Murder the Truth/The Power to Destroy

Ralph welcomes New York Times journalist, David Enrich, author of “Murder the Truth” an in-depth exposé of the attack on freedom of the press as protected by the landmark Supreme Court decision “Sullivan v. The New York Times.” Also, Professor Michael Graetz a leading authority on tax politics and policy joins to discuss his book “The Power to Destroy: How the Antitax Movement Hijacked America.” Plus, our resident constitutional scholar, Bruce Fein, updates us on his latest efforts to push for the impeachment of Donald Trump.

David Enrich is the business investigations editor for The New York Times. He writes about the intersection of law and business, including the power wielded by giant corporate law firms and the changing contours of the First Amendment and libel law. His latest book is titled Murder the Truth: Fear, the First Amendment, and a Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful, an in-depth exposé of the broad campaign—orchestrated by elite Americans—to overturn sixty years of Supreme Court precedent, weaponize our speech laws, and silence dissent.

When all the institutions are crushed by a dictator in the White House, it's only the people that can save the people.

Ralph Nader

The interesting thing was that Fox, and these other right-wing outlets for years had been kind of banging the drum against New York Times v. Sullivan and against the protections that many journalists have come to count on. And then they get sued and their immediate fallback is to very happily cite New York Times v. Sullivan.

David Enrich

These threats and these lawsuits have become an extremely popular weapon among everyone from the President down to mayors, city council members, local real estate development companies, on and on and on…And the direct result of that will be that powerful people, companies, organizations, institutions are going to be able to do bad things without anyone knowing about it.

David Enrich

People keep asking me what they can do, what they should do. And I think the answer is really to try and understand these issues. They're complicated, but they're also getting deliberately misframed and misrepresented often, especially on the right, but sometimes not on the right. And I think it's really important for people to understand the importance of New York Times v. Sullivan, and to understand the grave threats facing journalists, especially at the local level right now, and the consequences that could have for our democracy.

David Enrich

Michael Graetz is professor emeritus at Columbia Law School and Yale Law School and a leading authority on tax politics and policy. He served in the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Tax Policy and is the author and coauthor of many books, including Death by a Thousand Cuts: The Fight over Taxing Inherited Wealth and The Burger Court and the Rise of the Judicial Right. His latest book is The Power to Destroy: How the Antitax Movement Hijacked America.

I spent a lot of time asking people to name the most important political and social movements of the last half century. And no surprise, they named the civil rights movement, the women's movement, the LGBTQ movement, the Christian Evangelical movement, the MAGA movement lately, but no one ever mentioned the anti-tax movement. And unlike the other movements I've named, the anti-tax movement is really the only one that has not suffered a serious setback in the past half century.

Michael Graetz

The anti-tax movement has always relied on a false dichotomy between “us” (those who pay taxes) and “them” (those who receive government benefits).

Michael Graetz

The Democrats now don't want to tax 98% of the people and the Republicans don't want to tax 100% of the people and the question is: how do you get anywhere with those kinds of firm “no new taxes” pledges? And that's a problem. And I think it's a problem that the Democrats have fallen into basically based on the success of the Republicans antitax coalition.

Michael Graetz

You're going to see individuals' budgets pinched because the federal government refuses to treat its budget with any degree of seriousness.

Michael Graetz

The label they use to justify tax cuts for the rich and the corporate they call them the “job creators.” Well, that has not been proven at all.

Ralph Nader

Bruce Fein is a Constitutional scholar and an expert on international law. Mr. Fein was Associate Deputy Attorney General under Ronald Reagan and he is the author of Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy, and American Empire: Before the Fall.

Certainly, the current Congress is not going to act without citizen involvement, pressure, clamoring that they do something to save the processes which are the heart and soul of our civilization as opposed to the law of the jungle.

Bruce Fein

News 3/19/25

1. The AP reports that on Tuesday Israel broke the U.S.-brokered ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, launching airstrikes that have killed over 400 Palestinians. These strikes, which have killed mostly women and children, are described as “open-ended and expected to expand.” This new offensive began the same day Prime Minister Netanyahu was scheduled to appear in court to provide testimony in his corruption trial; according to Israeli broadcaster KAN News, Netanyahu used the surprise attack to annul this court date.

2. This new offensive endangers the lives of some two dozen Israeli hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza. These hostages would have been released as part of the prisoner exchanges brokered through the ceasefire agreement. In order to dissuade further escalation, journalist Dimi Reider reports “Israeli hostage families are trying to make a human chain around Gaza to physically block a ground incursion.” This human chain includes prominent Israeli activist Einav Zangauker, whose son is still held in Gaza and who has made herself an implacable opponent of Netanyahu.

3. On the home front, a new round of state-backed repression is underway, targeted at pro-Palestine activists on college and university campuses. The Mahmoud Khalil case has received perhaps the most attention and with good reason. Khalil is a legal permanent resident of the United States and is married to a U.S. citizen who is eight months pregnant. He has long been active in pro-Palestine organizing at the college, which White House officials have claimed make him a “threat to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States.” The Trump administration has refused to honor Khalil’s Constitutional rights – including refusing to let him meet with his lawyer – and has admitted that they are persecuting him on the basis of political speech, a clear-cut violation of the First Amendment. A White House official explicitly told the Free Press, “The allegation…is not that he was breaking the law.” In addition to Khalil however, Columbia has taken the opportunity to expel, suspend and revoke the degrees of 22 students involved in the Hind’s Hall occupation last year, per the Middle East Eye. This raft of penalizations includes the expulsion of Grant Miner, President of UAW Local 2710, which represents thousands of Columbia student workers. Per the UAW, “the firing comes one day before contract negotiations were set to open with the University.” The timing of this expulsion is suspicious to say the least.

4. Yet, even in the face of such repression, pro-Palestine campus activism perseveres. Democracy Now! reports that on March 14th, Harvard Law School students “overwhelmingly passed a referendum calling on Harvard to divest its more than $50 billion endowment from ‘weapons, surveillance technology, and other companies aiding violations of international humanitarian law, including Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its ongoing illegal occupation of Palestine.’” The Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee adds that the referendum passed with approximately 73% of the vote, an unquestionably decisive margin. Even still, the university is unlikely to even consider adopting the resolution.

5. The resilience of student activists in the face of state-backed repression highlights the fecklessness of elected Democrats. The political leadership of New York for example has not mobilized to defend Mahmoud Khalil from authoritarian overreach by the federal government. Even locally, none of the current mayoral hopefuls – a rather underwhelming lot including the comically corrupt incumbent Mayor Eric Adams and former Governor Andrew Cuomo, infamous for killing thousands of seniors via his Covid policies and for the pervasive culture of sexual harassment in his office – have forcefully spoken up for Khalil. That is except for Zohran Mamdani, the DSA-endorsed mayoral candidate steadily climbing in the polls thanks to his popular message and well-crafted political ads. His advocacy on behalf of Khalil seems to have won him the support of perhaps the most principled progressive in Congress, Rashida Tlaib, who likewise is leading the meager Congressional effort to pressure the administration to rescind the disappearance of Khalil.

6. In light of their anemic response to Trump and Trumpism, Democratic discontent is reaching a boiling point. A flashpoint emerged last week when Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer opted not to fight the Republican budget proposal and vote for cloture instead of shutting down the government. Democratic voters were so incensed by this decision that Schumer was forced to postpone his book tour and the Democratic Party registered its lowest ever approval ratings, with just seven percent of voters saying they have a “very positive” view of the party. As this debacle unfolded, House Democrats were at a retreat in Leesburg, Virginia where AOC “slammed…[Schumer’s]…decision to ‘completely roll over and give up on protecting the Constitution.’” One member told CNN Democrats in Leesburg were “so mad” that even centrists were “ready to write checks for AOC for Senate.” And Pass the Torch, the grassroots progressive group that called for President Biden withdraw from the 2024 campaign is now calling for Schumer to resign as minority leader, the Hill reports. In their statement, the group writes “[Schumer’s] sole job is to fight MAGA’s fascist takeover of our democracy — instead, he’s directly enabling it. Americans desperately need a real opposition party to stand up to Trump.”

7. In the early evening on Tuesday March 18th, Trump unlawfully dismissed the two remaining Democrats on the Federal Trade Commission, POLITICO reports. One Commissioner, Alvaro Bedoya, tweeted “The President just illegally fired me.” Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter was also ousted from her post. In her statement, she wrote that her dismissal violated “the plain language of a statute and clear Supreme Court precedent. Why? Because…[Trump] is afraid of what I’ll tell the American people.” Trump similarly violated the law when he dismissed National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox who filed a lawsuit which prevailed in federal district court. POLITICO reports she returned to work last week. Biden’s superstar FTC Chair Lina Khan, already ousted by Trump, commented “The @FTC must enforce the law without fear or favor. The administration's illegal attempt to fire Commissioners Slaughter & Bedoya is a disturbing sign that this FTC won't. It's a gift to corporate lawbreakers that squeeze American consumers, workers, and honest businesses.” On March 19th, Bedoya added “Don’t worry…We are still commissioners. We’re suing to make that clear for everyone.”

8. Trump’s radical deregulatory agenda could not come at a worse time. Amid a streak of horrific aviation accidents and incidents, it now appears that Elon Musk is seeking to permanently worm his way into the Federal Aviation Administration. Forbes reports that the Campaign Legal Center has filed a legal complaint with the Office of the Inspector General of the Transportation Department alleging that Musk may have violated conflict of interest laws through his “involvement with a deal between the Federal Aviation Administration and his own company Starlink.” Per the Washington Post, the FAA is “close to canceling” its existing $2.4 billion contract with Verizon in favor of working with Starlink, and according to the legal complaint, Musk “appears to have personally and substantially participated” in these negotiations. This matter will have to play out in court, but the risks are very real. As Representative Greg Casar put it, “Musk is trying to make our air traffic control system ‘dependent’ on him by integrating his equipment, which has not gone through security and risk-management review. It's corruption. And it's dangerous.”

9. In more Musk news, President Trump has announced that he will institute a new rule classifying any attack on Tesla dealers as domestic terrorism, Reuters reports. This comes in response to the peaceful, so-called “Tesla Takedown” protests, which urge participants to “Sell your Teslas, dump your stock, join the picket lines.” Any connection between the protests and isolated cases of vandalism against Teslas or Tesla dealerships is tenuous at most. Instead, this theatrical display of support for the auto manufacturer seems to be a response Tesla’s declining stock value. Reuters reports “Tesla's market capitalization has more than halved since hitting an all-time high of $1.5 trillion on December 17, erasing most of the gains the stock made after Musk-backed Trump won the U.S. election in November.” It seems unlikely that invoking the iron fist of the state against peaceful protestors will do much to buoy Tesla’s market position.

10. Finally, in a humiliating bit of tragic irony, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has long maintained a personal brand as a crusader against junk food, is being deployed by the Trump administration to boost the fast food chain Steak ‘n Shake. Ostensibly, the endorsement is predicated on the chain using beef tallow rather than seed oils to prepare their French fries – the company called it “RFK’ing the fries” – yet even that claim appears shaky. According to NBC, “the chain’s move inspired some in the [Make America Healthy Again] world to look deeper… finding that [Steak ‘n Shake’s] fries were precooked in seed oils.” Nevertheless, RFK’s endorsement has been echoed by many others in Trump-world, including Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Kari Lake, Charlie Kirk, and others. NBC adds that in February, Tesla announced it had signed a deal to build charging stations at Steak ’n Shake locations. Funny how Musk’s fingers seem to appear in every pie, or in this case grasping at every tallow French fry.

This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard.

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