Can Trump Serve a Third Term & Wrongful Death Trial of Pitcher Tyler Skaggs

0:00The thing about AI for business, it may not automatically fit the way your business works. At IBM, we've seen this firsthand, but by embedding AI across HR, IT, and procurement processes, we've reduced costs by millions, slash repetitive tasks, and freed thousands of hours for strategic work. Now we're helping companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business, IBM. When you own your own business, you own every decision. Now own the card that rewards you for it. Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business is a pay-in-full card that elevates your travel experience and offers premium benefits that will take your business to the next level.

0:45Sapphire Reserve for Business offers 8x points on all purchases through Chase Travel, 3x points on social media and search engine advertising, airport lounge access, and more. Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business. It's the card that gives back all you put in. Learn more at chase.com forward slash reserve business. Chase for business. Make more of what's yours. Accounts subject to credit approval. Restrictions and limitations apply. Cards are issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A., member FDIC. As industries evolve faster than ever, companies need an environment that accelerates strategic growth, and Michigan delivers on that promise.

1:21From emerging startups to global enterprises, Michigan offers what executives value most, a resilient, innovative ecosystem. Diverse communities that attract top talent and a quality of life that supports work-life balance. With our unified Team Michigan approach, businesses scale faster and compete at the highest level. Michigan, pure opportunity. Seize your opportunity at michiganbusiness.org. This is Bloomberg Law with June Grosso from Bloomberg Radio. President Donald Trump has once again suggested he'd like to extend his stay at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for a third term. I would love to do it.

2:04I have my best numbers ever. It's very terrible. I have my best numbers. Trump has frequently flirted with the idea of a third term while saying he doesn't want to talk about it. For example, in March, just a little over a month into his second term. You want to talk about it? I'm just telling you, I have had more people say, please run again. They said we have a long way to go before we even think about that. They do say there's a way you can do it, but I don't know about that, but I have not looked into it. But this time, there are also those Trump 2028 red baseball caps that sat on his desk during a meeting with congressional leaders this month.

2:42There's the think tank called Third Term Project. And there's the Justice Department lawyer who, during oral arguments at the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, referred to a new administration being in place, quote, three years in the future or seven years in the future. Joining me is constitutional law expert David Super, a professor at Georgetown Law. So, David, I reread the 22nd Amendment. it plainly states that no one can be elected president more than twice. I mean, how plain is it? How clear is it? It could not be clearer and it could not be plainer. It's short, it's sweet, it's to the point, and they are not allowing anyone to run for a third term.

3:28Now, there are different kinds of scenarios out there that Trump allies have put forward. One of the arguments is that the 22nd Amendment only explicitly bars a person from being elected to more than two presidential terms, but doesn't say anything about serving a third term. So the theory is that Trump could run as vice president and then have whatever lucky candidate for president it is resign, and then Trump takes the White House. That doesn't work either because of the 12th Amendment, which says that any candidate for vice president must be constitutionally qualified to serve as president, which Mr.

4:11Trump isn't. In fact, Trump himself sort of dismissed that. He said, I'd be allowed to do that, but I think people wouldn't like that. It's too cute. Also, didn't Vladimir Putin sort of do something like that years ago, where he put a deputy in to serve in his place for one term, and then he took over? It's rather disappointing that this country is taking its political lessons from Russia these days. But yes, what Putin did was stepped down from being president for one term and let a trusted ally of his serve as a figurehead president while Putin ran things as prime minister, then came back and became president again.

4:59A few problems with that. One is it's too cute. Two is we don't have prime ministerships here, so there's no obvious alternate role for Trump to go into to serve it. Three, Russia's limit is on consecutive terms. The 22nd Amendment is a limit on total terms. And four, why are we taking our political lessons from Russia? And just explain, to get rid of the 22nd Amendment, what would it take? Repealing the 22nd Amendment would take a two-thirds vote from both chambers of Congress and ratification by three-quarters of the states, which is 38 states. So you would need ratification from states like Connecticut and Massachusetts.

5:44Somehow, I don't think those states are going to be working very hard to get Mr. Trump a third term. Another theory is that Trump could become the Speaker of the House, which apparently posits that it's easy to be elected Speaker of the House. And then if both the president and vice president, who would have to be Trump allies, resign. Yeah, I keep sending in my resume to be Speaker of the House and nothing ever happens. I'm not sure what the problem is. In theory, that could be said to be valid. The Speaker of the House is elected, and if the purpose of electing Mr. Trump's Speaker is to make him president, I think there's an argument that that would also violate the 22nd Amendment of the Constitution.

6:32But it certainly puts a thumb in the eye of popular intent. We had had a four-term president, President Roosevelt. The country, across all political lines, concluded that that was too much power for any individual to have, that it resembled authoritarian countries too much, and we decided we didn't want to do that anymore. And this is, yet again, Mr. Trump and his allies disregarding the people's choice through their constitution. Have you heard any other theories of how he could become president for a third term?

7:34under the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment. He may just take the position that he can run, he can do it, and he doesn't think anyone will stop him. I guess this is hopeful in a sense because he's still talking about running and having an election rather than just staying in office? Well, there has been talk in the past that he might do something like what you're suggesting. He made some comments about that in 2020, which I hope were not taken very seriously, certainly didn't deserve to be taken very seriously. But some of his supporters have suggested that he could somehow declare some kind of a state of emergency, someone called it a sovereignty crisis, and suspend elections on that basis.

8:26There's no authority whatsoever in the Constitution for that. So if he were to do that, he would effectively be repudiating the Constitution. And you think that the Supreme Court might not even step in if he decides to run for a third term? No, I think they would. I think this court is hoping against hope that he won't force their hand by doing something completely delegitimizing. But I don't believe that there are five justices who have so totally lost faith in the country that they would put up with that. I mean, it could be he's trolling the Democrats. He's entertaining his base. He doesn't want to look like a lame duck or he just wants to continue to be the center of attention with this speculation.

9:14Yes, I think so. Presidents have often had a lot of trouble in their second terms in office. President Reagan was unstoppable in his first term and stumbled quite badly in his second. President Bush was very strong in his first and got the Great Recession and Hurricane Katrina in the second. President Obama lost all kinds of steam by his second term. And I think President Trump doesn't want to follow that example. And was it President Reagan who suggested getting rid of the 22nd Amendment? He did. I'm not sure how seriously a number of presidents get fond of the job and start thinking that the 22nd Amendment is a bad idea.

10:02But I don't think anyone took him very seriously or moved very far with it, in part because President Reagan was already of quite advanced age. Of course, President Trump is much older. And Trump would be the oldest president in history by the time he leaves office, assuming, of course, that he leaves at the end of his second term. Trump has already done so much to expand his presidential authority. It's not even a year into his second term. He's used the specter of emergencies to impose tariffs, to send the military into Democratic-led cities, and to shoot at supposed Venezuelan drug runners at sea.

10:45Have you ever seen a president in these circumstances of peacetime exercise so much power, often using the military? No, there's nothing remotely close to this. Richard Nixon was accused with some justification of trying to build an imperial presidency, but I can't think of anything that Mr. Nixon tried to do that Mr. Trump hasn't done much more of, and I can think of many things that Mr. Trump has done that Mr. Nixon never dreamed of doing. President Lincoln used a great many powers during the Civil War, some of which may have exceeded his constitutional authority, but not on the level of what we're seeing here.

11:27David, do you think that of the Supreme Court cases coming up that are going to test presidential authority, is the tariffs case the most significant or is there another one that's more significant? The tariffs case is extremely significant because the Supreme Court is filled with self-defined textualists, and it's almost impossible to find anything like the powers the president is claiming in the text of the statute he is citing. So the court is going to have to either abandon any pretense of textualism or limit the president's authority very dramatically there. The other case that I'm watching very closely is the case involving Dr.

12:19Cook and the Federal Reserve, because the Supreme Court basically told President Trump, you can fire anyone except a Federal Reserve governor. And he turned around and fired a Federal Reserve governor. If the Supreme Court is willing to let him do that, then they are effectively allowing themselves to be humiliated by the president. And we can't really expect much of them going forward. What do you think of Trump saying he's going to attend the Supreme Court oral arguments on the tariffs? I think oral arguments are fascinating, and he's in for a good time. I think with most courts, when a party seeks to pressure them, the court feels considerable pressure to demonstrate its independence.

13:05If I were a lawyer at the White House or Justice Department, I would beg him not to do that. We will find out on November 5th whether he attends the oral arguments or not. Thanks so much, David. That's Professor David Super of Georgetown Law. Coming up next on the Bloomberg Law Show, we'll look at the wrongful death trial of Los Angeles pitcher Tyler Skaggs. His wife and parents are suing the Los Angeles Angels for more than$100 million. I'm June Grosso, and you're listening to Bloomberg. support for the show comes from public.com if you're actively involved in your portfolio you probably catch yourself repeating the same actions buying the dip manually sweeping idle cash putting on a hedge on public you can now create ai agents that handle all these tasks on your behalf just describe what you want to do in plain english like if the vix hits 25 buy a put option on the s &p 500 or if my cash balance goes above twenty thousand dollars move the excess into my direct index.

14:08You approve the workflow and your agent handles the rest. Monitoring the market, watching for your conditions, and executing your strategies exactly as defined. An investing platform driven by your intent, not just your clicks. You can also get full read and write access to your account via the public API. Go to public.com slash market and fund your account in five minutes or less. That's public.com slash market. Paid for by public investing. Brokerage services by Open to the Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA and SIPC. Advisory services by Public Advisors, LLC, SEC Registered Advisor. Complete disclosures available at public.com slash disclosures.

14:48The thing about AI for business, it may not automatically fit the way your business works. At IBM, we've seen this firsthand. But by embedding AI across HR, IT, and procurement processes, we've reduced costs by millions, slash repetitive tasks, and freed thousands of hours for strategic work. Now we're helping companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business, IBM. When you own your own business, you own every decision. Now own the card that rewards you for it. The Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business card brings the best Sapphire Reserve benefits to business owners who expect hardworking rewards.

15:31Designed to meet the needs of business owners at scale, this pay-in-full card elevates your travel experience and offers premium benefits and value toward business services that will take your business to the next level. Fuel your business and maximize rewards with 8x points on all purchases through Chase Travel, 3x points on social media and search engine advertising, annual partnership credits, and more. Make every journey more rewarding with a$300 annual travel credit and access to a network of airport lounges. whether you're looking for pre-flight productivity or time to rest and recharge.

16:05Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business. It's the card that gives back all you put in. Learn more at chase.com forward slash reserve business. Chase for Business. Make more of what's yours. Accounts subject to credit approval. Restrictions and limitations apply. Cards are issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A., member FDIC. Tyler Skaggs taking the mound for the Angels. Tyler Skaggs, a pitcher for the Los Angeles Angels, was just 27 years old when he died of a drug overdose while on the road with the team. Three years later, Eric Kay, the former Angels communications director, was convicted of supplying Skaggs with a counterfeit oxycodone pill laced with fentanyl.

16:47He was sentenced to 22 years in prison. Now Skagg's wife and his parents are suing the Angels, claiming the team knew or should have known that Kay was supplying drugs to players. They're asking for$18 million for Skagg's lost earnings, as well as compensation for the family's suffering and punitive damages. Here are Skagg's wife and mother after Kay's conviction. I miss Tyler so much. He was my only son. And, you know, I'm not going to be a grandma. I'm not going to be able to hold a grandchild. And those things are painful. I think about that all the time. I wonder sometimes if I'll ever be as happy as I was.

17:33The Angels say that team officials didn't know Skaggs was taking drugs and that any drug activity involving him and Kay happened on their own time. My guest is health care attorney Harry Nelson, a partner at Leach Tishman, Nelson Hardiman. He's the author of the book, The United States of Opioids. Harry Skaggs died in 2019 and the civil trial has just started. Tell us about the family's claims and the Los Angeles Angels defense. So Tyler Skaggs died in 2019 in the hotel room on this baseball trip with Los Angeles Angels. And his family, both his parents and his widow, brought a civil trial arguing that the Angels had a duty to protect Tyler and that they breached that duty by allowing this communications director, a former communications director from the team to give the players access to drugs and essentially to fetch them for players.

18:34and that the team should be held liable for the death and for a significant amount of lost earnings, up to potentially at least$200 million, I think is the argument. And then the question is really what the duty of the team, the baseball team, its agents, its supervisors had to protect him from the harm of drug use and access to a supplier of drugs. Is the judge going to tell the jury what the duty is? Who's going to decide what the duty is? Yeah, so the question of legal duty is a question of law that a judge is going to have to instruct the jury on. That will be part of the jury instructions that the parties are going to make arguments on.

19:12And the real question is, we know that teams have a duty to protect players from foreseeable harm. And the question is really whether the harm in this case of drug use, of access to suppliers, was a foreseeable harm. And then, of course, the next question being whether the team breached that duty by allowing Kay, communications director, access to the players by failing to supervise him, by failing to intervene, as the family alleges they did. What's the defense? What are the angels saying? The team's defense is that this is not something that they knew or could have known about, that Tyler Skaggs was a high performing player who appeared to be, you know, appropriately acting as part of the team, that there was no evidence of at-risk behavior of sort of bad conduct off the field or anything unsafe, and that they behaved reasonably in the way that they acted and that they didn't have that responsibility to manage this problem or the person who's really the focus of the allegations here.

20:17Yeah, it seems like the plaintiff's whole case is based on this Eric Kay, who is, what, sitting in prison with a 22-year sentence? Yeah, it really does. That's really the core argument because, you know, it's very difficult to see how, you know, a sports team or any organization can manage behaviors that's out of sight where there aren't warning signs. And even, you know, even the plaintiff witnesses, Steve Trout, the legendary player who testified this past week, said that there was nothing that he saw in Tyler Skaggs that was any kind of bad behavior or warning sign. And everything seems to be hanging on air K.

20:55And the warning signs that there was something going on. And that, by the way, is very interesting. Steve Trout testified that there were a lot of unusual behaviors. And K was sort of almost like a jester in the most benign sense, but obviously was doing some really terrible things in terms of functioning as a drug dealer for Tyler and other players. During K's criminal trial, Skag's wife said that she didn't know about his drug use. So if she doesn't know about his drug use, then how is the team supposed to know? It's a fair question, right? Clearly, Pilar Staggs was able to keep his drug use from people very close to him and even his wife.

21:31So it is tricky to know. And at the same time, you know, we do in our society hold employers responsible for the behavior of their employees that's known. And so Eric Cade, there clearly were concerns there was something going on with him that he himself was behaving in sort of disturbing ways. So it's a tough call. I mean, I think it's fair to say that the Angels, you know, could have easily behaved reasonably and missed anything going on with Tyler Skaggs. But clearly, there was something unusual about Eric Kaye and his behavior. Now, where does it fit in that there was evidence that Skaggs used drugs when he was with the Diamondbacks, and that, again, during Kay's criminal trial, his mother testified that her son had an issue with oxycodone going back to 2013.

22:22He wasn't prescribed opioids after undergoing Tommy John surgery in August 2014 because of that. That's also, yeah, another dimension to Kay's sort of player safety in terms of how much the team should have known. The Angels are arguing, of course, that Skaggs had this prior drug problem in the past, that he was drinking heavily, that he was getting pills from other places. But the point is actually, I think, a strong one that the family is making here, which is that there was a warning sign. You know, the team should have known because this player, you know, players in general are at risk of so much physical and emotional mental strain in the work that they're doing, that they're inherently at risk for pain and for addiction, and that the team had a duty to be more proactive in how it monitored access to the drugs themselves.

23:11So I think it's a really interesting issue, and it could have a profound impact on how sports teams generally are monitoring risk around controlled substances, not only how they screen employees and non-players, but also how they think about, you know, the risks associated with the game and with, you know, impact on players. How much responsibility does Skaggs have for his own behavior, you know, knowing that he had these drug problems, etc.? Doesn't he have some responsibility as well? Look, I think that is kind of the tragedy of, you know, the opioid crisis writ large. Obviously, Skaggs was taking enormous personal risk and really engaging in self-destructive behavior.

23:59and, you know, that's the case essentially. In a way, that's every case of addiction. What we noticed is just here, particularly because this was such a supreme talent, so young, you know, lost as a result of it. But I do think this really is a deep question within the opiate crisis. The bottom line is, yes, the people who are engaging in drug use have responsibility for their conduct, but that's because we are, right? And the question is, what do we do and where do we lay down the duty of opposing safety externally and accountability externally because people like Tyler Skaggs are taking risks that they simply should not be.

24:37So the cause of death, and the Angel's attorney brought this out, the autopsy showed levels of oxycodone, fentanyl, and alcohol. And he said that Skaggs died due to his reckless decision to mix large amounts of alcohol with narcotics. So clearly, you know, this is a classic example you learn in the first year of law school about contributing factors, right? Alcohol was clearly a contributing factor, although there's no evidence that had Tyler Skagg simply been drinking that night that he would have died. So it was therefore not the sole cause. So there has to be some breakdown. He had some level of fentanyl, some level of oxycodone, some level of alcohol that combined to cause him to sadly to choke on his own vomit, effectively, under the three substances.

25:24So, you know, the role of alcohol as a contributing factor, something that definitely intoxicated him and made things worse, is something that the jury will and the judge will have to take into account what that role was. He clearly made a choice to drink significantly that night, which was part of the chain of causation here. But it's pretty clear that had he not had the fentanyl-laced pills that Eric case applied, we wouldn't be where we are and he wouldn't have died that night. So Eric Kay was convicted of supplying skags with a counterfeit oxycodone pill laced with fentanyl. Since it was counterfeit, does that mean that there were other harmful ingredients besides those in the pills?

26:07No, the pills here were fentanyl laced. They were counterfeited pills. So essentially, you know, like so many people have died in this crisis, it's clear that, you know, Eric K. unwittingly gave counterfeit pills that were significantly fentanyl. It appears that there was some mix of fentanyl and oxycodone, and it's not clear to me whether those were like different pills. It's clear that Eric K. was, like many people, buying things that he thought were oxycodone and in fact were, you know, street-based toxic fentanyl that he was delivering to Tyler guys. When deciding on the damages related to Skagg's lost earnings, he was in the starting lineup, but apparently struggling with injuries.

26:52So how will each side approach this? And how will the jury make a final determination? Because with the injuries and the drug use, it might be hard to tell how successful he would have been. The damages in these cases, in case like this, are a combination of pain and suffering and lost earnings. And as you're alluding, lost earnings is the big variable, you know, potentially, and then, of course, punitive damages. So, you know, my view of these cases is that even if the jury holds the angels responsible, which if I had to make a bet here, I think is the way this case will go, the jury will tell us a lot by the amount of damages that they hold the team responsible for.

27:34You know, the plaintiffs are hoping that the jury may impose as much as, you know, a billion or half a billion dollars of damages when you add impunitives here. The highly speculative part, of course, is how far the lost earnings would go. And it's anyone's guess how this jury is going to go. I always look at these damage awards and think that there's a largely emotional component in terms of how the jurors, you know, how much anger and how strong of a message they're trying to send to the team about this case. Coming up next, I'll continue this conversation with health care attorney Harry Nelson.

28:10This seems like a case that could have settled before trial. I'm June Grosso, and you're listening to Bloomberg. Support for the show comes from Public.com. If you're actively involved in your portfolio, you probably catch yourself repeating the same actions. Buying the dip, manually sweeping idle cash, putting on a hedge. On public, you can now create AI agents that handle all these tasks on your behalf. Just describe what you want to do in plain English. Like, if the VIX hits 25, buy a put option on the S &P 500. Or, if my cash balance goes above$20 ,000, move the excess into my direct index.

28:46You approve the workflow and your agent handles the rest. Monitoring the market, watching for your conditions, and executing your strategies exactly as defined. An investing platform driven by your intent, not just your clicks. You can also get full read and write access to your account via the public API. Go to public.com slash market and fund your account in five minutes or less. That's public.com slash market. Paid for by Public Investing. Brokered services by Open to the Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA and SIPC. Advisory services by Public Advisors, LLC, SEC Registered Advisor. Complete disclosures available at public.com slash disclosures.

29:27So there's a lot of noise about AI, but time's too tight for more promises. So let's talk about results. At IBM, we work with our employees to integrate technology right into the systems they need. Now, a global workforce of 300 ,000 can use AI to fill their HR questions, resolving 94 % of common questions. Not noise. Proof of how we can help companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business. IBM. When you own your own business, you own every decision. Now own the card that rewards you for it. The Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business card brings the best Sapphire Reserve benefits to business owners who expect hardworking rewards.