GOV310 – In The News: A look at national politics through the eyes of Texas, July 23, 2019

[0:00:03 Speaker 0] and live from the University of Texas at Austin, the Liberal Arts development Studio and the Department of Government. Present Introduction to American government with your

[0:00:16 Speaker 1] professors, Darren Shaw and Eric McDaniel. I’m Professor Shaw,

[0:00:24 Speaker 0] and I’m pressing McDaniel. Welcome the in the news for introduction to American Government.

[0:00:28 Speaker 1] Todd outside. Todd outside. So you know you guys air week to in the news Fester McDaniel. I just wanted Teoh. Reinforce or reiterate. Since we’re starting to have module assignments and get the gist Web text assignments do pay attention to your syllabus. Consult your syllabus. It’s got all of the due dates. All of the do times don’t be caught by surprise. Be caught off guard. There’s no excuse for being caught off guard by one of the due dates or anything like that. So pay attention to syllabus. That’s your Bible. If for some reason you’re not sure about something, consult your syllabus but then paying us and we’re happy to put you on the right path. Okay, So, uh, with that week to in the news, um, now, next week, there’s gonna be some Democratic primary debates. So next week our focus will be trying to clarify this group of 24 individuals, and you will comment on that. But this week, we figured, you know, put off or inclination to talk about national electoral politics for a week. There are some big things going on right now. We’re going to talk about something going on in the Congress. That is, Robert Mueller is going to testify on Wednesday in front of the Congress, mostly at the behest of Democrats. Won’t talk about that. Do little foreign policy discussion, Professor McDaniel Overthinking things kind of mounting up in Hong Kong in Puerto Rico and Iran. And we’re gonna talk briefly about those situations, and we’re gonna bring it back again to Texas. Uh, we’re actually gonna talk a little bit of electoral politics, but reference in Texas. And first McDaniel wants to hit on Big Pharma because, you know, he likes to likes to talk to the man when you can, Right? All right, so let’s start with the Moeller testimony in front of Congress. So this allows us to revisit something that occupied all of our attention. Those with which politics the last you and have since the Trump administration, you know, took the oath of office back in January of 2019. They’ve been questions, lingering questions about what went on in the 2016 campaign, Russian involvement in that campaign. Did the Trump campaign coordinate with the Russians? And you know, So the Moeller investigations. What happened for those of you who sort of forgotten about this and God bless you for moving on, um, was that, um, you know, the Trump campaign was accused of coordinating with the Russians, and it wasn’t clear video. So when I say coordinating, everybody knows the Russians were messing with our election systems, you know, they were trying to inflate. There was sort of spreading information via a variety of different sources and formats trying Teoh, you know, kind of sew discord. Now, this is isn’t kind of endemic, Justin, United States, The Russians do this all over the place and, you know, to to be fair, America has a history of kind of monkeying with elections historically less so recently. Obviously. So it’s not like our hands are totally clean on this, But the notion that a foreign power would be using kind of modern tech to try to disseminate false information and potentially influence elections something that’s very concerning to Americans. So that part of it, you know, is bipartisan support. Both Republicans and Democrats think that that’s something we need to figure out exactly what went on. But a by product of that was, as the Russians were trying to monkey with our elections in 2016 did high level or even low level members of the Trump campaign kind of facilitate that where they open to the Russians coming in particular, the specific charges were the Russian Russian agents claim that information about Hillary Clinton did they meet with representatives of the Trump campaign. And if so, you does that constitute some sort of very serious breach? Not just a protocol but essentially breach of law like criminal activity. So the Moeller Moeller was a special count special investigator was tasked by the Congress by the department of ah, actually not by the Congress should be clear by the Department of Justice to investigate this. So, typically, when there’s a scandal involving a specific administration, the executive branch, because the Department of Justice has appointees named by the president, oftentimes the Department of Justice will will pass off the investigation to a special investigator or a special counsel. There’s a small difference between the two, but in the Miller case, it’s a special investigator. And the investigator has most the time kind of unlimited powers to seek out information on do to chase down leads and to put together report, which is presented to the Department of Justice and then presented to the United States Congress. So Moeller was appointed special investigator and spent year

[0:05:21 Speaker 0] to have a good amount of time.

[0:05:24 Speaker 1] You good amount of time collecting information about, uh, you know, what went on in 2016 with Russians and the particular the real sort of money thing, especially for Democrats, who casts a suspicious eye on Trump since the outset was whether, in fact, there was coordination between the Russians. Collusion, of course, is the magic word between the Russians and the Trump campaign. So the mole report came out, and it didn’t particularly satisfy anybody. You know, the Trump administration came out. Trump in particular, came out and said complete exoneration, you know, no collusion. That was kind of the tweets and the taglines, and the Democrats said, No, no, no, that’s not what he said. And in fact that the truth lies somewhere in between. What the Mueller reports said was, You know, we don’t find sufficient evidence of collusion to recommend any particular criminal indictments or things like that. We also, you know, investigate obstruction of justice. Uh, we’re basically kind of taking a pass on that we’re gonna kick that overthrew the Department of Justice here is kind of what we have, right? So the Republicans defenders the Trump administration said, No collusion. This thing exonerates the president, although specifically in the report, says we do not exonerate the president. We’re just not recommending criminal charges against individuals involved in the situation on the Democrats said, Well, this is a key. This is key to what you guys are going to see in the next few days. The Democrats said, Well, the keep are The mole report was that the Department of Justice had already issued a an opinion that said, We don’t believe you can indict a sitting president. And so under those the Democrats say, well, look under those sorts of guidelines. Of course, the Moeller report isn’t going to recommend in writing a sitting president, so there’s a question one of things you’re going to hear is you guys pay attention to this testimony is Democrats are gonna pointedly asked Moeller if that advisory, you know, comment had not been issued by the Department of Justice. What then, in other words, is the notion that you’re not recommending any kind of indictment of criminal charges Is that contingent upon D. O. J’s advisory comment about whether a president can be indicted while here she is serving in office. So for our purposes, the class on American government, that’s a critical opinion, right? I mean, this is this is really sort of a fascinating test case. While you guys air learning about American government, that is, you know, you have an executive branch. The executive branch includes the Department of Justice, the special counsel, Special Prosecutor. Ah, special investigator. I should say Sorry, I try to be clear in my choice of words. Here is something that is appointed to try to avoid conflict of interest. It’s extra constitutional, that is, it’s not something that’s provided for in the Constitution. So should you also be clear on that? It’s kind of an invention on the part of the executive branch to give to avoid the appearance of conflicts of interest. Although, as you guys have probably seen from the news, everybody still thinks they’re conflicts of interest going on here, there and everywhere, Moller has said. Even though, so you might ask, Well, what’s what’s Congress doing? What Congress has the power of oversight, and Congress thinks that is appropriate to bring the special investigator special counsel to testify in front of Congress. Although Moller has already said, I’m not going to say anything beyond what is in the report, I think what the Democrats would like to do is get him to There wasn’t a lot of traction on the report. The report is long. Have you read it? I haven’t read it. Have you read? It isn’t fully

[0:09:08 Speaker 0] public yet. I know it’s been

[0:09:09 Speaker 1] No, it’s There’s a redacted version. The the attorney general, United States Bar Robert Barr has basically issued a version of the report. It’s lightly redacted. I actually have seen about 100 pages of it, Um, and what’s been redacted is that anybody who is mentioned in the report who is not indicted and basically nobody was indicted is protected, The attorney general’s office says. We’re not going to put people out there and name names when there’s no accusations of criminal activity. So those names have been redacted from the report, which is a source of controversy. Congress would like him to get in front of public. They’d like. The Democrats would like to keep this sort of issue alive and kind of recast it a little bit. Also, there’s some Democrats we just want to ask, you know, from, or information with an eye towards Do we want to move forward with this thing? There is not only the question of collusion, which the report mostly addresses, and you know, the preponderance of opinion is that, you know, there’s no direct evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. That doesn’t mean there is no evidence means there’s no direct evidence to upon which you could base an indictment. But there’s still the question obstruction of justice and Mueller has been sort of forthcoming and saying that he disagreed with the attorney general’s interpretation or casting of the report as saying that there’s there’s no obstruction of justice. There is a question professor together. I’ve talked about this a lot as we’ve discussed this issue. From a legal point of view, if you are not accusing somebody of a crime, in other words, there’s no finding of criminal activity. It’s very difficult to bring obstruction of justice charges because obstruction of justice demands that someone has knowledge of a crime and work to prevent just forces of justice from actually dealing with that crime, investigating and prosecuting it. So if there’s no crime, it’s difficult to prove obstruction of justice. I think that’s been kind of the Department of Justice is take on this and why they haven’t gone after Trump are members of the administration because, you know, Trump and people involved the administration were more or less forthcoming as this thing kind of went on. And I think the that Moller wasn’t real pleased with the way some people acted. But again, if you’re not indicting anybody for a crime, it’s very difficult from a legal point of view to do obstruction of justice, and I think that’s that’s kind of the explanation. But a rate the Democratic majority. They took the majority back in 2018. You know, Nancy Pelosi took the gavel back in 2019 when they were all sworn in. They want a little more on this Republicans. From their point of view, I think we’re going to talk about things like, Hey, where did you get this information? The first place And why were you going after Trump? Which wasn’t necessary? The focal point of the Mueller report. But Republicans believe, and there’s some evidence that a lot of the stuff that came up that led the FBI to kind of go after the Trump people came from dossiers that were prepared by the Clinton campaign or by people were hired by the Clinton campaign. And they want to know. Well, wait a sec. What’s what’s the government doing using those as the basis for spying on a political presidential campaign in an election year? So Republicans have their partisan interest in this thing. Democrats have their partisan interests. That’s not to say there’s not legitimate issues here, but politics is ever present. So that’s that’s is quick. As I could do that, I apologize. Professor McDaniel, what do you do? What you got first on this one,

[0:12:37 Speaker 0] the most is going to really come out of this is gonna be symbolic eso. While the Democrats are in control of the House. For the most part, it’s really going to be some boxers. Nothing substance they can actually do. There have been calls for impeachment. So, for instance, representive al Grain from represents Houston. I put forth articles of impeachment only threat to be struck down or knock down. It was last week, last week, so

[0:13:01 Speaker 1] they actually had a vote on moving forward with that, and it didn’t get much support. Wouldn’t have, like, 80.

[0:13:07 Speaker 0] Yeah, it didn’t go very far. 235 on again, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, Look, I’m not gonna go after impeach Go after beach because impeachment is a very risky thing if you mean many weren’t alive when this happened. But if you think about when President Clinton was impeached, it kind of blew up in the face of Republicans. And so it’s something you don’t really want to do, because again, in many ways it becomes kind of a bit of a circus, and you could eat quickly lose control of it. Furthermore, even if the president is impeached by the House, he’s next to the Senate and the Senate’s gonna it’s not gonna make it through the Senate. And so again, the idea of an impeachment is, you know, impeached by the House, the Senate. Then there’s a trial. It won’t get that far. Uh,

[0:13:56 Speaker 1] yeah, Just so constitutionally, the House convert to impeach and all it takes is a majority of the House to impeach the president. But that simply means that the case is remanded to the Senate for trial, and the the Senate votes on whether to remove the president from office based on the articles of impeachment. And it’s actually kind of an interesting constitute. People keep talking about constitutional crises, and stuff like this is not a constitutional crisis. It’s laid out in the Constitution. The chief justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, would preside over the trial in the Senate, so it’s very interesting. This did happen in the nineties with Bill Clinton. The House voted to impeach had four articles of impeachment. I think e. I think it was. Four went to the Senate and the Senate voted not to remove from office, and William Rehnquist, the chief justice, presided over that, by the way, William Rehnquist to look like he wanted to be anywhere else in the universe. Besides presiding over that Clinton trial and, as professor went down, said, This is in 1998. In the 1998 elections, the Republicans got beat. Usually the president’s party loses seats. The president’s party gained seats in the 1998 midterm elections, largely because people thought the Republicans had overreached, right? And so right now, I think Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats are really kind of put the finger to the wind and saying like We’re not going to do this if we think it’s gonna cost us the 2020 Elections and it’s not It’s not clear whether there’s much public sentiment to impeach Trump, certainly for these particular charges. But

[0:15:25 Speaker 0] yeah, it’s it’s a nice catchphrase for people to use, but, uh, they’ve used it with President Bush. They used the with Obama is, like all impeach. Everybody keeps yelling it. It’s It’s a nice catch phrase, but it’s not gonna happen. It’s very difficult. Furthermore, um, the amount of, uh, the amount of collateral damage to the parties, but then also the international states like the one thing I remember about the Clinton impeachment is I thought like finally, I would to South Africa for a month and was okay. Who? I’m in South Africa. I can finally quit hearing about this. There. Really? Only two things are being talked about. Uh, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire and the impeachment process. Oh, and Viagra. Yeah, but Magara and Rogaine it just come out. And so I remember being in a car in South Africa. And guess what I got to hear about the, um, about the Monica Lewinsky issue. I’m like, Can I not get away from this? And so it is a huge embarrassment nationally. And so it’s again. It surprised a great deal of instability for the nation. And so there’s a huge cost associated with this. Impeachment. Sounds great, but it’s not gonna happen. People get all upset. Why won’t you go through the impeachment? It’s because there is a cost associated with this. And are you willing to pay that cost? And most people aren’t because it’s It is a very huge cause.

[0:16:51 Speaker 1] Well, in in terms of the timing, you know, the Nixon impeachment. Nixon was not impeached, but he resigned. Before he was He would have been impeached almost certainly by the house on and then probably removed in the Senate, but he resigned before that happened. Right? So Andrew Johnson was impeached in the 18 sixties, took over from Lincoln by Republicans who wanted him to be take a harder line against, you know, the South during reconstruction. So, in both the Johnson and the Clinton situations, there was a lot of politics Surprise, surprise going on. Right now, I look at the calendar, right? I mean, if if you’re a Democrat, you want to beat Trump, beat him in the 2020 election s. So in that sense, I think what they like is sort of information to come out, which allows them to weaponize this issue for 2020. But are you gonna impeach him before the 2020 election and then suffered the consequences of, you know? And if he wins re election in 2020 we’re not gonna impeach him then because then you’ve got a reelected president and the public has spoken. Then it looks like you’re just trying to undermine democratic processes. So I think Professor Daniel, now we’ve been wrong before. And if there’s a revelation Hey, all bets are off. But, you know, I think that ship has sailed slyly. So you mentioned foreign payments of South Africa. Let’s talk briefly. Foreign policy. I just noted in over the weekend Hong Kong protests, the Puerto Rico protests and the standoff with the Iranians, which was expanded to include the British now. But you know, these are all kind of interesting episodes on the international scale. I just to cover the logistic real quick in the Hong Kong protests. Professor Daniel, right before class of my kind. Why why are they protesting again? And it’s Ah, change in the don’t know if it’s in the law. I think it probably in the law. But Hong Kong was an independent territory for years and years. The British actually least Hong Kong from the Chinese 1999 that least ran out. And so China control of Hong Kong reverted to China when I was back in your position. Back in the, you know, is an undergraduate. Hong Kong was one of the four tigers. These to talk about the four Tigers, these Asian locations, so Hong Kong, South Korea, Shanghai and forth camera with fourth. But they were these economic whirlwinds that operated in, you know, a part of the world where China loomed in Vietnam and other Communist countries loomed as pretty kind of intimidating presence is eso. When Hong Kong reverted back to China, people were very concerned and what’s gonna happen, or the and China’s policies basically been. Hey, you guys just keep making money. We’re quite happy with that. But the change in the law was that people who were accused of crimes in Hong Kong would be extradited to mainland China, and that’s what has prompted these protests. So when you watch the footage of people in the streets again, this this concern that it’s, ah, attempt by the government to reassert control over a part of China that has a very strong independent streak that’s been nurtured through economic development. So

[0:20:04 Speaker 0] I mean, they say this is very distinct from China, and so it is seen as ah kind of an incursion on the part of the Chinese government. Even though they are under the Chinese government, they still understand themselves as independent like no, we’re distinct from the Chinese government and so that you’re seeing this very strong, very storm racks and and that was really one of the major concerns of how, with the citizens of Hong Kong react to becoming too basic coming under under the Chinese government. And you know, this is a clear example of not going well at all. So

[0:20:41 Speaker 1] you know what’s American interests will? America is sort of been cheerleading Hong Kong from the outside. Now the distinction here is that this moves into the question about Puerto Rico. Taiwan is, you know, has treaties with the United States. When the Nationalists fled China, they went to Taiwan. This is under Shanghai shek when Mao, on the Communist to control of mainland China, the nationalist sort of all regrouped on the island of Taiwan and Taiwan signed protection pact with the United States. So an attack on Taiwan is going to be met by force of treaty, with it treated as an attack on the United States. So Taiwan is in its own kind of separate boat. Hong Kong is, it has been a British protectorate for years, was part of the British Empire. The United States doesn’t have it as economic ties to Taiwan, but in social and cultural ties but no treaty status the same way Taiwan does so, by the way time one was the fourth Tiger. I think so, you know. So it’s interesting. So the United States, if you’re kind of looking and say well, what happens if China cracks down? What would the U. S do? Well, it we would not be automatic, as we assume it would be in the case of Taiwan, where the United States would definitely be militarily involved in some level, not clear what would happen. And, you know, the British excesses said, have stronger historic ties. The United States is now it’s takes us to Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico does have an official relationship with the United States. They’re not a state, right? There is not a 51st state, although, if you ever You know, if you ever want to have a bar bet about what the 51st day is gonna be, there’s a decent chance it’s going well. I guess you could say D C might incorporate his estate, But Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico is a territory on DSO. Officially, Puerto Ricans are citizens of the United States, so they can come and go as they please there, treated of the full rights of citizens. But Puerto Rico has no representation in U. S. Government. It’s interesting as we approach the 2020 primaries and caucuses. Both the Republicans and Democrats have primaries in Puerto Rico. So for extra political circumstances, Puerto Rico’s treated as another state, as is the Virgin Islands in a couple of other territories. So So it’s not a state, but it’s not an independent country the way other countries, it actually has a very special association with the United States. So I was looking at some information on Puerto Rico. Exactly why these strong, strong protests going on another, the proximate causes easy enough. Richard Rocio, who is the governor of Puerto Rico, was caught. There were tapes of him talking and then emails released where, he said some very misogynistic, sexist, anti LGBT Q stuff in official and semiofficial conversations over the last 18 months. So basically, he said, a bunch of stuff that’s gotten him in very hot water. That’s the proximate cause. But some background information to let you know why. You know he’s got some real problems beyond that, the U. S. Territory. I’m quoting here from an article in Politico. The U. S. Territory is drowning in debt to the tune of roughly 70 billion. That’s with a B dollars roughly 40% of the island residents living in poverty while the government, while government spending is out of control. This is from the article. Puerto Rico defaulted on its monthly debt for the first time in 2015 2 years. Later, the territory filed for bankruptcy. The largest U. S bankruptcy claim for government entity in history and the as economy gets worse, Puerto Ricans leave the island, meaning that the government has less tax revenue to pay the bills. And then Hurricane Maria made everything much worse. So that’s that’s the background here with respect to Puerto Rico and why the situation is so dire. And there’s so much anxiety anyway. And then the governor and it’s a governor. It’s not a present butts an elected position. The governor’s response is that I’m not gonna resign. I’m not going to run for re election. I’m gonna concentrate helping the people of Puerto Rico. Okay.

[0:24:48 Speaker 0] Yeah. I hadn’t gone that have been going too well. Did you

[0:24:51 Speaker 1] go to Puerto Rico for the conference a couple years ago?

[0:24:53 Speaker 0] I went a few years back. I know there are the seven political side association. I went to Puerto Rico a couple years ago. Next things with go in 2020 and my thinking was, uh, I really not want to spend my Puerto Rican vacation looking at pasty political scientists walking around. So I said, I said, You all go and have a good time. I’ll go later, but it’s it’s part of the US You don’t need a passport to go to Puerto Rico. It’s part of us. But you will realize you are in a completely include a different location, primarily Spanish speaking. And it’s one of things that Puerto Rico has is doesn’t become a state, just want to say the Commonwealth or doesn’t want independence. There is a really big fight about what is the future of Puerto Rico, And do you have these fights over? Where does it stand in relation to the U. S. Been on top of that. You have really a decade of mismanagement. Part of it has been internal mismanagement. Part of it, you can argue, has become big because of Congress’s actions have led to this, but it’s been poorly mismanaged. Their 21 states in the US, with a smaller population. Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico would rank as number 37 GDP if it was a state in the US But with 40% of people living in poverty, there’s there’s a clear problem here on a lot of the arguments been put forth. The policies that have been put forward is that is money coming through Puerto Rico. But the Puerto Rican people are not getting the are not getting that are not getting that money. And so, with all these problems going on her kit, you also had Zika where Portico was hit with Zika virus thin Hurricane Maria. And so all of these things just compounded on top of each other. And then with this coming up, part of Governor was really the straw that broke the camel’s back. There was they were already berry upset, and this is like just made it clear, like, Okay, you are complete and utter. You are, you’re you’re a buffoon and you don’t know what you’re doing. And so everything we thought about you, we’ve justified. And so now we want action. He probably will resign. But there are negotiating. So using what people always say is like is like I won’t. I won’t run, but I won’t resign. It’s usually a negotiation tactic. Okay, What will be how will my exit take place? And it’s just another case of things going just going pulling for Puerto Rico. And it’s not really clear if how long it would take for the island to really get back to where get back on some level of some

[0:27:31 Speaker 1] level stability. Yeah, the third place we’d like to talk about talk about why these things kind of group together is is Iran. So in the case of China, you have, ah, countries sort of economically developed where the United States has, you know, an interest. But we’re primarily kind of a wait and see if this thing we have an interest, its economic and then I guess, sort of ideological in some sense, you know, facilitating democracy, protecting democratic parts of the world, you know, especially historically at the when there are Communist incursions. Now to trace has changed since the end of the Cold War. But it’s still kind of there, right? And we do have these treaties and other agreements to protect places like Taiwan, and so we’re sort sympathetic to Hong Kong, but that’s kind of the least relevant. Puerto Rico is very close, and in fact, you know Democrats would love to make Puerto Rico a state, I think, even though the economic cost could be quite high, because historically, Puerto Rico has been a pretty democratic place. The current governor is Democratic on DSO. At the very least, Puerto Rico looks and says, like one, maybe two, representatives to senators. This is sort of a good deal for us. Republicans are somewhat skeptical for the same reason, but the Puerto Ricans have not voted for independence. They’ve had an opportunity to do so when they voted down a couple times. Although polls I’ve seen lately indicate that that sentiment has changed. Maybe because people you know 40% of people left Puerto Rico in the last 10 15 years. Eso that might be part of it might just be The people who were there want independence, and it might be that sentiment has changed. The third places Iran and Iran, uh, connects up to something we’ll talk a lot about in the third module that we’re gonna release in a little while. That’s when we start talking about foreign policy. As you probably know, the Obama administration negotiated not a treaty, but an executive agreement with the Iranians. We also got the British, the Russians. All the Europeans came along with all of this agreement with the Iranians. The Iranians were going to slow down their nuclear program for 10 years, so they weren’t going to continue to develop their nuclear program, which we assume is sort of pathway towards nuclear weaponry. They were going to slow that down for 10 years, and in exchange, we were gonna drop all these economic sanctions that we had on the Iranians. Ah, a lot of the kind of good things for the Iranians were front loaded. The Republicans never like this. Even some Democrats weren’t real crazy about this as a deal. It was not negotiated. The treaty was an executive agreement. And when Donald Trump became president, he basically said, Yeah, we’re gonna do that anymore. So part of what I want to mention is, um, sort of question of presidential. You know, the president’s commander in chief. The president has increased his authority throughout the years. If you look at the Constitution article to the president’s formal authorities. There’s not very many of them, not very extensive. The Congress is clearly the dominant branch of government. But over time, especially after the Great Depression and after the Second World War, the president has become more and more prominent as a policy maker. And that has been particularly truth, respect to foreign policies. So in the case of Iran of the Obama administration wanted the deal. They basically made the deal, even though, and they thought it was gonna be a problematic to get through the Senate. So they didn’t go through the Senate. They didn’t negotiate a treaty. They simply signed an executive agreement. And when it looked like Hilary Clinton was gonna be elected, that wasn’t gonna be a problem. But she lost. And then Donald Trump undid that executive agreement. The Trump administration put economic sanctions back in place against the Iranians. They’ve had others who have helped. Not the Russians basically have not come back on board. But the British and some other countries have put some restrictions. Economic sanctions back on the Iranians and the Iranian economy has really struggled. So what’s happened lately? Well, the Iranians have kind of stepped up some aggressive activities in the Straits of Hormuz, which is a critical port area. British and American tankers go to that region, and the Iranians have basically said that they consider that Iranian territory. Um, and if the United States continues to be aggressive in pursuing sanctions and in particular, what? What? The proximate cause of the standoff with the British was that the British seized on Iranian tanker that the British said was getting oil and perhaps something beyond oil to Syria, to the Syrian regime, which is against United Nations sanctions and against British policy. The British sees that vessel, so the radios responded by seizing to British vessels. And if you guys have seen the footage, haven’t seen the footage, you should the Iranians basically send these helicopters up and drop them down onto these British tankers and take over the British tankers. And as of today, those British tankers are still being held by the Iranians. The rains have also been aggressive with some American ships. Ah, couple days ago, the Iranians said they’d captured 17 spies national their nationals, so they’re Iranians, but they claim they’re recruited by the C. I A. The United States says We don’t know what you’re talking about, but the Iranians have said they’re possibly going to execute these people. So this situation has gotten very tense. It’s possible there’s a lot of posturing going on that the Iranians were, you know, kind of taking more aggressive posture, to try to negotiate from a position of more strength, to get the Americans to reduce some of these economic sanctions. But so that’s where we are through long winded way to put it. But the question is, you know, does United States United States going to get a treaty or an executive agreement with the Iranians now that the Obama agreement is basically off the table? So

[0:33:27 Speaker 0] yeah, it’s the same thing about it is that the Obama Graham was short lived. And considering we have another election coming up, this one could be short lived as well. It’s one of problems with executive agreements or executive orders is that you know they are not necessarily permanent, that they could be repealed when the next president comes in. Uh, and so that could undercut a lot of things. I remember. Remember when the agreement first came out? Ah, lot of people are opposed to it and they came basketball. Have you read it? Well, no, it’s so It was a lot of confusion about what’s in this agreement, because ah, LA people came out automatically opposed it without actually knowing what was in it. As details come out, you’ve kind of seen kind of the decisions that were made. Well, they were the right decisions or not. It was, I guess, in some ways tried to alleviate or try to. Then some type of hostilities were building. Not I still this building again. Last month, President Trump there was a plan to strike against Iran that President Trump called off. Uh, but it’s gonna be interesting to see what happens going forward as we see these this this area where there’s a great deal of turmoil and base. It has been a place of, of kind of a lack of balance or a lot of turmoil for the past. I would probably 40 or 50 years for

[0:34:56 Speaker 1] your fifties being generous. I go back a couple 100 but the British were involved the French to a certain extent and the Israelis and is right, you know, I think the wild card here are the Israelis. I think Israelis, on their own left in their own devices would have no problem, you know, launching an airstrike or missile strike against Iranian assets. That would be very difficult internationally. There a lot of countries that would not go along with that the Iranians would go ape in the United States. There is one of the things you’ve seen with the more progressive elements of the Democratic Party lately. Is there not as pro Israel as the United States has been? Historically. And I think this would be really problem like Republicans, by and large would support more aggressive activity against the Iranians. Democrats much less so and in particular if it involved well, certainly, if involve the United States directly, it would be extremely controversial. But even if it involved the Israelis, I think this would be a big issue. So again, this is foreign policy and were class an American government. But we did want to emphasize that you know this question about sort of economic ties with Hong Kong and ideological ties with the Puerto Ricans. You know, in Puerto Rico with this kind of interesting territorial status and the possible long term possibility that Port Rico becomes a state at some point and then on the case. The Iranians. It deals directly with the expansion of presidential authority on dlim! It’d authority by Congress or Congress, not necessarily negotiating treaties the way they used to. Historically, all right, so a couple final topics we just want to hit on Texas elections. I’ll be brief here. Um, we mentioned last week the Texas that the state Legislature 150 House seats in the state of Texas, that the Republican majority has decreased. And it will be interesting to see what happens in 2020 a two congressional level. So not the state Legislature, but the the Texas contingent that goes to Washington. Interestingly, a couple of very, very high profile races are on. Basically, I would say of the 435 House races, you probably have 30 or 40 that are really going to be competitive in the next cycle. There’s just not that many because of the way the districts were drawn because things have sorted out over last 10 years or so. But there are a couple of of those 30 or 43 or four or we’re gonna be in Texas 23 which is a district that runs almost all the way across West Texas, too. Basically, a Paso will hurt is a Republican. He’s been. He’s won that seat three times in a row by basically five votes each time. I mean, they’re really, really close. Elections will hurt. Also came out strongly against President Obama’s tweets lately. So will hurt. Has it? Ah, jobs for Trump’s tweets Heard has done that. He’s gone against Obama in those Republican several times. Partly, I think that’s just the way he is. But it’s also his constituency that is a swing district. Texas 23 The interesting one this week. Texas 21. The Republican incumbent is Chip Roy Chip Roy voted to are basically stopped The, uh um relief bill, you know, continued relief after in the aftermath of the hurricanes from Houston, Chip Roy held up congressional aide and, uh uh, services in response, you know, this basically kind of a long term response to rebuild Houston after the the Hurricanes and Chip Royan, 21 stopped and he said he was because there’s problems with the way it’s been. So he he framed. It is helpful, but the headlines were, you know he’s keeping money out of the pockets of Houston after the hurricane. That’s not necessarily the posture you want to be in. Um, so Ah, Wendy Davis, who ran for governor a few years ago, very famously took us. She was represented from Fort Worth. Ah, State Senator rather from Fort Worth, ran. Ah, very credible race for governor was beaten by Abbott, but she’s very high profile Democrat. She’s running against Chip Roy, so that District 21 race could be very interesting. And then on the Senate side. United States Senate. As you all probably know, John Cornyn is running for re election Republican from Texas. And he is got not only M. J. Hager, who ran a very good race in a Statehouse district last time around, but ah, Royce West guy named Edwards and Chris Bell. So he’s got four Democratic votes of four Democrats already lined up to contest the primary in March of 2020 in an effort to take on John Cornyn. Now what you don’t have burning against Cornyn is you don’t have Beto o Rourke, and you don’t have either of the Castros still pretty solid, Pretty credible candidates for the Democrats next time around, that’s are the Texas election in politics. Yeah,

[0:40:05 Speaker 0] I think with ah, with the, um, close links between or Work and Cruz, Democrats feel they may have a chance of winning a statewide election. Pardon me. I think it’s more. It’s more of a contingency since they relied people who are not happy with Ted Cruz. I think John Cornyn is not seen as a zoo. Much of, ah, lightning Rod Issa’s Ted Cruz is so there’s a little more uphill battle. But also, I think John Cornyn is, uh, has ingratiated himself with the powers that be in the GOP, where he does have leadership roles where you should. You should expect to see the GOP come out very strongly on support him, where you may see people who kind of Crans it supporting Ted Cruz. That may be more likely to support John Cornyn. So I think it will be good. I just don’t I just hope they don’t run the Big John ad again, because that was just so sad. Cornyn

[0:40:57 Speaker 1] works really hard. It’s interesting, he’s his numbers with Republicans aren’t very good, Which is ironic because, you know, Ted Cruz’s numbers are really great with Republicans, even though Cruz has nowhere near the experience or sort of long term credentials as Cornyn. And Ted Cruz has some real likeability problems in the state of Texas and and yet you know he runs pretty strong. But I agree the corn and has I worked very long and hard work his tail off to serve, developed a following in South Texas, and, you know, But he’s he just doesn’t seem to have the same kind of odd charisma as as crews, although, you know, a lot of people would baulk at the term charisma. Uh, okay, so Chris McDaniel wanted as we’re talking about what to talk about this week, he won’t talk about the Big Pharma, right? So what you got for us on pharmaceuticals? And

[0:41:49 Speaker 0] so as we know, many aware of the opioid crisis and response to it, one things that you’ve been looking at The Washington Post Washing Post have been running a number of articles about the role that pharmaceutical companies have played in really advancing opioid crisis. While pharmaceutical companies have argument they played no role in this. There is growing evidence so that they were pushing the use of opioids at a rate that was really higher than the recommended or me way spots, advertising that even though they knew was addictive. What kind of downplaying how addictive it was? This is very similar. What we saw about 2030 years ago regarding cigarette manufacturers and one of things is important to note is that what the US US is a very litigious society meeting about a lot of things are settled in the courts, and so for dealing with issues of discrimination, things like that. You don’t actually see laws being passed. Really, suits are being are coming out. And so a lot of the policy that we see coming about all the ways in which people try to prevent future ah, negative action coming about is through using the courts to seek redress for past actions, but also to control future actions. So I think one of things to pay attention to is that while we talk about maybe Congress not being as active as we would like for it to be in passing certain policies, ah, lot of action is taking place in the courts. And so when we talk about the US being a very litigious society, it’s because we see a lot of the policies being taking shape within the courts as opposed to within the Legislature and where we’re seeing a lot of the action saying being taking place in response to the opioid crisis and the role of pharmaceutical companies in the opioid crisis is in the courts. You’re seeing stages Oklahoma make certain rulings, received funds you’re seeing County Sue seeing states come together, sir, think Ohio is launching one right now. One of the major problems, though, is that with some of the suits that have been coming out, there are concerns about how a jury may award a state or accounting a large amount of money. But the judge may say, Well, let’s make maybe too much so and may bring it down some. But a lot of what’s going on is that states are suing, saying, Look, you cause this problem so you will pay to help us fix this problem. To pay for treatment centers things like that on again. You’re seeing that a lot of former civil companies and, uh, and owners of farmers, civil company families associated with them that were once one time social darlings are now becoming social pariahs. When nobody wants to be associated with them, they may have donated money to museums, Their names are not being taken off and that we’re seeing really many ways. We saw the reaction to the link between lung cancer and smoking and going after cigarette. Manufacturers are saying the same thing going on with pharmaceutical companies regarding the opioid crisis. Excellent. All right,

[0:44:39 Speaker 1] so just a couple of notes. Boris Johnson is the new prime minister will be sworn in. The new prime minister of Great Britain. Boris is an interesting game for a British prime minister.

[0:44:52 Speaker 0] Was he was a former mayor of London from a problem,

[0:44:54 Speaker 1] I believe that’s right. He’s a remember the Conservative Party. One interesting difference between United States and Great Britain is if you are the leader of the majority party in Great Britain, you’re the prime minister, right? So there’s not a president. The executive in Great Britain is a creature of the Legislature. This is a very, you know, a huge distinction between United States and Great Britain and then, uh, John Paul Stevens, former Supreme Court justice, passed away 99 years of age, a pretty good run, and it was as important as a is a liberal voice on the court. If you get a chance to watch, he’s lying in repose right now, which is the prerogative of former justices of the Supreme Court. His clerks take turns standing vigil. I believe that that Stephens had close to 100 clerks during his time, and they basically kind of rotate. But there is constantly a group of former clerks standing basically at attention as John Paul Stevens lives and proposed Thea Supreme Court. Current Supreme Court members have already paid their respects. Eso it’s it’s, you know, we don’t have the same kind of pomp and circumstance is the Brits and some other countries do. But what we do have is actually very kind of cool and very democratic and very dignified. So if you get a chance to watch part of those services and ceremonies, it’s it’s always kind of Ah, it’s a nice thing to do at a time when it’s hard to watch American politics. Sometimes our circumstances, they said, aren’t quite as you know, official and his royal is the Brits. But what we do, we do pretty well. So if you get a chance to watch that very important figure in American political history, so with that, um, have a good week, maybe the you know, we’ll get a cold front moving through pretty soon. Knock that heat down. In the meantime, hit your deadlines. Take advantage of the resource is in the class, come to office hours and we’ll see you next week