Judge Deliberates Mayor Adams' Fate

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer, on WNYC. Back with us now is Elie Mystal, justice correspondent for The Nation and author of the book Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution, and the forthcoming, next month, Bad Law: 10 Popular Laws that Are Ruining America. We'll talk to Elie now about several of his recent articles in The Nation. One about New York City Mayor Eric Adams, one that questions overreliance on the courts, to challenge what Elie calls the Trump and Musk coup, and one that accuses Musk of out-and-out racism in some of his policies and statements.

Some news headlines related to all these, that you may or may not have heard yet. Trump has just announced plans to rescind protected status for about half a million Haitians currently here legally, while he's offering refugee status specifically to white South Africans. There are already about 35 lawsuits trying to stop what plaintiffs claim is illegal overreach in the chainsaw-style slashings of congressionally mandated spending and government services.

Just last night, one judge ruled that the administration is flaunting his order to restore funding to USAID while its ultimate fate is debated, and a judge might decide anytime whether to allow the Trump Justice Department to suspend the corruption charges against Mayor Adams, as Governor Kathy Hochul decides not to remove Adams from office, but try to have the state oversee his actions more closely with a suspicion that he's now in a quid pro quo deal with Trump. Elie, always great to have you. Welcome back to WNYC.

Elie Mystal: Woo. Lots to get to, isn't there? What wonderful times we live in.

Brian Lehrer: I hope you have till about five o'clock, six o'clock today. I think they'll let us extend. Can we start with Eric Adams? You were on the show in the fall, arguing that Adams should resign because he was already compromised by hoping for a pardon from Trump, but that Governor Hochul shouldn't remove him. You more recently became more sympathetic to the removal option.

Now Hochul says no, but she'll introduce a new law to have the state oversee him. I'm curious of what you think about that solution to the conflict of interest. Adams may be in between his constituents' interest and Trump's.

Elie Mystal: Yes. To start with Hochul, it's almost the worst of all possible worlds, right? Again, I am skeptical about her using the removal power. I am skeptical about a governor removing a mayor. I am skeptical about a white governor removing a Black mayor. Most Black mayors in this country serve under white governors. That's not a precedent I want to see, but the idea that because Adams is such a problem, you are now going to impose control from Albany on New York City, limiting the power of all future New York City mayors.

You see the problem here, Brian. It takes the Adams problem and then extends it indefinitely into the future, where you have Albany meddling in New York City politics, which, as a New Yorker, is something that you never want to see. You want Albany to stay up there, go to Niagara Falls, have a good time, and let the city run itself. Hochul has an opening right now to restrict the power of the New York City mayor, because Eric Adams won't do the right thing and resign.

Brian Lehrer: You think what Hochul is proposing can't be specific to Adams under these circumstances, but would then tie the hands of all future New York City mayors, because that's the nature of legislation?

Elie Mystal: Exactly. Exactly. Again, I'm not a fan of the removal option, but she should either remove him or stay out of it and let New Yorkers handle their business. This half measure, like I said, it's one of the worst of all possible worlds, but we're living in the worst of all possible worlds already. Brian, just to go back to the underlying issue of Adams's hearing yesterday, whether or not you think there was a quid pro quo, and I have no idea how you can figure out that there isn't a quid pro quo.

Even if you don't think that, just listen to the underlying argument of Emil Bove, the acting Justice Department chief, for why the prosecution needs to be stopped. Right?

Brian Lehrer: It's in writing, right? It's in writing, I believe.

Elie Mystal: It's in writing. He wrote-- like with Project 25. These people write it down. The official rationale is that Adams cannot perform his job as mayor and cannot perform his function of enforcing Donald Trump's immigration policies if he is under threat of this lawsuit. Brian, there is no other person in the country that is allowed to make the argument that they cannot be prosecuted because it interferes with their job.

Brian, if you said, "Actually, you were charged with whatever," and he said, "Well, actually, Judge, I can't be charged because court starts at 10:00 AM and my show starts at 10:00 AM, and I can't do my show if I'm in court every day, so you have to drop the charges," they would laugh at you. They would laugh at you. This is the fundamental problem here. If Adams cannot do his job while under indictment, then the solution for that is for Adams to resign his job.

Not [unintelligible 00:05:26] the prosecution, to not prosecute him, the solution is for Adams to resign his job. Adams himself has been running around for five months saying, like, "This isn't going to affect my job. My lawyers are going to handle it. I'm not stepping down. I'm stepping--" whatever he's saying. He's been saying he can still do his job. Which one is it, Eric? Can you do the job, in which case, you need to be prosecuted, or can you not do the job, in which case, you need to resign?

Brian Lehrer: Elie, for you, as a whole Harvard Law School grad and legal analyst, would the judge have to rule from the bench that this really is not a legitimate suspension of charges, but a political move to coerce Adams into cooperating with Trump's deportation program? Has there ever been such a ruling from a court in US History, as far as you know?

Elie Mystal: I don't believe so. That's the problem. Dale Ho, who's a really good guy, a really good judge, I think he should be promoted someday. He ended the hearing saying, like, "Look, I understand I have very limited authority to hear." If the prosecutor doesn't want to prosecute the case, traditionally, there ain't a lot a judge can do. There are some situations where the judge can order a different prosecutorial team to take over.

That's happened in the past, but that is in the context where the government still wants to pursue a case, or there is some government entity that still wants to pursue a case. Here, if you drop the charges, the federal charges against Adams, you almost have to restart the process with state charges, and that puts the ball on Letitia James's court, potentially. It's not clear that Adams's violations or alleged violations are state crimes.

It just becomes very complicated if Ho wants to maintain the charges, to figure out, all right, who's going to do the work? Who's going to do the actual prosecuting? Nobody in the federal government is going to do that work. Let's not forget, people, eight federal prosecutors resigned behind this ridiculous Trump administration, quid pro quo, including the acting US attorney, Danielle Sassoon, who, by the way, is a Republican, is a fedsoc lawyer, clerked for Antonin Scalia.

You can't call this partisan, man. With the people left, it's not clear that anybody is willing to prosecute him. It's hard for Ho to force them to. Like he said, he has very limited authority here. All of his questions were basically-- he asked Bove, "Would this logic that you're saying that sometimes people with important jobs just can't be prosecuted, would it extend to a police commissioner? Because the police commissioner has an important job enforcing Trump's national security, could the police commissioner not be prosecuted?"

Bove is like, "Yes, sure. No way." When you realize just the scope of what the government, what Bove, what Trump is asking for, it's off the chain ridiculous. That is what I'm sure Ho was considering all yesterday and all day today. If he does this, where does it end?

Brian Lehrer: I'm no legal analyst, but that argument jumped out at me, too, as specifically weak and questionable, because if they're saying that you can't prosecute a mayor because he has important work to do, then, by extension, you can't prosecute any public official for corruption. They would all be shielded from any corruption they may have actually committed while they're actually serving in office, because it would be a distraction from their job.

I can't imagine that that's the argument that's going to convince the judge. It also goes, and I know you talk about this all the time, to the really unchartered waters that we're in, from an "Is this what democracy looks like" standpoint, if a judge is having to consider for maybe the first time in US history, whether the government has suspended criminal charges against someone to coerce them explicitly into certain political acts.

Elie Mystal: Yes. This goes to one of my articles that you mentioned already, about trying to get people to understand the limitations of what courts can do. I wrote about this in The Nation, and I'm not saying that courts won't try to stop Trump, or won't try to at least slow down some of these more kind of obviously illegal and unconstitutional actions that he's taking, but in our system, the courts do not have an independent enforcement wing. They've got no army, they've got no law enforcement.

In this case with Adams, they have no prosecutors. We rely on the executive to enforce court orders. When you have an executive like the one the American people elected, who will not do that, who will not enforce court orders, who will not enforce court orders adverse to him, there's actually very little that the courts can do to make them, so when Trump runs around and he says, "Oh, well, I'll abide by court orders," Brian, as you pointed out in your opening, he's already not.

We know that that is a lie, because Trump is already under various court orders to restore the funding to various organizations that he has cut off money from and he won't turn the money back on. USAID doesn't have the money. A bunch of public interest organizations don't have the money. ProPublica did some excellent reporting on that a couple of weeks ago. He won't turn the money back on. That is him being in violation of a court order right now.

You can scroll through three weeks of The Washington Post and New York Times, you'll barely see anybody phrasing it that way. The public doesn't even understand that Trump is in violation of a court order right now, so when he says he's going to file court orders in the future, we already know he's lying. That's just about Trump. Brian, again, I wrote about this, what my real fear is, is that whatever Trump is willing to abide by or do, there's no indication that he's going to enforce a court order against his owner and co-president Elon Musk.

Who's going to do that, right? Think about DOGE and some of the orders that are lining up against that. Well, who's going to enforce those orders against DOGE? Who's going to make sure that DOGE is following those rules? Where are their digital forensic investigators that are going to make sure that Elon Musk only has the access, the information he's allowed to access, he isn't copying it, and he isn't selling it? Who's going to do that work? The FBI, under Kash Patel? I don't think so.

Again, I don't want to be nihilistic or cynical, but people need to understand the limits of what courts can do. If you don't understand that Trump is showing you right now how little power, actually, courts have, if a president is not going to follow the orders and the people are not going to hold them accountable to that.

Brian Lehrer: When you call this a Trump and Musk coup in your article, coup is a strong word. Trump was elected and campaigned on many of these things. Courts are making rulings pro and con. The polls are starting to go south on Trump and Musk. We talked about that earlier in the show. And Republicans in Congress are starting to bark about willy-nilly cuts that are hurting their constituents. Maybe democracy isn't over. How literally do you mean the word coup?

Elie Mystal: Well, Brian, I voted in every presidential election since 1996, when I turned 18, and I have never once pulled the lever for Elon Musk. I don't even recall him being on a ballot, if I'm being honest. Yet, Elon Musk knows my Social Security number, and yet, Elon Musk knows exactly how much I've paid in taxes for some period of time. I don't recall giving him that information. I don't recall anybody authorizing him to have that information.

The reason why I use the word coup is, there was a post, I believe, on Bluesky, by [unintelligible 00:13:45]. I think it was [unintelligible 00:13:46], who talked about this the way that we would talk about this if this was happening in some other country. If this was happening in Brazil, and the richest man in Brazil, who nobody elected, got control of the government and Services administration of Brazil, how would we be talking about Brazil?

Brian Lehrer: What if Barack Obama had tried to do some of these things?

Elie Mystal: The what if Barack Obama is always the ending argument, right? What if Barack Obama had worn a tan suit and given all the tax information to Oprah, the richest Black person he could find? "Hey, Oprah, you're going to have control of everybody's personal tax information. You get a car, you get a car, you go to jail." People would be rioting right now, right? That's why I use that word. It is the word we would use if this was happening in any other country.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, your call is welcome for Elie Mystal, justice correspondent for The Nation. 212-433-WNYC 212-433-9692. We've got more to cover and we'll get some of your takes. 212-433-9692. Call or text. Stay with us.

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Brian Lehrer, on WNYC, as we continue with Elie Mystal, justice correspondent for The Nation. Let's get to your article about Musk and racism. I was just talking about the contrast between Trump people announcing, yesterday, plans to rescind protected status for about half a million Haitians currently here legally. I mentioned that story a minute ago in that promo. I mentioned in the intro the contrast between that, while he's offering refugee status specifically to white South Africans. You wrote about that.

Elie Mystal: Yes, Brian. First of all, as a proud American of Haitian descent, I would say that my question for your upcoming program is why does the rest of the Caribbean diaspora always seem to hate us Haitians? How come we never get some kind of Pan-Caribbean resistance? We're always, always feeling out here, on our own. That would be my question.

Brian Lehrer: Do you have a theory?

Elie Mystal: Yes, I do, but we don't got enough time for it. [laughs]

Brian Lehrer: Okay, okay. We'll keep our eye on the ball.

Elie Mystal: We certainly won our freedom in a unique way in the Western hemisphere, and I think people have never forgiven us for that. In any event, look, I know that there are people who do not want to think that Trump and Musk are racist. I know they want to think that racism is the worst charge you can make. They care more about being called racist than actually racist actions.

This thing with white South Africans is the most provably racist thing Trump and Musk have done because they are in a situation where they are kicking out actual Black and brown refugees that are already here. They're in a situation where they are kicking out actual legal immigrants, Haitian legal immigrants, for the crime of being Haitian, while being legal immigrants. Yet, they are calling the white South African diaspora back to America to live as "refugees." Right?

Just the white South Africans, by the way. It's not like they're saying, "Thabo Mbeki, why don't you come over here, too?" No, no, no. Only Johan Van Dyk can come here. That is provably, definitionally racist. It's because they're white that they're being invited into the country, and it's because they're Black and brown that the refugees already here are being kicked out of the country.

That is as much proof as you are ever going to get, absent Mark Bennett ever releasing the tapes of what Trump actually said on the set of The Apprentice. When you start there, when you start as, this is the most provably racist action they've taken, you have to start to ask why. We have to start to ask what's the larger idea here? The one that I've hit on is neo-apartheid. You have to understand apartheid.

When people think about apartheid, especially people born after it, tend to think of it just as the brutality, the segregation, the beatings, and the lack of political power for a vastly overwhelming majority Black population in South Africa, but when we think about how apartheid started, Apartheid was an economic policy first, a policy of social segregation and brutality second. It was an economic policy designed-- Stop me, Brian, when I start to sound familiar.

Designed to protect the white working class in South Africa who were getting out-competed by Black people in South Africa. That economic backbone is the kind of economic racism and apartheid Musk and Trump are trying to bring here. They're trying to create a class of Black people who are not able to get jobs. Literally. The dismantled DEI act that's still percolating around in Congress says that for all-- what you've been calling the chainsaw effect, right?

For all the Black people and women they've been firing, saying that they are DEI hires without actually looking at their history, records, and work performance. The dismantled DEI act says that those people can never be rehired by government, even in the future. What you're doing is creating a permanent class, predominantly of racial minorities and women, who can never get a job at the single largest employer in the United States, the federal government, and the single largest employer in every single state, the federal government.

White men still can. White men can always get a job. That is a form of economic protectionism that goes right back to the earliest impositions of apartheid in South Africa. It's the same thing, updated and brushed off for the modern age.

Brian Lehrer: As we continue with Elie Mystal, justice correspondent for The Nation, on some of his recent columns, Wendy, in Springfield, New Jersey, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Wendy: Hello. Mr. Mystal, I'm so glad you're on, because you're not diplomatic. Of course this is a coup. What do you expect when the orange one in the White House didn't get any consequences? There are things that we can do that are peaceful and legal. Number one, Friday, February 28th, the nationwide boycott. Read the Newsweek article about it. Number two, AOC's February 4th blog. Read that. Two. Three, Eastern europeans send advice in a number of tweets. It's all over the Internet. Read that.

They know how to deal with these people, so they're giving us their advice and wishing us luck, and of course, who you've already had here, Timothy Snyder. Timothy Snyder. Timothy Snyder. Okay? We have the information we need. It was in all the novels, that person who gave the list of novels, that talked about this, forgot Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. You know what the slogan of the person who was like the orange one is? Make America great again.

All right? That was years ago. We've got it, all right? This is a coup, and we got to move fast. We don't have time to wait for two year elections. This is not normal time. We have to move now. [crosstalk]

Elie Mystal: Thanks for the call, Wendy. I echo what you're saying. One of the things I've been saying a lot is that when I'm talking about the weakness of the courts and the inability of the courts to really rein him in, I keep reminding people Trump won a Democratic election. The people gave him this power. The people are the only force that can take it away. People have to resist, people have to protest. When talking about Adams, Brian, again, I don't really want Hochul to remove him.

I certainly don't want Hochul to impose more state control from Albany. We know that he won't resign, that, so far he's unwilling to resign, but we haven't put that to the test. We haven't, as New Yorkers, made Adams's public life as impossible as we can make it. I want Adams to be booed every time he pops his head out of Gracie Mansion, the way Juan Soto is about to be booed when he goes back to Yankee Stadium. I want that level of energy from New Yorkers every time they see Adams's face.

While he may act like he has no shame, we haven't tested that theory. We haven't explored the studio space with that like New Yorkers are capable of doing.

Brian Lehrer: Talk more about what ways of fighting back, by people concerned about all of this, that you might be keying on. Wendy brought up one in her call, and I think you're in the camp that says the Democratic elected officials have been too timid. There have been some public protests this week, but not really mass protests, not even the things we saw at the beginning of the first Trump term. There are some no by-days scheduled, or this one.

I saw a story in the substack by writer Parker Malloy celebrating former NFL player Chris Kluwe, I think you say it, who announced to the police that he would commit an act of non-violent civil disobedience to protest anti-trans bigotry in the administration, so laid down, went limp, and forced them to carry him out. This was in Huntington Beach, California. It got some press. It got press in sports media, if not general media, strictly non-violent, but civil disobedience.

I'm really just asking what you hope people will do or what you think, as an analyst, could be effective if you're in the camp that criticizes elected Democrats for being timid.

Elie Mystal: Yes. Chris Kluwe, the punter. Just remember, Brian, when we're talking about how he got press because he was a sports person. He's a punter. He ain't no quarterback. Ain't no lie. He was a punter and he was able to get some heat, some press from his actions. Imagine what that would look like if that was half of US Congress. Imagine how much press it would get if half of US Congress was literally laying down trying to block some of these Trump appointees, some of these Trump orders, physically.

How much press would you get then, if it wasn't just random punter from the Minnesota Vikings? When we talk about Democrats being too timid, not only am I talking about just their lack of message discipline and their inability to make the case, their inability to highlight some of the people who are being fired for absolutely no reason, their inability to highlight the stories of pain, suffering, and harm.

Beyond all that, I'm also talking about their timidity and inability to literally generate the kind of stunts that would get a lot of the press talking and whatever. That's what I want the Democrats to do, understanding that the Democrats have no actual power right now. Because they have no actual power, we have to be realistic about that. My book, the one that you mentioned that's upcoming, is all about laws that Democrats could overturn if they ever get power again.

I think that talking about these laws is a good way to argue that they should have power again, but let's be clear, they can't do anything that I say in my book right now, because they have no power. It's got to be more stunt-based, more that kind of resistance for regular people who aren't famous punters, who aren't elected officials, who don't have the kind of platform that's going to generate media attention. Us, basically, we have to do it collectively, right?

We have to take collective action. Yes, the protest here and there is nice. I'm not a big marcher myself, but I always do think the marching is helpful. What I think is most helpful is the economic stuff, these people need to feel it in their pockets. To make economic boycotts work, you need massive collective action. I know in the Black community we're really trying hard to get people to boycott Target, right?

Target has abandoned its DEI policies, but Target is interesting, because Target spent a decade saying, "Hey, Black people, we love you." Target spent a decade, like Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire. We love Black people. Show me the money. That's Target for the past 10 years, until Trump gets in charge. Now all of a sudden, "Actually, we hate DEI." You know what, Target, you don't get my buck right when I'm buying back-to-school supplies, I'm going to Office Depot, I'm not going to Target no more.

That kind of mass-- Target stock prices are actually going down. That's the kind of collective economic action we need to-- where our wallets can make a difference. That needs to happen. The final thing that I'll just point out is that Trump's approval rating, our approval ratings, are the highest he's ever been. He's still underwater. He's still lower than most presidents are in their first month in office, but for Trump, they're the highest they've ever been.

Trump is going to keep doing this as long as his approval ratings are high, so at core level, people need to understand what the problems are and how what Trump is doing is going to affect them. That's why I loved your promo for the Haitian thing. It's asking people, how is this affecting you and your community on the ground? I think the messaging needs to be much more focused on how this is going. This is hurting, or going to hurt you personally.

The people who have the empathy to understand, to be outraged when things hurt other people, all those people already hate Trump. It's the people who are selfish and can only appreciate things when it happens to them that we need to work on now.

Brian Lehrer: On the DEI and your neo-apartheid argument for what Musk, especially, is trying to impose. People will hear that and they'll say-- especially supporters of them will hear that and they'll say, no, they're trying to remove any racial preferences, this is what they say in all their official language, and have everybody compete just on the basis of merit, so that's not apartheid, that's removing racial preferences. What do you say back to that?

Elie Mystal: Firing people who already have jobs without looking at the performance record because they are Black, brown, disabled, gay, or whatever, is racist. Is bigoted. Straight up. Show me, please, the white guy they've fired from the government without looking at his performance. You can't find one.

Brian Lehrer: Haven't they? [crosstalk]

Elie Mystal: Missed me with the, "It's not really racist." Oh, it's explicitly racist. Now, in terms of the larger issue with DEI, Brian, I ain't fighting for DEI. DEI was a white man's solution. DEI was invented by white folks to help them comply with the 14th Amendment Equal Protection clause and the Civil Rights Act. The 14th Amendment says you have to give equal protection of laws to all people, regardless of race. The Civil Rights Act says that you can't be discriminatory in hiring.

White employers were like, "We don't know how to do that." Well, no, just hire the best person. "No, no, no, we're just going to always hire the white guy. That's how we go, so we're going to create this whole other thing that's going to force us to hire Black people because we ourselves, the employers, cannot be trusted to do it fairly," so people are like, "All right, I guess that's what we're doing today." Now, that white employer's like, "Actually, DEI is terrible. We shouldn't do--" Fine. Y'all made it up. Y'all can unmake it up.

The question still remains, how are you going to hire people fairly? How are you going to hire people on merit? What level of accountability will there be if you don't? That's what I'm fighting for. I'm not fighting for DEI. I'm fighting for the application of the Civil Rights Act. I'm fighting for the application of Equal Employment Opportunity Act. Right? Tell me, employer, tell me, Target, tell me, Meta, tell me, Bezos, how you are going to go about making sure that you hire the best person for the job and not the best white person for the job?

The best applicant for the job and not the best applicant who happens to be a grandson, grand niece, grand nephew of your CEO, for the job. What's going to happen to you when you fail? What's the legal recourse that I have as a qualified Black man to hold you accountable when all you do is hire Chip Westinghouse III, because you like playing squash with his daddy? Where's that lawsuit, right? That's the question, not DEI, and so far, the white people in charge have yet to provide me with the frickin answer.

Brian Lehrer: Just on the layoffs, the firings, though, aren't they without specific regard to race? In many of these cases, they're just lopping off 7,000 people from the IRS, is what they say is coming now there, everybody who works for USAID. Some of the listeners will think, "Well, that doesn't look like they're going to find all the Black and brown employees."

Elie Mystal: Well, in some cases, all they're doing is going after the organizations that help Black and brown people, not just in this country, around the world. I guess if that makes you feel better, if that helps you sleep. I know they're only cutting Black and brown programs, not Black and brown people. Okay. If that makes you feel better. In many cases, they're just firing the Black people. Look at Gwen Wilcox. That's my favorite example so far.

Gwen Wilcox was a member of the National Labor Relations Board. She was an independent commissioner. She is a Black woman, and she got fired from the NLRB. Not the two white guys, just her. She's had a long surface record. Qualified. They just fired her because they don't like the NLRB, and they said that she was a DEI hire. They had no evidence or proof. That's the other thing. Brian. Explain to me exactly who a DEI hire is.

There are some people who were explicitly hired under a DEI program, but there are lots of people who weren't. There are lots of people who just happen to be Black in government, they're getting fired, and they're being told that they're DEI hires. The government is literally saying in the executive order that some people are DEI hires, but they use confusing language to hide it. What do you mean? That just means that if you happen to be Black in government, you can be fired, and that is happening right now.

Again, I don't understand people who don't see the racial valence of what they're doing, but I guess my last answer to that, Brian, is it almost doesn't matter if white people understand that other white people are being racist. It really almost doesn't matter, because a majority of white people elected Donald Trump, a majority of white people still support Donald Trump. It is obvious to me that, for those white people, they don't care that Donald Trump is being racist.

There ain't nothing I can do or say that's going to change their mind, so I don't spend a whole lot of time wondering, how am I going to convince white people that other white people are racist? Either you get that, or you're beyond my powers to help you.

Brian Lehrer: I'm going to extend this past our scheduled end time by two minutes to get in one more caller from you, Mary, in Fairfield County, who has read your first book. Mary, you're on WNYC with Elie Mystal, but you got to do it in 30 seconds.

Mary: What a thrill. I absolutely love your book. The bottom line for me was, we got to start over with the Constitution. I'm just wondering if your view of the Constitution in that book relates in any way to how Republicans are now trashing it. Does this give us an opening to start over if we ever get power again?

Brian Lehrer: Elie? Sound bite as much as you can.

Elie Mystal: Yes, great question, Mary. No, it does not give us an opening. The most dangerous thing right now would be for the Republicans, with the kind of control and support and popularity they have, to call for a new constitutional convention, because it would make it worse. Right now, we're not in a place-- When South Africa redid its constitution, it pulled from all sectors of its society.

If we redid our constitution right now, it would just be Trumpers and a couple of weak, moderate Democrats invited to the convention. They ain't inviting me to that convention, and the document that they would produce would somehow be worse.

Brian Lehrer: Elie's previous book that the caller is referring to is Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution. I hope you'll come back, I guess, next month, when your new book, Bad Law: 10 Popular Laws that Are Ruining America, comes out. Elle, thanks for today.

Elie Mystal: Thanks so much for having me, Brian.

 

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