Live from Music Row Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed New York City attorney Akiva Cohen to the newsmakers line to explain why Trump’s Big Tech lawsuit may not have jurisdiction in Florida due to state action as outlined in Facebook’s contractual agreement.
Leahy: We are delighted to welcome to our newsmaker line our good friend Akiva Cohen. He is an attorney who specializes in First Amendment, media, and Big Tech issues. Welcome, Akiva Cohen.
Cohen: Good to be back, Michael. How have you been?
Leahy: I’ve been great. I’ve been great. So I want to get your opinion. We were at Donald Trump’s news conference with America First Institute in Bedford, New Jersey, when he announced this lawsuit against Facebook, Twitter, and Google and their CEOs.
Now, our friend Vivek Ramaswamy, the very successful billionaire who lives in Cincinnati, has written an article in The Wall Street Journal.
I’m guessing you may not agree with this headline, but I’ll read the headline and get your response. Headline: Trump Can Win His Case Against Tech Giants. There’s ample precedent for calling it state action. But what is your reaction to that?
Cohen: Yes, I do disagree with it. There are a couple of things. Number one, procedurally that’s going to happen first, right out of the gate.
Each of these companies has terms of service that say, if you’re going to sue us over something that happens with your account, you’ve got to do it in the Northern District of California and not in Florida, which is where the former President Trump filed these things.
And that’s important because the Northern District of California, just a week and a half ago or so, actually addressed this exact issue.
There was a vaccination information group called Child Health Defense that had filed a lawsuit against Facebook for taking their page down on the exact same theory that Section 230 and the sort of comments of public officials made Facebook’s decision to take them down a state action.
And what the courts said just a week and a half ago was, no, that’s not a state action. The fact that the government may have a regulatory interest in a particular area doesn’t transform private action into state action.
So President Trump’s lawsuit has a real big problem, just from a recent precedent that it’s going to have to deal with because it’s going to get moved to California on the basis of those terms of service and the contracts that everybody who signed up for it agreed to.
And there was a judge in that district who just decided this issue in a way that’s not good for him. I think it’s unlikely that it’s going to have a different outcome in this case.
Leahy: Akiva, Crom Carmichael is our all-star panelist, has a question for you.
Cohen: Sure.
Carmichael: Akiva, I think what you said is Trump filed his lawsuit in the state of Florida. So it will go before a court in Florida, will it not? I mean, to begin with? In other words, will the first hearing be in Florida, or will the first hearing be in California?
Cohen: It depends on what you mean by first hearing. So he filed in federal court in Florida. The very first thing that Facebook and Twitter and Google will do is they’re going to file what’s known as a motion to transfer.
And they’re going to say, look, before we get into the merits of all of this, there’s a contract governing it. The contract that everybody signed when they joined our website says, if you’re going to sue us, you have to sue us in the Northern District of California.
Those clauses are enforceable and they’re routinely enforced, and you should move it to California. Now, I don’t frankly know if President Trump’s lawyers are going to put up any sort of fight in response to that for the simple reason that there really isn’t anything to fight about.
Courts enforce clauses like this all the time. Fighting against it will be a losing move.
But if he does fight it, then the very first hearing will be if the Florida judge feels like he needs a real argument, which I think would be unlikely, would be in Florida about whether or not the case has to go to California. A Florida judge would not be looking at the substance.
Carmichael: When you say judges do this ‘all the time’, do you mean regularly and most of the time? Or do you really mean truly all the time?
Cohen: No. Truly, truly all the time. If you have a contract that says we are going to litigate this and any disputes between us in a particular location, judges will not get into the substance unless you’re going to argue that you were somehow defrauded into agreeing to that particular choice of venue.
If you’re alleging that somehow somebody lied to you, you didn’t actually sign the contract, and your signature is forged, that they’ll decide.
But if you agree, yes, this is a contract that I signed that had this provision, there is a chance that any judge will say that’s not enforceable.
It happens every time. Literally, every time this issue comes up. If there’s a venue clause and one of the parties files in a different place and the other party tries to enforce it, that’s not to say there isn’t some crazy judge out there who might do something different on some random occasion.
I don’t know every case in the country, but it would be a massive shock to everybody if it did not.
Carmichael: Let’s assume that it gets moved to California and then it gets tried in California and the courts out there rule in favor of Big Tech. It will get appealed. At that point, it gets appealed to a higher court…
Leahy: The Ninth Circuit.
Carmichael: The Ninth Circuit. And let’s just say the ninth Circuit sides with Big Tech. If the U.S. Supreme Court takes it, then the decision is not being made by what I would describe as a liberal-leaning court – meaning the district court in San Francisco and the Ninth Circuit. It would be then decided at the Supreme Court level.
And there is a precedent at the Supreme Court level for claiming that companies that are benefited. And that’s what the other gentleman from Cincinnati said. He listed two cases.
Leahy: Norwood v. Harrison 1973 was one of those cases. And then Railway Employees’ Department v. Hanson in 1956 were the cases that he referenced. And I guess Crom’s question to you is, Akiva, are you buying that?
Cohen: And the answer is no. And the court in California actually just recently analyzed all of that. And frankly, it was persuasive.
It’s worth reading the Children’s Health Defense versus Facebook. And there are a couple of issues here, right? So, number one:
If anything that gets a government benefit and anything that they do is state action, then frankly, every corporation that exists is bound by the First Amendment because the corporate form is itself a government benefit.
We have laws that say you can incorporate and you get limited liability as a result of it. And so this is a benefit that’s created by the government. It doesn’t exist other than, as a matter of law. Every corporation would be bound.
Carmichael: Now wait. Not every corporation is covered by Section 230 and has the protections of Section 230.
Cohen: Correct. If the theory, Crom, is that just getting a benefit from the government – meaning you got some special benefit from the government, therefore, anything you do is government action – If that’s the case, there’s no reason why the benefit of Section 230 would be any more special or triggering of that rule to the benefit of the corporate form in the first place.
Carmichael: Well, then did the two core cases that were cited in the other article, why did they go the way they did?
Cohen: Those cases were not Section 230 cases.
Carmichael: I know that. But they were still on the greater question that you’re trying to raise. You’re trying to say Section 230 isn’t the dispositive question here. You’re trying to say that if the government helps anybody, then it helps everybody, and therefore Section 230 doesn’t matter. But these other two cases were not about Section 230, but they did argue that because the government helped those particular companies that the judges ruled differently than the way that you’re arguing.
Cohen: I don’t believe that’s accurate. And it’s been a little bit since I looked at those cases. But if I remember correctly, those cases weren’t about the government giving somebody a benefit.
It was about the level of government control of the specific action. So, for example, in the railway case. If I’m remembering correctly, what it was was the government said that rail companies were required to conduct alcohol testing if I’m remembering correctly, on employees and crashes.
And what the Supreme Court said was, look, people have a Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. They have rights, First Amendment rights.
And if the state couldn’t have its police force do this because of people’s constitutional rights, it can’t pass a law that says you private company need to do this because that’s the same thing.
And the problem here with applying that theory to Section 230 – there are two major problems. Number one is just in general. If you look at Section 230, it doesn’t mandate any specific content or any specific content rules. You could have a site that says I want to ban all discussion.
Leahy: Hey, Akiva. We’re running a little bit of time here. But what a great discussion. By the way, Akiva, let me just say this one thing. If I’m ever in trouble in New York State, I am hiring you as my attorney. (Carmichael laughs)
Cohen: I appreciate that. Thanks for having me, guys. (Carmichael laughs)
Leahy: All right. Thanks, Akiva.
Listen to the third hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Akiva Cohen” by Kamerman, Uncyk, Soniker & Klein
Live from Music Row Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed May Davis, former legal advisor to President Donald Trump and visiting fellow with the independent women’s form to the newsmakers line to discuss her background working with the Trump administration, Big Tech platforms, and the First Amendment.
Leahy: We are delighted to our newsmaker line, May Davis. She’s a former legal adviser to President Donald Trump. And she’s a visiting fellow with the Independent Women’s Law Center. Good morning, May.
Davis: Good morning. Thanks for having me.
Leahy: Well, we’re delighted to have you here. You have a great background. You are a graduate of the University of Kansas School of Journalism. That’s the Lawrence campus right?
Davis: That is.
Leahy: It’s a beautiful campus by the way.
Davis: Thank you. And you know, it’s a great basketball school, but it’s a good school, too.
Leahy: Are you a Jayhawk?
Scooter: Rock Chalk Jayhawk!
Leahy: Rock Chalk Jayhawk. Does that resonate with you May?
Davis: Yes, it does. And so sometimes when you say rock chalk to someone, they have to say rock chalk back. But sometimes if you say rock chalk, they have to say Jayhawk back. And you just kind of have to look at them and decide which they’re looking for.
Leahy: (Laughs) That’s very good. So are you a native of Kansas?
Davis: I am a native, actually, New Orleans, Louisiana. But I grew up mostly in Kansas. So I claim Kansas now.
Leahy: My brother was a teacher in Kansas for many, many, many years. Where in Kansas did you grow up?
Davis: So I lived in two cities. One is Goodland, Kansas. No one will have heard of it unless you are in desperate need of a rest stop on I70. So that’s on the border of Colorado. And then Kansas, which is kind of close to K State.
Leahy: So what did your folks do there?
Davis: So my dad is a doctor and my mom is also a teacher. And I was a teacher for a few years in Kansas City as well.
Leahy: You were a teacher. Did you teach in a public school or a private school?
Davis: So it’s a charter school in Kansas City and it’s very interesting. They’ve got a couple of charter schools, but their public school system is actually not accredited, meaning a college doesn’t actually have to recognize your Kansas City public school diploma.
I mean, they do, but they don’t have to. So I taught a charter school that actually underperformed, underperformed. t the Kansas City public school system. So it was an interesting two years.
Leahy: It sounds like it was quite a challenge for you. (Davis chuckles) You know, who was at a time, I think he was for a while and he’ll be on our program later today. You probably know him. He has something in common with you, I think. And that is Kris Kobach, who was a professor of law at the University of Missouri, Kansas, for a period of time.
Davis: Yes. A very familiar Kansan.
Leahy: And he’s got a high profile on some of his litigation. Now you went from teaching at a charter school in Kansas City to Harvard Law School. What was that transition like?
Davis: I think it’s intimidating for a lot of people in the Midwest to just go to Harvard and say like can I read and write the same way that all these other people? It is a scary thing. And it turns out you can.
It was a really wonderful experience. And less so as time goes on when you first get there was what I would consider true diversity. Everyone had a different background, a different life story. And you got to sort of learn like that.
And then by the time my third year had rolled around and there were a lot of riots because of the Ferguson, Missouri, the shooting happened then it became less so. I feel sorry, I think, for the Harvard law students now, especially after the pandemic where they really can’t experience their classmates in the way that I originally could. But I truly loved it.
Leahy: She may not have been on faculty at that time. Did you ever have Elizabeth Warren as an instructor?
Davis: So funny enough, we had her husband and she had just left. But she would have been my contract Professor in my section if I was there one year earlier.
Leahy: Missed her by this much! (Laughter) Tell us how you came to become a legal adviser to President Donald Trump.
Davis: After law school, I did what law students do. And I clerked for a federal judge, moved to Denver, Colorado. And I was just content to be in Denver. In case Hillary won, I wasn’t wanting to live in Hillary Clinton’s, D.C.
I did not think that that would be a very fun experience. And I stayed in Denver. But Trump won. The miracle happened. And I got a phone call from some friends who, for one reason or another, we’re not able to work in the administration.
And they thought that I’d be good. And so they gave me a call and I worked all four years. I was there from day one to the last day. It was an incredible experience.
Leahy: Where did you work in the White House? For the chief of staff and some other parts of the White House?
Davis: So I worked in several offices. One is an office that very few people have heard of. It’s called the Staff Secretary’s office. Fascinating office. And you travel around with the president and basically help organize both the president and the White House.
So you create memos, briefings, and help run meetings. It’s a lawyer job. So the Supreme Court Justice Bret Kavanaugh had that job for President Bush. Then after that, I worked for the deputy chief of staff. But basically the chief of staff, John Kelly, for a few years.
And then at the end, I worked in the White House counsel’s office, Pat Sipalone. And actually, while everyone was doing impeachment, I helped more with the policy side. Is this legal? Can we do this?
How can we do this? I want to get that done. It’s a fascinating place to be a lawyer because your problem-solving. Like, can we do something? And you can’t just Google it. There’s no answer. You have to, you know, figure it out uniquely.
Leahy: How exhausting were those four years?
Davis: Well, my skin is definitely better now than it was then. It was very exhausting, especially at first. The first 100 days, only teaching can compare to the amount of work that that is. And then as it gets further on, it becomes manageable.
I don’t know whether that’s because you’re just so used to the lifestyle or whether at some point you’ve tried those things. And so if somebody asks you a question, can I do this? Oh, you asked me that two years ago. I know the answer to that. (Leahy laughs)
Leahy: Did you come across a friend of mine? And now once and once again, colleague at Breitbart, where I also write, an attorney and good friend by the name of Ken Klukowski?
Davis: That name is definitely familiar, but we did not work closely with each other, unfortunately. There’s a couple of other Breitbart people that I don’t think went back, but I didn’t work with Ken that closely.
Leahy: Tell us about the style of working closely with President Donald Trump.
Davis: I think the one big thing that was surprising to people when I tell them this is how much he listened to women. This is somebody that when he took office, oh you know, he doesn’t respect women. That was one of at the time.
Now everything he’s Russian agents like people lost their mind. But at the time, everyone’s big complaint was sort of a women’s thing. But whenever I was in the room, he would scan the room for whose eyes seemed like they wanted to say something, and he would call on them.
And so there’s a lot of research that men speak up when they’re 20 percent confident in their answer. And women speak up when they’re 80 percent confident here.
Leahy: If you’re a talk radio host, you speak up when they are five percent confident. But keep going. (Laughter)
Davis: There probably are a lot of times in meetings where a woman is unlikely to just offer random advice to the President of the United States. But the president can look around and he can tell, he can sense that there’s something that’s left unsaid, and he will ask it.
And there’s just something about being a woman who has a voice that hasn’t been expressed yet in that room. He will quiet the room and he will listen to you. And so that’s why some of the closest advisors, Kellanne Conway and Hope Hicks were women.
And so I thought that that and every time I was in the room with him, if I wanted to say something and if I had to say something, I felt like I was able to say it. And that was incredible.
And it’s tough because he does take advice from so many people from so many sources. It was my job to kind of trying to organize him and manage him, like how the information was received. It’s an impossible job. You can’t do it. (Leahy chuckles)
There were so many things that we tried to do to make that better. And so it is both a blessing and it made my job very difficult. But I think in general, you do want the president to be able to and for people to be able to speak up.
So that was something that I found very, very helpful. But also, if you have a president like George Bush, you just had to be very regimented. And he only received this information from approved sources. It makes that organization piece a bazillion times easier. It prevents good ideas from reaching.
(Commercial break)
Leahy: May, You have a terrific article at Townhall. Headline, Crack Down on Social Media Censorship Exposes Conservative Fault Lines. And your conclusion is we’ve now seen a state generally in favor of light regulation on personal freedoms. Choose heavy regulation for the Internet.
That may well be a policy our friends in Florida, the Sunshine State, live to regret, or live to love. But the question is whether it’s a policy they can lawfully choose. Can you elaborate on that for us May?
Davis: Yes. Social media regulation is, I think, a topic you almost can’t learn about, because what are you going to do? Google it?
Leahy: Hold it. That is a great line. That is a great line. Scooter, we’re going to have to record that and keep it. That’s one of the best lines I’ve heard in some time, May.
Davis: (Chuckles) Thank you. Starting from the White House when we were thinking about these issues and even now, if you Google Florida’s social media law, it’s just negative, negative, negative, negative.
But when you think about it, when you Google abortion, what are you going to see? When you Google anything, you see what Google wants you to see. And that’s the same way it is on Twitter. And it’s the same way it is on Facebook.
You see what these companies want you to see. Now Florida says no, you should be able to opt-out of that. So the Florida law does a lot of things. I think they’ve gotten a lot of press on you can’t de-platform political candidates.
And people are, I guess, referencing Donald Trump. It’s not just about that. They say that they have to publish their standards on how they censor you and how they do platform you. And then they have to apply those standards fairly.
So they can’t just say because you’ve said the word, transgender. Now I’m going to watch you a little bit closer. There has to be something that they apply fairly. Alright. Well, then people who are transgender and say that then you get banned and blocked too.
It’s burdensome. It’s a lot. But it’s interesting. And so it’s not one of those issues where everyone said, oh, well, DeSantis is doing this just for political gains. It’s not a clear political winner.
There are a lot of conservatives who do not like the government telling people how to run their business. And at the end of the day, these are social media companies running their business.
And this is Florida telling them how to do that. And people like the Internet. It’s one of the few things in this country that works. It’s not an airline. It’s pretty great. And every day there’s a new cool thing on the Internet.
So you’ve got that side of conservatives who really are kind of free marketing. And they like the freedom of the Internet, even if it means you can’t see the Hunter Biden laptop story. That’s a negative. But there are so many positives.
Then you’ve got another group of people that are like this is the hill worth dying on because the social media companies run the way that we think. They control access to information. And unless they’re regulated or at least threatened with regulation, they’ll take over the culture.
There will be things you can’t say. It will be the 1984 lifestyle. People bring up three big legal problems with Florida law. And that’s what my article really gets into. And actually, yesterday a judge ruled preliminarily on these.
Leahy: What was your ruling? Was it in federal district court?
Davis: It was in federal district court. And it was a Clinton-appointed judge in Florida who ruled that Florida’s law is both unconstitutional and many provisions conflict with federal law. Florida has already said that they’re going to appeal that.
They’ll get three judges on the appellate court to look at it. But the legal challenges are basically this. One, there’s a First Amendment right that Facebook and Google saying that they have is you can’t tell me what to say.
And they resulted to that. And of course, the judge didn’t buy it. So we’re not telling you what to say. And no one would ever think that Twitter, that Jack believes what Donald Trump says on his own Twitter.
So no one by hosting a candidate you’re not saying now Twitter, you speak. They are two different things. Twitter is a platform. And California has a law that says shopping malls have to allow some amount of speech on their private property.
And the shopping malls in the 80s said, no, no, no. I don’t want to do that. I have the right to speak for myself. And the Supreme Court said, no, you’re not speaking. You’re just hosting people. And it’s the same here.
Twitter, when Donald Trump speaks, and whoever that they disagree with speaks, it’s not Twitter speaking. They’re hosting people. So I think the First Amendment is a little more wiggly than at least the judge in Florida would say. But it’s a tough challenge.
Leahy: May Davis, thanks so much. We are out of time. Can you come back again? And by the way, nothing is intellectually more interesting than the concept of a wiggly First Amendment. I like that phrase, too.
Davis: (Laughs) Well, thanks for having me. And yes, I’d be happy to talk about the Internet anytime, because you can’t find this information. We will have you back on May, and we’re delighted to have you on. Thanks so much.
Davis: Thanks.
Listen to the first hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “May Davis” by Independent Women’s Forum.
Live from Music Row Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed all-star panelist Clint Brewer to the studio to discuss the replacement of Liz Cheney and the mechanics of a Republican Party destiny.
(Rep. Elise Stefanik clip plays)
Leahy: And that is Elise Stefanik who is the Congresswoman representing the congressional district in far Northern New York, where I used to live as a kid. And now last week, the big news, the political news in Washington, they threw Liz Cheney out of the conference chair position.
The number three position in the House of Representatives and replaced her with Elise Stefanik. Now, I think from a messaging point of view, Stefanik is absolutely on point. And Cheney was absolutely off point. What does this mean for the Republican Party’s future, Clint?
Brewer: Well, I mean, it’s a gamble, right? You could say that about anything in politics. But for this moment in time right now, I think she’s more on message for that House caucus. And I think the move was made because the House members who always have to seek reelection every two years, I think they’re looking to talk more about Democrats going into the midterms than they are a person in their own caucus. It had to do more fundraising in taking the House back than it did anybody’s ideology.
Leahy: Liz Cheney is the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney under George W. Bush. She kind of got handed that seat in Wyoming. She’s not really from Wyoming.
Brewer: I think a lot of people get handed their seats in politics. (Laughs)
Leahy: I don’t disagree.
Brewer: That’s not unusual.
Leahy: We can’t criticize her too much about that. What was her thinking to go so far in attacking President Trump, and do we counter to the leadership, why did she think that was a good idea that would have a good outcome for her?
Brewer: I’m not sure she cared. I don’t think she did it because she thought it was politically savvy or a good idea. I think she did because it was her conviction. I think she believes it, and it’s her honest viewpoint. I know that’s an outlier in politics to actually share your honest viewpoint, but I think she’s just being honest with people about what she thought because it certainly didn’t help her any. So she wasn’t doing some desire to get ahead politically. I think she’s just telling what she felt like to be the truth.
Leahy: I think her duty, though, to me, if you’re going to be the number three person in the House, you should follow the party line. I think she probably should have resigned and then criticized Trump. But then she wouldn’t have got the visibility.
Brewer: That’s the gamble. So you see Cheney on one end of it, you see Stefanik and McCarthy on the other end of it. The gamble is you’re going to double down on your position. And there’s a fight for the party right now and which way it’s going to break. The House is a what have you done for me lately environment. They got to run.
Leahy: They’re running all the time.
Brewer: They are always running. They never start running.
Leahy: My hats off to all of the Republican members of the House of Representatives serving now because it’s a very frustrating job because it’s all being run dictatorially by Nancy Pelosi. They can’t get anything accomplished.
The only thing they can really do is to try to help in a year and a half, turn the House over and get Republicans in control. I think it’s a tough job. A frustrating job.
Brewer: Look, it’s a tough job if you’re in the majority. I mean, you’re always running. I think the standard stat that’s out there is in order to get re-elected to the House, you have to raise about $10,000 a day.
Leahy: That is a miserable existence.
Brewer: Yes it is.
Leahy: It really is.
Brewer: But, I mean, look, to your point about the party, the party right now is fractured. It’s trying to decide what the long-term prospects of the Donald Trump worldview are. And I think there are some people in the party, like Cheney, who disagree with it vehemently.
I think that every day that passes that former President Trump’s out of power and I think that worldview probably has a little less impact.
Leahy: I disagree. I think it’s gotten even more. I look at the polls in terms of Republicans and his support is as high as it’s ever been. Number one. Number two. Did you notice this? He’s going to start doing his rallies again.
Brewer: I did. And it’s going to be interesting to see how they go. I think early on, they’ll go really well, I just don’t believe it’s sustainable. I mean, you saw Reverend Franklin Graham come out and say, I don’t know if he’s going to be well enough health-wise and have the energy and the vigor needed to run again.
Leahy: Really? I missed that part of it. I’ve not heard that there are any health problems.
Brewer: I mean, he’s just his age. He’s reaching into advanced age.
Leahy: He’ll be about Joe Biden’s age in 2024.
Brewer: And look at what everybody says about Biden. I mean, it’s not a dissimilar situation.
Leahy: But they are just so different in terms of energy levels, don’t you think?
Brewer: In a gentleman of that age, a couple of years can make a big difference.
Leahy: That’s absolutely true.
Brewer: From 74 on every year, you’re looking for diminished capacity. We’re witnessing it with Joe Biden. And I think the party has to decide if that’s really the direction it wants to go. I mean, you’ve got a lot of people stepping up.
We talked about it in the studio during the Georgia run-offs. You had a host of characters headed down there. (Leahy laughs)
Leahy: A host of characters. I like that. The usual suspects.
Brewer: The usual traditional displaying of plumage and ceremonial dances (Leahy laughs) that go along with sidling up to running for a major political office.
Leahy: That’s very good.
Brewer: And that’s what you saw. So I think you’ve got a number of U.S. senators interested in running. I think you’ve got members of his former cabinet who are interested in running.
Leahy: Mike Pompeo.
Brewer: Pompeo. Nikki Haley.
Leahy: She kind of self-destructed back there a little bit. Didn’t she?
Brewer: I think she’s probably more attuned to Liz Cheney than she is to Donald Trump in terms of her values. I think Stefanik and McCarthy. I mean, look at McCarthy before Trump, he was just kind of a templated neocon.
Leahy: A templated neocon. That’s very good.
Brewer: He was not a Trump populist, but he got on the bandwagon, and that’s what it is. It’s a bandwagon and bandwagons run out of steam and they run out of gas. They stop eventually.
Leahy: Now you talked about governors and we have some governors coming to Nashville in a couple of weeks. The Republican Governors Association.
Brewer: Big event.
Leahy: That we’re trying to get a ticket to for interviews. The leadership now in the Republican Party of action is at the level of governors. And, of course, the number one guy people think of Ron DeSantis in Florida.
Brewer: Well, I agree. And I think DeSantis is an interesting position. A lot of the knocks on Republicans have been how we’ve comported ourselves during the pandemic, and Florida has done really well. He’s made all the right moves. He managed it very well at the state level.
Leahy: By the way, the legacy media in Florida hate his guts.
Brewer: Oh yeah.
Leahy: Totally hate him. That’s one of the reasons why we started as our seventh title at the Star News Network. We started The Florida Capital Star and getting great stories out of there. A big story today, Jeb “low energy” Bush former governor there, that guy. He has come out and criticized Governor DeSantis for his support of online gambling for the Seminole Nation.
That’s become a bill down there, sports betting. And Jeb Bush has come out vigorously opposing that. I don’t think that helps. I don’t know why Jeb is doing that. But I think it’s popular, frankly, down there. DeSantis is doing a lot of popular things.
Brewer: Well, it’s popular everywhere. Human beings like to gamble. I think that’s something you can say pretty affirmatively no matter where you are, people find a way to gamble. Is it the best thing for society? I don’t know. But not entirely. But is it something we really have a right to tell people no on? Not really. Can the government regulate it and tax it so it’s not completely destructive. I mean, there’s a role there.
Leahy: And it’s online all kinds of gambling, not just sports doing down there. Well, it’s very interesting. We’re going to try to get Governor DeSantis in studio here in the next couple of weeks. Maybe Kristi Noem and a few others.
Listen to the full third hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Live from Music Row Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed Laurie Cardoza-Moore from Proclaiming Justice to the Nations to the newsmakers line to give updates on the Critical Race Theory curriculum that has been found in K-12 schools and recent legislation against it.
Leahy: We are joined on our newsmaker line now by our good friend Laurie Cardoza- Moore, the founder and President of Proclaiming Justice to the Nations. Good morning, Laurie.
Moore: Good morning, Michael! It’s great to be back on the show.
Leahy: Every time we turn around, there’s some other craziness going on in the world. We, of course, have the problem of Critical Race Theory that you became aware of quite a while ago when you discovered anti-semitic, anti-Christian, and anti-American content in the textbooks for your kids.
You were aware of this some time ago. Now we see school systems around the country that have been trying to promote Critical Race Theory. In Florida, they passed a law to stop that. There’s one pending here in Tennessee. Tell us what the latest is on the Critical Race Theory battle here in Tennessee and around the country.
Moore: Yes. Absolutely. I am so proud of our state legislature for dealing with this issue because these are lies. This is all fraudulent. Hitler said that if you repeat a lie often enough and long enough people will believe the lie. And this is exactly what they’re doing.
I am hearing from parents all over the country who are sending me images of what their children are being taught. Children are coming home as young as Elementary age, crying in tears. They hate the fact that they are White. We have another situation in Middle Tennessee that I’ve been made aware of a biracial child who comes from a biracial family.
And he said he hates the of his White side of his identity. This is outrageous that this is being tolerated. So kudos to all of our legislators who are taking this battle on. For Governor DeSantis for coming out and publicly saying no wacko theories in Florida.
And that’s exactly what every governor, every state legislature, and every Department of Education should be adopting. This is propaganda, pure and simple. It’s been around, Michael, for quite some time. We’re actually in the process of doing a report and compiling the data to show where this thought process originated.
And unfortunately, it happened in the South. In South Carolina, there’s a professor…but we’re going to be releasing that report soon. It’s outrageous that this is going on. We see Critical Race Theory even in Holocaust education.
We’ve got an issue in Florida where we submitted by recommendation of the Department of Education in Florida standard K-12 a Holocaust standard to teach the children in Florida from kindergarten through their senior year about anti-Semitism and the propaganda that, of course, the propaganda war that Hitler waged.
And we see this happening also. But they’re using Holocaust studies now. They’re using the death of six million men, women, and children to push Critical Race Theory ideology through Holocaust education. And we will not tolerate it.
Leahy: That’s crazy.
Moore: It absolutely is Michael. You’ve got the Critical Race Theory and there they’re using buzzwords in talking about the Holocaust. You’ll find all of these buzzwords like equity, tolerance, all of these words. And then they try to associate the Holocaust.
And what happened, the murder of 6 million men, women, and children, systemic murder of 6 million men, women, and children and they’re trying to use these words to incorporate other genocides. No, the Holocaust is central to the death and the target of Jews. This is what the Holocaust was.
They were targeting the Jews for annihilation. And to try to bring any other type of genocide or racism into this narrative is trying to water it down and to minimize it. When Hitler established his final solution, it was the final solution to the Jewish question. It wasn’t the final solution to the Gypsy question.
It wasn’t the final solution to the Communist question. It was the final solution to the Jewish question and anybody who tries to water that down is guilty of trying to revise the Holocaust. We see Holocaust revisionism, which is out of control. It is unacceptable.
And the fact that in Florida, Governor DeSantis passed the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, which is the definition of antisemitism. We can’t seem to get that passed here in Tennessee. But I’m not giving up. But it basically states that anyone who says that the Jews have no rights to their ancient homeland, that is anti-Semitic.
And we see even that verbiage and that language in the attempt to try to remove our K-12 Holocaust standards. Our standards start with K-5. We introduce children to their Jewish classmates and their Jewish neighbors.
We teach them about their culture, the holidays, and things like that that young children can grasp. So when they start learning about the horrors of the Holocaust in middle school and high school, they will be as shocked as you and I were when we learned about the Holocaust ourselves.
Leahy: Laurie, we have a story at The Tennessee Star today. I haven’t seen it elsewhere, but I’ll just share this with you. And this is a group probably that could benefit from the work that you’re doing in the report you’re about to release.
Headline. Group Seeks to Share Personal Stories of Critical Race Theory. The Center for Renewing America is seeking to share stories of Critical Race Theory in action across the U.S. The group is working with America First Legal legal. A legal group, created by Stephen Miller and other Trump administration officials.
The two organizations share the goal of fighting critical race theory in various formats across the country. And so that group, you’re probably ahead of them. You could probably help them out.
Moore: Yes. There are more and more groups that are starting to rise up and to challenge this and as well, it should. We’re not going to fight this battle, Michael. We’re not going to go to war on a battlefield as we’ve done in past. This is the war of ideology and the war in the mind.
And they are trying to take the minds of the next generation to distort what you and I know to be factually accurate history. And we should not tolerate it. Parents need to look at the content. Parents that are sending their kids to school need to be asking questions of their children.
Are you being taught this? Are you being taught this Critical Race Theory, ideology? Are you being taught that because your White you happen to be promoting White privilege, and you are guilty because you happen to be born White you’re guilty of racism?
This is outrageous and should not be accepted anywhere. This country has brought people from different races, nationalities, and religious faith. We have lived in this country together, and it wasn’t until Obama came along and started pushing a narrative that wasn’t true.
He opened up an old wound and now these people, what we’re witnessing today, they’re trying to highlight this and trying to push this false narrative. And we again, as Patriots and as Americans have to fight for our history.
Why do you think, Michael, that the last year and a half, we saw young people destroying our monuments, tearing down our historical monuments? Those monuments are significant because they tell us they tell the story of our past. And if we eliminate these monuments, then we are removing the things in history that we can point to that remind us of who we were and who we are today.
Leahy: Laurie Cardoza-Moore, Founder, and President of Proclaiming Justice to the Nations on the web at PJTN.org. thanks so much for joining us this morning and come back in the near future, maybe come in studio someday. We’ll have a longer conversation.
Moore: Absolutely. Go to the website and sign the petition. God bless.
Listen to the full second hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Laurie Cardoza-Moore” by Proclaiming Justice to the Nations.
Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed Florida State Representative Randy Fine to the newsmakers line to discuss some of the Florida legislation that is going through the last days of session and how his state is leading the way.
Leahy: We are joined on the newsmaker line by state Representative Randy Fine of Florida. Good morning Representative Fine.
Fine: Good morning. Happy to be here.
Leahy: We are delighted to have you on here. I’m going to give you some news you may not know. As you know, we own and operate several state-based conservative news sites. And two weeks ago, we launched The Florida Capital Star. Floridacapitalstar.com. Right there, based in Tallahassee. We’ve got a crew of three folks here writing about what you guys are doing in the Florida state Legislature and what Governor DeSantis is doing. We are delighted to have you on here.
Fine: Well, we appreciate you getting the good word out on all the good work we’re doing down here.
Leahy: So your legislative session is about to wind up, I guess tomorrow is that right?
Fine: That’s right. We have a 60-day session by Constitution every year, and tomorrow will be the 60th day.
Leahy: So every time I turn around, you guys are passing legislation that should be viewed as a model by other States. What would you say are the top accomplishments of this session of the Florida state legislature?
Fine: I think number one, we will again pass a balanced budget, which we do every year while adding to our reserves. I like to tell people we do more than balance our budget. We actually put money in savings. That’s always our most important priority. But policy-wise, we’ve passed the most aggressive anti rioting, pro-police legislation in the country to make sure Florida never looks like Portland or Seattle. And we are also close to passing legislation to really hold Big Tech accountable for the way that they manipulate our data and the way that they censor and treat Conservatives.
Leahy: I looked at our website, floridacapitalstar.com, and I can see you had a couple of other bills. The Florida House passed a bill banning vaccine passports.
Fine: We did. We did. The governor feels very strongly that people should not have to prove that they have been vaccinated in order to go into particular businesses. And so that bill passed the Florida House overwhelmingly yesterday.
Leahy: The other thing I’ve been hearing about is that Governor DeSantis has said we’re not going to be teaching critical race theory in Florida. And I’ve also seen that apparently there are some bills out there that would provide bonuses to teachers in the Florida public school system that follow and take advanced training on the Constitution and civics. Where does that bill stand?
Fine: I’m actually the chair of K through 12 appropriations, so I set the budget. We’re very very aggressive on that front. Number one, minimizing the teaching of the hatred of America and that America is bad and everything that we do is bad. And that’s really what critical race theory says. Basically, let’s be critical of America and view everything through a racist lens.
We’re focused on celebrating America. We’ve passed multiple bills this year that focus on increasing civics as well as reminding people about what makes America great through creating new content to show folks portraits in patriotism, and to remind folks about the evil that’s involved in socialism and communism.
Leahy: So is there an incentive program for teachers that get special training on civics and related projects? Is that in the works? Has that been passed or about to be passed or under consideration?
Fine: We haven’t passed anything to provide incentives for it. But we’re doing one thing better. We’re going to require the teaching of this stuff in schools. So you’re not going to get paid extra to do the right thing. We’re going to expect you to do it as a condition of your job.
Leahy: How will that be monitored? Because one of the problems, we interview members of the Tennessee General Assembly all the time, and they have an idea about what’s being taught in the schools and often their idea of what should be taught and what is being taught is very different from what’s actually being taught.
Fine: Well, that’s a great question. So we passed other legislation this session that increases the availability of classroom materials to parents so the parents can see what’s going on. And we have very active parents in our state. But one other thing that we’ve done is that is sort of related to keep the schools honest is we have passed the largest expansion of school choice in the United States this year.
So we’re creating opportunities for all of our Florida families if they so choose to take their child if they’re not happy for any reason out of a government-run school and to put them into a different school.
Leahy: Tell us how that school choice program expansion will work. Here in Tennessee, this is something that we’re very interested in. We have had a few fits and starts in that Arena. And we look to Florida, as many States do, as a model.
Fine: We have hundreds of thousands of students already taking advantage of private school choice here in Florida. We’ve expanded that this year to say any family of four making $100,000 a year or less can get a voucher equivalent to what the state is paying the school to teach your child. You can get a voucher and take that to a private school. That’s what you want to do.
But in addition, we have a very expensive program for families of children with special needs. Whether they can get their money not only to go to a private school but if that child would be better off at home with specialized therapies and other kinds of products and services they can use it for that. So that is for special needs programs and middle-class programs.
Leahy: For a middle-class parent there, what’s that work out to be? About $7,000 a child?
Fine: That’s exactly right. It’s right around $7,000. And it changes from year to year. We’re talking about the income-based scholarship.
Leahy: Right. The income-based scholarship. But any parent down there with $100,000 or less can qualify for those voucher payments. Is that right?
Fine: So to make it simple, you make $99,000 a year. You’re a family of four with two kids in school, you can get $14,000. to send your child to a private school.
Leahy: Wow! And so I’m guessing that there are a lot of parents that are likely to line up to take advantage of that.
Fine: There are. But the fact of the matter is by having this accountability, our public schools and our charter schools have gotten better. So some parents go, well, hey, we appreciate that we have this option. It makes my government-run school have to do a lot better to keep me from leaving. So everybody wins.
Whether you’re going to a private school or whether you’re going to a charter school, which is a public school, or whether you’re going to a government-run public school. That increased competition benefits everybody.
Leahy: So how are teachers in Florida responding to all this? I know the teachers’ unions, particularly up here in Tennessee, are pretty hostile to these kinds of policy changes. What’s the case down in Florida?
Fine: Well, teachers’ unions hate them, but teachers don’t necessarily because whether you’re teaching in a private school or a government-run school or charter school, they is still a job for you. But I don’t do this job for teachers unions. I do this job for children. I do this job for parents. And those folks overwhelmingly like these programs.
But if you are a teacher in a government-run school, Florida has raised our minimum teacher salaries to among the highest in the country at $47,500 which is a pretty good salary for a job where you get 14 weeks a year off.
Leahy: So you are likely to wrap up tomorrow. Do you think you’ll be there until midnight? How long will it take to get all the business done?
Fine: We can’t vote under our Constitution until 12:06 tomorrow on our budget. We have to actually give 72 hours after we print the budget before we vote on it. So I think sometime mid-afternoon. And by the way, I’m in my fifth year in the legislature and this will be the first time in those five years that we actually end on time.
Leahy: Ah. Do you give Governor DeSantis credit for that or the leadership?
Fine: I give everybody credit. I give credit to Governor DeSantis. I give credit to President Wilton Simpson, who’s the President of our Senate, and Speaker Chris Sprowls, my Speaker. I think they’ve all worked really well together to get the job done.
Leahy: So Saturday morning, you’re going to wake up and the session will be over. Is your job as a state representative over, or do you just turn the page to some other sorts of activities?
Fine: Well, it won’t be over, unfortunately, because we have to come back in two weeks to do a special session on casinos in Florida, which really isn’t a basic function of our regular session. But beyond that, I’ll go home, and I’ll start to talk to folks about the work that we did up here. And I’ll also get to know my family again. I’ve hardly seen them for the last two months.
Leahy: So do you stay up in Tallahassee during most of this time or do you go back and forth?
Fine: It’s a Monday to Friday job, and I live a six-hour drive away. So I’m lucky to get home for 24 to 48 hours every weekend. Especially when session gets busier.
Leahy: That’s a big personal sacrifice. What’s the toll on your family life?
Fine: It’s a lot. You get to a point of week six or seven of session where you think of home as more Tallahassee, and then you’re visiting your family. And then it’s sort of like re-entry as people have described it. And I’m not trying to compare this to being in the military, but people describe it as you sort of have been deployed for 60 days and then you go through the reentry process when you get home.
But I’ve now been through it four times, and I’ll get through it again. It takes a big big toll on your family because you’re just gone and it’s very busy when we’re up here.
Leahy: Well, thanks for all the hard work that you’re doing for the folks in Florida State Rep. Randy Fine.
Listen to the full first hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Background Photo “Florida Capitol” by DXR. CC BY-SA 4.0.
