Haiti on the Brink with Michael Deibert and Congressman Darrell Issa on Reining in Rogue Judges
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Welcome to an exciting episode of Breaking Battlegrounds. I'm your host Chuck Warren with Sam Stone. We're going to kick it off right away with one of our favorite guests, Michael Deibert. He is an author and journalist who has covered Haiti for 25 years. I don't think you have many peers, Michael, who have covered Haiti for 25 years, have you?

Yeah, it's actually, believe it or not, now we're approaching 30 because my first visit was in November of 1997, believe it or not. Well, you're our go-to discussing, just frankly, the denigration of Haiti. And now the capital's close to falling to Haitian gangs. Can you explain to our audience what's happening?

Yeah, so essentially these kind of myriad of armed groups in and around the capital coalesced under a banner called Vive Ensemble, which means live together in Haitian Creole, which is probably a bit of a misnomer considering what they get up to. And they successfully overthrew and ousted the prime minister, Ariel Henry, last year.

And, you know, since for almost a year now, Haiti has been ruled, if it can be called that, by this transitional council, nine-member transitional council and a prime minister. And there is a kind of incipient security mission there led by the Kenyans that has been trying to work with the Haitian police to stop the advance of these armed groups.

But basically what's been happening over the last year is they've been taking more territory. I'm talking about the Vivant Somme guys taking more territory, taking more territory, killing police, killing Kenyan peacekeepers. And now it's gotten to the point where, you know, they are gradually coming up the hill from the sea because a lot of the neighborhoods where they proliferate are kind of down by the seaside. And then also

coming across the hills above Port-au-Prince. So they're kind of coming in from two directions and gradually shrinking the space in which something approximating normal life can be lived in Port-au-Prince.

And the, you know, the Haitian police and the Kenyan-led security force, they simply don't have enough people to fight them back. I mean, by my estimations, we're talking about somewhere in the neighborhood of 13,000 to 14,000 gang members. And they're also not just in Port-au-Prince, I should stress. I mean, as you go north out of the capital, that road almost entirely up until you get to, say, Saint-Marc is controlled by gangs. And then in the Artibonite Valley, which is this...

Used to be a rather bucolic area, like rice growing, very rural. There's a lot of armed groups there that recently, just this week, actually, they killed a Kenyan soldier and kind of filmed themselves gloating over his body. Is this the first Kenyan soldier who's the peacekeeping force killed? Second one killed. Second one killed. OK.

And they were walking – the leader of Dinozo, which means dinosaur in Creole, the leader of this particular faction. I mean he was walking around with the Kenyan's helmet and vest on kind of celebrating. What do the gangs – I mean, OK. So explain to our audience. This sounds like an escape from New York type movie.

What happens to Haiti if the gangs, I mean, is it any different than the complete chaos they have now? But what happens if the gangs actually take over the capital? What happens? Yeah, I would just, I mean, one thing I would also do is provide a little context. So the roots of these groups, these armed groups, I mean, historically, you know, you had armed groups that were linked to various Haitian political and economic actors who used them as kind of private militias and bludgeons against their opponents. The

The genesis of the gangs was basically formed by Jean Bertrand Aristide and the Famille Lavalasse party in the late 1990s and early 2000s. And then from there, it kind of became an accepted modus operandi for a lot of different political factions, not all, but many, including the Parti Haitien Tête Calée, the PHDK of Michel Martelly. And now, but eventually, basically, these guys

kind of got their own income streams and kind of grew legs and ran away from their patrons. Now, in terms of what they want by, say, if they would take over the entire capital of Port-au-Prince, I mean, I know these armed groups have now branched out fairly significantly to weapons trafficking and drug trafficking. I mean, Izzo, who's one of the leaders in a neighborhood called Village de Dieu, I mean, he was

He was about a year ago, I was looking at one of his videos because he also has pretensions to being a rapper. And he was carrying Belgian made FALs, which are not, you know, the usual supply of guns comes from like down the Miami River on boats. And it's like, you know, guns that you get from the United States. FALs are historically the weapon of choice of the Venezuelan military and their clandestine support of Colombian rebel groups like the FARC.

and the ELN. So seeing that, that told me that, of course, you know, ESO has a pretty direct connection to South American criminal organizations now. And I, whether they just want to, you know, turn it into some gangster's paradise or not, I'm not sure. I mean, I've interviewed a couple of them and, you know, they're anti-

They kind of have this anti-elite rhetoric in terms of like, yeah, the traditional politicians and economic people have screwed us over. We want to change things. But yet the way they behave is they, you know, they victimize people at the very low level of society, like the most vulnerable people. They're not necessarily going up to target those politicians yet.

So, explaining to our audience briefly, so we had an election, Donald Trump won, you can like it or not like it, but the reality is one of the things he won on was just the flow of illegal immigration coming across the border. It was a big deal. If these gangs take over the Capitol and it becomes a criminal enterprise, what does this mean for America?

i mean what i would say is i mean there's a couple i might be getting a little far field from the on the ground in in haiti uh analysis but like a lot of the people who

The people who came here in the TPS thing with Biden from Haiti, I mean, these were all pretty much, I would say, you know, these were educated middle class people who had people who were willing to sponsor them here. So they had some, you know, economic roots in the United States. And ironically, you know, they were the kind of people that a country like Haiti can least afford to lose because it's the middle class that kind of keeps the economy running, you know, because not everyone can be super rich or super rich. Right, right. They're the glue. They're the glue.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think two things I would say is I don't even see how I don't see how physically you would send them back to Haiti because you would only be allowed to you could only land in Cap and, you know,

Most of the country, you can only kind of travel certain areas outside of Cape Haitian in the north before you get into total gang territory. Second is, yeah, certainly. I mean, I can't imagine a total collapse of the capital of Haiti into the hands of these armed groups would spell anything good for the region. And, you know, I mean, I think...

A lot of I think sometimes people think, oh, well, that's just going on in Haiti. But I mean, I don't think the Dominican Republic will will escape unscathed if Haiti completely collapses into the arms of these into the hands of these armed groups or Jamaica or any of these other places. And they've gotten you know, they're really they're extremely rich now. I mean, they get kidnapped, they kidnap people and they get a million dollars for somebody. They get two million dollars for somebody else. And they do that, you know, hundreds of times.

And that's not even including the weapons trafficking and the drug trafficking and things like that.

They're really, I have to say, I mean, I've reported on armed groups all over Africa, in Latin America, drug war in Mexico. And these guys in Haiti are kind of a unique example for me because they are not ideological or religious. I mean, they don't have some sort of political ideology they're fighting for. They're certainly not pious, religious people. But yet they really are within...

cusp of taking over the capital of a country in the Western Hemisphere. Based on what you're saying, obviously, the security situation there continues to deteriorate. Conditions for the population continue to deteriorate. The Kenyan security forces outmatched and outgunned. I haven't been paying attention, as I often don't do, to what the UN is up to. But is there any discussion of a broader intervention? Is there any momentum towards that?

In terms of momentum towards it, no. I mean, basically every time that the idea of some sort of security peacekeeping mission under the aegis of the United Nations is bandied about, it's shot down pretty quickly. I mean, some of your listeners may know. I mean, there was a UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti between 2004 and 2017, which, you know,

in some senses, kept the peace. I mean, Haiti had a democratically elected government under Rene Praval, who was president from 2006 to, excuse me, 2011. And, you know, so Haiti

I think the people, I'm saying the Haitian people, felt like they had some representation in the state. Now, you know, the last elected president of Haiti, Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated in July of 2021. And Haiti has been ruled without any sort of fig leaf of democracy by many of the same political actors who brought the country over the cliff in the first place since then. So even if there was support for some sort of UN peacekeeping mission, which there's not,

I mean, they would be basically, you know, they would be at the be going there at the behest of an unelected and unconstitutional, illegitimate government. Now I understand you can't have elections in the current security spiral that he's in that, that makes sense to me, but I don't think any reasonable person, uh, would look at Haiti now and say that it's better off than it was a year ago. In fact, it's much more direly worse is we we've got about three minutes left with you. Um, let me ask you a point in question for our audience. Um,

is the only way to get the peace and get order back in their American troops? No, I think, I mean, I think you have a lot of people still in the Haitian police and the Haitian army who are very patriotic and really want to defend their country. There just needs, I would say you need more of them, you know, uh, to come in, uh, to be, to be recruited fast. So in that sense,

I think the Americans might be useful in terms of, you know, some sort of rapid training of more personnel and things like that. But I think, you know, ultimately this has to be

This has to be a Haitian-led thing. The Haitians know their country. They want to defend their country. And they're the ones who are going to save it, not the United States or the United Nations or the Kenyans or anyone else. And I think many people on the ground in Haiti would echo that sentiment. So they need a Haitian solution to keep a long-lasting peace. Okay. Have there been any – have they talked to the U.S. government about that type of logistical and training assistance? Has there been any outreach in that regard? No.

I mean, as far as I know, I mean, the current transition council, I mean, as I said, I mean, it's dominated by people who are kind of from the political class that have brought the country to this pass in the first place. And I don't think, you know, they're thinking about the next election and how they're going to position themselves for that more than anything else, unfortunately. Yeah.

Well, Michael, with a minute left here, what would you advise if you could give America? What are two or three things we can do to help the situation down there, knowing that there is it needs to be a Haitian solution?

Sure. The two things I would say off the top of my head is that we should really have a kind of escalated training and supplying of the Haitian army and the Haitian police to fight these gangs so they can recapture territory. And the other thing I would say is that I don't think, aside from the moral question, for the whole stability of the region, you can't dump off thousands of people from the States and Haiti in the condition it's currently in. It will just lead to more chaos, unfortunately.

Well, Michael Deibert, thank you so much. Like we said, give me a call this afternoon. Let's talk about your trip down there. We appreciate you and love to have you back on the show at any time. Where can people follow you at?

On Twitter, I'm Michael C. Divert. On Blue Sky, I think I'm Michael. I actually don't know off the top of my head. I think it's Michael Divert as well. And I also have a newsletter that I put out called Notes from the World on Substack that covers a whole range of issues. Folks, I subscribe to that. That's well worth your time. That's why we have Michael on the show. Michael, thank you so very much. I'll talk to you later. This is Breaking Battlegrounds. We'll be right back. All right. Imagine this. You're running for president. Yes, president. What

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Folks, this is Sam Stone for Breaking Battlegrounds. Discover true freedom today with 4Freedom Mobile. Their SIM automatically switches to the best network, guaranteeing no missed calls. You can enjoy browsing social media and the internet without compromising your privacy. Plus, make secure mobile payments worldwide with no fees or monitoring. Visit 4FreedomMobile.com today for top-notch coverage.

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Generally in our podcast, which we have if you subscribe to it, we have Kylie's Corner. But today we wanted you to experience the Kylie aura of the weekend, of the blood and mayhem running throughout the world. It's good that we're bringing this to all our listeners because I've been pitching the podcast to my new co-workers at the Maricopa County Recorder's Office. All the women in there. They love it.

They love it. So, Jeremy, let's get our little theme song for Kylie. And by the way, it was in the recording studio this week, so next week, rock and roll for iTunes. All right, let's go. ♪ Talking about crimes and the ones committed ♪ ♪ Murder and mayhem in a world of sin and oh-oh-oh ♪ ♪ Kylie's on a roll ♪

Well, Kylie, what happened this week? A lot has happened. A lot has happened in the country. A lot has happened in Arizona alone. You hear all the murders happening here.

Yeah. No, it's – everybody's losing their mind. Yeah. Yeah. I have a dear friend who cuts my hair. And guys, I go to great clips, so don't think I have like this high fluting. But she's wonderful. And she was telling me last time I was there just depressing it was how many people are having so many problems. I mean she says it's noticeable. Yeah. I mean it's just – and it weighs heavy on her at the end of the day because –

you're a woman gets your hair done your hairstylist probably knows a lot about you more than most people so people share with these people because of this time together yeah well this first story i wanted to talk about happened um on wednesday at 10 a.m in oahu in hawaii um gerhart he's an anesthesiologist um he used to live in pennsylvania and then he him and his wife um they were together since 2016 they moved out to maui to live in their dream home um

They were on a hike on Wednesday morning when he asked her to take a selfie near the edge.

of like a cliff and she got this weird gut feeling and said no and he became enraged and um hit her in the head 10 times with a rock grabbed her hair and was smashing her face into the ground because she wouldn't take this selfie next to this ledge to which she had suspected he was going to push her off the ledge so that's why she did not want to do that why did she suspect it do we know no she just said she just had this weird feeling that he was going to do something so i assume probably there's obviously fights leading up to that doesn't come out of nowhere yeah so

While she's fighting for her life, a couple comes along and actually intervenes between this. He goes running. He's on the run for six hours. They take her to the hospital, call the police, all of this. Can I just say that being on the run in Maui has got to be pretty darn limiting? You're just running in circles. Well, it's also hilly. Yeah, there's nowhere to go. No, no, no. So they took her to the hospital. She was on –

Or he was on the run for six hours. They ended up arresting him. He's on bail for like $5 million. Hasn't made bail, obviously. Obviously, he's not in New York. No. Because the bail would be like $10,000. Yes. He'd be out free. But I wanted to... This...

Is it a perfect example? Because they're interviewing his, he has an ex-wife and two kids with her and his coworkers. And one of his sons has, so his coworkers were saying, we were really surprised by the reports of a very friendly, I'm using air quotes for those that can't see me, very friendly and quiet doctor allegedly tried to kill his wife. Like they're surprised. But then his kid and his,

They're both columnists. And his kid wrote in one of them, you don't remember much of your childhood except that one Christmas morning your brother came into your room and you hid under the covers for hours waiting for your parents to stop fighting. They got a divorce a year later.

And then they said or then he also wrote about how he cut his dad out of his life. But now and there was no contact. But now that he's back in the life, it's a lot calmer and there's no screaming and he can actually have a conversation with you. So I think it's a good test of like the person at home is a completely different person than maybe the person that you're working with that you don't necessarily know. One hundred percent. You know, one hundred percent.

So she's still in critical condition. Ten blows to the head will do that with a rock. Smashing into the face. Yeah. Grabbing my hair. I mean, I was dealing with this because a friend of a friend took a fall and had a head injury from it. The recovery from that is uncertain and years and years long if you're able to do it. Just look at athletes we know who dealt with a severe concussion. Right. And how long their life has changed because of that. I can't imagine –

what this poor woman's going through and she was a nuclear engineer is she is and we need a lot more of those yeah oh boy yeah well this one's cut and my next one's kind of sunshiny so my segment used to start as the sunshine moment and then you know i it's kind of boring i went downhill from there did we get a karen reed update next week because i think there's all sorts of fun on that one yeah i just watched the documentary was it was it on hulu or netflix i think it's on max

I believe I saw it. But you should. But I suggest everyone watch it. I really think it's just corrupt cops. I think she did it on accident. And it was corrupt cops that were so like obsessed with themselves that were unable to just run an investigation and.

Prove that it was her. And if you're a law firm out there, you need to be tracking down Kylie to hire her as your investigator because she's been on top of all of these things. I'm going to find all the little details. But this one's kind of a happy story. So police gave an update on a cold case 42 years later in a Chicago area. So in 1983, Karen, this woman named Karen, she was 23 years old. She went out to a bar with her friends in a suburb and she never made it home. From there, she was never seen again. She was driving a 1980 Toyota Corolla.

Salisa? A yellow one? Do you guys know what that car is? Is it... Celica. Celica. Celica. Okay, yeah, I was... You got me. Yeah, I saw Sam's face. I'm like, no way am I pronouncing this right. But they pulled it from the Fox River this week. So they launched... So a department in Chicago, a suburb, they launched a cold case...

And they hired the chaos divers and they found, they came up with these theories of these eight points of entry where she could have possibly entered into the Fox river. And the first spot that they checked, there was her car about seven feet in. And,

And her remains were found in the car and she was identified. I think there has been not only that story. There was a gentleman, missing person from the 80s, 85, found in Georgia. He was from North Carolina or something. And then I just popped up something this morning. Popped up they found another cold case that's 34 years old. What's going on? Well, are these chaos divers? So there's a group of these guys. They do it. They make Facebook videos.

Okay.

Yeah.

Some of those things are like these treasure hunters. Yeah. And they're highly skilled technical divers, which often small police departments don't have. Wow. Yeah. I mean, here's one here. Four hours ago. That's what I was talking about. She went missing in 1983. Remains have been found in a car linked to her. I mean, it's just it's incredible.

I know. Yeah. No, it's really cool. It's not shiny. Anything else happen here as we wrap up this little segment here? That's all I have today. I have the two Arizona cases that happened, but there's not too much about them. That is too crazy. There was a missing yoga instructor that was found.

dead after a while. Yeah, and he was a big guy. Yeah, yeah. He was like six foot 225 and he went missing after going on a, well, it's, no one knows if he made it on the blind date, but that was the last that they had heard from him. Well, folks, you can find Kylie's Corner every week on our podcast. The podcast you would sort of call Extra Innings Bonus Coverage. And of course, you can subscribe to that by going to BreakingBattlegrounds.vote.

or our Substack account. And obviously, you can always get our podcast wherever you get your podcasts in the world. And especially to our fans in the Dominican Republic, we're the 52nd most popular podcast down there. Keep following Kylie's Quarter. This is Breaking Battlegrounds, and we'll be right back. Support American jobs while standing up for your values. OldGloryDepot.com brings you conservative pride on premium, made-in-USA gear. Don't settle. Wear your patriotism proudly. Visit OldGloryDepot.com today.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. I'm your host, Chuck Warren, with my co-host, Sam Stone. In this short segment, we're going to talk about a local issue that's happening in Arizona, but it actually has national ramifications. So Scottsdale, Arizona, has a company called Axon that makes police equipment, right? Taser is their most famous product, but they make body cams and a huge range of stuff. So they wanted to do a new corporate headquarters project

On an area that – with that, they wanted to add, was it 1,200? 1,900 residential units. 1,900 residential. In an area really that does not have the ability, the infrastructure to handle 1,900 new residents.

Well, yeah. So part of the issue is that Scottsdale, Arizona, being a very high income area, there is not a whole lot of housing for Axon employees who work in a factory there to live. So they wanted to have some affordable housing for their own workforce. They wanted to sell some. Right, right. And knowing that as well, though, people, so you understand. So where they want to build this, they're actually on

the border almost of North Phoenix. So don't think like they're putting this in central Scottsdale, right? There's plenty of areas. They're right next to a highway that they could go to three other cities for employee housing. This isn't Old Town. No, no, no, no. So just so you know the geography on this. Go ahead, Sam. So there obviously, as with any large apartment type development, there's local opposition for it.

But mostly those things have gone forward until very recently. We've seen a spate of these cases here in Arizona, and they're happening across the country, where a union called Unite Here, which started out as service industry workers and has been expanding to try to add construction workers on, will go to a company that is looking at doing a development, and they'll say –

You have to agree to all our terms and conditions. You have to unionize your workforce, even against state law, because here in Arizona we are right to work state. You can't require unionization. And if you don't, we are going to go and put your development on the ballot.

And when you put those on the ballot, they lose because people don't like apartments. I mean, everyone everywhere are NIMBYs, right? It's build bananas, build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone. And so they do this and they

These companies are essentially – they either lose the deal or agree to do this. It is a very nefarious development in terms of the economic growth of the country. And we know the impact of these unions is not to increase productivity. It is not to improve the economic conditions even for their workers. This is about union bosses and leaders.

So the citizens of Scottsdale got 26,000 valid signatures to put this on the ballot after it was rushed through with Elaine Decker, city council. Which you might hear paid together. Right, right, right, right, right. So what do you think the direction is going forward on this? Well, either they're going to have to come to a compromise that takes it away. And there's actually ways to do this. Axon could actually submit a new plan for that site. But they refuse to.

Right. But if they submitted a new plan, it wouldn't be on the ballot. It would be a new deal. Right. But I think the city's waiting to negotiate it. And I think they are. And I think the answer is to have a cut down in what they're doing. People are saying no apartments on that site. I think, look, you buy land, it's zoned for what it's zoned for. You don't have a right to increase the zoning density or uses. So this is a complicated thing.

But at the same time, it's really now tied up in this union politics that is interfering. I mean, the citizens of Scottsdale have every right to reject something like this. One hundred percent. But I have a real issue with giving these unions the power because what they're going to start doing is get a lot of companies to agree off the top. Right. So if Axon had agreed to their deal, this would not be on the ballot.

Yeah, because there was not – I know that we have a friend that did the volunteer signatures for it. And I think they only got 4,000 or 5,000 volunteer signatures because it's a real short time to put something about. You and I talked about this last week with the sales tax for Phoenix. You have 30 days, right? It's an uphill lift. To do these kinds of things in the time required, you really need a funded effort. My guess on Axon, why they added the residential apartments, this is my conspiracy theory –

Is that the bank – they told the bank they had X revenue and the way they get the X revenue is the residential units. Well, that's part of it. But also to be honest, I mean look, residential apartment development is enormously profitable.

Oh, 100%. And they're going to sell a bunch of these units. There's a huge cash flow. They're not low-income units. Folks, where you're going, this is a very wealthy area, maybe one of the top 10% in the United States. The apartments that sell are going to be somewhere north of $500 and probably many of them around $1 million. The ones that they rent are going to rent for several thousand a month.

Yeah, two, three, four grand a month. Barring a couple hundred they may set aside for lower income workers who are actually there. But-

Look, they're going to have to make a deal if they want to stay here. Axon has threatened to flee to Texas. Which, by the way, I find the most ridiculous thing in the world that if you really want to be in Arizona, there's plenty of cities that would take them with their residential units. It's not what they want to do. They're holding their breath right now. They're holding their breath because they can make a bundle off this development. Yeah.

Folks, this is Breaking Battlegrounds. We'll be right back with Congressman Daryl Issa, who is going to talk to us about the federal judiciary and his bill to limit the scope of their rulings. We'll be right back.

In today's digital world, standing out is more important than ever. Whether you're running for office, leading a cause, or hosting a vote for the cutest pet in town, you need a web domain that's simple, memorable, and action-oriented. You need a .vote web domain. It's clear, impactful, and establishes a lasting presence for your campaign.

Don't wait. Head to GoDaddy.com or Name.com, type in your name.vote, and get started today. Because after all, every pet deserves a web address that's as special as they are. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. Our next guest is Congressman Daryl Issa. He represents the people of California's 48th District. He sits on the House Judiciary Committee, the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee. Welcome, Congressman.

Thanks for having me on and thanks for covering the No Rogue Act, or NOR as we call it. It's overdue and my only embarrassment is that we didn't address this in the first Trump administration when after another, judges began reaching out to take cases just to shut down the president's agenda.

So let's explain what this bill does that you have brought that has passed judiciary and supposed to go to the House floor this week. So no rogue rulings basically will curtail the power of federal district courts and basically not allow their injunctions to be applied nationwide. Right.

And what's happening right now, you have a bunch of district courts just making injunctions and it just stops everything Trump's doing from cutting government waste to firing federal employees, which seems to be an executive power that should not be disputed, to deporting illegal immigrants who are also criminals. So tell us why this is necessary to stop forum shopping and how it will bring a more sane order to the government in the United States.

Well, you've hit two points. One that is very good is forum shopping. The idea that you go to Hawaii to stop the president's actions in Washington or in California or somewhere else. The district courts were established by Congress, not by the Constitution. They're authorized by lower courts or authorized by the Constitution. But the Constitution says we may create lower courts, and we did.

But each one of the lower courts, we gave them specific jobs that were less than the Supreme Court. They do not speak as the nine men and women of the high court. They don't speak for the whole country, and they're not the absolute last word. And that intent used to be respected by judges. But lately, judges have begun saying,

rule for the whole country, even though I may or may not even have one plaintiff in front of me who is from my district, an area that the judge represents, as they did in the case of the

these terrorists that were on their way back to South America. He didn't even know the names of the people. As a matter of fact, he's still trying to figure out who it was that he ordered to be turned around. And that's outside the scope. So I will say this. If the Chief Justice and the Supreme Court were doing their job, they would already have slapped down a number of these saying that they exceeded their jurisdiction.

But they haven't done that. They've looked at the underlying case rather than the abuse. And so Congress is now acting to be very specific that what we meant when we said district is that you rule within your district for your district, not for the whole country, as though you're a Supreme Court of one.

Absolutely, Congressman. On the point you made about the U.S. Supreme Court not having already stepped into this issues, I've said before, I think this is the thing I'm most disappointed in Chief Justice Robertson is his unwillingness to take on sometimes politically charged cases. But these actions, which are so far outside the boundaries of the law, are

Why aren't they expediting these to the Supreme Court for full hearings? Because you're talking about something that fundamentally tears at the fabric of our representative democracy.

Well, you're exactly right. Here's what should happen. And as the chairman of the subcommittee for the courts, not just now, but in several previous Congresses, I've studied what should happen in cases like this, not looking at the facts of the case, just looking at the question of, is it an appropriate venue to be brought?

The first appellate court should have immediately said there was no plaintiff in front of the judge. There was a plaintiff as an inaction, but that individual didn't have standing. He did not, in fact, represent one of the people being deported, etc. So the first thing that happens, the case should have been thrown out and said, look...

you don't have the ability, you don't have the right to represent somebody just because you want to. And the judge doesn't have the right to say, yes, John Doe is being represented by so-and-so. But they didn't do that. And you said Chief Justice Roberts, and it does go squarely to the Chief Justice. He has said repeatedly that he cares about preserving the institution of the Supreme Court. Well, in doing so, he has to present

continue to preserve the authority and the authority of the Supreme Court cannot be simply handed down to lower courts. It must belong with the Supreme Court, meaning a nationwide injunction if there are not nationwide plaintiffs before the

The judge, that case has to come to the Supreme Court for the court to say it doesn't just apply to this individual or that individual. It applies to every American. It hasn't been to the court. And each one of these is, in fact, unconstitutional behavior by a federal judge. Based on your position on judiciary, you obviously saw this far earlier than your colleagues. But

Did members of Congress, Republican members of Congress, fully understand what was happening when Democrats started nominating judges who specifically, it was no longer a litmus test around abortion or one issue. The litmus test was, are you willing to overthrow every law and legal tradition we have to pursue an agenda? And that's what they're doing across the country. It's unbelievably damaging.

It is. And look, we serve with a handicap. Tomorrow I'll speak before the Federalist Society at the Reagan Library. There's an organization of basically, we call them right or center right attorneys.

They believe strongly in federalism, in upholding the Constitution, and being limited by the Constitution. Most people don't understand the Constitution didn't give us any rights. It limited government's authority. And because they believe that, when we find a conservative judge, we find a judge that won't give us the answer we want.

the judge will give us what the constitution says the left has the opposite situation they look for somebody who believes that the end justifies the means that in fact

what the left wants is what the left will get. And so we don't even have a counter in the court where the left makes one decision, the right will make the opposite decision. The fact is the right makes decisions based on the limitations placed on it by the Constitution, while the left makes decisions that meet their agenda. In this case,

stopping President Trump from being effective in not just sealing the border and making us safe, but truly making America great again. We're with Congressman Darrell Issa, who has introduced a bill, No Rogue Rulings Act, which basically attacks forum shopping and the powers of district courts to limit their scope to their geography, basically. One thing our friends on the more right of the party would want, they've wanted to impeach these judges, basically.

I think your bill is a much more saner approach than going through impeachment. Is that a fair characterization, a more logical way of handling this than just impeaching every judge? A more legal and honest and ethical way. Well, let's put it this way. The standard for impeaching a judge is so high, only 15 have ever been impeached.

uh... in our history and virtually all of them were for crimes uh... they they were accused of it about most cases convicted of crimes but we also impeached or removed them because they wouldn't resign and so the standard is so high that even if we were successful in a case

it would still be one out of a hundred judges you know the bench is about six hundred and seventy judges right now uh... there's more than a hundred of middle take these kinds of cases we cannot impeach them all but to limit uh... back to original intent their jurisdiction in in a in a specific way

affects all one hundred or two hundred or six hundred and seventy who would try to exceed uh... the mandate they were given by congress and so that's the reason i want to do it is that i i don't want to play whack-a-mole with uh... impeaching or threatening to impeach judges

even if we made the assumption that we would succeed. And the odds are very long against succeeding in an impeachment of a judge over a disagreement on a ruling, which is different than a high crime or a misdemeanor. Regarding your No Rogue Rulings Act, and you're talking to the Federalist Society tomorrow, here's a question you may get from some of these folks in the Federalist Society. They're going to say, okay,

We've also used this to block things like Biden's student debt forgiveness and Obama's Affordable Care Act. What would you do to allay their affairs that that's not when we're not in power, when Republicans aren't in power, it's going to happen. What will you tell them to allay their affairs that this will not stop them from pursuing judicial remedies to the, you know, to the basically Democrat administration trying to overpower everybody? Yeah.

Well, we're fortunate on Judiciary. I have a number of former attorneys general that actually are members of Congress now. And so we weighed this in putting together the No Rogues Ruling Act. And what it does is it allows for what what

one might popularly call a class action suit, to still have a greater scope. So if 16 attorneys general come before a judge with at least one of those states being the one in which the judge has authority, then he can rule on behalf of all the plaintiffs before him, recognizing that that creates a class issue.

which is recognized by the court as one of the times in which a regional judge can make a broader ruling. So we are preserving that. Does that mean the left may use that on occasions? Yes, but they'll have a harder time popping up with a blank plaintiff if it's

seven or eight or whatever amount of Democrat attorneys general want to come before a court with a well-reasoned case, okay, we'll deal with that. But it'll be a fraction of what we have today, and there will be comparative accountability because you really will be having the power of accountability.

a state's attorney general there, rather than a do-good, so-called do-good organization coming in with a pencil-written brief that they threw together in an hour. Final question here in our final three minutes. You also have new legislation to crack down on sanctuary cities and criminal illegals. Basically, it's called the Sanctuary City Accountability Act. Can you tell us a little bit about what that is and how that helps cracking down on sanctuary cities?

The conduct of sanctuary cities had an original intent that I think we can all be somewhat sympathetic to, which was that when police go in to investigate a crime, somebody's been assaulted, robbed, or whatever, that they do not overtly ask what somebody's immigration status is. It's not part of the investigation, and it might cause people to refuse to come forward and testify when you need them to testify against a criminal.

That intent is preserved. Well, the obstruction of justice, which is what Sanctuary City has come to mean, is defined exactly as it should be. It is an obstruction of justice for which officials, including police officers and state officials, can be charged.

Which is desperately necessary. Literally yesterday, the mayor of Rochester, New York, thrashed his police department in a press conference over them assisting Border Patrol in a stop that became dangerous. Border Patrol called for police assistance with a stop of eight illegal immigrants in a van.

And they did assist them. Now the mayor is literally dressing down his own police department for helping protect the public safety and helping ensure that there was nobody injured in that situation. It is a travesty, and we are very grateful for the work you're doing on this issue.

Well, I'm glad to do it, and I'm also delighted that President Trump has created an 80%, maybe 90% popular issue out of something that people were afraid to touch. Previous administrations, Republican administrations, wanted to be kinder and gentler rather than help the American people, including these minorities. And I'll just in closing say the reason that President Trump received so much

in the way of additional votes from minorities is because he's making their streets safe again. And that's what legal immigrants want to have when they come to America. Making their streets safe, making their groceries cheaper, promises are being delivered. Congressman Darrell, I said thank you so much for joining us and we hope to have you back again soon. Have a great weekend. Absolutely. Thank you. You too. This is Breaking Battlegrounds, BreakingBattlegrounds.vote. We'll be right back on the podcast portion. Have a great weekend.

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With a yourname.votedomain from godaddy.com, you'll stand out and make your mark. Don't wait. Get yours today. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. We're the podcast portion. Sam, interesting interview with Congressman Issa. Really, really great. He's always fantastic, and he's on point with the legislation he works on. I feel like he understands his legislation. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I don't mean to – I'm certainly not knocking any of our guests, but that is not always a 100 percent standard in Congress. I think he is a person who can ask the critical questions to make sure that he can answer questions. So we asked about the impeachment. We asked about how this will affect conservatives when Democrats are in power, and I feel like he has the answers for it and he's thought them through. And I think this legislation – I sent this to some attorneys who are in think tanks. Yeah.

They were hemming and hawing on it. But the reality is a district judge should not be able to issue an injunction for a nation. It should be for the region. And you should have somebody in front of that court who has – A plaintiff who has actual standing on the subject. Yeah, and they're not doing that. Now, the one thing – I think the Trump administration came in with an agenda that they've been working on for a while.

But someone obviously missed the boat realizing that Democrats were going to come after all these. And they probably should have thought some of this through a little bit more because that was their only – I mean, look, I think the Trump people believe they're going to win the last three, four months. I really do feel they knew that, right? And I think they feel good about the Senate based on the map, right? I mean, nothing happens until Election Day, but they feel good about the map and they feel decent about the House, right? Yep.

So you should have foresaw this. I'm not criticizing these people. I'm not in that room. But Democrats obviously – I mean I remember reading an article maybe in New York Times in October how Democrats are already preparing for legal challenges. They knew. No, they knew. They were gearing up for this the whole way along. So –

I think, and this relates to a conversation I had yesterday with a friend of the program, David Schweikert, Congressman Schweikert. She had gone to him at an event and said, you know, I love what you say, but a lot of times when you're talking on the floor, you're very technical and complex. And it's hard for average people to understand. And he said something I thought was really interesting to her. He said, I'm not talking to them. I'm actually talking those times to my junior colleagues.

Interesting. In the House who I want to educate them because they're not getting this information from the staff sources. That's interesting. That's really interesting. And I think Congressman Issa does a great job of that also at times when some of the things he says are really intended to help.

bring up the rest of a new delegation. You've got these members coming in who don't have his background and knowledge, but he does a much better job of also tuning it in a way that makes it publicly more digestible.

Yeah, and I'm convinced it's the reason he stays in Congress. I mean, I think he loses sleep on this issue. I mean, when we've had Tom Emmer on the show, The Whip, several times, he just says, yeah, we get – everybody gets text messages every day from him about the financial problems of our country. I mean, David's just on this all the time, right? Right.

There was an interesting – the Department of Government Efficiency and Elon Musk were interviewed on Fox News yesterday. And folks – Brett Baier, it was brilliant. Yeah. And folks, you really should just take – look, whether you like Doge or not, our country has a financial hole.

So we talked about – I actually put this in an opinion piece. Even if you raised all the taxes Democrats want and let's say in the best case scenario it raises the trillion dollars annually or close to it that they think, which is not going to happen. I can ask Norway because rich people are fleeing. But if you did that, best case scenario trillion, we're still $800 billion to a trillion dollars in deficit every year, which means over 10 years. Best case scenario.

We're still $10 trillion more in debt. It's not sustainable. So something has to be cut. Now, Elon said something yesterday that I found amazing. He said he believes that you can cut 15% of government. You and I have talked 5 to 10. He said 15%.

which would without affecting people's benefits or how we help people. I believe that. 100 percent. Yeah. And so this is one of the things, whether it's in local government like we dealt with at the city of Phoenix or Maricopa County or the federal government that I really don't understand the left and their elected officials on, because when you're talking about that type of efficiency, the things Doge is doing,

They're not cutting services. They're simply improving the way government operates to save money. And Democrats fight that – elected Democrats fight that tooth and nail, and it baffles me. It sort of doesn't because their real constituency – government workers are a big part of their real constituency and all the NGOs and all this stuff, right? This is all about donations for them, union donations. But the reality is for their voters –

What do those voters want? They want more government services. We have a place where government has this massive debt that's eating up our ability to provide additional services. Here's a team coming along saying, hey, we can cut this without taking away anything from you. We can actually over time increase the ability of the government to serve you. And they're screaming about this like they're being crucified. It is absolutely insane that –

the average Democrat doesn't understand that they are getting screwed by their leadership, by their elected officials. Well, it would be interesting. So one, then they came up yesterday, they said they are individually reviewing 36,000 plus interior grants and contracts, 36,000 grants and contracts. And what my friends on the left and those, some on the center center, right.

What is the most important priority for you that government accomplish? And do those grants go towards accomplishing those things, the basic services that people need, right? And I think that is the question that they need to start asking themselves. And I agree. Some of this is done with a chainsaw, and there sometimes needs to probably be a month or two deliberation more before they just –

It's okay to go post, say, this is what they're doing, but instead of saying, well, yeah, now you're all fired. And by the way, how many people have they actually fired? 30,000? Yeah. And remember, Clinton and Gore did like 300,000, but they've only done 30,000. I think Elon Musk in that interview said it was –

0.15% of the federal workforce? Yeah, yeah. It was really, really low. Really, really low. I mean, sort of like they deactivated 315,000 federal credit cards. Yeah. I mean, there's – and the other thing I found out as well was interesting yesterday. The Washington Post has made a big deal that the helpline on the phone for people is being taken down, which –

It's not really true. But two, they were saying 40 percent of the calls were fraud. Right. Just people trying to commit fraud on it to to the Social Security hotline. Yeah. Forty percent of the people calling in are switching somebody, switching the bank account information to steal somebody's money. Yeah. Yeah. So we're going to leave. We've talked about this on the show because Republicans want to put a.

to the insanity of illegal immigration, which Donald Trump has done, and I don't think they're advertising that more, better than they should. No, they need to really... They just need to be everywhere on it, right? Because they have made tremendous gains. The border... I've talked to Border Patrol agents here in Arizona who said...

My day is a normal day now. Yeah. Where, you know, look, we're focused on the fentanyl trafficking, the human trafficking, the stuff we signed up to fight. Right. Instead of becoming processing agents. Yes. So, you know, they're doing that. But so because if you are opposed to unfettered illegal immigration.

There are many in the press who like to say you're a populist. And I will submit to you, I do not believe the Trump move is populism. It is, and like we said, we need to find a better word for it, is government don't work. It need to work better. Yes. Faction. I think that's what most of Trump voters are, to be honest with you. Yeah. So we're going to leave you with this clip from Jon Stewart. Now, remember, Jon Stewart is a famous liberal.

But a reasonably well-informed, and he does demonstrate some ability to see the outside. Yeah, no, I mean, Jon Stewart at least is to see open-minded to a degree about it, but he's never going to be – you're not going to invite him to dinner and talk about – He's not in that regard as good to me as like Bill Maher who will –

I think we'll see more of the damage, but at least he is not a Rachel Maddow who's just a cheerleader for –

Don't agree with him 80 percent of the time, but I think he's open to things. For example, he clearly blames Democrats and environmentalists for the housing shortage. He's very open about it, right? So they had this conversation, and I'm telling you right now, grab a pen and paper, sit down and listen to this and share. This is five minutes where Ezra Klein explains this.

the absolute insanity and regulations implemented by the Biden administration. He was very clear about this. The Biden administration implemented this and what it did to delay something that had pretty good intentions. Not only but implemented by Biden, but the framework they built their new regulations on has been developed over many years by government bureaucrats outside of the guidance of Congress.

It's the 12 steps required for the broadband bill. And remember this, folks. When people tell you the Democrat Party needs a moderate, it's never going to moderate because the people who put these 12 steps in this broadband bill are 20% of the Democratic Party and they run the party. Make no mistake about it. And they're incompetent. It's not just that they're nuts. It's that they are not competent to operate in the real world. Because they never operate in the real world. So on behalf of Kylie...

Jeremy, Sam and I thank you. We're going to leave you with this five minutes of Jon Stewart. Please listen. Please share it. Grab a pen and paper and write it down. Have a great weekend. We have to issue the notice of funding opportunity within 180 days. That's step one. Step two, which all 56 state applicants completed is states who want to participate must submit a letter of intent.

After they do that, they can submit a request for up to $5 million in planning grants. Then the NTIA, step four, has to review and approve and award, again, planning grants, not broadband grants, planning grants. And it's still at the NTIA. It's still at the first step. All right. So the NTIA must issue a NOFO within 180 days. States who want to participate must submit their letter of intent.

Step three, they can request up to $5 million in planning grants. Just planning. Just planning. Step four, the requests are reviewed, approved, and awarded by the NDIA, which currently all 56, you know, three years later, all 56 applicants had passed through at least step five. It took at least, it took more than three years. So it's a long time.

States must submit a five-year action plan. The states kind of go back and they kind of think about how they're going to do this. And they don't just say, okay, thank you for the money. We're going to spend it and you can see how it worked out later. We're like, here's our five-year action plan.

Then the FCC must publish the broadband data maps before NTIA allocates funds. So having done the NOFO, the letters of intent, the request for planning grants, then the review, approval, and awarding of the planning grants...

Then the five-year action plans. In between that, the federal government has to put forward a map saying where it thinks we need rural broadband subsidies. And then, of course, the states need an opportunity to challenge the map for accuracy. And you can imagine this doesn't all happen in like a day. Okay.

So then the NTIA, step seven, has to use the FCC maps to make allocation decisions. Then having already done their letter of intent, their request for planning grants, it's hard even to talk about this man. Step seven is NTIA must use the FCC maps that were already challenged for allocation decisions.

Then having submitted all this, I think this one is actually quite amazing. Having submitted their five-year plans or letters of intent, step eight is states must submit an initial proposal, an initial proposal.

to the NTIA. Then... Is that the result of their $5 million planning fund? I assume, but then what was the five-year plan? And what the fuck did they apply for? What was their nofo? Like, if the five-year action plan isn't the initial proposal, then what's the five-year action plan? Forget nofo, mofo. Step nine...

NTIA must review and approve each state's, again, initial proposal. By my read, we have had at least two initial proposals here, but that's a different issue. Oh, my God. Step 10, states must publish their own map and allow internal challenges to their own map. So the government has published a map. They have invited the states to challenge the map.

Then states have submitted initial proposals and they then have to publish their own map and allow challenges. Wait, who's challenging it within the state? Well, you know, organized interest groups, environmental groups, like I don't know who specifically, but any, literally anybody. This is, I want to say something because it's very important I say this. This is the Biden administration's process for its own bill. They wanted this to happen. This is how liberal government works now. This is something they instituted.

For this bill? For their bill. This is a bill passed by Democrats with a regulatory structure written by Democratic administration. Okay. Right. Step 11. The NTIA must review and improve...

the challenge results and the final map. So the NTIA has put forward a map. The states have challenged that map. Then the states have put forward their maps, had other challenges. And now the NTIA must review and approve the challenges to the state maps. Okay. So step, we've done step 11. NTIA must review and approve challenge results and final map. We've lost nine of the applicants at that point. Step 12.

States must run a competitive sub granting. Oh, my fucking God. At step 12. After all this has been done. Yeah. None of that could have happened along the way here. We have now lost 17 more applicants. So now 30 of 56 have completed step 12.

Step 13, states must submit a final proposal. All the proposals weren't enough to NTIA. Now that goes to 3 of 56. So we've gone in the last couple of steps from 56 had gone to this point to 3 of 56. Step 14.

The NTIA must review and approve the state's final proposal. And that is three of the 56 jurisdictions and states are there. In summary, colon, states are nearly at the finish line. And it says to stop their progress now or worse, to make them go backwards would be a stick in the spokes of the most promising broadband deployment plans we have ever seen and seen.

I'm speechless, Ezra. Honestly, it's A, far worse than I could have imagined. But the fact that they amputated their own legs on this is what's so stunning.