Unraveling the Legal Dramas: From Unprecedented Covid Shutdowns to Trump's Riveting Election Showdowns! | Jay Wexler (Author & Constitutional Law Prof.)

29:06So I think that's kind of up in the air, too. But but but you're right. Like or would the would the arguments being being made for the court in this context constitute due process? Like they would be arguing in the briefs about it in the lower courts. You know, was this an insurrection? What did he do? You know, what didn't he do? Does that count as due process? I don't think we'll ever find out. But yeah, go ahead. Yeah, the other thing is can't a state – isn't it one of the powers of the state to decide who is on their ballot? Like every state has different rules about who is on their ballot.

29:46Like you have to have a certain number of signatures. You have to have a certain number of amount of cash, maybe, you know, in your in your campaign funds. So if that's a state power, couldn't they decide? I mean, they certainly decide a lot of candidates don't go on the ballot. Why do they have to put a Republican or Democrat candidate on the ballot? Yeah. So I don't know that area a lot that well. What I do know, though, is that is that the court has said that that the states can't add qualifications to the particular officers, federal officers. That might be the distinction. They can do a lot for state officers, but maybe not as much for federal officers and their access to the to the ballots.

30:32the court has said that states can't add to the qualifications that are in the constitution that are like the president has to be 35 you know be a citizen of so long etc and and at one point a state maybe it was Alabama wanted to impose term limits for their members of Congress and so they they basically said you know if you've been a senator for two terms then you can't have access to the ballot. And the court said, no, you can't do that because that's basically a state adding a qualification for federal office to that, to those that are included in the Constitution, and that the states can't do.

31:10And that case came up a bunch during this oral argument. So I don't think the state's going to prevail on that strategy. And I'm just trying to think now from the state's point of view, the state doesn't allow everybody who's running for president on the ballot so for if you go to fbc.gov and fill out 10 minutes worth of paperwork to run for president then you're officially a federal candidate for president i know this because i've done it i'm officially a federal candidate for president but i cannot get on the colorado ballot no matter what because colorado has qualifications like you have to get a certain number of signatures and maybe your party had to be on the ballot the prior four years so there are state by state rules about which presidential candidate is allowed on the ballot and this was a case though i guess where trump if he gets the nomination would have satisfied all the qualifications but they're still saying he can't go on the ballot because of this insurrection idea and yeah i don't know i mean i you might have a lawsuit um if you can't get i'm sure you should you should see uh yeah i'm not sure i'd have to look into that like i i you know i don't know why the states would be able to uh not allow you on the ballot well because there's thousands of people officially running so you have to figure out like rfk jr can't get on the ballot in in many states i don't know if he's going to make 50 of the states or not But, you know, the two party systems never been specified in the Constitution.

32:48But that seems kind of encased in state law, state by state. So I'm just curious where the state's rights end there and, you know, the federal begins. but it seems like what they're saying though, that that might be the problem, I guess, is that Donald Trump would make all the qualifications and they're still gonna say he can't be on the ballot for this federal reason, the insurrection reason. So like, for instance, can a state not put someone on the ballot if they're 29 years old? So in the constitution, it says you have to be 35. You bring this up in your book, The Odd Clauses. is the state allowed to not put someone on the ballot and they've met all their rules, but they're 29 years old.

33:35And then it's up to the federal to just say this guy can't be president if he wins. I don't, you know, that did come up at the oral argument. The question was kind of like, let's say a state decided not to allow access to the ballot to somebody who was going to be 35 at the time of the election, maybe, But it wasn't going to be 35 at the time of the election, but would have been 35 at the time that they would take office of president. And the argument was that they could not keep somebody off the ballot in that situation. This sounds like, you know, I'm wary of getting into stuff that I know very little about because I'll say something.

34:16You know, the careful lawyer in me, I guess, is wary about this. Because I think that the states have – maybe there's some federal laws that regulate the stuff, and that's where all this stuff comes from. But from what my – listening to this oral argument, there is really – everyone seemed to agree that there is really a lot of restrictions on what the states could do to keep people off the ballot for federal office. So I'm just going to have to do some research. but i mean it sounds like the supreme court though says you can't you can't get in the way of again it's that it's that it's that maryland versus the bank of the u.s case like you can't a state can't do something that's going to affect the livelihoods of everybody else in the united states yes yeah whether it's you know going to be specifically that case or just sort of the general principles that come i think it's unclear what the source of the this ruling is going to be whether it's kind of a, maybe it will draw on the 10th Amendment.

35:16I wouldn't be, you know, who knows. But it just, it seems clear what the court was concerned about and what it doesn't want to happen. And then now it's going to figure out kind of a way to make it happen. And I'm sure there are many ways to do it. And that might be what they're, you know, debating about now, why they haven't issued an opinion yet, You know, figuring out exactly what they're going to rest their decision on. That happens all the time. So I have a now this is probably a bigger question. And this involves this in 2020 COVID when essentially I don't know if it was the federal government or state by state, but essentially every business was required to shut down.

36:06And I'm not arguing whether this was a good thing or bad thing or whether more lives were lost if this hadn't occurred or lives were saved because this did occur. But in the Fifth Amendment, it says essentially no one should be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. And like I had a business on the streets of Manhattan and New York City, and it was, of course, shut down by COVID. and did that not deprive me of liberty and property with, you know, nor shall private property be taken for public use again, without due process of law and without just compensation. So this due process of law part is what bothers me with the COVID shutdowns.

36:56There really was no due process for any business and many, many generational businesses and families lost their whole incomes went bankrupt. You know, it was just a catastrophe on a business side. Again, this is, I'm not arguing whether it saved lives or not, this law, but was this unconstitutional, this law? You know, so there was a period of time in the, between like 1905 and 1937, specifically 1937, during which the Supreme Court said that the due process clause placed like really strong limits on the government's authority to regulate businesses in all sorts of ways. And basically said it was like a regulation that said, for example, a business couldn't hire, use child labor, for example.

37:51You know, that might not be the right case to use, but like wage hour laws, those kinds of things. The court struck lots of those laws down in this period. And that period was known as the Lochner era because there was a case, a famous case about the hours that bakers could work. And the Supreme Court said that those regulations were unconstitutional because they violated the due process rights of businesses. And but the court sort of made 180 degree change on that in 1937. And that actually is the kind of the switch, the switch in time to save nine, that whole classic thing, which saved the court because Owen Roberts, one of the Supreme Court justices who was always striking things down, switched his vote.

38:35And since then, I would say kind of general regulations of businesses of all sorts have received kind of the lowest amount of scrutiny under the due process clause that the court uses. Basically, the court has said any kind of rational regulation, any regulation that has any kind of reasonable justification is sufficient for due process purposes. And so, you know, I think that's one could disagree with that, of course. But that's what the court has said and and has never sort of revived this old period of that for the Lochner era. So there's really little kinds of little that in the due process clause that businesses have been able to rely on.

39:28That may be not a good thing in all circumstances, but that's what the court has said. I think in some states, though, where this was brought to court, businesses sued. It got up to the state Supreme Court. I don't think it ever went up to the Supreme Court. And it was struck down as unconstitutional, the closing of businesses. I think it was in Minnesota or Wisconsin. I'm sorry I forget which state. But I think I think it became like an open issue. But, you know, eventually the lockdowns relaxed and it didn't go all the way up to the Supreme Court. I, so I'm not familiar with those state cases.

40:04What I do remember are the cases involving religion, because I teach law and religion, and it's been a long focus of mine. And so there's some really interesting cases about if the government closes churches, right, or places regulations on religious get-togethers, various kinds, you know, are those constitutional or not? Do those violate the kind of the free exercise of religion rights of these churches and other religious institutions? And the Supreme Court decided several cases where they kind of compared the restrictions that were placed on religion to the restrictions that were placed on other kinds of businesses.

40:42And if the court didn't think that they were kind of the same, they treated religion worse than other sorts of businesses. Then the court struck down that like there was a law in Brooklyn that that fell under this sort of theory. The court thought that New York or the state of New York had treated religious groups worse than, say, supermarkets. And so that was a problem. That was fascinating, I thought. Well, in what way were supermarkets treated differently? Well, like so if I remember right in this case, like supermarkets were open. You know, there were some restrictions on how many people could go in the supermarkets, but the churches were closed or they had very few people were allowed in them.

41:34And then there were also laws about like performances, theater, comedy, concerts, sporting events. Right. And they were closed. And the question was, you know, are the churches kind of more like like the like the sporting events where people are yelling and singing? or are they more like the supermarkets where people are just sort of gathering and doing their daily business? And Justice Sotomayor said, look, they're treated the same way as theaters and sporting events, churches are. And that makes sense because people are singing and so they have to be clamped down on more than the supermarkets where people aren't singing and chanting or whatever.

42:21And those are safer. So – but the court, the majority of the court disagreed and thought, look, if you're going to close the supermarkets – I mean, if you're going to leave the supermarkets open – am I getting this right? This is like the LSAT. If you're keeping the supermarkets open, then you've got to keep the churches open. So that's how that case came out, if I remember right. So I wonder if that's also related to the COVID situation because supermarkets were kept open but churches closed. This is all COVID. These were all COVID cases. that I'm talking about. So, and that's what the court, you know, focused on, like not so much the due process on ordinary businesses.

42:59That never made it to the Supreme Court, but the religion closings did make it to the Supreme Court. And so what did they end up concluding? They concluded basically, the rule is that the government has to treat religion as kind of as well as it treats any other similarly situated activity. So if you closed, So if you keep supermarkets open, you've got to keep the churches open to the same extent. That's kind of what the majority of the court said. And the dissenter said that supermarkets and stores like that are not the proper analogy to churches, and that you should look to what the government's doing about singing and theaters and sporting events.

43:43So I wonder if a sports event could have said, okay, this is actually a religious service, and in the middle of the religious service, we're going to play the Super Bowl. I wonder if that would have solved the problem for sporting events. Well, religion does help you with the Supreme Court, that's for sure. So maybe.

44:18so one issue which has occurred ever since the civil war is the issue of secession does the constitution spell out when a state can secede and i'm thinking again of this texas stuff and And there's a movie coming out next month called The Civil War. And what's – so this is going to be a question that people are going to have. What makes it – is it possible for a state to secede legally? Now, Abraham Lincoln would say no, and correctly for him at that time, he did the right thing. But just what's the Constitution say about it? I don't think the Constitution, the text of the Constitution addresses that, the succession question.

44:57I honestly, it's another area where I'm I it's I bet there's a lot of writing and a lot of thinking about it. And I don't it's just doesn't it's not something I happen to know about. So but I don't think there's anything in the Constitution. There's no process for for secession like that. You would expect. Right. If if it if it was contemplated by the framers. Right. A state can decide to secede if it has a vote of this or that. But, you know, there's going to be there are going to be theories like the the that the federal government is a creation of the various states and if a state wants to withdraw its consent, then it can do so.

45:39But the the response would be will be that the Constitution is derived from the power of the people, not the states. And that states have no authority to to leave the union. I bet that's the prevailing view is that – but I – that secession is kind of contrary to the principles of the Constitution. But I'm sure there are also well-thought-out arguments on the other side. Right, as you said, we have the Civil War precedent. But have we seen anything since? You think we will? That would be kind of interesting. what would have happened if you know the the army and the texas national guard came to blows so to speak and texas said you know what we're out count us out we're done we're done with this shit yeah yeah no i don't know i mean texas famously has had six flags right so you know they've been part of a bunch of different governments and that they've left uh they might leave this one they might have a seventh flag we're gonna have to change all the amusement park names.

46:46Oh, no. That might be. You know, it's one of those things like I was saying at some point earlier in the conversation, like for many, many years there, you don't have a, you know, it's not a certain kind of action or presidential, you know, behavior or whatever it is, It's not contemplated. So nobody thinks about whether what the Constitution might say about it. And then, you know, someone, you know, makes a decision that's outside of the norm. And then everybody's like, oh, my God, what is what does this thing say about it? And it's it's got all these little, you know, pieces in there which lay dormant for for good for it could be for hundreds of years.

47:38And then something raises the issue and we have to look at what the text is and what it says and what it meant. And, you know, and then all of a sudden everybody's got an opinion about it. Right. So so nobody thought about it for 100 years. And then within a week, everybody's got some view about it. Right. It's it's it's and then the con at least me, I'm I'm I try to slowly come up with my views. So it takes me a while to read and think through what it is. Meanwhile, there's this raging debate going on about whatever section of the Constitution means, and I feel like, I don't know. Wait a second.

48:17Hold on. This might be hard. I don't know. I don't know the secession question. I know people are talking about it and thinking about it, but I don't know what the answer is. I know that there's no process in the Constitution for it. Yeah, I don't think the Constitution mentions secession. It just mentions, you know, again, probably in the context of the Civil War, the 14th Amendment, it refers to insurrectionists are bad. But it doesn't really define what insurrection is, and it doesn't equate insurrection with secession. Like there are so many – invasion, insurrection, rebellion, war, religion.

48:57These things are all in the Constitution, but they're not defined. and usually you don't have to define them. But now we have to think, what is insurrection? What is invasion? It's interesting that they didn't define them. Like it seems to be on purpose because they understood that the country will change. And that's kind of a deep understanding to think that when making the constitution. Yeah, I mean, I think if that's the case and I think it certainly was the case for some of the framers at least, right? That is really sophisticated, right? We're going to leave this, a lot of this document kind of open ended.

49:34We use phrases like, this is the 14th Amendment now, but equal protection and, you know, the Bill of Rights, due process of law, freedom of free exercise of religion. These sort of ambiguous phrases with the idea that they will be filled up and given content by the generations. But that also, you know, there's definitely a view among some of the justices and a lot of people who study the Constitution that that's not what the framers, you know, either not what they wanted or not how we should read their intent. And that what we should be doing is not sort of allowing people to update the meaning of the Constitution to fit the changing circumstances of the day, but rather go back and find out, you know, what did invasion mean in 1787?

50:30What was the original public meaning of that word? And then that becomes the fixed meaning of the word. That's one of the major, if not the major, interpretive debates about the Constitution, like how to read it. Do you read it according to what it meant, if you could figure that out to the people who wrote it? Or do you assume that the framers intended for the meaning to change over time? And if that's the case, how do we decide how to give those ambiguous words content? And who gives it content? Is it the court? Is it some political process? A lot of questions there. you know and one issue that's come up a lot recently and i shouldn't say recently it's all the time basically but it's it's struck home in various ways recently is freedom of speech because you see on all these college campuses you know people uh marching and saying you know free palestine from the river to the sea which the implication is as spelled out in the hamas charter is kill all the Jews between the river and the sea.

51:43So now does freedom of speech allow for calls of death or like where, where does freedom of speech really end? Cause you're not allowed to call for instance, for a death to the United States in freedom of speech. Like that's, I believe that's considered a crime. If you call for, if you actually incite people to commit crimes. Well, so, yeah, I mean, there's a there's specific rules about that, like incitement can be prohibited. So you can but incitement has to is a very is a term of art that basically the court decided in a case from the 60s said that that in order to be prosecuted for incitement, somebody has to sort of expressly call for the violation of the law in a circumstance where it is likely to immediately occur.

52:38Right. So that's that's why you have all this debate about, for example, Trump's January 6th speech. Is that was that an incitement or not an incitement? People have different views about that. Right. Because because it has to it has to have this immediacy for for for to to be prosecuted to be prosecutable. And the idea is to distinguish between kind of abstract, you know, declarations of ideology and an actual call to immediate lawbreaking. And between those two, there's, you know, there's a lot of unclear room. So – but at least so far, the court has been very – it's been very protective of free speech rights in that – through that incitement content.

53:24Now, there are other things that can get – that aren't protected by the First Amendment that could come into play like threats, like a true threat is not protected by the First Amendment. Like if I email someone and say, you know, I should just kill you, is that prosecutable? Um, maybe, uh, like if it's like, um, so there, it has to be, the government would have to prove that you, uh, I think it's sort of a combination that you really did want to, you know, kill somebody and that it was understood by the listener as being, as, as posing like a real, a reasonable fear that you're going to do it.

54:06Like it's sort of a combination of kind of an objective standard and a subjective standard, but like, um, but yeah, true threats against like Like the president, you know, there's a crime and it gets prosecuted from time to time. But those are rare. You know, it's an interesting thing, the Constitution, because on the one hand, it seems like it's constantly violated and no one cares. Like, for instance, in the Constitution, it seems like the president actually has very few powers, right? So the president, he has the ability to advise Congress on what laws they should pass. He has the ability to kind of hang out with ambassadors and ministers of foreign countries.

54:50He has the ability to make treaties. He's the commander-in-chief, but it's unclear what that means. Right. So like what actual laws or what actual power does the president constitutionally have as opposed to what he has now? Yeah, so that's definitely the case that the presidential power has increased over time and congressional acquiescence in presidential power basically is, you know, been part of the reason for that. And Congress has just not stepped up and done its job. For example, Congress hasn't declared war since World War Two. Right. So the president has the commander in chief power. The Congress has to declare war power.

55:29Those are supposed to be complementary, but Congress never declares war. And then the question is, does the president have the power to unilaterally start hostility somewhere? And part of the issue here is that the courts, the Supreme Court in particular, doesn't want to jump in on many of these disputes. Like when you have the president and Congress in a battle over foreign affairs power, the court will sometimes step in. But usually they're like, this is a political question. This is not something that the court should get involved with. But so you're right that the president has these enumerated powers in the Constitution, and they're fairly limited.

56:07Like if you compare the size of the Article 1, which gives Congress the power to the size of Article 2, which gives the president power, Article 1 is way longer and has a lot more stuff in there. On the other hand, though, this is an interesting difference in how the text reads between Article 1 and Article 2, which is in Article 1, it says the legislative powers here and granted are vested in the Congress. which indicates that it's just the powers that are listed in the Constitution that the Congress gets. Whereas the executive power in Article 2, it says the executive power is vested in a president.

56:43Right. It doesn't say the executive power is here granted. Rather, it says the executive power. And so the idea and this has been debated for 200 years is the executive power meant something in 1787 beyond just what's listed in the Constitution. And by not having the words here and granted in Article 2, the indication is that all that executive power, whatever it was, was given to the president. So it doesn't have to be necessarily everything spelled out in Article 2 for the president to have the power. That's what the presidents have always said. And, you know, it's a strong argument based on the difference between those two.

57:25So the courts have kind of read a lot of inferred or implied powers into what the president can do, like the power to exclusively do diplomacy, for example, is one of those powers. The power to remove executive officials. That's not in the Constitution, but the courts have said the president does have that power in most cases.

57:47So I agree that the presidents have taken more power over time. I think part of the fault is with Congress for not sort of pushing back. But there is a textual hook in the Constitution for whatever that's worth that would signal that the president has more powers than just what's listed in the document. OK, that explains a lot then about like what's the deal with executive orders? Like when a president makes an executive order, is that law? Yeah, yeah. So I think people have a misconception about what executive orders are. They're not just the president saying stuff. They have to be grounded in either a specific statute.

58:29And a lot of executive orders are just implementations of statute. One example is there's this statute that gives the president the power to create national monuments. It's called the Antiquities Act. So when the president makes national monuments, the president issues, it's actually not an executive order, it's a proclamation, but the difference is just form, not substance. And the president's just implementing the president's power under the statute. So it either has to be grounded in a specific statute or some presidential power granted by the Constitution, either one of those that are specifically enumerated or one that's inferred from the grant of the executive power to the president.

59:07And so when a president issues an executive order, tells the executive branch to consider small business considerations whenever making a rule, the president's just using their power to run the executive branch to tell the agencies under the president's control, you've got to do this. And I'm the head of the executive branch. I'm telling you you should do this. Now, once in a while, there will be a controversial executive order. Like a war, like sending troops to a war. Yeah, and sending troops to war, keeping them there, perhaps in the declaration of war. Those aren't probably done through executive order, but some sort of presidential action, right?

59:51And there's nothing special about an executive order other than it's called an executive order. It has a number. And so, yeah, so that, the president... But even in that situation, even in that situation where it's not entirely clear if the president has some power in the Constitution that they're acting under, in that case, the president will usually ask the Justice Department, the legal department in the Justice Department called Office of Legal Counsel, which is a place I worked many years ago, which makes actually issues, memoranda and decisions of law. that you, most of which are, well, many of which are publicly available on the, on the website that you can look at and read.

1:00:40Not all are, but in which the, which the Justice Department, you know, tries to explain why the president has this power. Of course, you know, they're biased, right? They work for the president. So they tend to be pro-presidential power documents, but they're not, They're not 100 percent pro-president. There is some division. At least there's a norm that there's a division between this Justice Department who opines on what powers the president has and the president, whose lawyer – close lawyer is the White House counsel, who's viewed as the personal kind of more – much more closely – not related, but a much closer counselor to the president than the Justice Department.

1:01:24Is this making sense? Yeah. So what I'm wondering is, like, let's take Afghanistan as a situation. Like, how did the Justice Department justify? Again, I'm not making a political opinion, whether it's right or wrong. I'm just curious, how did they justify not having Congress, not requiring Congress to issue a declaration of war against Afghanistan? We've fought a whole war there for like 20 years. Yeah, right. And there are many other examples also, right? And I mean, I think the – and there may be specific rationales that apply to Afghanistan but not Kosovo or whatever. But I mean, generally the idea is that if that the president has this sort of inherent power to protect the country through military, through the president's commander in chief power, and the declare war power is viewed by the executive branch as being a kind of a minor, like a legal action that has some domestic law implications.

1:02:26like certain things maybe don't kick in if Congress hasn't declared war or not. But the president has always taken the view, even up against the War Powers Resolution. So Congress has tried to limit the president's authority to stay in conflicts over time. And presidents have always viewed that as an infringement on the president's commander-in-chief power. So it's always based on a very broad understanding of the commander-in-chief power as a power to protect the country and promote national interest through military actions. Right. This is an area where Congress could could, you know, fight back because Congress does, in addition to have the power to declare war, also has the powers of the purse.

1:03:06Right. The money is appropriated by Congress. And so if Congress really wants, you know, to pick a fight with the president that and really, you know, take action, they could cut off the money for the military effort. Of course, that and I think Congress has threatened that on occasion and it's not politically, you know, you know, has political problems because you have troops already in the field. And so what does that cutting off of money mean for that, you know, for them? But my point is only that the president has taken a very strong interpretation of the commander in chief power. Congress could take action to kind of push back on that.

1:03:46But it really hasn't. the war powers resolution notwithstanding it really has kind of let the president president do what the president wants well you know all these issues of course revolve around my main worry which is civil war happening in the next few years yeah i mean i remember in 1989 i was 21 years old and tiemann square happened in china and i asked a friend of mine i was 21 i asked this friend of mine who was from China I'm like does this make you happy because oh this is a statement of freedom that maybe China is going to be free whatever I didn't know what that meant then and I still don't know but and he he said something very interesting he said no he doesn't like it because he has old parents in China and he basically likes the status quo because old people have a harder time with change and as I get older now I understand what he means like Me too.

1:04:42For good or for bad, I really don't want a civil war as exciting as it might sound. And, you know, so I get concerned about all of these constitutional questions that seem like it's really getting to this life or death point with all these issues going to the Supreme Court. So I appreciate you coming on to the show, you know, Jay Wexler, professor at Boston University, author, among other books, of The Odd Clauses, Understanding the Constitution Through Ten of Its Most Curious Provisions, and many other books that hopefully we'll talk about on future podcasts, including I want to read your book about Satanists.

1:05:18That sounds really interesting. What's the oddest clause for you in the Constitution? I love the Third Amendment, the quartering of troops. And it's just – it's a clause that's never come up. It came up once in one case once, which is actually how I start my constitutional law class with that one case. It's not even a Supreme Court case. It's just – it's something that was so important to the framers, right? I mean it wouldn't be there if it weren't. It wasn't, there's nothing. It's number three. It's pretty high up, right? Yeah. Right after freedom of speech and the right to bear arms, it's like, you cannot have soldiers force their way into your house and live there.

1:06:02Right. And like, it's worked really well, right? So some people think it's just silly. but the other view is that it's like so clear and that it's just, it's doing its work. It's doing, you know, the best work of any clause in the constitution because it's never, you know, really, it's never happened. Well, it has happened. I mean, I think it did happen during the Civil War but so that's kind of my favorite. You know, do you know the standup comedian Eric Andre? I don't think so. You probably, if you saw his face, you would recognize him. He had a show, The Eric Andre Show, and he's been in some movies, some TV shows.

1:06:39But anyway, I've seen his act in person, and his first bit is, what the hell is the Third Amendment about? And he goes all into the Third Amendment. So I don't know if that ever made it onto a Netflix special. It probably did. But if I find that clip, I'll send it to you. It's all about the Third Amendment. He says it's the weirdest thing in the Constitution. So he agrees with you. Oh, good, good, good. The Onion did a great piece on the Third Amendment, a classic piece about like the anti-cornering, the National Anti-Cornering Organization celebrates its 230th successful year or something. It's really great.

1:07:14That's funny. Well, Professor Wexler, thank you so much for coming on and answering my questions. I hope all of these situations get resolved peacefully. If not, please come on again and talk about them. And I really appreciate you coming on. Thank you. Thank you for having me on. I really appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you.