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and we'll Dive Right In beginning with a huge day legally for Donald Trump he is expected to be in a New York courtroom this morning for a hearing on the hush money case against him the trial was supposed to start today but it was delayed earlier this month after Federal prosecutors turned over thousands of documents which the Manhattan District Attorney's Office says are largely irrelevant to the case the judge is now expected to set a new start date for the criminal Tri Tri meanwhile today is

also the deadline for Trump to put up a bond of nearly half a billion dollars in the Civil fraud case the bond would prevent the New York attorney general from collecting on the Judgment while he appeals Trump's attorneys have asked an appell at court to reduce delay or wave the bond but as the Washington Post reports the appeals court generally issues rulings on Tuesdays and Thursdays so there is very little chance it will act today so uh Chuck Rosenberg what what should we be expecting this we

ek how significant will it be for the former president well it could be very significant if the Attorney General of the state of New York Joe begins to move against his assets uh but let me add a note here if I may uh just because a prosecutor can do something doesn't necessarily mean that she should do something we know that Mr Trump has asked an appell at court to e reduce or wave uh the bond that he would have to pay we may have a decision from that appell at court soon uh it might be prudent

in this case for the Attorney General to wait to see what the appell at court says before she starts moving against the assets you know again prosecutors have a lot of authority and a lot of power but you don't always have to use it at its fullest in every case in every instance just because you can and so if I were the Attorney General here I'd like to hear what the appell court has to say about the amount of the bond and whether they're going to reduce it because you can always move against t

he assets on Tuesday or Thursday or Monday of next week uh and it might make sense uh to wait and see uh Jonathan omir obviously this is a massive Bond um and and obviously makes a bad situation much worse for Donald Trump uh but there was also and man I don't I I'm not exactly sure how his truth social uh deal is going the way it is but uh it it looks like a Ponzi scheme to me I don't but I don't I don't understand it this is though a social media Network that doesn't appear to be successful an

d yet people are throwing around5 billion dollar here5 billion doll there does that provide Donald Trump U an economic Lifeline uh in the short term yeah well first of all there's certainly nothing's going to be able to materialize by today you're right about truth social it's a website that frankly no one uses uh it has very little traction outside of the extreme Maga right and it is where Trump continues uh to post since he was kicked off of Twitter after January 6th I believe he's only posted

one thing since which was his mug shot uh when he was indicted in Georgia last summer so he's still trying to drive interest to truth social it's not really working uh there have and you know merger deals you know rumored for a couple years now they all kind fell where where does this massive valuation come from I'm I'm I'm all over again who in in in a free and open and fair market I mean if you're just talking about economic considerations who would invest in this company unless you were tryi

ng to create favor with somebody you thought think might be the next president of the United States well I think you hit it right there it's someone trying to Curry favor with the next that they believe that next president United States um you know we certainly have seen a number people do that of late and this is one with TR social where it's not it's not a success by any measure but yet there seems to be money coming or at least it it's not done but there's rumors of money coming there that co

uld really change Trump's Financial picture now it wouldn't be coming in the next few weeks it wouldn't be arrive in time to Stave off this Bond so this is still an a separate issue for Trump but it could come down the road it could allow him to reset his financial footing and and you know there's also talk about what will happen today is this going to lead to Trump to declaring bankruptcy uh which of course is a tool he's used before and that won't get him out of experts say that won't get him

out of having to pay this judgment but it could delay things now it would be a black eye politically for a former businessman who touts himself as a master of the corporate Universe it's part of his his deal when you're trying to when he make his pitch for the presidency but that could if he does that that could buy him some time and maybe joea this financial lifeline for two social or another one would emerge joining us now former litigator and MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin from outside

the courthouse in New York City Federal criminal defense erney attorney Caroline policy joins us as well she's a lecturer at Columbia Law School and MSNBC political analyst Elise Jordan is with us as well uh Lisa we'll start with you uh tell us what you expect to hear today what you'll be looking for well m one of the things I'm really looking for is how quickly judge Juan Maran gets to the question of when this trial is going to take place because former president Trump's motion here wasn't jus

t for an adjournment it was for a dismissal of the entire indictment on the theory that because the southern district of New York and arm of the Department of Justice responded to his subpoena with documents that he had never before been provided that that somehow is proof POS positive that the Manhattan District Attorney's office has engaged in what would be called Discovery misconduct and as a result of that the whole case should go I don't expect the judge to have much tolerance for that argu

ment but depending on how long that argument goes that should tell you how seriously he's taking it or whether he cuts it to the quick and we have a real quick and dirty argument about when this trial should start M all right Caroline policey same question to you what will you be looking for and also in terms of the bond issue uh since you have some specialty in regulatory investigations and commercial litigation I'm curious if it if it gives you any insight into what the best option for Trump w

ould be in terms of making that Bond yeah so so first question uh on on the trial today with judge Maran um barring the unlikely scenario that there is sort of a a Smoking Gun um information document in I'm I'm going to call in the federal system we call Brady material which is um information that the defendant is sort of constitutionally um you know bound to receive by the prosecution I think this is going to be a blip on the radar screen I don't think judge Maran is going to kick the trial dat

e back past you know mid mid April where where where it's h scheduled to now um I think that you know there are uh reasons to have this hearing you know the defense as a defense attorney you can't just sort of take the government's word for it that you know here are tens of thousands of documents but only about 270 of them are relevant and by the way we think the overwhelming majority is uh inculpatory meaning duplicative of the information we've already uh given you so I do think judge Maran do

es need to get to the bottom of this this argument that the sdny and the AG's DA's office was somehow colluding is is laughable if you sort of know the history of those two offices uh relationships the southern district of New York notoriously does sort of not play well in the sandbox with other prosecutorial bodies and so the idea that they would be colluding with um you know Alvin Bragg's office is sort of laughable n nonetheless we we'll see what happens um on the bond issue you know I know y

ou played the clip about the potential for uh Trump filing for bankruptcy I'm sort of of the camp that that is just will will never happen um you know Savvy commercial litigators and sort of um you know people that are in the business understand that filing for bankruptcy is is not sort of um what it sort of colloquially means and that uh you know sometimes it can be an important thing to do and in a vacuum maybe uh I would say to do that in this case for the bond but Trump's just you know never

going to uh file for bankruptcy I think he'll be able to Cobble together the he has before yeah he certainly he has before but of course now he's in the middle of a presidential campaign um So Lisa a couple things to you uh first let's ass say as the trial does get a go-ahead where you were in today and it does happen in April how long do you think that trial will last and you know will we get a verdict of ahead of Voters um going to the polls and and let's get your your sense here if that mone

y the bond doesn't appear do you think the Attorney General of the state of New York Mr James is going to start seizing his assets in the days ahead well let's start with the trial John so the district attorney has told judge Maran that he expects the trial to last 4 to 6 weeks and that's inclusive of jury selection however having attended three Trump trials in the last 12 months alone I can tell you that these things always take longer because his attorneys are specialists in the Trump Mo which

is delay delay delay so I do expect that we would have a verdict for example before the political conventions but do I expect that the trial will last four to six weeks necessarily no let's go back to the bomb though because Caroline said something that I really want to amplify about bankruptcy there are other reasons that I think Trump won't file for bankruptcy Beyond his own Pride one of them is if he were to declare bankruptcy there is a likelihood that he would plunge many of his existing l

oan agreements into default and the amount that his lenders could collect if there were events of default under his outstanding lending agreements could be far in excess of the totality of what the Attorney General's office believes is necessary for a bond but there's one other reason and and that's the concept of joint and several liabilities so I hate to take our viewers to law school right now but the Judgment that judge Arthur and Goran entered with respect to that civil fraud case holds Tru

mp and a number of business entities jointly and severely liable for the judgment and what that essentially means is that Trump can't escape that judgment simply by putting a number of business entities into bankruptcy nor can he escape by putting himself into personal bankruptcy he would have to do both of them at once to Halt any further litigation and enforcement efforts and if you think Donald Trump is both going to declare himself personally bankrupt and then have a number of entities subsi

diary to the Trump organization and the Trump organization itself in bankruptcy I think you've got another thing coming my suspicion is that he will Cobble together money from a variety of sources to post a bond but it won't necessarily be today and that also means that although Tish James can start some enforcement efforts as soon as today or even sooner really there was nothing stopping her that doesn't mean that a few days from now we won't see Trump post a bond to stay enforcement of that ju

dgment as he sees the Judgment through the appeal Michael Elise here what is the historical parallel the closest parallel to a politician who is this embroiled in legal problems in the runup to an election what can you can you think of any is there any history guide post that can nothing can give you the shortest answer on Earth nothing at all uh when have we seen especially not only former president a presidential candidate putative nominee in court this way and the other thing is that you know

Presidents in history we elect them because they've been a success in their profession I was mentioning Washington Lincoln General Grant won the war uh the Civil War or did a lot to help us win the Civil War uh Dwight Eisenhower LED forces on D-Day if Dwight Eisenhower had failed on D and D-Day and those forces have been turned back and they had go back into the sea do you think that he would have had a prayer of being elected in 1952 so Donald Trump this week is going to be shown is essentiall

y a fraud this was never a successful businessman someone who does not obey the law uh someone who will not support the Constitution as I was saying earlier and more important than that look at his record as president president two things and I'll just say these number one our security and that of our children we Americans is protected by an elaborate system of alliances uh Joe you and na have talked about a lot beginning with NATO Donald Trump has said yes elect me president again I will vandal

ize NATO and under certain circumstances I'll tell Putin do whatever the hell you want direct quote and the other thing may be just as important a president is supposed to protect our lives four years ago this month the horrible covid pandemic began how well did Donald Trump do in telling Americans how to protect themselves in mobilizing the forces of the federal government to be frank about the danger that was here how people could find some way to make sure that we survive this thing you know

I leave it to you you know I think all this year day after day we should say what was Donald Trump doing uh four years ago today to avert one million deaths didn't happen you know Joe listening to Michael BOS and everybody else here in the panel today talking about the Myriad of issues and the weight of the problems financial and political that Donald Trump carries each and every day I'm just thinking that we have been carrying this fugitive from Justice in our history literally for over three d

ecades before he even became a real public figure appearing on The Apprentice and running and winning the presidency of the United States and I used to think I had some sort of an answer that he you know was a master of uh focusing in on people's anger and resentment about things around their lives and that's one of the reasons he won I no longer have an answer to it I mean he's been around and survived all of these incredible weighty legal and political issues and he still here still here still

a free man I have no explanation for this show what do you think well you know um while you were talking I just thought about something that Barack Obama said um Elise and I thought it was really insightful of him when he was running for president he said something along the lines of when people see me they hold up a mirror and they see themselves like the possibilities for themselves the possibilities for being an American the possibilities of of of of doing things that you couldn't do in in m

any other countries I wonder if this is the other side of that mirror and a mirror of resentment when you know the thing that has the thing that has confounded us from from the very beginning in 2015 I always talk about uh Mark halin and John Hilman had a focus group something you know a lot about and there was a New Hampshire woman with tattoos uh who who was a a bluecollar worker and uh Mark Al asked uh why do you support Donald Trump and her answer was because he's one of us he's not he's nev

er been never will be uh if he was one of us he would be in jail right now like all the people from January the 6th but he's been protected so I wonder again is is the vote for Donald Trump less about Donald Trump and more about the rejection of Elites over the past 50 60 years Joe you nailed it that's all it is about at the end of the day and it's what Donald Trump has done so masterfully F by he's made the Grievances that he has the Grievances that people have against him it's not about him he

tells his voters it's about you they are doing this to you I am being persecuted they're not doing this to me they're doing this to you and by pushing the victimhood narrative he has managed to make this not just about himself and his problems of the day but about a large swath of the country that is repulsed frankly by Elites who are sitting in Washington and they feel like dictating their lives and looking down on them so he's just he's able to Market that in a way unlike any other modern pol

itician which is why ma I know this sounds crazy but everything about what's happened since 2015 politically has been crazy Donald Trump declaring bankruptcy may be the best move for him not just economically but politically for anybody for anybody out there who thinks Donald Trump having to to to file for bankruptcy because of a massive judgment against him they think that will hurt him with his base they haven't been paying attention over the past seven years because it would not it would hurt

his pride I don't think he'll do it because of his pride but the base if Donald Trump had to commit uh had had to uh file bankruptcy I actually think it would help him politically I I think it would too and it would drag it out um and he could use it and and um the one of us term it it's so interesting because to answer barnicle's question in a number of different ways um he inflated his assets in every way uh he pretended to be the New Hampshire woman one of us I connect with you but he was al

so aspirational everybody you know dreamed to wear the red hat and be rich and famous and have goldplated everything he symbolized success in that way and a lot of americ Americans were really struggling dayto day with their bills absolutely uh felt aspirational in Donald Trump so right but you know the the the thing is though Jonathan lamir being in politics I I have and doing the job I've done and interviewing people I've met a lot of rich people in my life I've met a lot of billionaires I've

met a lot of self-made billionaires one of us I can understand it like I could I could name you 10 extraordinary stories I know you could too of people who were born with nothing who worked around the clocks a lot of people who didn't didn't go to college they just worked worked worked worked and and they were they are American success stories what went so crazy on this one this one of us thing Donald Trump inherited the equivalent of $400 million lost it all I mean he he's he's not one of them

never was one of them which is why this whole one of us argument is confounded you know I think it was Tom wicker that had a book uh about Richard Nixon called one of us Nixon was and Nixon was born uh you know in in in a struggling family just like Reagan you could talk about Carter there a lot of presidents Gerald Ford that grew up uh Bill Clinton that grew up and could say hey I'm one of you I grew up like you I understand what you're going through with your family Joe Biden my God more than

better than anybody else right now understands what people go through when they struggle not Donald Trump that's where this whole one of us storyline infl just doesn't make any sense it doesn't make any sense but we've been living with it for nearly a decade now this is a man who's got a sky Scraper on Fifth Avenue with his name and blazing in gold on the side and he lives in a penthouse there and yet and yet and I saw this when I was on the campaign Trail in 2016 and you still hear it today the

re are people out there who are very different from him you know from places whether it's Pennsylvania Ohio Wisconsin Florida wherever it might be who say this guy gets me he understands and some of that is because he gives voice to to grievance he gives voice to that feeling of I hear you you've been left behind it is a rebellion against the elites and I think we l we don't want to lose sight of how powerful that was in 2016 coming not long after the financial meltdown coming not that long afte

r the Middle Eastern Wars coming not long after frankly the election of a black man as president which I cannot be overstated there so many white working-class Americans felt like hey this country is changing it's breaking away from me this guy will bring it back and then you add that to this culture of just celebrity uh and victimhood that has created since and it's still a potent political mix partisanship sometimes matters there are also shared principles shared that help maintain this remark

able democracy and make us one people under the rule of law it's a kind of Miracle when you sit there and see all those people in front of you people that are so different in what they think and yet they've decided to help solve their major differences under law and when the students get too cynical I say go go look at what happens in countries that don't do that and that's there I can't take this around in my job the people have come to accept this Constitution and they've come to accept the im

portance of a rule of law that was former US Supreme Court Justice Steven Brier on the importance of the rule of law Justice Brier who was nominated to the court by president Clinton in 1994 served on the bench for 28 years before stepping down in 2022 he is out now with a new book entitled reading the Constitution why I chose pragmatism not textualism and the former US Supreme Court Justice Steph Brier joins us now right here on Morning Joe it's good to have you sir Justice Brier thank you so m

uch for being here uh tell us why this book is so important uh it this moment in US history I think it's important because many Americans are uh discussing the court some approve it many do not approve what it's been doing recently and then they have reasons as to why they think it's doing what they don't like uh one of them is they think it's politics and I don't think it is I think it plays a very minor role in politics at least politics is it's ordinarily understood others think that they jus

t like to do this this way or that way and and that's not a very good explanation now in 40 years on the bench which I've had 28 on the Supreme Court I've gotten more or less used to the basic job which is to take words in a statute or the Constitution words typically that don't explain themselves and decide how they apply in the case or what they mean now I think the thing that has changed over the last decade over the last few years is a m method of deciding that has become very popular and th

at's called textualism and it's so attractive it says all you do is read the words just read the words and do what they say and this will be simple clear and it will stop judges from deciding what they think is good instead of the law all right many believe that I do not and there is another more traditional way of looking at the those words and that is someone wrote them what was their purpose what are their consequences how do they fit within the values that underly this document I still have

it the Constitution of the United States and will they last these interpretations to the point where they make the lives of people in the United States better that's what I call pragmatism but it's much more complex than that and so I want to explain to people what I've seen not as a professor not as a theory those professors do know those theories but I've had some experience that they've not had and that's the experience I want to write from I want to tell you about this case that case the oth

er case and why that fits into a pattern and why I think rather than just blaming politics lawyers and non- lawyers people in the United States and others should wake up in my view to what's going on with what sounds awfully academic and it isn't because it determines how those cases will come out and affect men and women in America you know it's so it's such an extraordinarily important book right now especially as you said for people for Americans that look at cour decisions say well it's just

political you you you can look at the makeup of of any Court you can look at you I I'm I'm not shocked by dobs because of what Clarence Thomas because of what Kavanaugh because of Justice Kavanagh what what what they've said throughout most of their lives and I I think it it brings up an important point if we're going to have this debate and understand what really moves it yes sometimes politics enters into the hearts and the minds of men and they try tojust but this is the battle to win isn't

it this is it it is it is the intellectual battle that has to be won it is a battle to win and I think that the uh it's not that the judges you name or other judges are just sitting there thinking oh well I have a different point of view if we're interested in my opinion of running not running the risk of certain dangers to The Republic that the founders set up we don't want to run those risks and therefore I think the path which not too many people outside the Judiciary will see but I see it an

d I want to explain it the path called textualism is something that should be avoided simple simple I'll tell you something I just read an opinion I just read an opinion where it was 63 pages long sent 30 pages each side and you know what it was about it was about what the word and meant yeah and there are others like that and if you think they're simple if you think the cases in the Supreme Court in the language are simple so you can just go read them and see what they mean I have a bridge in N

ew York to sell you justice you're arguing for pragmatism in law and in reading of the law and on the court you were surrounded by a lot of Justice who were strong originalists how did you balance that your beliefs and their beliefs and what is the right balance between textualism and pragmatism it's a very good question because it is a question that Justice Nino Scalia who was a good friend of mine and I would debate and we would debate it uh usually before students who went to LC Texas I think

there were about a thousand students there I was amazed they must have thought it was a basketball game but the the uh and we spoke about it and uh because he very much is a textualist has written that we should just follow the words basically and no more and um I would say to him you know life changes and the values that are in the Constitution they have to be adopted so I said you know he's a very intelligent and very funny and amusing guy so I said George Washington didn't know about the int

ernet and he said I knew that he said but the problem between your system it's like the two campers I said who are the two campers and he said uh one sees the other putting on some running shoes why there's a bear in the camp a bear in the camp you can't outrun a bear yes he says but I can outrun you and that's what Scalia says he says Stephen you have a system and you draw in a system because this system has been around since John Marshall since the founders I didn't make it up but the he says

uh it's too complicated you're the only one who can work it and I say Nino I don't think that's so but if it were so you have a system that will produce a constitution and a set of laws that no one will want Jus as Brier as you know uh this country country is on the edge of something historic happening in the court and a lot of people don't pay attention to the court every day but a lot of people of influence certainly do and there's an element called pace of play that I would use that phrase to

describe what might be going on here at the court we had Nixon and the Watergate uh papers we've had Bush Gore those decisions came down from the court fairly rapidly in terms of the Court's usual Pace but now the court seems to be slowing down things slowing down things and slowing down things is there any rational explanation for the amount of time being taken to make these decisions well I don't have the that experience that you describe I mean in the 28 years U it's much more uh mechanical

in the sense of taking cases are not than you have just described my experience is when a case is ready it comes there why do we take a case we take a case because normally different judges Lower Court judges in different places have come to different conclusions about the same question of federal law I can give you an example of a federal question that could be you want an example yeah okay this is not I won't give it an American example I'll give a French example because I read it in a French

newspaper okay and I'm teaching to the fifth grade and I say look at this example what a biology Professor is traveling from not to Paris to meet his class with a basket and in that basket are 20 live snails the conductor comes up what's in the basket he shows him do you have a ticket for the snails he says I need a ticket for the snails that's ridiculous you read the fair book it says no animals on the train except in a basket and if so half fair this is that applying to cats that's dogs maybe

a rabbit certainly not a snail you think a mosquito well that's ridiculous he says is a snail an animal Aha and I put to the fifth grade class what do you think do they have to pay the fair or do they not have to pay the fair and before you know it they are fighting with each other like mad what about a scorpion what about how is it an animal okay now I say you understand the job of the appell judge it might not be a snail it might be uh bare arms but that's the job and the question is how you c

arry it out and when mechanically the rules of procedure when that case is before us and we decide to take it four votes will take it they then start to write briefs who the parties the government the friends of this party the friends of that party and they're all called briefs they're little documents do you know why they're called briefs cuz they're not yeah exactly that's it the least brief thing I've ever seen all right we read them and then we have an oral argument then we go into the confe

rence we discuss it nobody else is there and people say what they think and don't say as you've learned haha I have a better argument than you that will get you nowhere listen that's what Senator Kennedy told me and the staff members when I work there in the Senate listen to what people who disagree with you say and when you listen and discuss you sometimes find agreement some agreement we can work with that and we'll work with it and try to come closer to an agreement or compromise and then we

go out the chief assigns and we write an opinion we circulate it when it's ready and people can add if they want concurrences the sense and finally everyone's exhausted or written and uh they're finished and the opinion comes out that's it and there isn't mucking around with dates very little very little you can never say never about anything but very very little it proceeds in so the mechanical way all right breaking news the president and CEO of Boeing David Calhoun and several other senior le

aders are resigning this after the come has come under scrutiny amid concerns over the safety of its planes Regulators began increasing calls for changes after a door plug blew out of an Alaska Airlines plane in January Calhoun says he'll step down at the end of the year he was appointed to the position back in 2019 after Boeing AED its previous chief executive for his handling of the aftermath of two deadly 737 Max crash Mike Barnacle what in the hell has happened to Boeing I mean the FBI has a

ctually reached out according to breaking news over the weekend they've reached out to people that were on that Alaskan Airlines flight and said they may be victims of of of of a crime and you you know it's it that's not the only incident it's it seems one after another after another there is there is such a quality control problem at Boeing it it's it's stunning how bad it is yeah I don't know the answer to your to your initial question Joe but I do know that Dave Calhoun was one of Jack Welsh'

s Key Personnel in terms of management and Dave Calhoun was a widely pursued CEO I believe he was CEO of a couple of different companies earlier you know before he took the boying job uh and he was noted for his management skills and clearly he was brought in by Bo to correct the uh the mishaps that had occurred at BO over period of time and he's been CEO of boing I think for five or six years this is a surprise uh but it's not unexpected given what happened I mean the boing has had the the plan

e crashes they've had the doors blown off uh they have multiple clearly Personnel issues but uh it's another great American company that is not so great anymore a new book is sounding the alarm on the current Mental Health crisis facing youth in our country and what we can do about it in the anxious anxious generation author and social psychologist Jonathan height spells out how gen Z those born after 1995 were the first to come of age bombarded by the alternative use of social media staring the

m in the face 247 through their smartphones the toll this way of life has taken on their well-being has been devast devastating a new study by the Kaiser Family Foundation reveals roughly one in five adolescence report experiencing symptoms of anxiety or depression but hey argues there are ways to fix this and he joins us now this is such an important book thank you for writing it um I I have kids in this category and I see through the eyes of them and many of their friends and Joe's kids exactl

y what you're saying I would like to add um school shootings to this which has become a way of life now for young children and I wonder if that also you agree plays a role in this generation of anxiety um well thanks so much for having having me on it's a big mystery because it it's hitting all of us and everyone has a theory about what causes it and and fear of school shootings is one that I I hear a lot and the new town shooting was 2012 but that doesn't explain why the exact same thing happen

ed a complete collapse of mental health hitting especially girls and especially young girls in Canada the UK Australia New Zealand it all starts around 2013 and that's not because of American school shootings so uh when this first broke out we weren't sure but now that we know it's International there is only one explanation there's no other theory that can make sense of a of a synchronized Global collapse in mental health other than the the fact that in 2010 the great majority of kids had a fli

p phone no high-speed internet no unlimited data no Instagram and by 2015 we all have a smartphone High-Speed Internet unlimited data Instagram front-facing camera so what I'm arguing in the book is that childhood was rewired in those five years well and also parents teachers communities lost control of The Narrative of what children are exposed to when so if you can imagine young kids with phones with the internet exposing them to all sorts of things that were definitely not you know a a a Tap

Away uh before that and that would include porn that's um and and hate and also a sense of inclusion or exclusion they knew where everybody was and the the communication and the exposure would go all night long I mean it seems so obvious and at the same time Jonathan it doesn't really feel like anything is being done about it collectively I will read about a school system or a community that is trying to ban smartphones in schools that's not going to solve the problem well actually that would ma

ke an enormous enormous difference it would start it would start but then they pick the phones up after school okay so so mik what I'm hearing from you is what I hear from most parents and most teachers which is it's a hell of a problem it's ruining everything we're losing control but what are you going to do the problem's too big we'll never solve it it's resignation that's what I keep hearing but what I argue in the book is that we're stuck because it's a series of collective action problems t

hat is why do you feel you have to give your kid a smartphone in fifth or sixth grade because everybody else did why does she have to have Instagram in seventh grade because she's the only one who will be left out if you don't let better have it so what I'm arguing the book is once we see this we parents we're not we're not getting much help from Congress Congress created the problem they've done nothing since 1998 to to regulate it um we parents and teachers we can solve this if we act together

and so what I proposed in the book is four Norms that will be the foundation for a complete reform for rolling back the phone-based childhood and the four Norms briefly are no smartphone till High School no social media till 16 phone free school all day long not just during class and a lot more Independence free play and responsibility in the real world if we do those four things they're hard to do as a alone person but if we do them collectively they get easy Jonathan all of this I love I love

the fact that you're giving guidelines because every parent like me is looking for them I have an 18-year-old whose daughter she's the youngest of my four and she's completely grown up with the the smartphone but interestingly just in the last few months she's deleted all social media apps from her phone and a group of her friends are doing the same because they're finding that it was taking up too much time it was causing too much anxiety Etc and I just wonder where are we starting to see are

there glimmers of those who are perhaps older than 15 16 starting to say wow this is we we have to do something about this because our parents aren't our teachers aren't our members of Congress aren't and actually they're sort of done with it absolutely this is actually a big Reason for Hope jenz has a lot of problems their xiety is making them less effective in the real world they're not as ambitious they're not making as much progress but they are completely not in denial they see the situatio

n very clearly and over and over again they say they say if we could all get rid of at the same time we would do it and we are starting to see individual and and clusters of friends moving to flip phones which are much less toxic than smartphones so this is the amazing thing is that almost everybody wants to change even even the teenagers they want to change um there was a review in in a British paper the reporter ended by asking her 18-year-old daughter would you have liked a smartphone ban to

age 16 when you were younger and the daughter says would it apply to everyone and when the mother said yes she said yes I would have rather liked that and the mother was so sad because it was such a missed opportunity you know for