a dip down as you get to the kind of off-year elections in November because it begins where you see the coalition begin to look a little bit vulnerable. Then it kind of coasts through the end of primary season because of consolidation with his own

party. And then it really drops precipitously because all of a sudden once you get past primary season, everybody's got to look towards the generals. And in this case, the president is simply like he's accelerating that trend even further or more aggressively because he is actively antagonizing these people who will still be an office if from his own party. But that he's decided to back

“contenders from a different political faction. Yeah, and I think another another thing that's helpful”

to think about here is that the places, so Eric's actually right, the sort of Trump's relationship with institutional Republican Party is really different than we have seen most of his presidential predecessors. He is not a creature of the institutional Republican Party in the way that most other presidents have Republican presidents have been with the Republican Party and Democratic presidents have been of the Democratic Party. But a place where he tends to be

him and his vision of himself. I was maybe the best way to put it. So like, it is not coincidental

that these two things that we're talking about from recent weeks that have really sort of raised the hackals of some Senator Republicans are the ballroom, which is like a personal Trump vanity project and the anti weaponization fund, which is this thing that stands to financially benefit him and his political allies. And so it's not just that these are things that were Republicans are to some degree saying like, okay, this is a line too far, but there are also things where

Trump himself is kind of more likely to dig in. And you know, at some point last week there was a he made a veto threat where he said that, you know, if the reconciliation event came to him without the ballroom funding and with language constraining the anti weaponization fund, he wouldn't sign it, which even by Trump standards is like a pretty implausible threat. In part because like the substance of the policy there is actually quite important to congressional Republicans

and to other people in the Trump administration, even if Trump himself is mainly focused on these

“kind of personal projects of his that he's he's talking about. But I think that's another part of”

kind of why we are where we are is because we're talking about some things on which he is likely to be particularly intransigent and also their things that have crossed the line for some members of Congress. So, you know, to me when I think back to the first Trump administration, or I feel like President Trump must have learned some lessons, right? You would think one of them seems when you would think would be oversight really painful, right? Like the second half of the first Trump

administration was a much more difficult time for the Trump administration the first half. In part because all of the new Democratic House, that was able to gauge an oversight willing to gauge an oversight. You had a bunch of other measures that were able to be installed in which a litigation that particularly was being pursued, tried to enforce different types of oversight activities, enforce variety of subpoenas. We saw a whole multiple years of litigation over this,

some of which was off, which never was off that we followed here at Laugh Fair. Why isn't that

compelling him enough? I mean, do we have a sense of that? Like what is his vision for where this actually goes if he has a Democratic House Resentant that's obviously going to be bad starting in 2027, is that something even this House or Senate could be persuaded by if they want to create gap with this administration? I mean, a lot of what, even if they can't actively strike down some of these things, maybe they're residents around that, but could we see them make some budget around

oversight measures? Whether it's, I mean, the traditional, you know, thing you get will be

“a pound of flesh and concessions of some sort from nominees while you're confirming them, right?”

But you could see more concrete measures like you could say, okay, we're going to install some card reporting requirements and transparency measures, and maybe with private causes of actions, something this Congress has been willing to do in the National Security context, notably, because we're, we're pursuing under a few of them. The has been able to install these measures saying, hey, this information needs to be made public, and if it's not, private parties

may well have standing to sue. Alternative could be, I mean, in the war powers context, something I'm going to have in a piece, I think this week, you know, one thing you could see come out of a process of, particularly a concurrent resolution joint process that doesn't have to get sent at a proved. It probably won't have legal, you know, weight, a web of law, because via an SV child, a Supreme Court, okay, so I came out some of the war powers,

those of you who was enacted, but you could see Congress do other thing on its own measures through concurrent resolution, through the expedited procedures, like authorizing a lawsuit. So I'm just kind of curious, like, is he just not worried about the stuff? Is it just lack of foresight? Is it because people like Todd Lancher to, yes, man, to even give him the advice say, sir, this is actually bad for you. And is that dynamic going to change between now and November,

or now in January, or now in January, 2029? Yeah, so I have two answers to this question and

“they're going to seem at odds with each other, but I think they're both true at the same time.”

So the first is that on this question of are there places where we might see narrow, focused,

targeted efforts by Congress to try and restrict various behaviors by the Trump administration, not just oversight, but actually write them into law? Yes, I think that's entirely possible. Indeed, we have seen some of that in the current Congress. So to the extent there has been pushback by Congress against the executive branch, it is often taken the form of some Democrats and some Republicans finding some very specific thing that they are annoyed about.

Sometimes it's the administration's lack of compliance with the reporting requirement. Sometimes it is, I mean, it's been any number of other things. And then they write into often the spending bill, some very specific language that says, you don't get, you know,

unless and until you provide this information that we have been asking for. Now, as an aside, one consequence of what Republicans are doing right now in terms of trying to find ice and CBP through the reconciliation process is opposed to through the regular appropriations process, is that we may actually see more and more parts of federal operations that if Republicans were to still have a unified party control after the midterms that they would

try to just cleave off from the regular appropriations process, which would dramatically limit the ability of Democrats and Republicans who are annoyed about things to unite around them, but we'll just sort of, I'll be aside for the moment. The other thing, though, is that while we may well see some targeted efforts to respond legislatively, at the end of the day, I think one lesson

that the Trump administration learned from the second two years of the first Trump term is that

the executive branch has a real advantage in terms of trying to run out the clock on a Congress controlled by the other party. So I had to refresh my memory of this recently for another purpose, but the entire episode where the House of Representatives tries to get Don McGahn's testimony over the course of the second two years of the -- that was a great season of Laugh. The Trump administration, the first Trump administration, and then the whole thing doesn't

ultimately get resolved until after Joe Biden takes office, and the fact that then you had a Democratic Congress and a Democratic administration really shaped the settlement. I would refer everyone to really great treatment of this issue on Laugh Fair by our old friend Jonathan Schobb,

“like you should all go back and read it if you really need to relive this moment. But I just think”

that they -- I think they looked at what happened in the second Trump administration,

and then if you looked -- or excuse me, the second half of the first Trump administration, and then if you look at what they've done in the first two years or first year and a half of this administration, where they regularly will just do things and then try to take advantage of how long it takes to challenge them in court to get some of what they want while litigation proceeds. That sort of -- particularly on the oversight side, that's kind of what

I expect. Like, Democrats should they control vulnerable chambers. We'll try to do a lot of oversight, and then the Trump administration will simply try to run out the clock in a kind of even more extreme way than they did during the first Trump administration. I don't think Trump remembers the latter two years of his first term all that negatively, and I think the way he looks at, especially after coming back to the White House in the end, is that Democrats didn't

lay a finger on him, even with impeachment, and he was still up there, you know, squawking, saying his things flying around in his big airplane, and playing golf, and in large part, which as Molly says, "Oversight takes a long time to work." And I would add also that in a world with a filibuster, which is likely the world we will still be in in 2022, even if you were all Congresses against you, you still have a great deal of power

as minority party. Yeah, I don't disagree with that. The one thing I will say is that

“your ability to run out the clock, I think, in a second half a second Trump administration,”

is a narrower than it is in the first -- second half of the first Trump administration. For the simple reason about a lot of these issues, I'm now been litigated. And while they don't result, always an often not result in binding determinations and decisions, there's still a lot of consideration around these issues that's gone forward. So like in a hypothetical where you would have like a renewal of the Mollumins' clause litigation, right, which are a series of cases that

got debate on standing up and down the courts for the whole first Trump administration,

ultimately never got resolved on the merits. Several of those people were ultimately,

at least they were never found to not have standing. Yeah, I think the only case that case that actually got thrown out for lack of standing was a general taxpayer one, and then the one by individual legislators. Other ones were still buyable, although they'd faced different constraints and some plaintiffs had fallen out and stuff like that. So if you were to pick up

“that out, if you had the same theory, I think you could pick up the lawsuit a lot further along,”

it would be harder to stall to the same extent than you did before. I think that's frankly, as I've talked about on the podcast fourth, I think that's part of the reason why the Trump organization, for example, it's business strategy. This term is completely different than the first term, and it's completely different than commodities and cryptocurrencies that have very different relationships, and you would be much harder to get the same standing theory through than what

if they were just to reopen a Trump hotel or do lean into other aspects of their business. So I don't know, I'm like somewhat, I wouldn't say I'm bullish on the percential of oversight, I think that would be absurd. As somebody who is, you know, seeing too many of this stuff, but I'm not sure it's going to be, I'm not sure it's not going to be more painful this time around the last time around, adding to that also just the general background optics, that this stuff is so much more transparent. You won't even

have the veil of normalcy around the stuff that I do think really bears into how courts even,

really just to engage on it. Well, I'll have to wait and see. With that, we are out of time today.

We did not get to our third topic, apologies. We got a few hardouts here. We had a lot to talk about.

Our first two topics were very interesting. We'll circle back on those last, that last topic in a future week. But until then, we're out of time. But this, of course, would not be rational security. If we did not leave you with some object lessons, two ponder over in the week to come. Molly, why don't you kick us off? I don't have to step away shortly. What do you do bring for us for an object lesson this week? So for anyone who has been listening to rational security

law and F2, here, my previous appearances, you will know that one of my favorite things is a great locally produced NPR podcast. I am happy to recommend the third season of one of my favorite examples of this genre, which is a podcast called The Big Dig, which is produced out of WGBH

“in Boston. The most recent season is called Catching the Codfather, which I think Laugh Fair”

Listeners. Well, particularly in Joy is at its heart about a prosecution of someone for violating various laws and regulations around the New England fishing industry. It takes a really strong turn to discuss Loper Bright at the end of the season. So it's not just about me and my interest in this particular genre of public media. But I think folks who like Laugh Fair content will

find it enjoyable as well. Wonderful. It is always good to see weird local NPR stories. Be

taken at great length. That's the beauty of NPR is the sort of naval case and maybe more of in this world. Eric, what did you bring for us this week? I made a rare trip to a movie theater or the weekend and I saw a film that was pitched to its star Hugh Jackman when they're trying to get him sign-on as knives out meets babe, which is a movie about a pig from a couple of decades ago. And this movie is called The Sheep detectives. It is in large part of murder mystery and

there are sheep in it who, in essence, are unpaid detectives to some extent. It is nice. It's charming. It's a small movie. It is also a little bit touching. And if you're a fan of the succession, you will very much appreciate one of the actors who is actually the second succession actor to have played opposite a non-human mammal in a movie that was one of the other. Another succession

“actor was the lead actor in babe. I love it. It's based on a book, right? I think it's three”

bags full or least. I do not know that. So I read the script until I sat there through the credits, but yes, that is correct. I think people really like the book. I've heard really good things about the movie. I thought for a second, you were talking about song. I did not realize you jacknows in this movie because I don't watch TV and I don't know what's happening in popular culture. I thought I was talking about song sung by the Neil Diamond. Weird by the biopic about Neil Diamond

cover band. And I was like, that's a murder mystery. And how you get the knives out from that. It really takes a twist. I had no idea. But maybe I would get slightly relieved. I think that does take a dark twist, but maybe that's quite that dark. Or regardless, I am going to do the ultimate middle-aged ad thing and share a YouTube video I saw on the internet. That I think maybe everyone is talking about and I just have been, I actually found this couple of weeks ago, so I don't know

of late to the party, but it's stuck around long enough. But tell me if this is too basic to share

“it because I think it's interesting. Have you guys seen the generation young-lean video, the storm”

video, at the prep school, and it's laughing. You've definitely seen this. No? Oh, okay. Then I'm actually sharing something. 100% worth a while. It's got a lot of pick up in my head. You have a Scott knowing who, like, young. Knowing who I am. No one knows. Like, I don't know. Like, I didn't know that you knew young-lean is, Scott. You know, I have my music scene as something I try to keep up with a little bit. I know young-lean is, could I say I knew a lot about him before I discovered

this music video? No. This music video is simply one of those amazing things I've ever seen. It's 100% worth trying out. It's from Generation, which is like a techno music and they collaborate a lot with a guy whose name I'm blanking on right now who's like a French choreographer. But this whole video, I think it's actually two songs brought together in a one-like extended video about like a prep school in the future where young-lean is a like stereotypical bully

who's like, you know, doing drugs and beating up to the kids. Then it's always very traumatic.

And I probably wouldn't have watched it the first half if I hadn't got it recommended to me. By someone, because it's just like, oh man, it's just like high school bullying, trauma all back and make me now worry about my children and their high school bullying. But instead, halfway through, it's, those parts of the video are compelling enough. halfway through it turns into the craziest

as if for a class photo. And then they do this incredible choreography for the whole last half of the

video on the bleachers that creates this like twisting pattern using their jackets and their

“ties and they're shirt. It's strictly amazing. I think it's one of the coolest things I've ever”

seen. So I'm going to share that. That's a generation. Generate GENER NUMBER 8, ION, annoying is a generation dash storm starring young-lean. That's the video release of the version I'm watching. Check it out. It's a legit cool. Even if you're an old middle-aged adult like me, whether you know who young-lean is or not, I recommend it and check it out. And bring us home. What do you have for us this for this week? Yeah, well, Scott, as I indicated earlier, I'm in my

opinion. I'm assuming it's the latest young-lean album. I don't want to know. No, I'm talking about what we were talking about the next. I'm in my basketball era, apparently. Oh, nice.

My New York Basketball fan era. And I went to my first New York Liberty game the other day,

“which is the WNBA team. And it was so much fun. And I know that right now, obviously the next”

going to the finals, I read that the tickets for the finals cost like there were two seeds that's old for like $270,000 or something insane like that. So let me just tell you, you can get really affordable tickets to a basketball game if you go to a New York Liberty game and it's so fun. I saw Ellie the elephant who is like the little mascot. And I also had the craziest experience in which someone fell on top of me in the like, they were trying to go like to their seat.

And this woman fell like right on top of me and I was like, I'm so sorry and I was helping her up and then I realized that I knew her. And we'd met like six years before something. So just one of those, like a future appointed just acting as attorney. So you're just looking for Virginia? No, it was not Lindsay Alligan. No, it was just woman named Noel, who was like a friend of my roommate when I lived in Turkey. Anyway, weird kidding.

One of those like New York is the smallest town in the world moments. And it was just a great

“time. So if you want to go to basketball game, go to New York Liberty game.”

Hey, there you go. I heard wonderful things about Liberty. It's a supposed to be a great experience. I think they're very, they're usually very good. I don't know if that's true this is. I feel like usually they're like up there. Yeah, we lost the game I went to, but yes, they are usually they have a reputation for being good. There you go. There you go. Well folks, if that brings us to the end of rational security, but remember rational security is a production of Lothar. So be sure to

visit Lotharmedia.org for our show page for links to past episodes for our written work and the written work of other law for contributors and for information on Lothar's other phenomenal podcast series. Well, you're at it. Be sure to follow off our social media. Be sure to leave a rating review where you might be listening and sign up to become a material supporter of Lothar on Patreon for an ad free version of this podcast among other special benefits. More information visit Lotharmedia.org

slash support our audio engineer producer this week was me of me. And as our music as always was

performed by Sophia, yeah, and someday I'm going to perform the music too. And we are once again and if I look at the wonderful Jan Patcha. But have my guest Molly Anna and Eric. I'm Scott our Anderson. We'll talk to you next week. Until then, goodbye. Hi, the police here. One of the court's questions. Why is here that police group expert? Every member of my opinion, my question was also a little bit more than the next

story. You could all agree. The crypto is simply a bit of a nonsense. Over-sistered app, hundreds of coins to trade, and even a little bit of a nonsense, because the court and the court are the police or the app store. No analyzer. The hand with cryptowere, built by the Ministry of Health and Health and Health, the Central Bank of Ireland.