ZACK SMITH OF THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION 7-7-26

Hey, I'm Chris Van Fleet. Go behind the scenes and beyond the headlines with the biggest names in pro wrestling and beyond. Jeff Jarrett, great to see you. In this business, the story behind the scenes, so much more entertaining than what you see on camera. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Paul Heyman. Mr. Heyman. You are a master at the little things. That's how you turn good into great. What does it take to achieve greatness? Whatever it takes I'm willing to do. That's an Emmy winning performance. How about it? Insight with Chris Van Fleet. Follow and listen on your favorite. platform. So I saw this headline from a columnist named Noah Finley. He says there's nothing rogue about the Supreme Court rulings. He says the U.S. Supreme Court justices forgot for a few critical moments last week that they're in President Donald Trump's pocket. He said the left has taken this as evidence of an ideological bench that can only be remedied by Democratic president willing to pack the court with the liberals to assure progressive outcomes. But he points out, you look at these rulings, obviously this court is not just a rubber stamp for what Donald Trump's, Donald Trump wants, his administration wants, which we already knew that. But of course, they're still going to try to claim that because they want to pack the court. So I want to talk more about this right now with the legal expert with the Heritage Foundation. Zach Smith is joining the show. Zach, thank you so much coming on. Of course. Thanks so much for having me on the show. So, yeah, I just want to go over your thoughts on some of these rulings. But overall, it is kind of proof that this isn't some radical right-wing court that is just doing Trump's bidding, right? No, absolutely not. If that was what the court was supposed to be doing, then I think the justices missed the message. And I think you saw that in a few key cases this year where you had unusual ideological lineups where the justices didn't split neatly along the ideological lines. you know, usually portrayed to present. And so the justices, I think they made the right decision in many cases. I think they made the wrong decision in some of the cases, particularly the birthright citizenship case. But all in all, look, I think it's very difficult to put the justices in the neat ideological buckets that so many in the mainstream media try to do. So yeah, who do you think got it right then on birthright citizenship? You said the majority got it wrong. Do you think it was more Brett Kavanaugh who got it right that Congress should be able to come in and pass a law? There just isn't a law right now on that. So the executive order was against the statute. Or do you think maybe Clarence Thomas was right that the whole thing is just unconstitutional? Well, look, I think we need to step back and understand. When President Trump first issued his executive order, many in the mainstream media, many on the left, said that there was no basis for his position that universal birthright citizenship is not required by the Constitution. And yet, if you look at the decision, the court issued four justices essentially agreed with the president's position. And so while the positions among the four justices who agreed.

The universal birthright citizenship is not required by the Constitution. While the specifics of their positions vary somewhat, that is the takeaway in Clarence Thomas's position, Justice Gorsuch's, Samuel Alito's, and even Justice Brecht Brett Kavanaugh himself agreed with that position. Brett Kavanaugh, as you said, would have decided the case on statutory grounds. He thought that a law passed by Congress requires. universal birthright citizenship, but he did not think that the 14th Amendment itself requires that same result. So look, the president was on a much stronger footing than many in the mainstream media portrayed him to be. And unfortunately, I think Chief Justice John Roberts just got this case wrong with his majority opinion. Yeah, you know, I'm not a legal expert like you. I'm just a simpleton. But when I read the 14th Amendment and it says subject to the jurisdiction thereof, I'm assuming that means something. And it's hard for me to believe that that only means foreign diplomats or something. It seems pretty obvious that they put that in there for a reason, which would be against sort of the narrative of birthright citizenship, right? No, that's exactly right. And subject to the jurisdiction there of language has a very specific, very technical meaning. And unfortunately, that key phrase has simply been read out of the 14th Amendment for really the past half century or more. But if you go back and look at the history, it does have a very specific, very technical meaning. And I think it should be clear to everyone who looks at this issue. It's unfathomable that the framers, the ratifiers of the 14th Amendment would have intended for birthright citizenship to automatically extend even to individuals who are in our country illegally or particularly the individuals who are here on a short-term. tourist like Visa. We heard our oral arguments. We heard in the opinion itself discussions about this birth tourism problem. This is a very real, very significant problem that is now going to be much, much harder to combat because of this Supreme Court ruling. Speaking with Zach Smith, he is a legal expert with the Heritage Foundation talking about some of these Supreme Court rulings. One of the rulings doesn't make sense to me. Like I said, you're the legal expert. So I want to ask you. Is the Federal Reserve now basically a fourth branch of government because of this ruling by the Supreme Court? It seems like if Trump cannot fire one of the Federal Reserve governors for any reason he wants, I mean, they basically created like a super branch of government, right? Yeah, so there were two opinions that the court issued dealing with the president's ability to hire and fire individuals he wants to. There's the slaughter case involving Rebecca slaughter at the Federal Trade Commission, and there's the Cook case involving Lisa Cook at the Federal Reserve. Now, here's where things get interesting. In the slaughter case involving the FTC, the court said that the president could fire Rebecca slaughter, that Congress could not handcuff the president and keep him from hiring and firing whom he pleases.

at certain executive branch agencies. But then a short time later, the court also issued the Lisa Cook case, where the court said, at least for now, the president could not fire Lisa Cook because he hadn't given her adequate process. He hadn't given her adequate notice, a chance to be heard. All of those typical process requirements that the court said are encompassed by the Federal Reserve's governing statutes. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who got a lot of grief for her decision to join the majority in the birthright citizenship case. In the Cook case, she actually wrote separately to say that it's difficult to reconcile the court's decision in the Slaughter case, allowing the president to fire Rebecca Slaughter at the FTC, and yet not allowing him to fire Lisa Cook at the Federal Reserve. So I say stay tuned. More is going to play out in this Lisa Cook case in the lower federal courts. But unfortunately, for now, the court said the president cannot remove Lisa Cook from office. So were there any other rulings that kind of stood out to you on either being very, very right or very, very wrong? Well, obviously, two rulings at the court I think absolutely got right were the ones involving transgender athletes. Several states, Idaho, West Virginia, others, 27 in total. passed laws confirming the common sense idea that only women should be allowed to play in women's sports. And yet, many on the left challenged these statutes, saying they violated equal protection clause, perversely saying they violated Title IX, which was a statute designed to allow women to access sporting events on an equal footing to have opportunities for female athletes to participate. And so the Supreme Court correctly said, But no, of course, states can limit biological women to participating in women's sports. So that was a big win. And I think the court got it exactly right in those cases. Speaking with Zach Smith, he is a legal expert with the Heritage Foundation. We were talking about some of those Supreme Court cases. Did want to ask you about another case, though, a little bit closer to home. So you have Auburn University. They came out and they allowed some of their players to wear kind of Christian practice jerseys. It said Jesus won and had a cross on the back. Just practice jerseys wasn't mandatory. You also have Auburn. They have a chaplain. Sometimes they'll have a coach-led prayer. It's all voluntary. Well, recently the Freedom from Religion Foundation, which of course they get that wrong, but the Freedom from Religion Foundation told them to stop. They said this is wrong. Now, Senator Tommy Tuberville kind of responded to them and said, no, they're just woke. It's not freedom from religion. It's freedom of religion. And I know this is something that you've talked about, you've written about when it comes to religious freedom, say the Ten Commandments being displayed in schools. If this ever went to the courts, I mean, I'm guessing it seems like the Supreme Court has already ruled on this, that even though you're a college student or you're a coach on a college campus, you still have religious freedom. You're able to practice your Christianity, correct? Yeah, that's absolutely correct. Now, with the disclaimer that I don't know all of the details of this specific story, it sounds very similar to a case the court heard just a few terms ago involving Coach Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of Washington State. You may remember Coach Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a high school football coach there in the state of Washington. Around game time, he would voluntarily go to the field.

pray quietly by himself. Sometimes football players would join him in voluntary pre-game or post-game prayer activities. And the school district essentially fired for that conduct, saying that it violated the establishment clause for him to do that. And the court made very clear in that Coach Robert F. Kennedy Jr. case, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. v. Bremerton School District, that no, that type of voluntary activity, that type of pre-post-game prayer. That does not violate the establishment clause. And so I think there would be ample precedent based on these very brief facts for the Auburn football players to be able to engage in that type of activity. Yeah, it just seems like there's a fundamental misunderstanding of the establishment clause, correct? I mean, you have the freedom from Religion Foundation. They interpret it that you just can't practice your Christianity openly on any type of public grounds, I guess. So if you're out of public university, oh, that means you can't practice it because someone else who's not a Christian might see you to be offended or something. And of course, that's not what the establishment clause was about, right? No, absolutely not. Look, if you go back and you look at the founders of our country, the practices that were in place during the early American Republic and the time the Constitution was adopted and ratified, it's very clear. Public prayer, public religious observance were common and accepted practices. Nobody thought. that those violated the First Amendment. And unfortunately, what you've seen really beginning in the latter half of the 20th century is a twisting, a perversion of the First Amendment to try to twist that, what was supposed to be a protection for religious practices. to twist that to prohibit any and all religious practices. Now, fortunately, the Supreme Court is starting to correct and overturn some of that bad prior precedent. This has come up a lot in terms of crosses on public lands, even sometimes in public cemeteries. Groups like the Freedom from Religion Foundation have sued trying to remove those. And the court has said, no, there's ample historical support, ample historic practice to support crosses on public lands to support conduct like prayer before and after. certain legislative meetings, that sort of thing. And so, no, the First Amendment is designed to protect religious practices, not to prohibit them. Yeah, it's a good way to put it. I'm going to say just like you did, because I think that's true. It's about protecting the religious liberty, not preventing the religious liberty. Zach Smith, expert with the Heritage Foundation. You can read all of this stuff and more at heritage.org. Zach, I appreciate it. As always, we'll talk to you again in the future. Thanks so much for having me on the show. And we'll be back here in a moment on Talk Radio 102.3.

Hey, I'm Chris Van Fleet. Go behind the scenes and beyond the headlines with the biggest names in pro wrestling and beyond. Mr. Sandman. All I ever wanted to be was a pro wrestler. So I got to live my life and make people really happy. The heartbreak kid himself, Sean Michaels. Do you think there's anybody better than you were? I think I was great at what I did. And I think other people were great at what they did as well. Greatness is more of mindset, I think, than anything else. Mindset, motivation, insight with Chris Van Fleet. Follow and listen on your favorite plan. platform.