WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.259 Welcome back to The Deep Dive. And before we 00:00:02.259 --> 00:00:05.139 get started, just a quick note on the date. Happy 00:00:05.139 --> 00:00:09.000 Ratification Day. That's right. 242 years since 00:00:09.000 --> 00:00:11.380 the Treaty of Paris was ratified. Exactly. The 00:00:11.380 --> 00:00:15.060 moment the U .S. was officially recognized. And, 00:00:15.080 --> 00:00:17.890 you know, that history of sovereign independent 00:00:17.890 --> 00:00:21.469 institutions is extremely relevant to what we're 00:00:21.469 --> 00:00:23.730 talking about today. It really is because our 00:00:23.730 --> 00:00:26.309 sources today are all focused on that very thing. 00:00:26.730 --> 00:00:29.469 The political cost of attacking those institutions, 00:00:29.870 --> 00:00:32.390 the cost of attacking the public's faith in them. 00:00:32.609 --> 00:00:35.570 Yeah, precisely. We have a really dense analysis 00:00:35.570 --> 00:00:38.590 of several major political battles happening 00:00:38.590 --> 00:00:41.140 right now. Our mission today is tactical. We're 00:00:41.140 --> 00:00:42.719 going to try to cut through the noise and find 00:00:42.719 --> 00:00:45.060 the core strategic missteps, what our sources 00:00:45.060 --> 00:00:47.119 are calling the unforced errors. Right. These 00:00:47.119 --> 00:00:50.259 are the mistakes that turn a small fight into 00:00:50.259 --> 00:00:52.520 a huge political disaster. We're going to start 00:00:52.520 --> 00:00:54.280 with the fallout from the Minneapolis shooting, 00:00:54.640 --> 00:00:56.579 then jump to the battles over Jerome Powell at 00:00:56.579 --> 00:00:58.979 the Fed and Senator Mark Kelly. And we'll finish 00:00:58.979 --> 00:01:00.820 up with something a little lighter. Oh, yeah. 00:01:01.539 --> 00:01:04.459 A great dose of schadenfreude about some failed 00:01:04.459 --> 00:01:07.739 dating sites. So the mission for you, the listener, 00:01:08.280 --> 00:01:11.060 is to really grasp the political calculus here. 00:01:11.519 --> 00:01:14.000 Why does a political party decide to double down 00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:16.280 on a fight, even when the ground is crumbling 00:01:16.280 --> 00:01:18.659 right under them? We're looking for those nuggets 00:01:18.659 --> 00:01:21.280 of insight into strategy. And what we keep seeing 00:01:21.280 --> 00:01:25.719 is this. That impers to double down creates new 00:01:25.719 --> 00:01:29.299 legal problems and maybe more dangerously it 00:01:29.299 --> 00:01:32.060 hands the opposition these Incredibly sympathetic 00:01:32.060 --> 00:01:34.500 figures to rally around. Okay. Let's unpack that 00:01:34.500 --> 00:01:36.700 starting in Minneapolis the fallout from the 00:01:36.700 --> 00:01:39.260 Jonathan Ross shooting The sources lay out a 00:01:39.260 --> 00:01:41.299 pretty stark political context. It's a very stark. 00:01:41.299 --> 00:01:43.000 The administration is trying to do two things 00:01:43.000 --> 00:01:46.239 at once Shield the shooter from criminal charges 00:01:46.239 --> 00:01:49.519 and use the incident as a rallying cry for their 00:01:50.079 --> 00:01:52.159 their aggressive domestic enforcement policies. 00:01:52.400 --> 00:01:54.579 One source noted, pretty dryly I thought, that 00:01:54.579 --> 00:01:56.560 it would have made Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard 00:01:56.560 --> 00:01:59.680 Nixon blush. And they're doing this even though 00:01:59.680 --> 00:02:02.859 the evidence just isn't there. That first video 00:02:02.859 --> 00:02:06.019 completely contradicts their story. The second 00:02:06.019 --> 00:02:09.460 one, I mean, it barely helps. It shows the victim's 00:02:09.460 --> 00:02:12.259 wife, Renee Good, maybe behaving badly, but it's 00:02:12.259 --> 00:02:14.400 not a justification for what happened. Not at 00:02:14.400 --> 00:02:16.969 all. It doesn't come close. So they chose this 00:02:16.969 --> 00:02:19.449 incident to send a message, but the facts on 00:02:19.449 --> 00:02:22.150 the ground are actively working against that 00:02:22.150 --> 00:02:24.349 message. Which brings us to the legal battlefield. 00:02:24.629 --> 00:02:27.150 This is where the real blowback could come from. 00:02:27.569 --> 00:02:30.210 Hennepin County attorney Mary Moriarty seems, 00:02:30.250 --> 00:02:32.810 well, she seems very interested in fighting this 00:02:32.810 --> 00:02:34.789 one out. She's signaling that this isn't just 00:02:34.789 --> 00:02:37.210 about one conviction. It's about sending a message 00:02:37.210 --> 00:02:40.090 that, in her view, law enforcement and the executive 00:02:40.090 --> 00:02:43.169 branch are out of control. And the key thing 00:02:43.169 --> 00:02:45.770 is, there's enough meat there for her to proceed. 00:02:45.930 --> 00:02:48.169 Even with the federal stonewall. Even with that. 00:02:48.569 --> 00:02:50.710 State charges can still be brought. And we have 00:02:50.710 --> 00:02:52.490 to remember, it's not just criminal charges. 00:02:52.629 --> 00:02:55.210 There's a huge wrongful death civil suit coming. 00:02:55.289 --> 00:02:58.370 Right. And that civil case can drag this on for 00:02:58.370 --> 00:03:00.430 months, even years. It'll keep it in the headlines, 00:03:00.830 --> 00:03:04.150 much like the Jamal Khashoggi case did internationally. 00:03:04.629 --> 00:03:06.449 But we've heard from legal experts like Andrew 00:03:06.449 --> 00:03:09.250 McCabe, who say that without FBI cooperation, 00:03:09.669 --> 00:03:12.509 no ballistics, no interviews, the state's case 00:03:12.509 --> 00:03:16.250 is basically fatal. Is that really true? Well, 00:03:16.389 --> 00:03:18.849 I think that analysis mistakes the difficulty 00:03:18.849 --> 00:03:21.539 of the case for its impossibility. First, it 00:03:21.539 --> 00:03:23.500 ignores the prosecutor's political motivation. 00:03:24.000 --> 00:03:27.080 But second, it really overstates how necessary 00:03:27.080 --> 00:03:29.979 federal cooperation is. How so? Federal agents 00:03:29.979 --> 00:03:32.460 can be compelled by subpoena. They can be forced 00:03:32.460 --> 00:03:35.259 to testify in a state court. And even more importantly, 00:03:35.599 --> 00:03:37.759 the autopsy is coming. Ballistics tell you what 00:03:37.759 --> 00:03:40.360 hit the victim, but the autopsy, the trajectory, 00:03:40.500 --> 00:03:42.840 the angle of entry, that tells you how they were 00:03:42.840 --> 00:03:44.819 shot. And that's evidence the state generates 00:03:44.819 --> 00:03:47.319 itself. Exactly. It's totally independent of 00:03:47.319 --> 00:03:50.139 the FBI. And let's be real, thousands of people 00:03:50.120 --> 00:03:52.639 get convicted of murder every year without ballistics 00:03:52.639 --> 00:03:55.139 or even eyewitnesses. The idea that the White 00:03:55.139 --> 00:03:57.159 House can just hide some documents and make a 00:03:57.159 --> 00:03:59.759 murder case disappear? Well, Morey already seems 00:03:59.759 --> 00:04:01.860 ready to challenge that assumption. We should 00:04:01.860 --> 00:04:04.500 probably also clarify the pardon situation, because 00:04:04.500 --> 00:04:06.419 that seems like the administration's get -out 00:04:06.419 --> 00:04:09.080 -of -jail -free card. It's a really common misconception. 00:04:09.580 --> 00:04:12.139 The president cannot pardon state law violations. 00:04:12.520 --> 00:04:15.020 Period. even if it's tried in a federal court. 00:04:15.319 --> 00:04:17.459 Doesn't matter. The power is restricted to federal 00:04:17.459 --> 00:04:19.939 offenses, and it definitely doesn't extend to 00:04:19.939 --> 00:04:21.759 civil actions, which is where the family will 00:04:21.759 --> 00:04:24.199 be seeking damages. So what could he do? He could 00:04:24.199 --> 00:04:26.480 issue a preemptive pardon for future federal 00:04:26.480 --> 00:04:30.120 charges, maybe in 2028 or 2029. But think about 00:04:30.120 --> 00:04:33.699 what that means. It implies guilt. It completely 00:04:33.699 --> 00:04:35.720 undermines the current message that the shooter 00:04:35.720 --> 00:04:38.740 did nothing wrong. And Minnesota has no statute 00:04:38.740 --> 00:04:41.800 of limitations for murder, so that legal risk 00:04:41.800 --> 00:04:45.540 just It hangs around long after this administration 00:04:45.540 --> 00:04:47.879 is gone. Which brings us to the human element. 00:04:48.180 --> 00:04:51.180 This is where choosing this fight really, really 00:04:51.180 --> 00:04:53.839 backfires. There's a great historical parallel 00:04:53.839 --> 00:04:55.899 here from the Civil Rights Movement with Claudette 00:04:55.899 --> 00:04:58.579 Colvin and Rosa Parks. Oh, absolutely. When you 00:04:58.579 --> 00:05:00.300 need a flashpoint for a movement, you need a 00:05:00.300 --> 00:05:02.600 symbol. And that symbol has to be incredibly 00:05:02.600 --> 00:05:04.759 sympathetic, almost politically bulletproof. 00:05:05.360 --> 00:05:07.279 And Rosa Parks was perfect. Yeah. Middle -aged, 00:05:07.740 --> 00:05:10.319 married, well -groomed. Right. While Claudette 00:05:10.319 --> 00:05:12.360 Colvin, who is a pregnant 15 -year -old, was 00:05:12.360 --> 00:05:14.939 seen as too risky, the opposition is always looking 00:05:14.939 --> 00:05:17.319 for dirt, so you need someone who is, you know, 00:05:17.660 --> 00:05:20.699 beyond reproach. And in Renee Good, the administration 00:05:20.699 --> 00:05:23.800 accidentally picked an opponent who is... Oh, 00:05:23.800 --> 00:05:26.120 she's almost impossibly sympathetic. First story's 00:05:26.120 --> 00:05:28.060 just heartbreaking. She was an innocent mom. 00:05:28.279 --> 00:05:30.259 She happened upon a blocked road after dropping 00:05:30.259 --> 00:05:32.620 your kid at school. It was pure happenstance. 00:05:32.759 --> 00:05:36.819 And the details. Young, married, church -going, 00:05:37.240 --> 00:05:39.870 wrote poetry, three kids. one of whom is now 00:05:39.870 --> 00:05:42.149 a six -year -old orphan whose father was a military 00:05:42.149 --> 00:05:44.269 vet. I mean, it's a perfect storm of sympathy. 00:05:44.449 --> 00:05:47.029 It really is, and the sources point out how the 00:05:47.029 --> 00:05:49.230 zeitgeist simplifies these stories. You know, 00:05:49.350 --> 00:05:51.370 today people remember Rosa Parks' tired feet. 00:05:51.810 --> 00:05:53.930 Not the complex strategy behind choosing her. 00:05:54.209 --> 00:05:56.490 It's totally plausible that Renee Good's anti 00:05:56.490 --> 00:05:58.670 -ice activism will just fade from the public 00:05:58.670 --> 00:06:01.089 story. And what's left is the image of the mom 00:06:01.089 --> 00:06:03.529 just dropping her kid off at school. That's the 00:06:03.529 --> 00:06:05.990 image that will stick. And it's why you just 00:06:05.990 --> 00:06:08.290 don't pick a fight with a figure like that unless 00:06:08.290 --> 00:06:10.730 your facts are absolutely rock solid. And that 00:06:10.730 --> 00:06:13.490 mistake led directly to the next one. Trying 00:06:13.490 --> 00:06:16.110 to dig up dirt on the goods, investigating them 00:06:16.110 --> 00:06:18.329 for mortgage fraud using the U .S. Attorney's 00:06:18.329 --> 00:06:22.110 Office. And that effort led to immediate, powerful 00:06:22.110 --> 00:06:25.329 institutional resistance. Six attorneys from 00:06:25.329 --> 00:06:27.389 the U .S. Attorney's Office in Minnesota, led 00:06:27.389 --> 00:06:30.129 by the top prosecutor Joseph Thompson, they all 00:06:30.129 --> 00:06:32.829 resigned. Wow. They basically said they weren't 00:06:32.829 --> 00:06:35.170 interested in becoming, as the sources put it, 00:06:35.529 --> 00:06:38.910 creep V2 .0. A direct reference to Nixon's Dirty 00:06:38.910 --> 00:06:41.110 Tricks Committee. Yep. The career prosecutors 00:06:41.110 --> 00:06:43.449 just drew a line in the sand, and it speaks volumes. 00:06:43.980 --> 00:06:46.459 Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O 'Hara had a 00:06:46.459 --> 00:06:48.279 great quote about it. What are you saying? He 00:06:48.279 --> 00:06:50.740 said, when you lose the leader responsible for 00:06:50.740 --> 00:06:53.040 making the fraud cases, it tells you this isn't 00:06:53.040 --> 00:06:55.839 really about prosecuting fraud. This is a perfect 00:06:55.839 --> 00:06:58.240 example of professionals pushing back against 00:06:58.240 --> 00:07:01.860 the weaponization of their own agencies. Speaking 00:07:01.860 --> 00:07:05.279 of which, let's pivot to the next unforced error. 00:07:06.480 --> 00:07:08.459 The attack on the Federal Reserve and Jerome 00:07:08.459 --> 00:07:12.209 Powell. The strategy here seems pretty obvious. 00:07:12.569 --> 00:07:14.589 Intimidation. Oh, clearly. It's a message to 00:07:14.589 --> 00:07:16.949 all independent agency heads, especially the 00:07:16.949 --> 00:07:20.569 Fed governors. Fall in line. But what's so strange 00:07:20.569 --> 00:07:23.310 is the inability to just take a political off 00:07:23.310 --> 00:07:25.769 ramp. I mean, once the fight starts, they can't 00:07:25.769 --> 00:07:28.290 back down. The president doubled down calling 00:07:28.290 --> 00:07:31.160 Powell. incompetent or he's crooked and then 00:07:31.160 --> 00:07:33.519 promised that jerk will be gone soon. The problem, 00:07:33.560 --> 00:07:36.079 of course, is that the Fed is literally designed 00:07:36.079 --> 00:07:38.720 to be immune to this kind of political pressure 00:07:38.720 --> 00:07:42.680 and the blowback was immediate and frankly massive. 00:07:42.839 --> 00:07:44.860 And it wasn't just domestic. You had prominent 00:07:44.860 --> 00:07:47.199 Republicans, Treasury Secretary Besant, members 00:07:47.199 --> 00:07:48.980 of the banking committees. The very people who 00:07:48.980 --> 00:07:52.379 have to approve any new Fed nominee. Right. But 00:07:52.379 --> 00:07:54.740 the international response was maybe even more 00:07:54.740 --> 00:07:58.189 powerful. It was unified. Leaders from 11 central 00:07:58.189 --> 00:08:01.350 banks, the EU, the UK, Canada, Australia, they 00:08:01.350 --> 00:08:04.050 all came out praising Powell and stressing the 00:08:04.050 --> 00:08:06.589 need for the Fed's independence. Then you had 00:08:06.589 --> 00:08:10.389 all three living former Fed chairs yelling Greenspan, 00:08:10.589 --> 00:08:13.870 Bernanke, plus 10 former Fed governors. They 00:08:13.870 --> 00:08:16.490 managed to unite the entire global financial 00:08:16.490 --> 00:08:18.790 establishment against them. But the real core 00:08:18.790 --> 00:08:20.959 of this unforced error. The thing that makes 00:08:20.959 --> 00:08:23.259 the whole investigation fall apart was pointed 00:08:23.259 --> 00:08:26.439 out by a reader, M .M. in Homasasa. A fantastic 00:08:26.439 --> 00:08:29.540 point. The alleged fraud over the Fed headquarters 00:08:29.540 --> 00:08:33.059 resurbishment. It's baseless because not one 00:08:33.059 --> 00:08:35.740 single penny of taxpayer money was used. And 00:08:35.740 --> 00:08:37.679 that's it. That's the whole ballgame. The Federal 00:08:37.679 --> 00:08:40.059 Reserve is self -funded. The executive branch 00:08:40.059 --> 00:08:42.480 has no jurisdiction over its budget, its spending, 00:08:42.659 --> 00:08:44.539 its cost overruns. Which happen all the time 00:08:44.539 --> 00:08:46.840 in DC on big projects like this. Especially when 00:08:46.840 --> 00:08:49.679 you're dealing with historic buildings, asbestos, 00:08:49.840 --> 00:08:52.279 lead paint. It's totally normal. So they launch 00:08:52.279 --> 00:08:54.639 an attack on financial grounds against an institution 00:08:54.639 --> 00:08:57.960 that is, by design, protected from that specific 00:08:57.960 --> 00:09:00.240 attack. Which brings us back to that core idea 00:09:00.240 --> 00:09:03.200 of faith. Exactly. The real crime here isn't 00:09:03.200 --> 00:09:06.500 financial, it's existential. The simple appearance 00:09:06.500 --> 00:09:08.480 of political interference in the Fed damages 00:09:08.480 --> 00:09:11.000 faith in the U .S. economy. Our whole system 00:09:11.000 --> 00:09:13.759 is built on full faith and credit. And the Fed 00:09:13.759 --> 00:09:16.639 is the last real check on the administration's 00:09:16.639 --> 00:09:20.340 economic power. It is. So attacking it so clumsily 00:09:20.340 --> 00:09:22.779 doesn't just annoy some bankers in Europe. It 00:09:22.779 --> 00:09:25.220 erodes the global trust that keeps the dollar 00:09:25.220 --> 00:09:27.720 stable. It's an incredibly risky move. Let's 00:09:27.720 --> 00:09:29.919 move to the third major institution they targeted. 00:09:30.860 --> 00:09:33.639 The military. By going after Senator Mark Kelly, 00:09:34.259 --> 00:09:35.980 Secretary of Defense Hegseth tried to punish 00:09:35.980 --> 00:09:38.809 him just for repeating part of the UCMJ. Yeah, 00:09:38.929 --> 00:09:40.970 the part that says soldiers don't have to follow 00:09:40.970 --> 00:09:44.029 illegal orders, the goal was clearly to intimidate 00:09:44.029 --> 00:09:46.049 active duty troops and stop them from speaking 00:09:46.049 --> 00:09:47.889 out. But again, the strategy just completely 00:09:47.889 --> 00:09:49.990 fell apart because the legal case was, well, 00:09:50.110 --> 00:09:52.100 it was nonexistent. It was riddled with holes. 00:09:52.179 --> 00:09:54.200 Let's just walk through them. First, Kelly just 00:09:54.200 --> 00:09:57.259 repeated the UCMJ. That's not seditious. And 00:09:57.259 --> 00:09:59.519 he's a sitting senator, so he has First Amendment 00:09:59.519 --> 00:10:01.759 and speech and debate clause protections. That's 00:10:01.759 --> 00:10:04.000 ground zero. But the procedural failures were 00:10:04.000 --> 00:10:06.259 almost worse. They were just embarrassing. They 00:10:06.259 --> 00:10:09.659 were stunningly bad. OK, so the procedure Hegseth 00:10:09.659 --> 00:10:12.179 used only applies to actions someone took while 00:10:12.179 --> 00:10:15.059 in service. Kelly's comments were made long after 00:10:15.059 --> 00:10:17.960 he retired. Strike one. Strike two. The procedure 00:10:17.960 --> 00:10:20.860 only applies to flag officers, generals and Admirals. 00:10:21.059 --> 00:10:24.360 07 and above. Kelly's highest rank was captain, 00:10:24.559 --> 00:10:27.460 an 0 -6. The rule literally did not apply to 00:10:27.460 --> 00:10:29.500 him. That's right, 3. To get a court martial, 00:10:29.539 --> 00:10:31.659 you have to prove a law was broken. He didn't 00:10:31.659 --> 00:10:34.460 break a law. It was an absolute legal non -starter 00:10:34.460 --> 00:10:37.419 from every possible angle. So not only did it 00:10:37.419 --> 00:10:40.620 fail, it handed Mark Kelly a massive political 00:10:40.620 --> 00:10:44.080 gift. A huge one. He immediately sued Hegseth 00:10:44.080 --> 00:10:47.120 and the Pentagon for lack of due process. And 00:10:47.120 --> 00:10:49.220 the case gets assigned to Judge Richard J. Leon, 00:10:49.360 --> 00:10:52.139 who is a very independent -minded George W. Bush 00:10:52.139 --> 00:10:54.220 appointee. And Kelly is happy to let this play 00:10:54.220 --> 00:10:56.779 out in public. He's thrilled to drag this out 00:10:56.779 --> 00:11:00.039 because every day the cases in the news, it elevates 00:11:00.039 --> 00:11:03.340 his profile. He becomes the symbol of a non -politicized 00:11:03.340 --> 00:11:06.419 military of free speech. It perfectly positions 00:11:06.419 --> 00:11:09.220 him for, you know, a potential run for a bigger 00:11:09.220 --> 00:11:12.639 office in 2029. Hegseth wanted to make an example 00:11:12.639 --> 00:11:15.059 of him and he did, just not the way he intended. 00:11:15.779 --> 00:11:18.399 OK, after all that, let's take a quick break 00:11:18.399 --> 00:11:21.720 for our weekly dose of schadenfreude. We can 00:11:21.720 --> 00:11:24.480 start with a comparison. The Ashley Madison hack 00:11:24.480 --> 00:11:26.980 back in 2015. Right, where it turned out 100 00:11:26.980 --> 00:11:29.559 ,000 men were just talking to bots. The ultimate 00:11:29.559 --> 00:11:32.279 online deceit, which sets the stage perfectly 00:11:32.279 --> 00:11:35.519 for a white date. And its affiliates, White Child 00:11:35.519 --> 00:11:38.039 and White Deal. These were dating sites set up 00:11:38.039 --> 00:11:40.200 to connect white supremacists with so -called 00:11:40.200 --> 00:11:42.759 tradwives. Their tagline was, and I'm not making 00:11:42.759 --> 00:11:45.240 this up, European seeking tribal love. You just 00:11:45.240 --> 00:11:47.440 you can't write this stuff. The sheer cringe 00:11:47.440 --> 00:11:49.720 is off the charts. And of course, the humiliation 00:11:49.720 --> 00:11:52.139 was swift. What happened? The site was hacked 00:11:52.139 --> 00:11:55.080 live on stage at a security conference by a German 00:11:55.080 --> 00:11:58.059 hacker named Martha Root. She said the security 00:11:58.059 --> 00:12:01.080 was so bad. We're talking passwords stored in 00:12:01.080 --> 00:12:03.980 plain text that it would make even your grandma's 00:12:03.980 --> 00:12:07.039 AOL account blush. Oh, that is brutal. The breach 00:12:07.039 --> 00:12:10.059 was huge. Yeah. A hundred gigabytes of data, 00:12:10.559 --> 00:12:13.019 thousands of profiles. And when they looked at 00:12:13.019 --> 00:12:16.559 the data, what did they find? Let me guess. Men 00:12:16.559 --> 00:12:19.440 talking to bots. Almost entirely. wannabe Klansmen 00:12:19.440 --> 00:12:22.159 and Nazis talking to automated scripts. It turns 00:12:22.159 --> 00:12:24.639 out the pool of women who are racist, want to 00:12:24.639 --> 00:12:27.039 be a trad wife, are tech savvy enough to find 00:12:27.039 --> 00:12:29.320 this site and can't find a partner in their own 00:12:29.320 --> 00:12:33.580 community. That pool is vanishingly small. So 00:12:33.580 --> 00:12:35.399 the hack was the end of it. It was a fatal blow. 00:12:35.500 --> 00:12:37.559 The site is offline, just like other sites like 00:12:37.559 --> 00:12:39.779 Trump Singles that also failed. Just a beautiful 00:12:39.779 --> 00:12:42.120 moment of Internet schadenfreude. So let's bring 00:12:42.120 --> 00:12:43.559 it all together. What does this all mean? We 00:12:43.559 --> 00:12:45.460 have the tragedy in Minneapolis, the attack on 00:12:45.460 --> 00:12:48.240 the Fed, the targeting of Senator Kelly. What's 00:12:48.240 --> 00:12:51.220 the common thread? The common thread is a profound 00:12:51.220 --> 00:12:54.840 strategic misjudgment. In every case, the political 00:12:54.840 --> 00:12:57.379 strategy was to go to war against an independent 00:12:57.379 --> 00:13:00.799 institution, prosecutors, central bankers, the 00:13:00.799 --> 00:13:03.759 military, or against a deeply sympathetic figure 00:13:03.759 --> 00:13:06.480 like Renee Good. Even when the facts of the law 00:13:06.480 --> 00:13:09.610 weren't on their side. Especially then. That 00:13:09.610 --> 00:13:12.750 desire to double down on a story no matter what, 00:13:12.830 --> 00:13:15.570 it just leads to these costly self -inflicted 00:13:15.570 --> 00:13:18.389 wounds that end up empowering the opposition 00:13:18.389 --> 00:13:22.169 and frankly destabilizing core parts of our national 00:13:22.169 --> 00:13:24.210 infrastructure. It's all about the fragility 00:13:24.210 --> 00:13:26.879 of faith. Precisely. Whether it's the full faith 00:13:26.879 --> 00:13:28.519 and credit that our money is built on or the 00:13:28.519 --> 00:13:30.159 public faith you need to believe a political 00:13:30.159 --> 00:13:33.159 narrative, the consistent unforced error is to 00:13:33.159 --> 00:13:35.639 attack that foundational trust for no good reason. 00:13:35.960 --> 00:13:37.799 When you lose the faith of career prosecutors, 00:13:38.120 --> 00:13:40.720 global bankers, and military heroes, you've crossed 00:13:40.720 --> 00:13:43.039 a line that's very, very hard to come back from. 00:13:43.200 --> 00:13:45.840 Which brings us to our final provocative thought, 00:13:45.860 --> 00:13:49.059 and it goes back to Minneapolis. We know Minnesota 00:13:49.059 --> 00:13:52.279 has no statute of limitations for murder. So 00:13:52.279 --> 00:13:54.559 you have to consider a future. where the political 00:13:54.559 --> 00:13:57.340 clock just runs out on this administration. The 00:13:57.340 --> 00:14:00.059 case gets stonewalled, but eventually a new, 00:14:00.240 --> 00:14:02.600 different administration comes in and just turns 00:14:02.600 --> 00:14:05.500 all the evidence over to the state. So what does 00:14:05.500 --> 00:14:07.759 it tell us about justice? When justice has to 00:14:07.759 --> 00:14:09.700 wait for politics to change at the very highest 00:14:09.700 --> 00:14:12.700 level, is justice delayed still justice? And 00:14:12.700 --> 00:14:14.360 what does that long wait mean for the health 00:14:14.360 --> 00:14:16.779 of our institutions? Something we need to think 00:14:16.779 --> 00:14:17.940 about until our next deep dive.