This is John Bachelor, a long conversation with my colleague Professor Richard Epstein at the Hoover Institution

about the Colorado decision to remove Donald Trump's name from the ballot, the primary ballot.

It was restored, but now arguments before the Supreme

Court scheduled for February 8th. Colorado, the Secretary of State in charge of the election

in Colorado, has entered a brief naming the

former president as an ineligible insurrectionist and therefore to be removed.

I asked the professor about this language,

ineligible insurrectionist, and he says that it turns on the word insurrection.

What does that mean? And at that point we look at the idea, will the Supreme Court define it?

Or will it rule on the basis of the fact that the original Section 3 of the 14th Amendment

did not include the President and the Vice President is the case.

Here's Professor Richard Epstein on this textual argument with regard to the 14th Amendment and the presumption of

definition of insurrection.

What is an insurrection?

What is an insurrectionist?

Professor Richard Epstein.

Well I think the Trump brief is correct.

If the president is not an officer covered by this particular section, then everything

that followed about insurrections is inapplicable.

If they decide incorrectly in my view that somehow already is covered,

then in effect they have to define an insurrection,

but they would have to do it against the background in which the only

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