All right.

We're back no for overtime with Judge Rosen.

Judge, thanks for hanging around.

Let's let's let's continue t talk a little bit of politics.

Are you going to get involved in the governor's race for the US Senate race?

I'm out of politics.

Well you know, nobody's asking me so.

Well, just a second you had some experience, you ran unsuccessfully for office and you know everybody.

Okay, If one of these candidates came to you and said, would you help me?

And I backed a lo of unsuccessful people, too.

So nobody's asking me.

Look, all right, let's name names.

If you're saying that I think my wife would divorce me if I got back and she threatened that on bankruptcy, that didn't work out.

Yeah, she did.

Are you have any opinion about the candidates out there running right now?

You know a lot of them.

What do you think?

Do I think I think we're very fortunate.

We have some very, very talented and qualified people running for governor.

I've already talked about Mike Duggan.

I think he'd be a terrific governor.

Mike Cox is a friend of mine, former attorney general.

He's a terrific guy.

He's got a lot he's got a terrific skill set and he's a leader.

And Jocelyn Benson is a friend and she was the dean of the law school when I was teaching there.

I was doing adjunct teaching there.

She and her husband were very good friends.

So I think we have you know, we have an embarrassment of riches in the candidate that are running for governor.

All of them bring different things to the table.

But and it hasn't always been that way, Bill, as you know, we haven't always ha a field of very talented people.

And we do this time.

Judge, let me ask you a question As a retired bankruptcy judge not retired from law because you're still very active in that whole sphere?

I think you may have som strong opinions about Bitcoin.

We have a presiden who said he's going to make this the bitcoin capital of the world Detroit has also now embraced Bitcoin for people to be able to do business.

Does that potentially threate everything that you all worked for in a bankruptcy of a city and maybe even a country?

One small friendly amendment to your question, I was not a bankruptcy judge.

I was the mediator in the bankruptcy, but not a bankruptcy judge.

I was an Article three judge and rarely dealt with bankruptcy issues until I got involved.

Unfortunately, you were subservient to a bankruptcy judge.

I was.

I don't know if it wa unfortunate or if we had a great it was a partnership.

I don't know if it was unfortunate, but some of my colleagues thought was unfortunate for sure.

But Bitcoin, you know, I've got to be careful here because I'm pretty strict NDA confidentiallity stuff.

But I have mediated a couple of Bitcoin cases and I think I understand it, but it doesn't seem to be based on anything.

It seems ephemeral, and the values that support Bitcoin seem to be driven by fear and greed and not much else.

That's a prescription for disaster.

Exactly what they don't seem to be driven by or supported by anything else except notions of fear, notions of greed.

You're very an I have not invested in Bitcoin.

So what's the difference between mediation and arbitration?

Yeah, that's a great question.

So arbitration is sort of lik a mini trial or it is a trial, but it's a private trial.

It's done privately where as mediation is bringing people together, you know, using sweet reason to try to persuade people to common ground to maybe try and avoid a trial.

To avoid trial.

Exactly.

Bring people together.

I'm all about bringing people together.

I'm a peacemaker.

How is this game changed since you started playing?

Which game?

Game you're in?

Either lawyer or mediation?

No, no, no.

Just the whole the whole political climate.

The political climate.

God, I hate to wax hagiographic or nostalgia, Tim but it was very, very different back in the seventies when I worked in the Senate, Senator Griffin, who I was working for, one of his closest friends was Mike Mansfield, who was the Democratic majority leader.

Right.

And and I mean friends.

And they had a really not only social relationship, but a professional relationship.

And they got together and they could talk and get things done.

And that's all changed.

It seems to me now toda you're either wearing a uniform with a D on it or uniform with an R on it.

And I wish were we weren't so divisive in our society.

It's one of the things I try to talk about in the book, that we live in such a polarized, divided country that if people would just focus on common interests, and that's what I try to do in mediation, focus on what the ultimate interests are, what the issues are, and stay away from all of thi terrible teraring at each other.

I think we'd be much better.

Would you?

Do you think our democracy is at risk?

That's a big question.

I never thought so until this last campaign.

And some of the things that President Trump had talked about during the campaign, whether he'll do them, we'll see.

But the pardons were certainly a step in that direction.

I'm a little bit of a student of history and I remember reading in high school, or maybe it was college.

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Scherer.

And I'm not saying that Trum is a Nazi or anything like that, but a lot of the currents that we're seeing today call to mind Germany of the thirties and a lot of the things that we see happening, the way politicians are appealing to people building on fears, appealing to people's worst instincts, scapegoating the big lie.

And I'll start with the biggest lie that the 2020 election was stolen.

All of these happened in Germany in the thirties, in the build up to Hitler.

And remember, Hitler was elected.

He was popularly elected and all of these things happened.

Do you have concern or do you have concern that the judiciary a separate branch of government, may not be living up to the power that it has?

In what Ti said, this sphere of democracy?

I think the judiciary is our last best hope and I was in it for 27 years.

The men and women in the judiciary, I think by, and large really try to do their best.

But I do see a more politicized judiciary, both by Republican appointees and Democratic appointees.

There seems to be mor of a sense now that you got to you got to come to the dance with the people that brought you, stay with the dance, the people that brought you that didn't exist when I first went on the bench in the early nineties, sure, people had ideological views and they came to those views.

Honestly, I think of people like Damon.

Keith Damon was a remarkable guy.

He had strong views.

I sat with him when I sat by designation on the Court of Appeals.

He had strong views and they were sincerely felt.

But Damon was a good judge.

He was a very good judge.

And I think of people like Jim Ryan, who was a sixth Circuit Court of Appeals judge, conservative, who I also sat with.

And then on the Supreme Court, I think of people like Nino Scalia who was very conservative, but had sincerely held views.

They weren't political in the sense of, you know, I feel this way because I was appointed by a Republican president.

I hope the judiciary can remain free of it.

It's getting harder because to be nominated and then confirmed by the Senate, to be nominated by president and then confirmed by the Senate.

There's a certain amount of politics in that.

And I just I hope that we don't lose the I hope we don't lose the commitment to the rule of law that most judges that I know of have.

So when is the second book?

Well, uh, I'm thinking of writing a book to be published posthumously called Secrets I have kept.

Going back to me, going back to my work in the Senate the question is, was this fun?

Yeah, it's always fun.

It's always fun to talk with you, Tim.

Well, I like being pushed you know, I like the exchange, like the give and take, like Chuck as well.

He's this is what I don't know how many interviews we've done together.

Countless, You're a professional It's great to get together with my old softball friend Bill Ballenger.

It's great to meet Zoe, who's an up and comer.

Quote I like being pushed.

I do.

like being pushed.

Well Let's to push on out of here.

Okay, Thanks very much, Judge.

Good luck to you