# Slavery Exhibit, Climate Suits & Zuckerberg Testifies

An episode of [Bloomberg Law](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/277975394), 20 Feb 2026, 37 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/7c892d84-801f-4c0b-b0e9-ae2b0012ff5f/72acdb42-306c-478b-8a6b-b3f70011fea8/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=91224201-26a6-429d-ac3c-ae2b0012ff6d

Professor Sheryll Cashin of Georgetown Law discusses a federal judge ordering a slavery exhibit to be restored after it was removed by the Trump administration. Then Professor Pat Parenteau of the Vermont Law & Graduate School, discusses the first lawsuits over the EPA's revocation of a major climate finding. And Bloomberg Legal Reporter Madlin Mekelburg discusses Mark Zuckerberg's testimony at the first social media addiction trial. June Grasso hosts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:03] Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Grosseo from Bloomberg Radio.
[0:09] Speaker 2: A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration must
[0:12] Speaker 2: restore thirty four educational panels about slavery at a site
[0:17] Speaker 2: in Philadelphia where George Washington lived as president. Judge Cynthia
[0:22] Speaker 2: Ruff compared the display's removal last month by the National
[0:25] Speaker 2: Park Service to the government mind control employed in George
[0:30] Speaker 2: Orwell's novel nineteen eighty four. The judge found that the
[0:34] Speaker 2: federal government does not have the power it claims quote
[0:38] Speaker 2: to dissemble and disassemble historical truths when it has some
[0:42] Speaker 2: domain over historical facts. Joining me is Eryl Cashen, a
[0:46] Speaker 2: professor at Georgetown Law. What's your reaction to this forty
[0:50] Speaker 2: page opinion by Judge Rufe oh Well.
[0:53] Speaker 3: I think it's a beautiful piece of Americana now, because yeah,
[1:00] Speaker 3: first of all, she's a George w. Bush appointee and
[1:03] Speaker 3: she issues a preliminary injunction basically saying to a sitting president,
[1:10] Speaker 3: you don't get to be Orwellian, you don't get to
[1:13] Speaker 3: be like the Ministry of Truth in this science fiction
[1:17] Speaker 3: novel and impose your view on objective facts. We have
[1:23] Speaker 3: a complicated history. That history includes slavery. Yes, our greatest
[1:28] Speaker 3: founder was a slave owner. We're not gonna hide that,
[1:31] Speaker 3: and we're gonna learn from that history. I actually found
[1:34] Speaker 3: that there were passages in the opinion there were quite
[1:38] Speaker 3: patriotic and soaring. So I'm very appreciative of what she
[1:42] Speaker 3: did in this Black History Month and on President's Day.
[1:46] Speaker 2: You can't get pass the symbolism.
[1:48] Speaker 3: There no no.
[1:50] Speaker 2: When she criticized the Trump administration, she said, truth is
[1:54] Speaker 2: no longer self evident, but rather the property of the
[1:56] Speaker 2: elected chief magistrate at his whim, to be scraped clean, hidden,
[2:01] Speaker 2: or overwritten. Why solely because of defendant state it has
[2:05] Speaker 2: the power. What was the Trump administration's defense to taking
[2:10] Speaker 2: these panels down?
[2:11] Speaker 3: It's only defense. And first of all, it was the
[2:14] Speaker 3: National Park Service that was sued. They're the ones who
[2:17] Speaker 3: took them down. But they're only defense. And the judge
[2:21] Speaker 3: points to this seemed to be that Donald Trump issued
[2:25] Speaker 3: an executive order requiring things like this. That was it.
[2:29] Speaker 3: They didn't offer any reasons for it. And I think
[2:33] Speaker 3: it's important to bring out to your listeners exactly what
[2:37] Speaker 3: these thirty four panels covered, the stories they covered, and
[2:41] Speaker 3: I greatly appreciated the judges doing this. They covered the
[2:44] Speaker 3: fact that the Washingtons in the President's house brought nine
[2:50] Speaker 3: enslaved people there, and she named them in the opinion,
[2:54] Speaker 3: and I think it's worth us taking a quick moment
[2:58] Speaker 3: to name them them all. Onny Judge, Martha Washington's maid, Austin,
[3:04] Speaker 3: her brother Christopher Shields, the president's valet, Giles, the carriage driver,
[3:10] Speaker 3: Hercules Posey, a supremely talented chef to the Washingtons, Joe Richardson,
[3:16] Speaker 3: the coachman Mall Martha Washington's nanny for the grandchildren, Paris,
[3:21] Speaker 3: a stable worker, and Richmond, who was the son of Hercules,
[3:24] Speaker 3: and his chimney sweep. The complicated history that these thirty
[3:28] Speaker 3: four panels told was that George Washington, our first founder,
[3:33] Speaker 3: would rotate these nine people out every six months to
[3:37] Speaker 3: evade a law that Quaker abolitionists agitated for and one
[3:44] Speaker 3: that would allow them after six months to petition for freedom.
[3:48] Speaker 3: He didn't want them to be free. Okay, that's complicated,
[3:52] Speaker 3: but it's true. The other story that I think that
[3:55] Speaker 3: the White House was probably uncomfortable with was the story
[3:59] Speaker 3: of one Jeff Judge, a freckle faced bushy haired teenager
[4:04] Speaker 3: who escaped, probably with the help of a free black community.
[4:10] Speaker 3: Overwhelmingly the black people in the city at that time
[4:14] Speaker 3: were free, hundreds and hundreds of black people. In fact,
[4:18] Speaker 3: the black community was blocks away from the President's house,
[4:24] Speaker 3: and this young teenager escapes. It's beyond Martha's imagination that
[4:30] Speaker 3: the person who catered to her every need would want
[4:33] Speaker 3: to leave her, and she, basically, I think, more than anyone,
[4:38] Speaker 3: put pressure on George Washington to find her. George Washington
[4:41] Speaker 3: as president, spends two years trying to recapture her and
[4:45] Speaker 3: does not succeed. So they are outwitted by this young
[4:49] Speaker 3: black teenager who desperately wanted to be free and lived
[4:53] Speaker 3: free for the next fifty years. And that's the story
[4:57] Speaker 3: that the Trump administration suppressed. And the judge, to her credit,
[5:02] Speaker 3: talked about how the display recognize ony judge and her
[5:07] Speaker 3: fears struggle for freedom, and how it represented the country's
[5:12] Speaker 3: progress away from the horrors of slavery, where everybody could
[5:17] Speaker 3: live with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
[5:20] Speaker 2: What was the legal basis for the judge's ruling?
[5:23] Speaker 3: For years I taught administrative law. A basic tenet of
[5:28] Speaker 3: administrative law is that government does not get to reverss
[5:36] Speaker 3: itself on a whim without explanation, particularly when a policy
[5:41] Speaker 3: has been in place. There were several pieces of congressional legislation.
[5:45] Speaker 3: There was a legislation going back to nineteen forty eight
[5:48] Speaker 3: creating this National Independence Park. There was a two thousand
[5:54] Speaker 3: and six law in which Congress encouraged the telling of
[5:59] Speaker 3: this complicated story. And as we discussed, they didn't offer
[6:05] Speaker 3: any explanation for why you had this extreme reversal of
[6:09] Speaker 3: taking down exhibits that told this complicated history. So that
[6:16] Speaker 3: was arbitrary and capricious. That's one thing. The city of
[6:20] Speaker 3: Philadelphia also had a statutory right to be consulted on
[6:24] Speaker 3: any changes at the President's house. They paid for this project.
[6:30] Speaker 3: They paid for these interpretations, these panels, the videos telling
[6:35] Speaker 3: this this story. They invested five million dollars in the project. Right,
[6:39] Speaker 3: so they had a statutory expectation and right to be
[6:44] Speaker 3: consulted before any changes were made. That law was violated. Right,
[6:50] Speaker 3: so arbitrary and capricious under administrative law. Also, it was
[6:54] Speaker 3: a breach of separation of powers. The Court made it
[6:57] Speaker 3: abundantly clear that the President of the United States does
[7:02] Speaker 3: not get to by executive order. Frankly, executive fiat authorize
[7:09] Speaker 3: an agency to violate a law Congress past right, So
[7:14] Speaker 3: there's that. The court also alluded to federalism judicial conservatives.
[7:20] Speaker 3: Conservatives generally tend to like the idea of federalism, of
[7:25] Speaker 3: allowing local and state control. You know the Tenth Amendment values. Well,
[7:31] Speaker 3: you know, the governor, Governor Shapiro filed an Amika's brief saying,
[7:35] Speaker 3: you know, we supported telling our public this complicated history,
[7:39] Speaker 3: and the city supported, and certainly, you know, the black
[7:43] Speaker 3: cultural institutions that help shape the content. They were outraged that,
[7:49] Speaker 3: you know, this interesting, complicated history where African Americans are
[7:54] Speaker 3: present and featured, was ripped out with no explanation. So, oh,
[8:00] Speaker 3: all of those reasons the judge brought to bear.
[8:04] Speaker 2: So the judge issued an injunction ordering the government to
[8:08] Speaker 2: restore the panels, but she didn't give them a date.
[8:11] Speaker 2: Certain and the government is going to appeal the ruling.
[8:15] Speaker 2: What do you think their chances are on appeal since
[8:17] Speaker 2: we don't really know what their argument was in the
[8:19] Speaker 2: first place.
[8:20] Speaker 3: I think this is an air tight case. I want
[8:24] Speaker 3: to say, hundreds of lawsuits have been filed to stop
[8:29] Speaker 3: the Trump administration from violating law. Either's more than one
[8:33] Speaker 3: hundred and fifty orders have been issued to the Trump
[8:38] Speaker 3: administration blocking them from doing something that's unlawful. Right, and
[8:45] Speaker 3: I want to applaud you know, the federal courts, particularly
[8:49] Speaker 3: the trial courts, are checking this presidency and upholding the
[8:53] Speaker 3: rule of law. I do not see how the Court
[8:57] Speaker 3: of Appeals, even if they get lucky and get a
[9:01] Speaker 3: panel that's all conservative judges. It's pretty airtight. There are
[9:08] Speaker 3: two statutes that make it clear that the city. First
[9:13] Speaker 3: of all, the city owns the land where this presidential
[9:16] Speaker 3: site is. There's a federal law that sanctioned this cooperative arrangements,
[9:23] Speaker 3: and the federal government had entered into a series of
[9:27] Speaker 3: cooperative arrangements. They took and benefited from the five million
[9:32] Speaker 3: dollars that Philadelphia put forth to put up this display,
[9:38] Speaker 3: and by the statute, they were entitled to be consultant
[9:43] Speaker 3: on any changes. So it's pretty airtight. I do not
[9:47] Speaker 3: see how any judge that's operating with intellectual integrity to
[9:54] Speaker 3: the rule of law would uphold this violate separation of
[9:58] Speaker 3: powers Congresses and ten violates principles of federalism violates principles
[10:05] Speaker 3: of vested interest and also, frankly, in a lot of
[10:09] Speaker 3: these federal court opinions, there are allusions to what's morally right.
[10:15] Speaker 3: You know, this judge used the literary reference of nineteen
[10:21] Speaker 3: eighty four Georgia Orwell's nineteen eighty four right. She quoted
[10:25] Speaker 3: explicitly from it. There's a law, and there's also what
[10:29] Speaker 3: ordinary people would recognize as morally right. Let me underscore this,
[10:37] Speaker 3: and it's part because I'm more familiar with this. I'm
[10:40] Speaker 3: a Black American, and I'm a law professor, and I've
[10:43] Speaker 3: written a lot of books in which I play an
[10:47] Speaker 3: amateur historian. This effort, the removal of these panels here
[10:53] Speaker 3: was part of a larger despotic erasure of black history
[10:59] Speaker 3: by this administration. Right, he issues this executive order last
[11:03] Speaker 3: March March of twenty twenty five, which basically tells every
[11:08] Speaker 3: single agency in the government to scrub the government of
[11:15] Speaker 3: references that put any American, including colonial Americans, in a
[11:21] Speaker 3: bad light. They've purged any reference to Black Americans and
[11:25] Speaker 3: their contributions from websites. They have threatened any school district
[11:31] Speaker 3: that has black or ethnic studies in their curriculum with
[11:35] Speaker 3: withholding of money. It's just clear that Black American history
[11:40] Speaker 3: and the African Americans struggle for freedom. For some reason,
[11:44] Speaker 3: they seem to feel that puts, particularly white leaders of
[11:49] Speaker 3: the past, in a bad light. I actually happen to
[11:53] Speaker 3: have a very patriotic view, like the judge did, like
[11:56] Speaker 3: there's nothing more patriotic than people of all colors and
[12:00] Speaker 3: genders claiming the words of the Declaration of Independence is theirs.
[12:05] Speaker 3: I'm a proud American. I believe in our self evident truth.
[12:10] Speaker 3: Let me tell my story of how you know, how
[12:14] Speaker 3: I live as an American, and that's what it's at
[12:16] Speaker 3: stake here, whether it's attacking black history or LGBTQ history
[12:22] Speaker 3: or feminism. I think in twenty twenty six, two hundred
[12:26] Speaker 3: and fiftieth anniversary of our country, we ought to be
[12:29] Speaker 3: mature enough to hear complicated history and place it in
[12:34] Speaker 3: the context of Yes, there are things that happen that
[12:38] Speaker 3: are unpleasant, but it was part of a larger journey
[12:42] Speaker 3: of us achieving our professed values and that's a legacy
[12:47] Speaker 3: to be proud of.
[12:48] Speaker 2: Thanks so much for joining me on the show. That's
[12:51] Speaker 2: Professor Cheryl Cashion of Georgetown Law. It took less than
[12:56] Speaker 2: a week for lawsuits to be filed over the ep
[13:00] Speaker 2: elimination of the Bedrock scientific finding that greenhouse gases threaten
[13:06] Speaker 2: public health. The so called endangerment finding forms the basis
[13:11] Speaker 2: for regulations to fight climate change, and its revocation could
[13:15] Speaker 2: unwind current air and climate rules. So a coalition of
[13:19] Speaker 2: conservation and public health groups are challenging its repeal, saying
[13:24] Speaker 2: the EPA violated federal law and legal precedent. More lawsuits
[13:29] Speaker 2: are sure to follow on an issue that's likely to
[13:32] Speaker 2: reach the Supreme Court. Joining me is an expert in
[13:35] Speaker 2: environmental law, Pat Parento, a professor at the Vermont Law
[13:39] Speaker 2: and Graduate School. Pat, just how critical is this revocation
[13:45] Speaker 2: of the Endangerment Finding.
[13:48] Speaker 1: It's huge, and it's ugly, and people do not fully
[13:52] Speaker 1: understand just how devastating this action is going to be,
[13:57] Speaker 1: not just for climate, but for public health and safety generally.
[14:02] Speaker 2: And the endangerment finding came out of a landmark Supreme
[14:06] Speaker 2: Court case in two thousand and seven.
[14:08] Speaker 1: Right, so it follows on the heels of course of
[14:11] Speaker 1: Massachusetts versus DPA, which is still the law of the land.
[14:16] Speaker 1: Contrary to what mister Zelden thinks. And in that decision,
[14:20] Speaker 1: the Supreme Court not only held that greenhouse gas pollution
[14:25] Speaker 1: is regulated under the Clean Air Act. The George W.
[14:28] Speaker 1: Bush administration had taken the position it wasn't regulated, and
[14:32] Speaker 1: they made many of the same arguments that Trump and
[14:35] Speaker 1: Zelden are making now. The Supreme Court rejected those. It
[14:38] Speaker 1: was a five to four decision, and frankly, the majority
[14:42] Speaker 1: in the Massachusetts case is no longer on the court,
[14:46] Speaker 1: So that's what gives Trump some hope here. And then secondly,
[14:49] Speaker 1: the Supreme Court said, since you have the authority to
[14:52] Speaker 1: regulate greenhouse gas pollution, if you make a finding that
[14:58] Speaker 1: such pollution and the emissions that cause it in danger
[15:01] Speaker 1: public health and welfare, you must regulate. You don't have
[15:05] Speaker 1: any discretion not to regulate once you make a finding.
[15:10] Speaker 1: And the Supreme Court made it clear that was a
[15:12] Speaker 1: scientific finding, wasn't policy, it wasn't even law necessarily, it
[15:17] Speaker 1: was a scientific determination that this kind of pollution is
[15:22] Speaker 1: endangering people's health and welfare.
[15:25] Speaker 2: And since that point, has there been any contrary evidence
[15:28] Speaker 2: to that scientific finding?
[15:30] Speaker 1: No, quite the contrary. And of course, I think we've
[15:33] Speaker 1: talked before about how the Department of Energy cooked up
[15:37] Speaker 1: this phony report based on five climate denialists. They're scientists,
[15:43] Speaker 1: but they deny the consensus around climate change. And EPA
[15:48] Speaker 1: was going to use that report, but then the federal
[15:52] Speaker 1: court in Massachusetts said the report was prepared illegally because
[15:57] Speaker 1: it was done in violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act,
[16:01] Speaker 1: and Judge Young issued a decision just recently saying, can't
[16:06] Speaker 1: use this report. So now EPA has abandoned the argument
[16:11] Speaker 1: attacking the science underlying the endangerment finding. There's no basis
[16:15] Speaker 1: to do that. The National Academy of Sciences weighed in
[16:19] Speaker 1: with a special report rebutting this so called Department of
[16:24] Speaker 1: Energy report. So the science is absolutely crystal clear and
[16:29] Speaker 1: the danger is absolutely clear. You can repeal the finding,
[16:33] Speaker 1: you can't repeal the danger.
[16:35] Speaker 2: There are two lawsuits in counting, one by a group
[16:38] Speaker 2: of youth plaintiffs and another by a coalition of health
[16:42] Speaker 2: and environmental groups. Tell us about their claims that the
[16:46] Speaker 2: EPA's actions are illegal.
[16:49] Speaker 1: Well, they're first of all saying that Massachusetts versus EPA
[16:53] Speaker 1: is the law, and as I said, it states very
[16:56] Speaker 1: clearly that EPA has the authority to rate. So now
[17:00] Speaker 1: Zelden is coming along and saying, well, no, we've looked
[17:04] Speaker 1: at it again through the lens that we use, and
[17:08] Speaker 1: our conclusion is that the best reading of the Clean
[17:11] Speaker 1: Air Act is not the reading that the Supreme Court
[17:14] Speaker 1: issued in Maths versus CPA, but our reading, which is,
[17:18] Speaker 1: we don't have any authority to regulate greenhouse gases. They're
[17:22] Speaker 1: using kind of an originalist argument here. They're trying to
[17:26] Speaker 1: say that because the Clean Air Act of nineteen seventy
[17:30] Speaker 1: was focused on initially localized pollution, the smog that people
[17:35] Speaker 1: were breathing and so forth. But it's not true that
[17:38] Speaker 1: the Clean Air Act was limited geographically. We have multiple
[17:43] Speaker 1: instances of where the Clean Air Act has been used
[17:46] Speaker 1: to tackle long range pollution, not just acid rain, but
[17:51] Speaker 1: ozone pollution, small pollution, fine particulate pollution that floats across
[17:57] Speaker 1: the United States from upwind states to downwind states. So
[18:01] Speaker 1: this notion that the Cleaner Act was never intended to
[18:05] Speaker 1: regulate anything in your immediate area of the area you're
[18:08] Speaker 1: breathing is simply flatly wrong. That's never been the law.
[18:13] Speaker 1: No case has ever said that. The Supreme Court has
[18:16] Speaker 1: never said that. Only Zelden is saying that. So the
[18:20] Speaker 1: first argument is there really is no legal basis whatsoever
[18:25] Speaker 1: for repealing the endangerment finding. And of course they also
[18:29] Speaker 1: repealed immediately what we call the tailpipe standards, the mobile
[18:34] Speaker 1: source standards, cars and trucks and so forth. They are
[18:37] Speaker 1: the largest source of this kind of pollution and a
[18:40] Speaker 1: lot of other pollution as well. So the notion that
[18:44] Speaker 1: this isn't a significant category, that's another requirement of the
[18:49] Speaker 1: Clean Air Act. You have to make a finding that
[18:51] Speaker 1: there's a danger from these pollutants. But then you have
[18:54] Speaker 1: to look at the sources of the pollutants and say
[18:57] Speaker 1: those sources contribute to the danger. But if this is
[19:02] Speaker 1: the largest source of greenhouse gases and these other pollutants,
[19:05] Speaker 1: they surely contribute to the danger. So there's no legal basis,
[19:11] Speaker 1: no scientific basis, And there are lots of other arguments
[19:15] Speaker 1: for why this finding is not based.
[19:18] Speaker 2: On the law, particularly in light of Massachusetts versus EPA.
[19:24] Speaker 2: Why do you think the EPA administrator Lee Zelden took
[19:28] Speaker 2: this route.
[19:29] Speaker 1: Zelden is counting on the current composition of the court.
[19:33] Speaker 1: As I said, the majority that was in place in
[19:37] Speaker 1: Massachusetts versus EPA is no longer there. It's much more conservative.
[19:41] Speaker 1: There are three Trump appointees on the court, so you
[19:44] Speaker 1: have to look at can Selden get the Court to
[19:48] Speaker 1: take review of this issue and reverse Massachusetts versus EPA.
[19:55] Speaker 1: So this requires basically a head count. Where do you
[19:59] Speaker 1: get five on this court to overturn mass versus EPA.
[20:04] Speaker 1: You don't have the liberal wing of the court. You
[20:07] Speaker 1: don't have Chief Justice Roberts, who wrote the dissent in Massachusetts,
[20:11] Speaker 1: because he has stated publicly, even though I dissented, I
[20:15] Speaker 1: think mass versus EPA at this point is settled law.
[20:19] Speaker 1: It's been on the books for nineteen years, right, Lots
[20:23] Speaker 1: of reliance on that decision, lots of regulatory actions based
[20:28] Speaker 1: on that decision, lots of industry actions in response to
[20:32] Speaker 1: that decision, including automakers building more electric vehicles and hybrid
[20:38] Speaker 1: vehicles and so forth. So lots has happened, and there's
[20:41] Speaker 1: no way I don't think. Of course, it could always
[20:44] Speaker 1: surprise me. But you're not going to get Chief Justice
[20:48] Speaker 1: Roberts vote. So where do you get the fifth vote.
[20:51] Speaker 1: You've got the three or four perhaps ultra conservatives on
[20:56] Speaker 1: the court. That would be Justice Thomas, Justice Alito, Justice Corsition,
[21:01] Speaker 1: probably Justice Kavanaugh, although even that's not sure. So where
[21:05] Speaker 1: does the fifth vote come from? It almost has to
[21:08] Speaker 1: be Justice Barrett, and my view is that she's not
[21:13] Speaker 1: going to go along with overturning Mass versus CPA because
[21:16] Speaker 1: of a doctrine that we call statutory starry decisive. So
[21:21] Speaker 1: once the Court has interpreted a statue, as opposed to say,
[21:25] Speaker 1: interpreting the Constitution, which can change over time as we've seen,
[21:30] Speaker 1: but what comes to interpreting a statue like the Clean
[21:34] Speaker 1: Air Act. The doctrine that that kind of precedent should
[21:39] Speaker 1: not be overruled or at least lightly overruled is very
[21:44] Speaker 1: very strong, and I think Justice Barrett has the kind
[21:47] Speaker 1: of sort of institutional integrity on the Supreme Court to
[21:51] Speaker 1: respect that. So I don't see how they get Justice
[21:55] Speaker 1: Barrett's vote. If they manage to get her vote and
[22:00] Speaker 1: or other votes on the Court, then yeah, Trump might
[22:04] Speaker 1: win his argument that Mas versus CPA should be reversed
[22:09] Speaker 1: and the decision to repeal the endangerment finding upheld, And
[22:13] Speaker 1: that would have really devastating consequences because it would mean
[22:16] Speaker 1: that a future president could not reinstate the endangerment finding
[22:21] Speaker 1: once the Court has determined there is no authority to
[22:24] Speaker 1: regulate greenhouse gases unless Congress steps in, and that doesn't
[22:29] Speaker 1: look very likely. That's the end of the ballgame. That's
[22:32] Speaker 1: the end of federal regulation of climate polluting emissions, devastating
[22:38] Speaker 1: pat Is there.
[22:39] Speaker 2: A danger in escalating this fight to the Supreme Court
[22:44] Speaker 2: at this point?
[22:46] Speaker 1: Oh? I think so. I mean, it's the old adage
[22:49] Speaker 1: be careful what you wish for. If Trump is successful
[22:52] Speaker 1: in getting the Court to agree with him, then what
[22:55] Speaker 1: happens is the Clean Air Act no longer regulates these pollutants.
[22:59] Speaker 1: But that means states like California are free to do so,
[23:03] Speaker 1: and you can be sure they will. California has already
[23:07] Speaker 1: adopted the most stringent tailpipe standards fuel efficiency standards in
[23:12] Speaker 1: the country, and thirteen other states have gone along with California.
[23:18] Speaker 1: That got overturned by Congress. That's another story, But the
[23:21] Speaker 1: point is, once the Clean Air Act is no longer
[23:24] Speaker 1: an obstacle to state regulation, it is no longer preempting
[23:28] Speaker 1: California and other Blue states from regulating these pollutants, not
[23:32] Speaker 1: just from cars, but from lots of other you know
[23:36] Speaker 1: sources as well, power plants, oil refineries, et cetera. You know,
[23:40] Speaker 1: that creates a patchwork of regulation across the country, chaos
[23:45] Speaker 1: because there'll be litigation over that as well. The one
[23:48] Speaker 1: thing that industry hates is that kind of chaos, that
[23:51] Speaker 1: kind of unpredictability. How do you make investment decisions in
[23:55] Speaker 1: a regulatory environment like that? You know, the one thing
[23:58] Speaker 1: about federal regulation is once it's in place, that's the baseline.
[24:03] Speaker 1: That's what everybody can plan against, and particularly for automakers.
[24:08] Speaker 1: So that's number one. If Trump wins, industry loses. Number
[24:12] Speaker 1: two is the oil companies also lose. Because the oil
[24:17] Speaker 1: companies have been somewhat successful getting state and city and
[24:21] Speaker 1: county lawsuits against them for climate damage. These are the
[24:25] Speaker 1: so called deception cases, public nuisance cases, more recently climate
[24:31] Speaker 1: super fun cases, and so forth. There are over forty
[24:34] Speaker 1: of these lawsuits right and the oil companies are making
[24:37] Speaker 1: the argument the Clean Air Act preempts all of them.
[24:41] Speaker 1: In fact, they're hoping that the Supreme Court takes review
[24:44] Speaker 1: of the Boulder case. They're going to be in conference
[24:47] Speaker 1: tomorrow on the question of whether they should take review
[24:50] Speaker 1: of that case. And once again, the leading argument the
[24:54] Speaker 1: oil companies are making to the Supreme Court is the
[24:57] Speaker 1: Clean Air Act preempts all these laws suits for damages.
[25:01] Speaker 1: So when Trump wins the repeal of the endangerment finding
[25:05] Speaker 1: on the basis that the Clean Air Act doesn't regulate
[25:08] Speaker 1: these pollutants, their pre emsine argument goes out the window.
[25:12] Speaker 1: So you know, there are two really bad consequences from
[25:16] Speaker 1: upholding what Zelden has done, neither of which benefits industry.
[25:21] Speaker 1: Doesn't benefit automakers, doesn't benefit utilities. It just creates the
[25:27] Speaker 1: kind of chaos that obviously Trump thrives on, right, but
[25:31] Speaker 1: the rest of the world doesn't so much.
[25:34] Speaker 2: Thanks Pat. That's Pat, PARENTO of their Mount Law and
[25:37] Speaker 2: Graduate School. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg testify this week at
[25:42] Speaker 2: the first Social media Addiction Trial, where two of the
[25:46] Speaker 2: world's largest social media platforms are facing a jury trial
[25:50] Speaker 2: over allegations that they intentionally design their products metas Instagram
[25:56] Speaker 2: and Google's YouTube to be addictive to young people. Over
[26:00] Speaker 2: six hours, Zuckerberg faced a barrage of questions about his
[26:03] Speaker 2: company's effort or lack of effort to protect young users
[26:08] Speaker 2: on Instagram and Facebook, about internal communications in which employees
[26:13] Speaker 2: pleaded to shore up safety measures, and about choices he
[26:17] Speaker 2: made the trial, which is expected to run through the
[26:21] Speaker 2: end of March, will serve as a critical test for
[26:24] Speaker 2: thousands of other lawsuits that target not only Meta and Google,
[26:29] Speaker 2: but also TikTok and Snap. Joining me is Bloomberg Legal
[26:32] Speaker 2: reporter Madelein Mecklberg Madlin on the whole How did Zuckerberg
[26:37] Speaker 2: do with his testimony?
[26:39] Speaker 4: So, I think that Zuckerberg really stuck to the line
[26:42] Speaker 4: that we've heard from Meta, from their attorneys and from
[26:45] Speaker 4: the company about the fact that they don't think that
[26:49] Speaker 4: scientific evidence supports this idea that social media is harmful
[26:54] Speaker 4: to young kids and can be addictive. We heard him
[26:57] Speaker 4: talk about the benefits of social media and how they've
[27:00] Speaker 4: tried to design their platforms to create an enjoyable experience
[27:04] Speaker 4: for users and not one that's causing harm. And we
[27:08] Speaker 4: heard him feel difficult questions from the plaintiff's lawyer about
[27:12] Speaker 4: internal emails, internal research, talking about their youth strategy.
[27:16] Speaker 5: At Meta and Instagram.
[27:18] Speaker 4: So I think, all in all, he'll probably be happy
[27:21] Speaker 4: to be done with testimonies.
[27:23] Speaker 5: Definitely, like we heard.
[27:25] Speaker 4: A lot of the Meta bottom line that we've heard
[27:27] Speaker 4: from them from us of this case.
[27:28] Speaker 2: From him questioning Zuckerberg was Mark Lanier who's an experienced
[27:33] Speaker 2: trial attorney and has won a number of high profile
[27:37] Speaker 2: product litigation suits against major companies. He questioned Zuckerberg about
[27:43] Speaker 2: internal documents, for example, a twenty fifteen memo where Zuckerberg
[27:48] Speaker 2: said he wanted to reverse the teen trend and increase
[27:53] Speaker 2: time spent by twelve percent, and another document that said,
[27:57] Speaker 2: if we want to win big with teens, we must
[28:00] Speaker 2: them in as tweens.
[28:02] Speaker 4: Right, So those are some key pieces of evidence for
[28:05] Speaker 4: the plaintiff' lawyers in this case. Who you say is
[28:08] Speaker 4: Mark Lanier is the trial attorney here representing the young
[28:11] Speaker 4: woman in the suit, and he is quite a character
[28:14] Speaker 4: up on the stand. He uses this overhead document camera
[28:18] Speaker 4: and writes live notes as the plaintiff is speaking, often.
[28:22] Speaker 5: With a little photo of them on a piece of paper.
[28:24] Speaker 4: But he showed Zuckerberg some of these documents, asked him
[28:28] Speaker 4: to answer to them, and Zuckerberg was talking about how
[28:32] Speaker 4: some of these metrics he doesn't think they're valuable anymore.
[28:35] Speaker 4: Time spent, for example, that used to be something that
[28:38] Speaker 4: he said the company was very concerned about, but they've
[28:41] Speaker 4: kind of moved away from giving teams goals on that front.
[28:44] Speaker 4: And he says you know quote, I don't think that's
[28:47] Speaker 4: the best way to.
[28:48] Speaker 5: Run a company based on time spent. When he was
[28:51] Speaker 5: talking about some of the documents to do.
[28:53] Speaker 4: With teens, I think we've seen that quote quite a bit,
[28:55] Speaker 4: this idea that if we want to win big with teens,
[28:57] Speaker 4: we must bring them in as tweens. He says that
[29:00] Speaker 4: he is being mischaracterized when it comes to that remark,
[29:04] Speaker 4: and that the company has really tried.
[29:06] Speaker 5: To consider launching products specifically.
[29:09] Speaker 4: You're toward teens, they're not necessarily targeting them specifically. He
[29:14] Speaker 4: stressed this idea that teens aren't really bringing in revenue
[29:18] Speaker 4: to Instagram, to the companies because they don't have disposable income.
[29:22] Speaker 4: They're not clicking on ads the same way that older
[29:24] Speaker 4: people do. So we heard a lot from him about
[29:27] Speaker 4: how those remarks maybe represented something that was a point
[29:31] Speaker 4: of discussion at one point in time, but the company
[29:33] Speaker 4: has moved away from.
[29:35] Speaker 2: I understand that Zuckerberg repeated several times the phrase you're
[29:39] Speaker 2: mischaracterizing this or something along those lines.
[29:43] Speaker 4: That's right, and so he was trying to kind of
[29:46] Speaker 4: use this moment on the stand, even he didn't have
[29:49] Speaker 4: a choice. He has to answer questions that are being asked,
[29:51] Speaker 4: but he was trying to kind of use this moment
[29:53] Speaker 4: to clarify his position or explain maybe how things have
[29:58] Speaker 4: shifted over time. And I understand that the questioning at
[30:01] Speaker 4: some point got quite heated, a little bit of back
[30:03] Speaker 4: and forth. That's kind of something you can expect when
[30:06] Speaker 4: you have an adverse witness on the stand like this
[30:09] Speaker 4: being questioned, where the judge maybe has to step in
[30:12] Speaker 4: and say, let them finish their answer.
[30:14] Speaker 5: Let them finish their answer.
[30:16] Speaker 4: So definitely saw some of that from Zuckerberk's testimony.
[30:20] Speaker 2: What would you say was the biggest concession he made,
[30:23] Speaker 2: if he made any concessions at all.
[30:25] Speaker 4: I don't know that I would characterize any of his
[30:28] Speaker 4: testimony as a concession necessarily. I think he had some
[30:31] Speaker 4: interesting comments when it came to Instagram's attempts to keep
[30:36] Speaker 4: kids under thirteen off the platform. That's an age requirement
[30:40] Speaker 4: that they impose for people who want to create an account.
[30:43] Speaker 4: But he did acknowledge, you know, this is a really
[30:45] Speaker 4: challenging problem. This is a very difficult thing to combat.
[30:49] Speaker 4: There's this desire to balance kind of privacy concerns with
[30:54] Speaker 4: you know, actually enforcing this requirement. So I thought some
[30:57] Speaker 4: of that comment Terry was interesting from him. That's something
[31:00] Speaker 4: that we've seen Meta discussing in other context of the course,
[31:04] Speaker 4: and there's this ongoing debate about whether the platforms themselves
[31:08] Speaker 4: should be responsible for enforcing age requirements or that's something
[31:11] Speaker 4: that could be done by Apple or Google in the
[31:14] Speaker 4: app stores on phones before he download it. And so
[31:17] Speaker 4: it's interesting to see kind of that real world conversation
[31:20] Speaker 4: happening brought into the context of this litigation while he
[31:23] Speaker 4: was on the stand.
[31:25] Speaker 2: So I'm interested in the questions. Lanier asked him about
[31:29] Speaker 2: what he characterized as extensive media training, and there was
[31:35] Speaker 2: an internal document about feedback on his tone of voice,
[31:40] Speaker 2: imploring him to come off as authentic, direct, human, insightful
[31:44] Speaker 2: and real, not fake or robotic.
[31:47] Speaker 4: Right, That was an interesting line of questioning, and Zuckerberg
[31:51] Speaker 4: was kind of restarctive to it. Honestly, he says, I'm
[31:55] Speaker 4: well known to be very bad at this at public speaking.
[31:58] Speaker 4: He kind of acknowledged it, and so, yes, that was
[32:01] Speaker 4: definitely something that we saw Laniar flip to and Zuckerberg said,
[32:05] Speaker 4: you know, I don't enjoy talking to the media.
[32:06] Speaker 5: It's part of the job. It's important part.
[32:08] Speaker 1: Of the job.
[32:09] Speaker 4: But yeah, definitely a very personal toned that line of questioning.
[32:15] Speaker 2: So basically, no big surprises in his testimony.
[32:19] Speaker 5: I don't think so. I mean, this issue itself is
[32:22] Speaker 5: not a new one.
[32:23] Speaker 4: I think it's something we've been talking about as kind
[32:26] Speaker 4: of a culture, as a country for a while, as
[32:28] Speaker 4: a world, honestly, and we've heard Zuckerberg give testimony to
[32:33] Speaker 4: Congress before. We've heard him and other executives that made
[32:36] Speaker 4: us speak publicly on this. So I don't think that
[32:39] Speaker 4: there was an expectation that there would be a lot
[32:41] Speaker 4: of fresh information or insights provided. You know, it's significant
[32:46] Speaker 4: because he's being called to the stand in this really
[32:49] Speaker 4: unique case. This is the first time these no legal
[32:52] Speaker 4: claims are being tried out, because this is you know.
[32:55] Speaker 5: One of thousands of cases.
[32:56] Speaker 4: So I think there wasn't necessarily new tread but there
[33:01] Speaker 4: was new ground for probably many members.
[33:03] Speaker 5: Of the jury. You know, you have to think like they're.
[33:06] Speaker 4: An average person who's not like us, and the listeners
[33:09] Speaker 4: is maybe not as plugged into some of this discourse,
[33:12] Speaker 4: and so they might have been hearing some of this
[33:14] Speaker 4: information for the first time, and obviously like having a
[33:17] Speaker 4: witness on the stand is a great opportunity for these.
[33:19] Speaker 5: Lawyers to kind of help put important documents into context.
[33:24] Speaker 4: Because we saw Mark Lanier talk about a lot of
[33:26] Speaker 4: these like the teams into tweens and talking about youth strategy.
[33:30] Speaker 5: He referenced some of them during his opening statements.
[33:32] Speaker 4: But I think it's a lot different to hear that
[33:35] Speaker 4: and see the paper versus see this guy that you
[33:38] Speaker 4: know from TV and from the news talking about them
[33:42] Speaker 4: and kind of explaining a little bit more about his thinking.
[33:44] Speaker 2: So something unusual that happened. The judge scolded some of
[33:50] Speaker 2: the people who came with Zuckerberg for wearing metaglasses.
[33:56] Speaker 5: So I'm not.
[33:56] Speaker 4: Sure that you exactly in the courtroom was the object
[34:00] Speaker 4: of that, if they were with him or not, But yes,
[34:03] Speaker 4: at one point the judge did instruct anyone, any member
[34:06] Speaker 4: of the public who's there in the room to remove
[34:09] Speaker 4: any meta glasses that they may have. The courthouse, like
[34:12] Speaker 4: you might expect, is pretty strict about photos and recording
[34:16] Speaker 4: during the proceedings.
[34:17] Speaker 5: That is not allowed.
[34:18] Speaker 4: You can't even have your phone in the room. So
[34:21] Speaker 4: that that was an interesting reminder from the judge and
[34:23] Speaker 4: one we haven't heard yet.
[34:25] Speaker 2: During the proceedings the pointiff is going to take the
[34:29] Speaker 2: stand at some point, Do you have any idea when
[34:32] Speaker 2: that might be?
[34:33] Speaker 4: So both parties in this case, this young woman who's
[34:37] Speaker 4: being identified in court as Kaylee, she's going to have
[34:40] Speaker 4: forty hours to present her case, and then the defendants
[34:43] Speaker 4: are going to have forty hours to present theirs. So
[34:46] Speaker 4: we're hardly kind of getting into that at this point
[34:49] Speaker 4: after about a week of testimony so far. For her,
[34:53] Speaker 4: I don't know exactly when she's going to be called
[34:55] Speaker 4: to take the stand. I know that we're expecting to
[34:58] Speaker 4: hear from some other employees little lower down the food
[35:01] Speaker 4: chain at Meta, some former employees executives at YouTube, likely
[35:06] Speaker 4: will be called. Kaylee actually was in the courtroom for
[35:09] Speaker 4: a portion of Zuckerberg's testimony. We heard from Mark Lanier
[35:13] Speaker 4: that she was not going to be making an appearance
[35:15] Speaker 4: in court until she was called to testify because he
[35:18] Speaker 4: didn't want to subject her to hearing lawyers and witnesses
[35:21] Speaker 4: talk about these really intimate details of her life, and
[35:25] Speaker 4: he kind of alluded to her fragile mental state as
[35:28] Speaker 4: a result of this alleged addiction to social media that's the.
[35:31] Speaker 5: Root of this litigation. But he had her there.
[35:35] Speaker 4: He was asking Zuckerberg questions about her, whether he'd had
[35:39] Speaker 4: a chance to.
[35:40] Speaker 5: Review her social media feed.
[35:41] Speaker 4: I think a particularly powerful moment during the testimony was
[35:45] Speaker 4: he was allowed to bring out a demonstrative showing it
[35:48] Speaker 4: was a large banner that stretched across most of the
[35:51] Speaker 4: courtroom and it was a collage of like thousands of
[35:55] Speaker 4: selfies that Kaylee had taken and posted to Instagram.
[35:59] Speaker 5: And so I think centering.
[36:01] Speaker 4: This case on her and or reminding jurors that it
[36:03] Speaker 4: is about one individual, I think that's definitely what they
[36:06] Speaker 4: were trying to do with that strategy, and that's what
[36:09] Speaker 4: they'll be doing when they call her to the stand
[36:11] Speaker 4: and have her kind of talk about her experiences.
[36:14] Speaker 2: I know you'll be watching this case closely, so we'll
[36:16] Speaker 2: talk again. Thanks so much, Madeline. That's Bloomberg Legal reporter
[36:20] Speaker 2: Madelein Mecklberg, and that's it for this edition of The
[36:23] Speaker 2: Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you can always get the latest
[36:26] Speaker 2: legal news on our Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can find
[36:29] Speaker 2: them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at www dot Bloomberg
[36:33] Speaker 2: dot com, Slash podcast Slash Law, and remember to tune
[36:37] Speaker 2: into the Bloomberg Law Show every weeknight at ten pm
[36:41] Speaker 2: Wall Street Time. I'm June Grosso and you're listening to
[36:44] Speaker 2: Bloomberg

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