Preet Bharara:

From CAFE and the Vox Media Podcast Network, welcome to Stay Tuned. I’m Preet Bharara. Well folks, we did it. We made it through another year. It’s hard to believe it’s already the end of 2021, the second year of a deadly global pandemic. The year we witnessed a violent insurrection on our nation’s Capitol, the year we got a new president and history making vice president. The year we watched high profile trials and awaited nail biting verdicts. Much like 2020, 2021 was quite the roller coaster.

Preet Bharara:

So today we look back at the biggest moments of 2021 as told through our conversations on Stay Tuned and CAFE Insider. Thank you as always for your continued support of our work. We couldn’t do this without you. That’s coming up, stay tuned.

Donald Trump:

We will stop the steal.

Preet Bharara:

2021 started with one of the worst attacks on democracy in American history. On January 6th, a violent mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol while Congress was certifying Joe Biden’s presidential election victory. The insurrection left five people dead, including a Capitol police officer, and it distressed shocked and outraged congressional staff, law enforcement, and the nation. We watched the unbelievable scenes unfold, wondering how any of it could be happening here in the United States.

Reporter:

And what happened today?

Rioter:

I’m not sure, it looks like they stormed the Capitol people broke through and raced through the building and then the legislator got scared and left. So we didn’t certify for Joe Biden, so that’s good.

Preet Bharara:

On the evening of January 6th, my former CAFE Insider co-host Anne Milgram and I, recorded an emergency episode of the podcast to reflect on the horrific events of the day.

Anne Milgram:

There was something about watching today what is supposed to be just a symbol and the peaceful transfer of power turned violent. And we should talk about the images but it did make me angry and it also it made me heartbroken, I think our country lost. It’s a very, very sad and I think deeply disappointing day for our country as a whole.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. Look, we’re not Belarus, no offense to the people of Belarus. You see people breaking down the doors, breaking down windows to get into the Capitol building, which you and I have spent a lot of time in, in our prior lives. A woman was shot and killed, we don’t know all the details yet. There’s a woman who’s dead because this mob descend it upon the Capitol and somehow were able to gain access, not only to the periphery of the Capitol but they went to the house floor. They went into Nancy Pelosi’s office-

Anne Milgram:

And the Senate floor.

Preet Bharara:

And the Senate floor. There’s a picture, I took a screenshot, I took of CNN because I couldn’t believe it. There’s an arm standoff.

Anne Milgram:

I can’t believe that picture…the house of representatives.

Preet Bharara:

On the house floor and people engaging in all sorts of violence, people carrying guns-

Anne Milgram:

Into the United States Congress where they’re prohibited-

Preet Bharara:

It’s United States Congress.

Anne Milgram:

-by anyone other than law enforcement. Yes.

Preet Bharara:

I want to come back to something that you and I have been texting about all day which is, what was going on with the police force. But our friend Joyce Vance made a good point on social media earlier. And she said, there’s time to talk about and we should talk about the lacking police presence and how they dealt with the rioters and the mob. But before we do that, we should acknowledge where the blame lies and who was fermenting this and who was inciting this.

Preet Bharara:

And I think even people who have been silent about the President and pulled their punches about the President, even they today, 14 days away from the end of his term finally, are acknowledging that the president is dangerous and the president has blood on his hands from this. Is there any other way of thinking about it?

Anne Milgram:

Remember that the president called on his supporters to come to Washington today for this specific event and there was-

Preet Bharara:

Angrily.

Anne Milgram:

There was consider angrily and there was a lot of reporting about president’s called to action to get people to come to DC. And that he’s also been tweeting and out there in the media all week long, talking about trying to get Pence to not agree to certify the electors. And as we know, it’s a pretty administrative role for the vice president. The vice president didn’t have power to do it the president was asking him. But the president was calling on his supporter should show up. He then went to that protest today to address that protest and he said.

Speaker 2:

“And after this, we’re going to walk down and I’ll be there with you. We’re going to walk down anyone you want but I think right here, we’re going to walk down to the Capitol and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women. And we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.”

Anne Milgram:

He encouraged his supporters at that rally to go to the Capitol. And there were already a large number of people who were at the Capitol and it was shortly thereafter that people broke through barricades. They went to the Capitol and we should point out the violence of this. It’s both that people were armed who entered the Capitol building. It’s also that they took, it looked like and there’s been a lot of footage of this on the media but they took Plexiglas to break the glass. I mean, it’s breaking and entering into a federal building and it’s not just any federal building, this is the home-

Preet Bharara:

It’s the seat of democracy.

Anne Milgram:

Of the United States Congress where our laws are made. It is the city of democracy.

Preet Bharara:

Of the United States of America.

Reporter:

Meanwhile, up on the steps of the backside of the Capitol, we’re seeing protestors overcome the police. The police are now running back into the Capitol building. We have cheers from the protestors that are watching behind the scenes.

Preet Bharara:

In the aftermath of the insurrection, Anne Milgram interviewed the former police chiefs of Camden and Philadelphia, Scott Thomson and Chuck Ramsey about law enforcement’s handling of the attacks.

Scott Thomson:

I think one of the other legitimate question that I’ve heard asked in this process and I myself have observed is, one as the commissioner just said, there’s the issue of preparation and the lack thereof. But then the other is the response. And when you juxtapose it to the response, once there was the moment of contact between police and protestors/rioters, if you were to put them side by side, the picture of January 6th looked a lot softer than it did in what law enforcement’s response was to the Black Lives Matter movements on street corners across the country.

Scott Thomson:

And even when the Capitol police were… they were on their back foot the entire time. And even when they were being attacked, there never seemed to be a response that would be deemed to be excessive in its totality. And I think it was the head of the noble who said that if it was black folks storming, the Capitol building, I think the statement was we would still be put in toe tags on bodies right now.

Chuck Ramsey:

Well, he’s right in my opinion. I mean, again, that’s where bias comes in, that’s where all these different things come to play. I mean, why didn’t you even have undercover cops in the crowd? I mean, both at the rally and walking down Pennsylvania Avenue saying, “Hey, these guys are fired up. You better be ready because they’re headed your way.” I mean just simple stuff like that. And apparently that was not the case.

Chuck Ramsey:

So yeah, they were totally unprepared. Some of it had to do no question in my mind, had to do with the race of the individuals and it had to do with the fact that they were right wing extremists as opposed to left. I think all these dynamics played in and that’s where it really points to one important thing.

Chuck Ramsey:

Police can’t afford to get caught up in any of that stuff. You’ve got a job to do to protect the public, to protect that building in this case. It doesn’t matter who it is. Your job is to gear up and be ready no matter what? Don’t get caught up in the political rhetoric and all this other stuff. Or I think, oh, these are the good guys, these are the bad guys or what… that’s not your job. And the minute you go down that path, you’re going to have a problem.

Reporter:

Here it is right now 217 has just been reached, we’ve just witnessed a truly solemn moment in American history. The house of representatives has reached the threshold for making Donald J. Trump, the only president of the United States to be impeached for a second time.

Preet Bharara:

As the country continued to try to make sense of the events of January 6th, Donald Trump made history again. On January 13th, he was impeached for the second time. On February 9th, his second impeachment trial began. Representative Adam Schiff and my former SDNY colleague Dan Goldman, who helped to lead the first house impeachment effort joined me for analysis of trial two for individual one.

Adam Schiff:

I don’t see how anyone can conclude that, that conduct that resulted in that attack on the Capitol is consistent with his oath, with his duties, with his presidential powers. But I fully expect you can find a lawyer to argue anything and they will find a lawyer to make the contrary argument. If the last four years have shown us anything, it is that that Donald Trump will find people to carry his water no matter how dirty that water may be.

Dan Goldman:

And if I could just add a couple of additional considerations, one is, and I’m sure the impeachment managers will grab this video, throughout the last four years, Donald Trump has quite overtly referenced physical violence and encouraged physical violence in particular at his rallies. So he has a curated macho reputation as being a tough guy who supports violence. I mean, Charlottesville, was one example where he somewhat endorsed the violence by the neo-Nazis and there are other times where there were people getting protestors at his own rallies, who he would refer to violence.

Dan Goldman:

I think that’s relevant to what the impression of the protestors was and what their interpretation of the words is. And the second thing Preet, which you I know had experience with and would certainly push forward in a criminal trial is, he talks like a mob boss. He is not going to use those words you referenced like, “Go, execute an insurrection. Go riot. Go storm the Capitol.” He never would actually say those words, just like a mob boss would not say, “Go kill that person.” The mob boss would say, “Can you please take care of this?”

Preet Bharara:

Take care of them.

Dan Goldman:

Exactly.

Preet Bharara:

Take care of it.

Dan Goldman:

And that’s when he says go fight or if Mike Pence doesn’t do the right thing, bad things will happen, that’s violent talk, everyone understands that. And if you have any question as to whether they understood it or not, just wait until we see all of the parlor videos from social media of the people who attended his rally, who were going to the Capitol and saying that the president told us to storm the Capitol. They understood what he was trying to say.

Preet Bharara:

The Senate voted to acquit Donald Trump for inciting the violence of January 6th. Falling 10 votes short of the two thirds majority needed to convict. Representative Joe Neguse of Colorado, who served as a house impeachment manager, joined Stay Tuned to discuss the case for holding the former president accountable.

Joe Neguse:

It’s easy to forget now just how much of an exigent circumstance we were facing that day and in the days that followed. You literally had an insurrection to try to stop the peaceful transfer of power. President Biden had not yet been inaugurated and there were many questions about whether or not that inauguration could ultimately occur peacefully, just the following two weeks from then, or a little less than that.

 Joe Neguse:

And so, yeah, I think it was fairly clear to many in the Congress that we had to move forward, that we had an Article 1 responsibility under the constitution to hold the president accountable for conduct that was so egregious. And obviously, several of our Republican colleagues ultimately agreed with that. And the fact that you had several Republicans very early, and on that evening, the next day, the day after making clear that they concurred that in our assessment, that what the president had done was clearly impeachable that obviously created an atmosphere in which there was support for impeachment that built.

Preet Bharara:

The tragic backdrop of course, to all that has unfolded over the last few years is the pandemic. In February and March, the vaccine became widely available in the United States. I remember lining up to get my first jab at the Javits Center, observing how organized it all was. Things were looking up. But like the masks, the vaccine was immediately politicized and the effort to vaccinate as many people as possible was significantly hampered by partisan backlash. Writer and surgeon Atul Gawande, joined me on Stay Tuned to talk about the polarized response to the vaccine.

Atul Gawande:

Again, it’s that problem I start with, it’s pain now for gain later, that is incredibly hard. Climate change has this problem in spades. This is a problem where it’s invisible and it has an effect in four to four weeks and you see the economic effects in eight to 12 weeks. And we have a hard time on that cycle.

Atul Gawande:

Climate change, where things unfold in years of time are even harder to motivate people to take action. And you can always, when you’re political you’re politician, you can exploit, the group who is making a… whose lives just changed. The 20 to 50 year olds, where mostly they’re not getting significantly sick or asymptomatic spreaders, they’re driving the infection but they’re not the people who are most afraid of dying.

Atul Gawande:

You can exploit their strong desire to get back to normal and say, it’s just a flu, these guys are pulling the wool over your eyes and we’re seeing this start to crop up in vaccination right now. The strongest indicator earlier on as vaccination was not yet approved and about to happen about whether people would want vaccination race was the strongest predictor of vaccine willingness or unwillingness. Now its party affiliation.

Preet Bharara:

Have you ever seen anything like that before?

Atul Gawande:

No, it’s stunning.

Reporter:

It’s been a trying time for Asian Americans with hate crimes against them surging.

Preet Bharara:

At the end of March, tragedy struck, a shooter in Atlanta killed eight people, six of them, Asian women. As an American and as an Asian American, this was heartbreaking and infuriating. Reports surfaced of a national increase in violent hate crimes against Asian Americans in the US. I spoke with professors Viet Thanh Nguyen and Janelle Wong about the legacies of anti-Asian violence in this country and how certain politic narratives can fan the flames.

Viet Thanh Nguyen:

The origins of the Asian American movement were not just anti-racist but also anti-imperialist, anti-war, anti-Capitalist and oftentimes pro-Marxist. And if you take those politics to their logical conclusion today, you see that some versions of Asian American politics are not just about assimilation and becoming a part of the United States but about contesting, the very origins of the United States in violence and colonization and genocide.

Viet Thanh Nguyen:

And this speaks directly to, I think, the very heart of the problem in American politics today, which this is how we can go from a President Obama to a President Trump. I think Obama for me, represents this idea of assimilation and blending and multiculturalism. Trump seems to represent the assertion of a more white nationalist strand of identity, which is also fundamental to the United States. And Asian Americans are caught right in the middle of that tension.

Viet Thanh Nguyen:

And that’s also where we’re caught right now with a question of anti-Asian violence. One set of responses to anti-Asian violence is to assert our belonging to this country that we’re Americans, you’re not going to kick us out. We’re going to defend ourselves as Americans. And another response is to say anti-Asian violence is absolutely fundamental to the United States because the United States has been violent towards every single racialized population in its history.

Preet Bharara:

Janelle, what do you think about that?

Janelle Wong:

I couldn’t agree more and I think the Asian American community is really at a crossroads right now. We see greater attention, greater reporting of anti-Asian bias and I think that is important because it is such a long history in the US. At the same time I think that Asian Americans can either think only about themselves and the kinds of experience that’s highlighted in the news right now, or the deeper connections with this history of white supremacy in the United States and the ongoing disparities, racial disparities we see in current days.

Preet Bharara:

The 2020 murder of George Floyd, sparked a racial justice reckoning in the United States. This spring, his killer, Derek Chauvin finally went trial. Here are my reactions to the verdict I shared on the Insider podcast recorded just minutes after it was announced.

Preet Bharara:

It’s about 5:40 PM on Tuesday, April 20th, about 30 minutes ago, there was a verdict in the Chauvin case. Unanimous jury found beyond a reasonable doubt that former police officer Derek Chauvin was guilty on each of the three counts with which he was charged. Murder in the second degree, murder in the third degree and manslaughter in the second degree. And I thought I would just react quickly to the verdict.

Preet Bharara:

First reacting, not as a lawyer or a prosecutor but as an American and as a human being, I feel enormous relief and gratitude that the verdict was reached and it was guilty on all counts. I think we have been in something of a state of suspended animation in this country about what would happen in this case, given the videotape evidence, given the common sense arguments that would be made in favor of conviction, that if this man couldn’t be convicted, then what kind of justice could there be for anyone in this country, black, white, or otherwise, but especially if you’re brown or black.

Preet Bharara:

There’s no joy in this moment, I know there’s some people who are celebrating but it’s very hard to be joyful when we had to go through this process to get this result at the hands of the law. Speaking as a lawyer and a prosecutor, you never know what’s going to happen in a trial but I’m not overly surprised as I’ve been saying for the past couple of weeks, the case went in very strong. The evidence was strong. The performances by the prosecutors were strong.

Preet Bharara:

I think the defense lawyer made some missteps, some things that back fired, but at the end of the day, no amount of lawyering necessarily can do the trick. The facts are the facts and Derek Chauvin shoved his knee to the back of the neck of George Floyd for nine and a half minutes until he was dead. Most importantly, separate apart from this case is the question of what police department around the country will do. What message will they get? What lessons will they have learned?

Preet Bharara:

Lots of people are responsible for the result here. The prosecutors in the case, the judge in the case who I think presided in affair and neutral manner but also the other witnesses. And in particular, the bystanders who to a person, felt emotional and traumatized by having witnessed the murder of George Floyd. And now we can say murder of George Floyd. Now that’s not alleged anymore.

Preet Bharara:

I’ve been seeing a lot of people use the phrase that’s commonly used in these circumstances, finally, there’s been justice for George Floyd and I’m not sure that’s the right phrase to use, as a member of his family has said. George Floyd will never come back. George Floyd’s daughter will never have her father to hug and to be around her. So, justice for George Floyd misses the mark. Justice for George Floyd, would’ve been a system and a set of police officers treating him fairly and honorably and lawfully, and that didn’t happen and that’s why he’s gone.

Preet Bharara:

What we do have today is a form of justice, perhaps not for George Floyd but within our system, justice in the form of accountability, which we don’t see very frequently in circumstances like this. And for what happens next, what comes next for policing and for the country, as I heard Van Jones say a few minutes ago, this is the beginning of something. It’s not the end of something. And that’s important.

Jerry Blackwell:

You were told, for example, that Mr. Floyd died because his heart was too big. You heard that testimony. And now having seen all the evidence, having heard all the evidence, you know the truth and the truth of the matter is, that the reason George Floyd is dead it’s because Mr. Chauvin’s heart was too small.

Preet Bharara:

Once the trial wrapped, I had the privilege of speaking with the prosecutors in the Chauvin trial, Jerry Blackwell and Steve Schleicher.

Jerry Blackwell:

Having spent almost six decades as an African American man, saying this, I was just breathtakingly stunned in the outrageousness of it. What exactly could equal protection mean? Or what is the rule of law if there isn’t some accountability for that? And at the same time, there was this uncertainty in your stomach that nothing may come of this at all, because we’ve been at this intersection before of, to me outrageous misconduct imposed upon black people, brown people, colored people because of the immutable characteristic and quite often the rule of law itself has protected that.

Jerry Blackwell:

So my initial gut reaction was, the sense of outrage, the sense that’s an earthquake and what’s coming next is a giant tsunami in public reaction. And I do a lot of work for Fortune 500, 100 companies and I’m one of the few people, some of them know that they would categorize us “woke” for the white in-house council. So I expected, I might hear from a number of them just with their reactions, what my thoughts might be and sure enough I did hear from a number of them, two of them in tears when they call.

Jerry Blackwell:

And one of the statements I was told was, “It was so shocking to me as a white person because I don’t believe that ever would’ve happened to me as a white person and there it is in my face.” And they were simply shocked and stunned by it. So it was just the sense of the shock and the outrage of the whole thing. And the apparent callousness of the police officers involved was just stunning.

Steve Schleicher:

We’re trying the case to a jury and we knew that at the end of the trial, the world isn’t going to be in the deliberation room with them. All that’s going to be there is, there are collective memories of the evidence, the exhibits that we marked and entered into evidence and those jury instructions, which are going to lay out all of the elements that they have to find. And this in my experience, trying cases, especially criminal cases, does jurors take that very seriously. They do not take those responsibilities lightly and they pour over that stuff.

Steve Schleicher:

And so, we could talk about those issues of racial justice and inequity, then there’s certainly a place for that but that place is not in a criminal trial. In a criminal trial, what we need to talk about is the evidence and we need to prove that case. And maybe that case becomes a springboard for some of those important issues to be discussed.

Jerry Blackwell:

And here and even bigger context, I was very conscious and aware that politically, we have a deeply polarized country along racial lines. And if we allowed the trial to become a referendum on any of these various political camps views blue lives matters, black lives matters and with the standard like reasonable doubt, I mean, we’re toast. Because if the jurors, any of them get fixed in their mind that this case is a referendum on some deeply held political point of view that they have, then they won’t get off of that and you only need one to lose.

Jerry Blackwell:

And so we had to really steer the case away from the shores of these deeply held political views jurors might have so that it can be tried just on the basis of the facts as relate to Mr. Chauvin, and not fall into these ditches of political perspectives, which I thought was fraught with peril for the prosecution if we allowed that to happen.

Preet Bharara:

Although, endlessly fascinating because what you have on the videotape is a white man’s knee in the back of the neck of a black man, killing him slowly over nine minutes and 29 seconds. And you came onto the case in part because of your feelings in part about racial justice, this case was about that large degree but to get some form of justice and a first step towards ultimate racial justice, you had to stay away from that. Do you find that ironic at all?

Jerry Blackwell:

Well, in way Preet but on the other hand, it wasn’t just Mr. Chauvin in the minds of the public that was on trial, it was a criminal justice system on trial. And the public was on the edge of the chair, we can see what Mr Chauvin did but is where will the accountability come from in the criminal justice system? And that is where, I think the public was looking, having sat through here in Minnesota, Philando Castile or Jamar Clark fresh into mind, still Rodney King, we’re seeing is not even necessarily believing depending on who’s on the jury.

Jerry Blackwell:

So to me, the jury was out on whether this criminal justice system would actually do justice in this instance. And that’s really where I think the public was focused.

Preet Bharara:

Of course, crisis aren’t only domestic but also foreign. An early challenge President Biden faced was the United States military withdrawal from Afghanistan. 13 US service members were killed during the mission. On a special episode of CAFE Insider, I spoke with NBC news’, chief foreign correspondent, Richard Engel, who was covering the situation on the ground in Kabul, Afghanistan. There’s lots of bad things going on, where are you and what is going on?

Richard Engel:

So I am in a very strange place… I’m at Kabul at the airport, I’m on the side of the airport. And we’re watching the evacuation process take place. And over head there are private jets, there are evacuation planes kicking off and landing and there are lots of troops and lots of contractors who are still here. I thought that the evacuation was going much more quickly and I got onto this base today and I was surprised at how many people are still here and then all around the perimeter of the base, that’s what makes it so strange and so surreal.

Richard Engel:

So we are on what is effectively the last American base, last international base that is being evacuated, still more people here than I expected. And then all around are refugees, people crowding to get in, people pushing around the entrances. So getting onto here was not easy at all because there are many people who want to get on these flights, Afghan civilians, who are trying to get here. We saw those images yesterday and the day before of people bursting onto the civilian side of the airport, which is just a few hundred yards away. And then coming onto the military side. And then the rest of the city of Kabul is controlled by the Taliban.

Preet Bharara:

So you’ve referenced anger and frustration on the part of Afghans. I’ve known you for a long time, the public has known you for a long time. Fair to say that you’re angry too?

Richard Engel:

It’s a different kind of anger. The Afghans are angry because they were building lives, they were building their future, they had expectations. They felt betrayed that they were… they had a deal with the Americans that the Americans were here for 20 years. They were the ones who worked directly with them, had a deal that was… And they’re angered because they feel personally betrayed. I’m shocked at how disorganized it has been. I’m angry for them. I think that’s fair to say.

Preet Bharara:

There’s a difference between the decision to exit of Afghanistan, which is why, by the way, quite broadly popular in the US. A difference between the decision to exit and the way it was executed. Given the context and some people have been critical of critics of Biden who say, well, his hands were tied a little bit on the issue of exiting because there are mistakes made by Trump and Obama and others going back to Bush.

Richard Engel:

Good. I’m glad you asked me that question because this allows me to go back full circle. You asked me, is it the anger or does the emotion affect my objectivity? It’s not to me to say, oh, we shouldn’t have pulled out, I’m not dictating policy here. Nobody asked me I’m a journalist. It’s not up to me. I’m not elected official. Nobody elected Richard Engel president of the United States. But I can tell you having watched it that the way it was carried out was sloppy.

Richard Engel:

And the way it is being carried out is leaving many people behind and that’s subjective, I’m watching it now. Whether you want to pull out, don’t want to pull out, whether the war is going to work, whether it would’ve worked keeping 2,500 troops, which were more like 3,500 troops here, whether that was the right policy decision, you can endlessly debate that. But you can’t really debate that this has gone well, that this pullout has gone smoothly and that this is a glorious moment of transition. That’s not debatable.

Preet Bharara:

On the question of exit, you tweeted yesterday “President Biden says the failure in Afghanistan proves he was correct.” Is that prayers?

Richard Engel:

Yes, there was a mosque…but I can still hear-

Preet Bharara:

Many were critical of the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. And the debates seemed endless. Frequent Stay Tuned guest and political scientists, Ian Bremmer joined the show to have a good faith discussion about what happened.

Preet Bharara:

Another argument people make and it’s bound up in discussion we’ve already been having, but I wonder what your response is. And I think some people are saying this because they want to see Biden succeed, and they don’t like the bad faith argument. And they don’t like the double standard as between Biden and Trump that they think is the case in some quarters. They say, look, some amount of this chaos, would’ve been inevitable and it’s just the nature of the beast and our mutual friend Fareed Zakaria has said.

Fareed Zakaria:

But none of that changed the fact that despite all its efforts, it had not been able to achieve victory. It could not defeat the Taliban. Now, could it have withdrawn better, more slowly in a different season after better negotiations? Certainly. But the naked truth is, there is no elegant way to lose a war.

Preet Bharara:

Fair point in some regards?

Ian Bremmer:

Completely fair point. I think that Biden’s expectation after the policy review was that the Taliban was going to eventually take over given Trump’s decision. So in other words, perhaps the most important effect of his decision, which is that tens of millions of Afghan civilians will live under a system of extraordinary repression and the opportunities that the Americans and the coalition allies have spent literally billions and billions of dollars to try to provide for young Afghans to give them a shot at a future, that’s gone. And that was the holy expected and predicted outcome of the decision of the United States to withdraw irrespective.

Preet Bharara:

There’s another problem, it’s easier for you and me to say, trust the Taliban or not trust the Taliban that assumed a certain amount of command and control within the Taliban. There have been stories and Richard Engel talked about this on the podcast a couple of weeks ago. One could argue that the leadership of the Taliban appreciates the opportunities they have at this moment to be more reasonable, to coordinate, to cooperate while they’re sort of in the limelight if that’s an appropriate word to use, not clear to me and not clear to others that that message of behaving, at least for the time being has made its way all the way down through the ranks of the Taliban. Fair concern?

Ian Bremmer:

I think that’s fair to say. Again, I mean, I think we have no idea. Is there a Taliban 2.0 that actually wants to engage constructively with the international community? Will their short term political interests hauled more sway over their ideological orientation, how much hierarchy exists functionally within the present Taliban group and how stable is that likely to be? Will they continue to hold power or will Afghanistan devolve into civil war? And how much is an Isis-K insurgency going to undermine the ability of the Taliban to get anything done whatsoever?

Ian Bremmer:

How compromised is the Taliban government by ISIS operatives that are getting that information or are there bribes going on that there’s a ransom on the head of individual Americans. If you can get one, I mean, it would be a pretty big deal with those couple hundred Americans still there. Can we have some hostages? I mean, this would be a massive crisis for the United States for the Biden administration, if they could pull it off. So, I don’t pretend that Biden is out of the woods on this even now that all of the American service men and women have left the country.

Preet Bharara:

Stay tuned, there’s more coming up after this.

Anne Milgram:

As I sit here today, I cannot help but think about my grandfather and my great-grandfather, both police officers who rose to become the chief of police in South Amboy, New Jersey. I know that they would be incredibly proud to see their granddaughter nominated to lead the dedicated passionate and tenacious professionals at the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Preet Bharara:

In April, President Biden nominated my dear friend and CAFE Insider co-host, Anne Milgram to lead the Drug Enforcement and Administration, the Senate unanimously confirmed Anne to her position in June and we’re so proud of the amazing work she’s doing at the DEA.

Anne Milgram:

Extraordinary.

Preet Bharara:

There was no one better to replace Anne as my co-host on Insider than my friend and the former US attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, Joyce Vance. Joyce and I have discussed many high profile trials on the Insider podcast this year. One, was the trial of then 17-year old Kyle Rittenhouse, who in August 2020 killed two men and injured another during the night of protests over the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin. This November, a jury accepted Rittenhouse’s claims of self-defense and acquitted him of all charges.

Preet Bharara:

The fact that Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted, should not make him in my mind and there are people who disagree with this, but should not make him in my mind, any kind of hero and wonderful, amazing paragon of virtue or conduct. And the fact that there are Republican members of Congress who are lionizing him and who have offered him jobs as an intern in their offices, I think is deplorable.

Joyce Vance:

Yeah. Its despicable behavior for one thing being acquitted doesn’t mean that you’re innocent, it just means that you’re not guilty in the technical sense that the government failed to provide proof beyond a reasonable doubt that you committed the crimes you’re charged with. That’s a long way from saying that Kyle Rittenhouse doesn’t for instance, continue to be dangerous. And something that I’m watching carefully is how he behaves following this acquittal. He has, I think, an opportunity here to do good but it seems clear that he’s not interested in taking that opportunity.

Preet Bharara:

So let’s talk about why he was acquitted, why it was not totally unreasonable for the jury to acquit, even though you at least thought that given a particular instruction that they were given, there was a possibility of conviction. And the main reason from a 30,000 foot level, is that what people don’t always appreciate is, the law dictates certain things that are different from what common sense tells you.

Preet Bharara:

So a lot of what this case came down to, was a focused concentration on that narrow moment, with respect to his shooting three people. And whether in that moment, notwithstanding to some degree, notwithstanding, the decision to come to another state, the decision to be carrying an AR-15, the decision to be in the midst of a lot of violence where lots of bad things can happen. You put yourself in that situation. Much of that, if not all of that was off the table of consideration but for the provocation point you can elaborate on in a moment.

Preet Bharara:

And if the law is dictating that you’re focusing on the precise, narrow moment that Kyle Rittenhouse has pulled the trigger, those few times. The defense got to emphasize that with respect to one person, that one person had a gun, with respect to another, he tried to take Rittenhouse’s gun away, his rifle away from him. On the third occasion, one person who he ended up shooting was smashing his neck with a skateboard and people that have differences of opinion of how dangerous it was and whether or not shooting those people was proportional or not.

Preet Bharara:

But those were the facts that the jury was compelled to focus on rather than the whole larger context of why Kyle Rittenhouse was there. Is that fair?

Joyce Vance:

I think that’s fair and it’s a really interesting question because I suspect you agree with this, the outcome of this case would’ve likely been different if the jury had been exposed to what I’ll just call the whole ball of wax. The decision that Rittenhouse makes to come over in that entire context. If that had been part of the calculus for determining provocation, this could have been a different case. But as you say, the law imposes constraints, the judge instructs the jury on the law and the jury’s obligation is to follow the law as the judge gives it to them.

Preet Bharara:

Joyce and I also discussed the Ahmaud Arbery murder trial. In 2020, three men killed Arbery a 25-year old black man while he was jogging. In November, a Georgia jury convicted the three men of murder. The defendants argued that they were making a citizen’s arrest but the jury didn’t agree. Critical evidence in the case was video footage of the incident.

Preet Bharara:

One thing that’s important I think, to mention here and step back because a lot of people have said justice was done. It’s always a peculiar thing to say the phrase and I think I said it at one point, some justice was obtained in connection with his verdict. Obviously, real justice would’ve been that Ahmaud Arbery was not killed in the first place for simply being black and running down the road.

Preet Bharara:

But the other thing that people may have forgotten and we should remind them, this criminal case was almost never brought in the first place. There was one DA and then another DA who went out of their way, did not bring the case. And in fact, one of the district attorneys has been indicted in connection with showing bias and favoritism in connection with this case. So, while we applaud, at least I applaud the result in the case and diligent prosecution that was well done and well executed, it almost never became to pass.

Joyce Vance:

It only came to pass because there was this video that gets leaked to the press I think not for the purpose that it ended up being used for. And so it’s a tortured path to justice. And one of my concerns is that this case will leave the news cycle and it will seep out of our collective consciousness and people will have this feeling that justice has been achieved. But I think the lesson of this case is that we have to always be vigilant if we want to make sure that we move towards having more justice in our system and in our world.

Preet Bharara:

The search for justice continued in another area of public life. The January 6th select committee was formed to investigate and indict the perpetrators and instigators of the insurrection. I spoke with representative Adam Schiff, a member of the committee before a live audience at Cooper Union in New York City.

Adam Schiff:

We are at a very dangerous place. It was as you point out that big lie that led people to attack the Capitol that day but even more broadly, if you persuade people as the former president and his enablers in Congress have, if you persuaded millions of people that they cannot rely on elections anymore to decide who should govern, then what is left but violence?

Adam Schiff:

And what I find so awful about the period since January 6th is that, when we saw where that lie brought us, when we saw the result of Trump and Trumpism was a bloody attack on the Capitol, even after that, the decision to double down on that lie is almost incomprehensible. And when you couple it with efforts now around the country to strip independent elections officials of the duties and give it over to partisan boards and officials, the combination of these two things.

Adam Schiff:

The lie and this frontal assault on the technocratic elections officials out there, it seems to me, the lesson that Donald Trump and Republicans learned from the failed insurrection is that next time they will succeed, if not WITH a violent attack, they will succeed by making sure that if Brad Rothenberger, wouldn’t find 11,780 votes that don’t exist, they will have someone in that position who will.

Preet Bharara:

You just use the word incomprehensible, which is I think correct and a fine word. But I want to ask you to be a psychologist or a psychiatrist at the moment, not a politician and give in the light most favorable to the Republicans you’re talking about. An explanation as to why it might be that they’re not willing to censor someone who posts violent imagery but do want to censor someone in strip of committee assignments like you said, a second ago, people who voted for infrastructure, which reasonable people can differ about. And there was a bipartisan vote about.

Preet Bharara:

I feel sometimes it’s too easy when we say it’s incomprehensible and we shake our heads and explanation is not justification or excuse but do you have a theory?

Adam Schiff:

I do have a theory and it’s the same dichotomy, I guess, between understanding at a very practical level and not understanding at all at the broadest level. And at a very practical, they’re terrified of a Trumpist primary challenge. At a very practical level, this is where the base of their party is. They have created this monster and the base of their party, which they now can’t control.

Adam Schiff:

They toyed, I think, after the insurrection with casting Donald Trump aside, you could see Mitch McConnell grapple with what he knows has been a ruinous leader for their party. Someone who has destroyed so much of the institution that he served in for so long. But ultimately, they decided McConnell among them, that if they tried to cast Trump aside that they themselves would be cast aside. And I understand that at one level but at another level, why are they there?

Adam Schiff:

Why did they run for Congress to begin with? What was the whole point? I watched Steve Scalise, the number three Republican on Fox about a month ago, he was on Chris Wallace’s program. And he was asked three times by Chris Wallace, essentially, “Can you just say the election wasn’t stolen?” Now you can’t tell me that Steve Scalise doesn’t know the election wasn’t stolen but he couldn’t bring himself to tell the truth.

Adam Schiff:

And I think to myself as I watch that, I can’t imagine that when Steve Scalia decided years ago that he was going to run for Congress, he said to himself, I want to run for Congress so that one day I can be part of a big lie that undermines the fabric of our democracy but there he is.

Preet Bharara:

The January 6th committee’s probe, like other investigations involving Trump and his allies has been stumped by witnesses who refuse to cooperate. Former white house chief strategist, Steve Bannon, was one of the worst offenders in November. The justice department indicted Bannon on two counts of contempt of Congress. Joyce and I discussed the case on a special episode of CAFE Insider.

Preet Bharara:

Do you think this has an effect on Bannon in terms of it changing his mind? Or does he want to be a martyr like everyone says?

Joyce Vance:

So I’m in that later camp and I wrote a piece for cafe.com probably right when this all began to happen suggesting that one of the real risks here is that Bannon would embrace that cloak of martyrdom and use it to riot up Trump’s space. I think that it’s very likely that that will happen and that it will be important that there’s good messaging around that maybe not directly from DOJ. But important for people to understand for instance, on the Sunday shows this weekend, some of the Republican talking heads weighed in and said, “Well, Bannon is being prosecuted for his beliefs and his speech and that’s un-American.” And of course that’s not what’s happening here.

Preet Bharara:

That’s also non speech.

Joyce Vance:

I mean, he’s being prosecuted, DOJ says it best in the indictment, they say, he did not comply with the subpoena in any way. He failed to comply with the dictates of law that any other citizen including you and me would have to and he was appropriately indicted for it.

Preet Bharara:

You make a very important point on this and I think it’s worth elaborating on it. He didn’t comply in any way. There’s multiple things he didn’t do, it’s not just that he blew off the subpoenas, not just that he’s not giving testimony or not giving documents, he’s not answering basic questions like, has he conducted a search for documents. Or normally, if you think there’s some documents over which a privilege applies, then you have to set forth what’s called a privilege log and basically a chart of the documents you have without revealing the content of the documents but what the nature of the document is and what privilege you’re asserting, and generally why. And he’s not done any of those things.

Preet Bharara:

With conservative justices holding a six, three majority on the Supreme court, the right to abortion is in serious jeopardy. And this fall, the court heard challenges to two new restrictive laws. The first case dealt with Texas’s controversial law that bans most abortions after six weeks of gestation. What’s unique about this law is that it places enforcement of the law in the hands of private citizens, not the state. Joyce and I discussed the vigilante enforcement mechanism on Insider.

Preet Bharara:

So one point of confusion, I guess a little bit when the statute in Texas SB8 says that it’s against the law for there to be an abortion pretty much after the sixth week. People in their mind say, well, if something is against the law, IT must be criminal and it can be enforced with the penalty of jail. As we discuss the contours of this law, it’ll become clear that this has been a very, very clever and orchestrated and in my view, unprincipled gambit to get around existing precedent and to use legal procedures to upset the status quo, this statute is very, very clear for quite cynical, strategic reasons that no criminal prosecution can follow from breaking this law.

Preet Bharara:

In fact, the law states on its terms in Texas, the requirements of the sub chapter shall be enforced exclusively through private civil actions. And it says, no enforcement of this sub chapter may be taken or threatened by the state, a political subdivision, a district or county attorney, or an executive or administrative officer employee.

Preet Bharara:

So it makes it clear that under no circumstances, a violation of this statute, which reports to protect life, if you take the point of view of the pro-life people who have advocated for it because once there’s a heartbeat, it’s a human life and it must be protected but the best you can do is have private citizens sue and the penalty is about $10,000 we get to the penalty in a moment.

Preet Bharara:

This strike you as odd just on its face as a principle matter, that folks who are advocating a pro=life position and think that this is 10 amounts to murder, don’t want a prosecution, don’t want the district attorney involved, have a fairly low amount as far as penalty is concerned?

Joyce Vance:

I think on principle is a good way of characterizing that.

Preet Bharara:

That was a very short answer.

Joyce Vance:

It was a short answer but I mean, it’s a short answer for this reason, none of us are stupid, we can all look at this statute and see it for what it is. It is a deliberate effort to permit this law to go into effect exactly in the way that the Supreme court did. I think the only way to characterize it is evil genius. It is deeply unprincipled.

Joyce Vance:

It is in no way consonant with the notion of people who believe that abortion is murder but they’re willing to just let the public handle it as opposed to pushing for criminal sanctions. And it’s very unsettling, I mean, I’m just going to say that as a woman this law becomes very unsettling because it tells you that people will stoop to no ends to violate your rights if they believe they can find a disingenuous unprincipled way to do it that they will do it.

Preet Bharara:

Another high profile abortion case that came before the Supreme court, was a challenge to the Mississippi law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks of gestation. In defending the statute, Mississippi has asked the court to overturn Roe V. Wade, Joyce and I discussed the briefs on Insider. Here’s what Mississippi argues in its brief in connection with the Dobbs case.

Joyce Vance:

I’m feeling a little bit nauseous but go ahead.

Preet Bharara:

They say “under the constitution, may a State prohibit elective abortions before viability.” Yes. Why? They’re asking their own rhetorical questions in their brief. Why? Because nothing in constitutional text structure history or tradition supports a right to abortion of prohibition on elective abortions is therefore constitutional if it satisfies the rational basis review that applies to all laws, which is just asserting the fact-

Joyce Vance:

Can I just stop you there and say, doesn’t that mean that there’s no longer an individual right to gun ownership because the second amendment talks about militias?

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. It means that there’s no right to anything, a person doesn’t matter at all because you can apply this argument to any amendment or any right in the constitution. But then they go on to say, which is a very rich sentence and I want to lay people to understand that this is bizarre to write in a brief and very brazen and only can be written if you have some belief or hope or view that you have a six, three majority on the court of people who don’t want to allow the right to abortion any longer.

Preet Bharara:

And so they write further in their brief, “this case is made hard only because” let me repeat that “this case is made hard only because Roe V. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania versus Casey, hold that the constitution protects the right to abortion.” Oh, you could say that by any case, this case is made hard only because there are other cases that say we’re wrong. Can you make that argument in any case under the sun?

Joyce Vance:

This brief is so fiercely improbable and like you say, this is a brief that you can only file when you know that there’s a six, three majority leaning strongly your direction.

Preet Bharara:

It’s a really brazen and shameless brief that nobody would pay serious attention to but for the makeup of the court.

Joyce Vance:

And there’s something else going on in this brief that I think is particularly dangerous and that also reminds me of an earlier case where rights were taken away. Mississippi makes this argument about how great women’s lives are. We’re no longer in an era where an unwanted pregnancy women to a distressful future. They talk about adoption being accessible and women obtaining professional success in rich family life because of contraception.

Joyce Vance:

And I am reminded so strongly of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dissent in Shelby county, the case that gutted the Voting Rights Act, where she writes something to the effect that what the majority is doing by getting the Voting Rights Act is throwing away an umbrella in the middle of a rainstorm because they’re not wet yet.

Joyce Vance:

And that’s exactly what Mississippi is saying. Oh, look at all of this success that women have been able to achieve because they’ve had abortion rights. Well, let’s just toss the abortion rights and assume that women will continue to be first class citizens, which is… I’m really annoyed by this brief the more I read it.

Preet Bharara:

There’s been a lot of hardship this year, a lot of stress and mourning and anxiety about the future, the future of our families, our country, and our world. It can feel overwhelming. I know it often does for me. I love my job because I get to talk to some of the most interesting, smart, thoughtful and inspiring people. And even when things feel bad, they encourage us not to give up. Here’s Professor Anita Hill, talking about the fight for gender equality.

Anita Hill:

People have invested their lives to this. Organizations have sprung up representing people who would have been completely marginalized, whose stories never would’ve been heard, whose complaints never would have found their way to court but for these organizations. So that makes me hopeful. I know that change is difficult but I also know that it change doesn’t take a majority of people to happen, it just takes committed people to make it happen.

Anita Hill:

And I think we have so many more of those people who are committed to change. Their awareness is increased and their sense of earth for getting change and getting the leadership that will address this problem is clear. We’ve seen it in workplaces, like people walking out of their workplaces in protests, never would’ve happened 30 years ago. And then one last thing I will say, and this has to do with race.

Anita Hill:

The whole influence of black feminism has grown over the past 30 years. So within communities of color and that same is true of other ethnic and racial communities where feminism is being heard and understood as ways to resolve some of these issues or routes to resolve some of these issues. So I’m hopeful. I don’t think we’ve ever had more tools or more people committed to using those tools than we have today.

Preet Bharara:

And here’s Bina Venkataraman editorial, page editor of The Boston Globe and climate specialist, speaking about why we can’t afford to give up hope about a sustainable future.

Bina Venkataraman:

The fact that we aren’t making progress fast enough is not a reason to give up entirely. And so, we have to stop talking about it that way with young people because I do think it can be disempowering to feel like, well, there’s nothing we can do. And all the adults are letting us down. And then exactly to what you said, it’s trying to help them see themselves as part of a story. So can you imagine yourself not as the victim of endless climate disasters that are going to be by the way, a lot like living under COVID-19, your life is disrupted, your schooling is disrupted.

Bina Venkataraman:

Can we instead help young people see themselves as the heroes in this story banding together to save their communities, to do things that really matter, becoming the next writers, becoming the next prosecutors, becoming the next politicians that are credited with solving parts of this problem. Technologists who are going to be developing new ways of absorbing carbon or new ways of creating electricity, put their minds on how they can be part of creating a new society.

Preet Bharara:

So here we are, we’re saying goodbye to 2021 and looking forward to what’s hopefully a better 2022. We’re entering the second year of the Biden-⁠Harris Administration, still grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic and starting an important midterm election year. For those of you who have lost loved ones this year, we send support and love your way. For those of you who have written to us with your questions, your stories, your activism and your ideas, we thank you for your engagement and for your passion.

Preet Bharara:

The CAFE team will continue with our mission of elevating important conversations and making sense of news and issues that will shape the future of this country and our planet. In the meantime, happy holidays, happy new year, keep the faith and as always Stay Tuned. If you like what we do rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Every positive review helps new listeners find the show.

Preet Bharara:

Send me your questions about news, politics and justice, tweet them to me @PreetBharara with the #askpreet. Or you can call and leave me a message 669-247-7338. That’s 669-24-Preet. Or you can send an email to letters@cafe.com.

Preet Bharara:

Stay Tuned is presented by CAFE and the Vox Media Podcast Network. The executive producer is Tamara Sepper. The technical director, who’s David Tatasciore. The senior producers are Adam Waller and Matthew Billy. And the CAFE team is David Kurlander, Sam Ozer-Staton, Noa Azulai, Nat Weiner, Jake Kaplan, Chris Boylan, Sean Walsh, and Namita Shah. Our music is by Andrew Dost. I’m your host, Preet Bharara. Stay Tuned.