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The Plan to Fight Trump's Second-Term Agenda

The Plan to Fight Trump's Second-Term Agenda

Released Wednesday, 19th June 2024
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The Plan to Fight Trump's Second-Term Agenda

The Plan to Fight Trump's Second-Term Agenda

The Plan to Fight Trump's Second-Term Agenda

The Plan to Fight Trump's Second-Term Agenda

Wednesday, 19th June 2024
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0:01

Angie's list is now Angie, and we've heard

0:03

a lot of theories about why. I thought

0:05

it was an eco-move. For your words, less

0:07

paper. Oh, it was so you

0:09

could say it faster. No, it's to

0:11

be more iconic. Must be a tech

0:14

thing. But those aren't quite right. It's

0:16

because now you can compare upfront prices,

0:18

book a service instantly, and even get

0:20

your project handled from start to finish.

0:22

Sounds easy. It is, and it makes

0:25

us so much more than just a

0:27

list. Get started at angie.com. That's A-N-G-I.

0:29

Or download the app today. Dressing.

0:32

Dressing. Oh, French

0:35

dressing. Exactly. That's

0:38

good. I'm AJ Jacobs, and

0:40

my current obsession is puzzles. And

0:43

that has given birth to

0:45

my new podcast, The Puzzler. Something

0:47

about Mary Poppins? Exactly. This is

0:49

fun. You can get your daily

0:52

puzzle nuggets delivered straight to your

0:54

ears. Listen to The

0:56

Puzzler every day on the iHeart

0:58

Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

1:01

you get your podcasts. Welcome

1:24

to Plaid Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm

1:26

Jon Lovett. And I'm Kate Shaw. On today's

1:29

show, Joe Biden makes a big move on

1:31

immigration that will create a pathway to citizenship

1:33

for half a million undocumented immigrants. The president

1:35

also takes on the Supreme Court's right-wing majority,

1:38

which just basically ruled that machine guns aren't

1:40

really machine guns. And a new

1:42

resistance movement is preparing to fight MAGA's Project 2025

1:44

in the courts if

1:46

Trump wins a second term. Does

1:49

that sound like a lot of legal news? Well, who

1:51

better to hatch it out with than Crooked's

1:53

very own Kate Shaw, law professor at Penn,

1:55

and even more impressively, co-host

1:58

of Strict Scrutiny. Kate, welcome. Thank

2:00

you so much for having me. And you're at the crooked tenure process

2:02

is a lot tougher than the thin one. So I

2:04

did make it through, but just barely. There's

2:06

a few ideological tests for our tenure process. Yeah,

2:09

that's right. And so yeah, I should say that

2:11

we're in New York, which is why we're here

2:13

with Kate in person. And I actually have a

2:15

question for you guys, which is why exactly are

2:17

you in New York? What

2:19

a beautiful, seamless transition to our

2:21

plug. Thank

2:24

you Kate for being part of this. The

2:27

three of us are on Colbert tonight. Not

2:29

the three of us, including me. Oh no, no,

2:31

no, no. A different three. Tommy is recording

2:34

Pods of the World somewhere, also in the

2:36

Sirius studio somewhere. But we'll be

2:38

on Colbert tonight and we're here to launch our

2:40

book. It's Tuesday afternoon. So we're on Colbert this

2:42

evening. Oh, we're on Colbert tonight. Wait, no. Last

2:45

night. Last night, last night. We're on Colbert last night. You

2:47

said this evening. We're on Colbert last night. We can tell

2:49

the people that we're actually, when we're

2:51

recording this. Would you believe that we're some of the

2:53

most successful people at this? And

2:57

we're also here to launch our

3:00

book, Democracy or Else, which you

3:02

can buy at crooked.com/book. And

3:04

if you don't, is that right? Book

3:08

doesn't also redirect. What

3:10

are we even doing here? I

3:14

feel like this promo is going great. John,

3:16

Tommy and I wrote a book. I kind of think we

3:19

should leave as much of this crap in. Maybe

3:21

not. So Democracy

3:23

or Else, it comes out this week. Nope.

3:26

It comes out this week. No, this is all

3:29

we got this year. Do you want me to try

3:31

it? I can talk about the

3:33

book if they tell me. I can give it a whirl. It's

3:35

coming out next week. Oh, and we worked

3:37

on it so hard and

3:40

it's good. Kate, it is probably a

3:42

lot shorter than almost any legal opinion

3:44

you have read. That's

3:46

great. Short, punchy, hopeful,

3:48

practical. These are the things I think your book

3:50

is going to be. I have not

3:52

read it yet, but this is my sense. It

3:54

is a how-to guide if you want to get

3:57

involved in this election and hopefully future elections in

4:00

your mind. That's it. And

4:02

we got some tips, we got some advice from

4:04

some really smart people. There's some jokes, there's some

4:06

illustrations. This is a public service,

4:08

you guys, seriously. Yeah, and all the

4:10

profits from the book, they go to

4:12

Vote Save America and organizations protecting democracy

4:14

on the ground. So, supporting

4:17

the book is supporting a good cause. And

4:20

Lovett, you know that when we are on Colbert Tonight,

4:22

you cannot do more than one take of

4:24

this book promo. Right, right. Well,

4:26

you know what? They do trim it down a little bit. They

4:28

do tighten it up. You could take

4:30

another shot at it. They don't love it. They don't love it, they

4:32

don't advertise it, but you can do it. Well,

4:35

this is why we practice here. Okay,

4:37

big news today. President Biden is announcing

4:39

that his administration will offer a pathway

4:42

to citizenship for the undocumented spouses of

4:44

American citizens who've been in the United

4:46

States for at least 10 years. The

4:49

policy will give about 500,000 immigrants legal status, protection

4:53

from deportation, and the ability to work

4:55

here legally. As of right

4:57

now, undocumented immigrants can apply for

5:00

citizenship if you're married to a citizen, but you

5:02

usually have to leave the country for 10

5:04

years to do it. Biden's new

5:07

action will also help about 50,000 undocumented

5:10

stepchildren of those undocumented immigrants

5:13

who were married to American citizens. He's also expected

5:15

to announce a separate action on

5:17

work permits for DREAMers. The

5:19

White House announcement comes right around the

5:21

12th anniversary of President Obama taking action

5:24

to protect the children of undocumented immigrants,

5:26

the program known as DACA, and

5:28

the Biden campaign used the occasion to

5:30

set up the immigration contrast with Trump

5:33

in a new ad. We did family separation. A lot

5:35

of people didn't come. They're bringing

5:37

drugs. They're bringing crime. They're

5:41

rapists. When

5:44

you say to a family that if you

5:46

come, we're gonna break you up, they don't

5:48

come. They're destroying our country. They're destroying the

5:50

guts of our country. The Biden

5:53

administration unveiling a task force Tuesday to

5:55

locate and reunite families who were separated

5:57

at the border under the Trump administration.

6:00

Zero-tolerance policy. They got separated from their

6:02

parents, violates every notion of who we

6:05

are as a nation. So,

6:07

Levitt, this is a big deal. It's happening

6:09

a few weeks after Biden's new policy that

6:11

closes the border to asylum seekers when

6:14

crossings get too high, which is now also being

6:16

challenged in court by the ACLU and other groups.

6:19

What do you make over all of the

6:21

policy and the politics here? So,

6:23

one fact that jumped out at me, according

6:25

to the administration, the majority of people who

6:27

will be impacted are Mexican nationals

6:29

who have lived in the United States for

6:32

an average of 23 years. 23

6:36

years! These are

6:38

people who have been given this abominable choice,

6:40

which is to stay in the country

6:42

that they know, where their

6:44

children and husbands and wives are, who

6:47

are often citizens themselves, or leave for

6:49

10 years to become legal, which

6:52

means they stay and they're at risk of being

6:54

taken advantage of by landlords and by employers. They're

6:56

afraid to go to the police to report a

6:58

crime, afraid that they could

7:00

be separated from their families at any moment.

7:03

And what I appreciate about Joe Biden, and

7:05

I know, look, everyone's spent a

7:07

lot of time worrying about Joe Biden. What

7:09

I really appreciate about Joe Biden and the

7:11

way that he has run his administration is

7:13

that even when he's being criticized from the

7:15

right for being soft in immigration, he's not

7:17

afraid to take a step like this because

7:19

he believes in the policy and the politics.

7:22

And also, what I appreciate is that he isn't afraid to take

7:24

steps on border security,

7:26

even though he knows he will face criticism

7:28

from advocates because he also believes in the

7:30

policy and the politics there. Well,

7:33

as you know, doing the right thing policy-wise is

7:35

always good politics. Sometimes

7:37

it is. Sometimes it is. So

7:40

77% of Americans in a Monmouth poll said that

7:43

the executive actions on border security

7:46

that President Biden took were right or didn't go far enough.

7:48

Most said didn't go far enough, but that 77% thinks it's

7:50

right or doesn't go far enough. Only

7:54

17% said that he went too far.

7:56

Americans also in a bunch of polls,

7:58

they prefer Republican polls. on border

8:00

security and they believe Trump will

8:02

do a better job on the border than

8:04

Joe Biden will. So I see

8:07

advocates saying that Biden is sort

8:09

of buying into a Republican narrative

8:11

on border security. And it's

8:14

true that Republicans are demagoguing the

8:16

issue and exaggerating and lying and

8:18

fear-mongering, but it's also Democratic mayors

8:21

and governors who are calling for

8:23

greater border security. And the reason

8:25

I think it's so important to highlight that

8:28

is because border security has risen to be

8:30

one of the top issues on voters' minds

8:32

and it is a view that is not

8:34

just held among MAGA Republicans. And Axios Ibsos

8:36

poll found 64 percent of Latinos said they

8:38

support giving the president the authority to shut

8:41

U.S. borders. Thirty-eight percent support sending all undocumented

8:43

immigrants in the U.S. back to their country

8:45

of origin. And these numbers are all going

8:47

up. But at the same time, in poll

8:49

after poll, Americans more broadly continue

8:52

to have an impulse towards compassion. They

8:54

support a path to citizenship. They want

8:56

America to be a refuge for people

8:58

seeking a better life. And so what

9:00

it says to me is that the

9:02

two Democratic positions can't be too far

9:04

or not far enough on border security

9:06

because the only way we will get

9:08

to the more compassionate and generous and

9:10

welcoming and sane and humane immigration system

9:12

that we all believe we need to

9:15

have is if we can prove that

9:17

we can also secure the border. They're

9:19

not separate. A secure border is not

9:21

a contradiction to a progressive immigration system.

9:23

They have to go together. And

9:25

that to me is what I took away from the fact that Joe

9:27

Biden was willing to do this what

9:29

two weeks after taking the steps he took on the

9:32

border. I also think that,

9:34

you know, you talked to

9:36

some immigration advocates and some

9:39

have a problem with the the border move

9:41

that Biden made a couple of weeks ago.

9:44

But some have said to me, look,

9:46

I understand why he's focusing on border

9:48

security. The challenge is we've conflated the

9:50

debate about the border with the debate

9:52

about immigration and a lot of Latino

9:55

voters and activists and advocates in that

9:57

space don't see them as the same

9:59

debate. And we

10:01

haven't been having a debate about immigration

10:04

policy inside the United States, or what

10:06

to do about the 10, 12 million,

10:10

15 million undocumented immigrants in this

10:12

country. And the polls don't

10:14

really capture this, unless you take a

10:16

poll that's only about immigration, but people

10:18

feel very differently about new

10:20

migrants crossing the border and what's happening at the

10:22

border and what's happening now in a lot of

10:24

American cities, than they do about

10:26

undocumented immigrants who have been here, who

10:29

have families here, who have been working

10:31

here for years, some of the very

10:33

same people that Biden is helping

10:35

right now. And I think, as you saw from

10:37

that ad, as you heard

10:39

in that ad that the Biden campaign is running,

10:42

I think also on the political side, it is

10:44

a better contrast for them to

10:46

say, okay, here's Donald Trump, who wants mass

10:48

deportation forces in every city

10:51

in America to expel 10

10:53

million undocumented immigrants who've been

10:55

here working and living for

10:57

years and years. And

10:59

by the way, you know he's gonna do that because

11:01

this is the guy who separated families at the border.

11:04

And here's Joe Biden, who he's gonna make sure

11:06

that all of these undocumented immigrants who are married

11:08

to American citizens, who have children here, who've been

11:10

working here, who've built lives here, this is the

11:12

only country they know, they

11:14

can stay here as opposed to going back

11:16

to the country of origin that isn't even

11:19

their country anymore for 10 years before they

11:21

come back. And I think that just politically

11:23

is a much better contrast. And it gets

11:25

to that place that you were speaking about

11:28

that is just more compassionate. Of course, we

11:30

know how this has gone from the

11:32

Obama years, we had similar fights, the

11:34

Republicans weren't as Trumpy back then, but

11:36

Kate, it took years for our old

11:39

boss to announce the DACA program, partly

11:41

because I think the Obama administration

11:44

was trying to craft the policy in a

11:46

way that would withstand legal challenges. 12

11:49

years later, DACA is still tied up in the courts.

11:52

Do you think this new Biden policy will fair

11:54

any better? Well, a couple things

11:56

about the new policy. So it's a really important

11:58

new policy that's gonna affect a lot of people.

12:00

but it's also very grounded in existing law. So

12:02

these spouses can already get a path, they have

12:04

a path to a green card and citizenship. They

12:07

just have to leave the country to avail themselves

12:09

of it. So I think that that's what's important

12:11

is that this is a process that exists. This

12:13

is a modification to it that lets people stay

12:15

while they adjust as opposed to having to leave

12:17

to adjust. So I think that actually helps the

12:19

legal argument in defense of this policy. The

12:22

other thing to say is there was a similar

12:24

change made some years ago with respect to spouses

12:26

of members of the military. So an undocumented spouse

12:29

of a military member can already do what this

12:31

new proposal will achieve, which is to say adjust

12:33

while staying as opposed to leaving for up to

12:35

10 years to their home country. It's a very

12:38

popular policy. I think something like 20,000 undocumented

12:40

military spouses have taken advantage of it.

12:43

And it wasn't challenged. Well, Congress actually reaffirmed

12:45

the authority of the Homeland Security Secretary to

12:48

do this. It's called parole in place with

12:50

respect to these military spouses. And that's bipartisan.

12:52

So that's not as to this particular group,

12:54

but I do think it's a, there's

12:57

at least some, this will be used

12:59

in litigation to sort of shore up the

13:01

administration's position that this isn't like taking Congress's

13:03

prerogative. This is something Congress actually wants the

13:05

executive branch to have the power to do.

13:07

So I think that again, it's grounded in

13:09

existing law. There's lots of good supporting evidence

13:11

of its legality, but like, of course it's

13:13

gonna be challenged because everything that a democratic

13:15

president ever does on immigration will be challenged

13:17

from one direction or another. Of course, we

13:19

should say the new border policy is being

13:21

challenged as you said, John, by the ACLU

13:23

and others. But I do expect there'll be

13:25

a challenge here and

13:27

we don't yet know what the policy looks

13:30

like as we're recording this episode. But if

13:32

it's done like DACA, a secretarial memo, it'll

13:34

likely be challenged as exceeding the executive's authority.

13:37

And maybe because it didn't go through notice

13:39

and comment rulemaking, it's gonna be announced as

13:41

a policy that'll go directly into effect. And

13:44

those are challenges that had some success

13:46

over the last dozen years. The DACA

13:48

path has been a really winding one.

13:50

It was challenged. And

13:52

then the Trump administration tried to rescind DACA.

13:54

The Supreme Court said they couldn't rescind DACA.

13:57

Biden then redid DACA as a notice and

13:59

comment rule. and it's again tied up now

14:01

in front of the Fifth Circuit, but it's

14:03

critically been in place all this time.

14:05

So DACA has been in effect. People have

14:07

had, dreamers have had that status. DAPA

14:09

by contrast, the Parents of Americans, a related

14:11

policy from 2014, was

14:14

challenged and actually never went into effect. So as

14:16

between those two, I think this new policy probably

14:18

looks more like DACA. It does actually go into

14:20

effect. It's ultimate legal fate, I don't totally know,

14:22

but it does seem sound to me, at least

14:24

in terms of what we know so

14:26

far. So on DACA, so if you

14:28

currently enjoy the protections of DACA, if

14:31

you are a child of an undocumented

14:33

immigrant, does that mean you can continue

14:35

to, I know you have to renew for those protections.

14:37

Are you allowed to keep renewing now that it's tied

14:39

up in the court? So yeah, so the policy

14:41

has, again, it's been the renewal process has been

14:43

paused and then the pause lifted. So yes, right

14:46

now there are, I think, it was

14:48

at the high point half a million. I think

14:50

it's a little lower than that. People who,

14:52

dreamers who have the DACA status, but a

14:54

lot have married Americans and gotten citizenship that

14:56

way and gotten other, taken other paths or

14:59

left for other reasons. So the number has sort of gone up and

15:01

down, but it is currently a status

15:03

that is in effect and people can continue to apply

15:06

for it. But again, it's pending before the Fifth Circuit

15:08

right now. There was like a brief filed, I think

15:10

today or yesterday, by actually the Biden administration

15:12

saying, because of the Mifepristone case, I don't

15:14

know if we're gonna talk about that, but

15:16

that basically said those doctors didn't have standing,

15:19

this case should be tossed on standing grounds.

15:21

So anyway, it's a very live legal dispute

15:23

still all these dozen years later. Do

15:26

you think, you mentioned Biden's executive

15:29

action at the border being challenged. Do

15:31

you think that will survive legal challenges?

15:33

And from a legal perspective, I was

15:35

wondering, how is it different than what

15:38

Trump did, which did get struck down?

15:40

Yeah, well, the advocates say it's basically the

15:42

same. Yeah, so that there is

15:44

a right to cross over and

15:46

seek a refugee or asylum status and that

15:48

this policy is inconsistent with that and inconsistent with

15:50

the statute. So I think the ACLU and the

15:52

others who've sued say it's basically the same it

15:54

should suffer the same fate. It's

15:57

not exactly the same, it, there's a

15:59

trigger, it goes into effect. if there's a certain number of

16:01

border crossings as opposed to kind of a blanket kind

16:03

of prohibition on crossing over. So I think it's structured

16:05

a bit differently, but... Would that

16:08

be the administration's argument? Do you think

16:10

that because there's a trigger in place

16:12

that we are still allowing asylum seekers

16:14

to seek asylum just, you know, not

16:16

all the time? Not all the time.

16:19

Maybe. Sounds tough. It

16:22

does sound tough. Yeah. But look, you know, the, like,

16:25

you know, Republicans

16:28

went wild on DACA because

16:30

they viewed it as a kind of legislating. And

16:33

then there's all this fighting

16:35

over from the other direction that the

16:37

law makes certain requirements of what the administration has to

16:39

do. And this is a violation of that. And it

16:42

really does all boil down to like,

16:44

this is not how we're supposed to

16:46

be running our immigration system. It is

16:48

not supposed to be run by a

16:50

series of kind of gray area executive

16:53

actions from the right or from the

16:55

left that sometimes maybe survive judicial scrutiny

16:58

because in one way or another, like whatever stands

17:00

up or whatever doesn't, like this

17:02

is various administrations trying

17:04

their best to legislate with

17:07

executive power because they are so bound up

17:09

in Congress's failure. I mean, it is the

17:13

collective failure to actually

17:15

be honest about this problem. And like, this

17:17

is why, like I was,

17:19

I just was catching up on the news and

17:21

just having space from it, seeing these fights over

17:23

whether or not Joe Biden is going too far

17:26

on the border and whether or not he's like

17:28

living up to our values. I am, there are

17:30

valid criticisms of Joe Biden's policies

17:32

on the border. But

17:35

you just look at how the politics have

17:37

constricted already because of the

17:39

chaos at the border that the possibility

17:41

of a path to citizenship was so

17:43

off the table, the bipartisan negotiations didn't

17:46

get anywhere near that. A bipartisan bill

17:48

that Joe Biden and a bunch of Democrats are willing

17:50

to get behind. If we want to get to a

17:52

place where we are gonna actually

17:54

address the fact that there are tens of

17:56

millions of people living in

17:58

a kind of gray zone. because our

18:01

economy is built on basically a working

18:03

cast that has no legal

18:05

recourse and that can be underpaid

18:07

to build homes and work in

18:09

restaurants and do lawn care and

18:11

do transportation and all the other

18:13

industries, agriculture that are on the

18:15

backs of people that have

18:17

no rights here. The idea that Democrats aren't getting

18:20

behind border security is very frustrating to me because

18:22

I don't see a way to

18:25

the more compassionate humane system unless

18:27

we as Democrats can prove that

18:29

we understand that a secure border and

18:32

a better immigration system are not in

18:34

opposite. Yeah, you

18:36

just mentioned like the mess in Congress. The

18:38

one group of people we haven't talked about

18:40

are congressional Republicans, right? And like as Democrats

18:43

are fighting each other about like whether Biden's

18:45

too tough or too soft or doing this

18:47

or what can survive legal challenges or why

18:49

hasn't, you know, I saw some people after

18:51

the border issue was announced,

18:54

I think Julian Castro said, you know, this was

18:56

Biden didn't make this a priority. And so well,

18:58

you know, Biden could have walked into the White

19:00

House and said my number one priority is to

19:02

pass immigration reform and to pass a pathway to

19:04

citizenship. And that's what I'm going to focus on

19:06

for my first hundred days. And he would have

19:09

gotten absolutely nowhere because we have Republicans in Congress

19:11

who do not even want to entertain the idea

19:13

of possibly granting anyone citizenship or

19:15

a path to citizenship or legal status,

19:17

the dreamers, anyone. We were

19:20

just talking on Tuesday show about

19:22

how Marco Rubio might not be

19:24

Trump's VP because the last time

19:26

they tried comprehensive immigration reform in

19:29

2013, Marco Rubio dared on

19:31

the Republican side to say, okay, maybe there'll

19:33

be some kind of pathway and everyone was

19:35

like, absolutely not. And then they haven't

19:37

turned back since they just they won't do

19:40

it. McCain. And but I mean, like, we've

19:42

gone through this cycle at least in the

19:44

Bush administration, you had Bush McCain, people who

19:46

were willing to entertain pathways to citizenship. This

19:48

Republican Party is preparing if Donald Trump becomes

19:50

president to like launch

19:53

a deportation force the size of which this

19:55

country has never seen that uses the US

19:57

military to go into people's homes, their offices.

20:00

rip people apart from their families and send them back to

20:02

countries where some of them haven't been for years and some

20:04

of them have Never been yeah. Yeah that oh three. Oh

20:06

four. Oh five effort when McCain was sort

20:09

of in the lead That was the last Kind

20:11

of best chance like there was actually kind of hope

20:13

for bipartisan comprehensive reform and it's been 20 years and

20:15

there's been nothing That's even come close. Yeah, it's really

20:18

sad. Yeah. I mean we have a debate coming up

20:20

next week. Love it How would you how

20:22

would you prep the president to talk about immigration and next

20:24

week's debate because it will it will surely come up Yeah,

20:27

no, I mainly what you said is right. So first of

20:29

all, I think like I Think

20:32

embracing the criticism from both sides, you know, he's gotten

20:34

heat from both sides He believes he can secure the

20:36

border He believes you can do it while keeping families

20:38

together and being a beacon of hope for people There's

20:41

bipartisan support for it and he knows it because

20:43

he had a deal that Donald Trump killed because

20:45

he wants chaos That that's the choice

20:47

in the election You can have a secure border while

20:49

upholding your values or you can want chaos and families

20:51

ripped apart like the last time he was Yeah,

20:54

and I also think you

20:56

know that the time story about this

20:58

quoted Catherine Cortez Masto Who's the senator

21:00

from Nevada? She just wrote a piece?

21:03

Advocating that that President Biden take

21:05

the exact action he took today. She

21:08

was telling the story about one of her constituents She

21:10

was married. She wanted to get a job. She

21:12

lives in Nevada and they have a kid and As

21:15

she's applying for the job. They wanted to do a

21:17

background check and so they asked her for her husband

21:19

Social Security number and She

21:22

realizes she cannot give her husband's Social Security

21:24

number because her husband is undocumented and she

21:26

is not she's an American citizen And if

21:28

she gives his Social Security number, they will

21:30

possibly deport him And so the

21:32

only option she has is to not take the job

21:35

or divorce her husband. And so they divorce because

21:37

of this and I think like

21:40

Biden telling a story like that and being

21:42

like so I want that husband to be

21:44

able to stay with the family And keep

21:46

the family together because they have been here

21:48

for a decade working and living and building

21:50

a family Donald Trump not

21:52

only wants the divorce to happen

21:55

or the wife not to get a job.

21:57

He wants to have a federal

21:59

agent knock on that family's door and

22:01

deport that husband and rip the husband away from the family.

22:03

And that's the difference in the election. Yeah, so the number

22:05

500,000 is the individual undocumented

22:07

spouses, right? But when you add in their

22:10

spouses, their kids, their communities, their workplaces, their

22:12

schools. It's

22:14

just like we're talking about people in the millions impacted and

22:17

it does have both significant

22:19

impact but real kind of family

22:21

values, kind of essence that it

22:24

feels like really good politics and particularly I think

22:26

in states like Nevada and Arizona where you have

22:28

a lot of probably mixed status families the

22:31

politics could matter a lot. More than 100,000 mixed status

22:33

households in Arizona, another

22:36

more than 100,000 in Nevada and Georgia, all

22:39

three states. Oh, and Georgia too, wow. Yeah,

22:42

Donald Trump wants us talking about and

22:44

thinking about chaos at the border and

22:46

he wants you to associate immigration and

22:48

immigrants with criminals and terrorists. But when

22:50

most people, especially when they're asked

22:52

about on polls, when they're in their daily experience,

22:55

they're talking about neighbors, they're talking about friends, they're

22:57

talking about colleagues, they're talking about people in their

22:59

communities and I think reminding people

23:01

of that, I think it remains

23:03

powerful no matter what fear mongering they do.

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25:39

now for some nightmare fuel. You

25:43

might see some some pole denialists on Twitter,

25:45

but in real life, the anti-Trump coalition is

25:47

hoping for the best, but preparing for the

25:50

worst. The New York Times has

25:52

a big story about Resistance 2.0. Quote,

25:55

a sprawling network of democratic officials,

25:57

progressive activists, watchdog groups and ex-republicans.

26:00

who are already preparing to challenge some of

26:02

Trump's most extreme second term proposals in court

26:04

and use every other tool available to fight

26:06

back. One group, Protect Democracy, which

26:08

is led by our friend and White House

26:11

colleague, Ian Bassen, is putting together a strategy

26:13

to fight back against mass deportations that we

26:15

were just talking about and the gutting of

26:17

the civil service, replacing all of

26:20

the non-political federal employees, two million

26:22

in the government with MAGA loyalists.

26:24

The ACLU is also preparing to

26:26

fight further attempts to criminalize abortion

26:29

and the possibility that Trump will order the

26:31

military to use force against protesters. They've

26:33

also reportedly hired an auditor to make sure

26:35

they're not vulnerable to Trump weaponizing the IRS

26:37

against them. I'll put that on the due

26:39

list. Everybody,

26:43

listen to this. If you've donated

26:45

to Joe Biden in a way that's online, pay taxes. That's

26:49

one step we all can take. And

26:52

five Democratic governors, including Jay Inslee

26:54

of Washington, have started stockpiling abortion

26:56

medication. Dark. So,

26:58

Kate, I had heard rumblings about this from

27:00

other Democratic officials and governors. And

27:03

my first reaction was, like, what

27:05

are the chances of success here, given

27:07

the powers that any president

27:09

has and the current right-wing

27:11

majority on the Supreme Court and just the

27:14

rightward tilt of the judiciary in general? Just

27:16

in the general prospects for resistance 2.0. Yeah,

27:19

I mean, let me channel our friend Ian

27:21

Bassen for a minute and just say, if

27:23

we're talking about safeguarding the health and resilience

27:25

of the democracy and the body politic, like

27:27

keeping cancer out is really the

27:29

goal as opposed to mitigation measures. So, I think

27:32

that he would say that if you're here. And

27:34

so, I'm just channeling him. So, that is, I

27:36

think, for all these groups, still the priority is

27:38

making sure there is not an anti-democratic autocrat in

27:40

a position to actually make all of this real.

27:43

But contingency planning is a good idea. And

27:46

I think things like stockpiling Mepha Pristone is

27:48

actually really wise. I don't know how quickly

27:51

it expires, honestly. But I think

27:53

that stockpiling is a very good idea.

27:55

In terms of the longer-term sort of strategic

27:57

planning, I think that... article

28:00

that you referenced suggested that a lot on the

28:02

left were, you know, caught really off guard obviously

28:04

when Donald Trump first took the White House and

28:06

no one wants to make that mistake again.

28:08

And so I think that thinking

28:11

carefully about legal strategy, about litigation

28:13

responses and other kind of

28:15

sites of resistance at the state level and

28:17

in, you know, the grassroots, all of that is

28:19

really, really important, but it's sort of second

28:22

order. It should not sort of consume the conversation when

28:24

the first order task is making sure it doesn't happen

28:26

in the first place. I already

28:29

have nightmares about this and I

28:31

don't know sort of the legal

28:34

like parameters here because I mean,

28:36

I interviewed Liz Cheney on Pods

28:38

of America and she was like,

28:41

I'm not worried about like a right wing Supreme

28:43

Court majority. She goes, I'm just worried that Donald

28:45

Trump will say, why would I listen to the

28:47

court? Why would I listen to any of the

28:49

courts? Who's going to make, who's going to, with whose army, right?

28:52

And so I worry about that. I also

28:55

worry about there's a number

28:57

of proposals that would

29:00

involve Donald Trump, you know, the insurrection

29:02

act calling up the military, right? To act

29:04

as a deportation force to use the military,

29:06

to put protests down, to use

29:08

the military, to go fight crime or the

29:10

national guard to go fight crime, to federalize

29:13

the national guard in red states, to have

29:15

them go into blue states. If the governors

29:17

are in the blue states are not willing

29:19

to federalize their national guard to solve whatever

29:21

problem Donald Trump wants to solve. Like how

29:23

much power it seems from my reading that

29:25

the president has quite a bit of power

29:27

to do that, but I don't know what

29:29

you think about the legal. I

29:31

mean, part of the problem is there's no Supreme Court case that

29:33

says you can't do acts when no president would

29:35

ever have dreamed to do acts. Right. So a

29:37

lot of these things I think are legally really suspect,

29:40

but there is not like a clear statement from the

29:42

Supreme Court to that effect again, because it's just not

29:44

come up. So I think there's a range. I think

29:46

that when it, you know, and

29:48

you're right to be nervous about, I think both the

29:50

Supreme Court blessing some

29:53

of, you know, kind of the largest types

29:55

of overreach, but also if it doesn't just

29:57

being disregarded. Right. Like the, I think that

29:59

there were. a few checks

30:01

in, you know, in Trump's term that

30:03

were important ones. And the Supreme Court was occasionally a

30:05

big check, like DACA rescission and the census citizenship question.

30:07

And even though the travel ban was ultimately upheld,

30:09

the lower courts required the administration to redraft

30:12

that until, you know, the third one managed

30:14

to pass muster. So that's one real side

30:16

of pushback. Obviously, the civil service, like the

30:18

bureaucracy was a real side of pushback. And

30:20

honestly, the incompetence of a lot

30:22

of the Trump subordinates, right, was a side of

30:25

kind of pushback or, you know, an important check, I

30:27

would say. And I think that it's right to be

30:29

worried that all of those look potentially really different if

30:31

the guiding of the civil service is on the table,

30:34

if there is a more competent group of loyalists in

30:36

place, and you now have a Supreme Court

30:38

with a different, a 6-3 as opposed

30:40

to a 5-4 conservative majority, and the old 5-4

30:42

majority. John Roberts occasionally joined the Democrats in the

30:44

cases that I just mentioned. And so I think

30:47

things do look really different. I mean, I

30:49

honestly think we'll know more when we get

30:51

the immunity decision from the Supreme Court.

30:54

I think more of a sense, this court

30:57

as currently constituted hasn't had a big case

30:59

quite like this about presidential power and

31:02

presidential protections, you know. And

31:04

I think there's the longer, you

31:07

know, the delay takes on, the more nervous I

31:09

get, not about the trial, which is really important,

31:11

of course, but also just about what the court is going to

31:13

say about how subject to law

31:15

the president and an ex-president is. And

31:18

it seems like if it says the

31:20

president isn't really subject to ordinary legal checks,

31:22

it could be just really emboldening of, you

31:25

know, kind of the most aggressive efforts. So

31:27

things like, yeah, reclassifying huge swaths of the

31:29

federal government as political appointees rather than civil

31:31

servants. I mean, there isn't a case

31:33

that says you can't do that. I think

31:35

everything in statutes passed by Congress and related

31:37

decisions by the Supreme Court suggest that you

31:40

can't. The statutory authority the president would invoke

31:42

is never meant to be used this way.

31:45

And there's a strong principle of

31:47

nonpartisan service, you know, beyond

31:49

just the very top echelons of the executive branch

31:51

that has endured since the late 19th century. So

31:53

all these things make me think it would be

31:55

unlawful for him to try. But

31:59

I'm not at all. all 100% confident that he would

32:01

fail in the Supreme Court. And I think you're right to

32:03

worry that even if he did fail in the Supreme Court,

32:05

he might just, you know, sort of cross the Rubicon of

32:07

outright defiance. Love it. How

32:09

helpful do you think it is to be talking about

32:12

the strategy? So on one hand, you can make the

32:14

case like, you don't want to make a Trump victory

32:16

seem inevitable. On the other, you know,

32:18

it might help wake up some voters who aren't

32:20

yet paying attention to the threat of a second

32:22

Trump term, which seems to be one

32:25

of the bigger challenges of the Biden campaign right

32:27

now. They are having particular trouble with voters who

32:29

are not paying close attention and

32:31

consuming a lot of news. So I don't know. What do

32:33

you think? Yeah, well, I just, like,

32:37

I think about that subset of people who

32:39

are not paying that close attention and

32:41

just think, well, Trump obviously can't win again. He was,

32:43

he was, he did an insurrection and he's been convicted

32:45

and he's so terrible. America wouldn't do that again. Kind

32:47

of people that as much as, as much as they

32:49

lived from 2016 to 2024, they

32:54

have sort of amnesia about how it felt before

32:57

the election in 2016. My

32:59

takeaway from reading this story is like, and

33:02

I agree with everything you said, Kate, that

33:05

every person who is a part of this

33:07

effort begins by saying the most important thing

33:09

is stopping Trump from winning, but we want

33:11

to be prepared just in case, fine. But

33:14

I do feel like the

33:16

realism and understanding

33:19

of the kind of like clear difference between

33:21

what happens if Joe Biden wins and what

33:23

happens if Donald Trump wins, I feel like

33:26

the understanding of how stark that choice

33:28

is seems much clearer in the ways

33:31

people are approaching this than in the

33:33

way a lot of people are speaking

33:35

publicly about the election and their willingness

33:37

to be a full-throated advocate for Joe

33:39

Biden at this moment, including Democrats,

33:42

like, yes, like there should be a

33:44

Mipha Pristone vault. I was, this

33:47

is stupid, but you know, there's a seed vault

33:49

in Svalbard. Yeah, there's

33:51

a great New Yorker article about it. Right, so this would

33:54

be like an anti-seed vault, but the,

33:56

oh my gosh. And

33:59

so I think that's great. Great, yeah, build it. There's not

34:01

that many varietals. Right. It's truly just

34:03

the one. Right. But, you

34:06

know. I think that's a clickable title for that, for

34:08

the anti-see vault. But,

34:12

you know, like, part, you know, there are many different

34:14

kinds of advocates that are part of this movement that

34:16

I think are, I think,

34:19

we have to collectively figure out a way to

34:21

describe this threat in a way that is clear

34:23

to people. And I think part of that, yes,

34:25

is about talking about how bad

34:28

Trump is, but I think part of

34:30

it is understanding that, like, man, we've

34:33

got four and a half months now, whatever

34:35

it is, to get Joe Biden over the

34:37

finish line. And, like, there'll be time for

34:39

all the kind of intra-democratic, like, the intra-democratic

34:41

fighting time is now done. Like, it's just,

34:43

it's over. It can't be that we're fighting

34:46

on television about worrying about

34:48

Joe Biden, and then behind the scenes

34:50

we're fucking building trenches to store abortion

34:52

pills. Like, it just simply cannot be

34:54

that. Except if the

34:56

trenches motivate people, right? Well, sure. But,

34:59

like, if you're somebody, like, I'm just trying to

35:01

understand the person out there who is gonna hear

35:03

about the fucking Mipha Pristone vaults, and that's gonna

35:06

be the thing that gets them out of their

35:08

house. It's pretty much, it's a bank shot. Look,

35:11

I do, it's a good point, and

35:13

I, and sometimes, I actually

35:15

think that, like, you know, for

35:17

all the criticism sometimes, Joe Biden and his

35:19

campaign as administration, you know, we can,

35:21

you can fault them for talking about

35:24

democracy, and democracy, the word being

35:26

sort of esoteric, and, you know,

35:28

more of a theoretical abstract concept

35:30

than something that's real. But I

35:32

do think there needs to be a

35:35

sense of urgency around,

35:37

like, all of the rhetoric coming from

35:40

all the Democrats, right? Because if you're

35:42

a Democratic official, and you're acting like,

35:45

you know, this is just, here's the choice,

35:47

and there's this guy and this guy, and,

35:49

like, it's not going to feel to people

35:52

as urgent as this article clearly

35:54

lays out that, like, a lot of

35:56

people are preparing for something that seems

35:58

quite scary. And it's

36:01

tough because you always wanna calibrate it. Like

36:03

you don't, I

36:05

always think about this when we're talking on this

36:07

podcast. Like I don't wanna unnecessarily alarm people, but

36:09

I also don't wanna be like, oh, that's fine.

36:12

Just vote, show up and vote and you'll be good.

36:14

Yeah, but like, yes, it is hard. I

36:17

was thinking about that too. And

36:19

like, because I remember before, there was these sort of, what

36:21

was that? There

36:24

was like an Atlantic piece that sent everyone into it.

36:26

Barton Gelman's piece. Yes, and- And you know what? Barton Gelman,

36:28

he's now part of this group. He

36:31

left the Atlantic and he was like, I'm going in

36:33

the trenches. I'm digging the Mipha Presto in the trench.

36:35

Right, no, and I- This

36:38

has become a running. It's

36:42

in Seattle. But

36:44

the trench protects the build. They're not sounding, because the drugs

36:47

aren't in the trench. Right, yeah, they have to be in

36:49

the vault. The trench just surrounds the vault, keep things clear.

36:51

This is just foundation work. This is just foundation work. Everyone's

36:53

right, yeah. Jay Inslee is in the vault. Yeah, no, he's

36:55

got a hard hat, he's cutting the ribbon. But

36:59

no, but I think I guess what I'm trying

37:01

to say is I completely, I'm glad that there

37:03

are people doing this thinking. I am glad that

37:05

people are taking this threat seriously. I'm glad people

37:07

are making the decisions you would make if Joe

37:09

Biden was behind by one point in a bunch

37:11

of swing states, because he is. That's exactly right.

37:14

I'm more thinking, okay, how do we make this

37:16

feel as real to the people doing this preparation

37:18

as to all the people we need to bring

37:20

on board? And because look, Joe

37:22

Biden has given big speeches about democracy. I think

37:24

they're important. I think it's his motivation. I

37:27

think Joe Biden should speak authentically

37:29

about why he's running for president.

37:32

But I do think it's like, how do we

37:34

make real for people the threat of schedule F?

37:37

How do we make real the Comstock

37:39

Act? How do we convey this? And

37:41

I think part of it is finding

37:43

a space between the broad, abstract, high-dudgeon,

37:47

Donald Trump is a dictator, Donald Trump is

37:49

an authoritarian, bully, broad language that I think

37:51

is just honestly a noise to people as

37:54

true as it is without underplaying the threat.

37:56

And I think part of that is just,

37:58

it is. is just sort of this is

38:00

what the 2025, this is

38:02

what his policies are. This is what

38:04

he's proposed. How does that sound to you? Like

38:07

these policies are dangerous and scary when they're described

38:09

without any spin on the ball, with like without

38:11

sweetener. Well, it's one of the

38:13

reasons I'm like so glad Kate is here to

38:15

talk about this story because I just

38:17

recently saw some polling where

38:20

they presented voters with Project

38:22

2025 proposals, some

38:24

of Donald Trump's campaign proposals,

38:27

and the first order problem

38:30

is a lot of people haven't heard of them, right? But

38:32

then there's a second order problem, which is you present

38:35

voters with these policies. They don't

38:37

like them. They're very opposed

38:39

to them, even the undecided voters, even like

38:41

soft Republican voters, but they

38:44

don't think that it could actually happen. And

38:46

when you ask them why, the first thing

38:48

they say is, or most of them say, Democrats

38:51

will stop it from happening in Congress, Democrats in Congress.

38:53

And the second thing they say is the courts will

38:55

stop it from happening. I

38:58

do wonder how we, I

39:00

think there's another, we have

39:02

to connect one more dot for people, which is like,

39:05

and it's not just Trump spouting

39:07

off bullshit or Democrats

39:09

crying wolf here. This is how he

39:11

will have the power to get it

39:13

done. You talked about Kate, like some

39:15

of the proposals that, the

39:18

courts should rule against, but

39:20

might not. What are you most scared

39:22

of in terms of the Trump proposals that you think he

39:24

really will be able to get done and will pass legal

39:26

muster? So both his proposals and some of the

39:28

Project 2025 stuff, if I can sort of take them

39:30

together. I mean, one, with Mepha Pristone

39:33

to stay on the topic, Project 2025, it's

39:35

like 900 page fever dream, like

39:38

has a couple of really scary, I mean, it

39:40

has many, many really scary things in it, but

39:42

it actually suggests having the FDA to revoke

39:45

the approval of Mepha Pristone. So rendered

39:47

an unauthorized drug entirely, like that's in there.

39:50

And reviving enforcement, which you just

39:52

mentioned John, of the Comstock Act, which is this

39:54

1873, right? Like Victorian

39:56

anti-vice law that could be

39:58

used to basically... criminalize sending

40:00

through the mails anything that could be used

40:02

in an abortion. So not just pills, but

40:04

also potentially surgical equipment, like it could sweep

40:06

more broadly than just medication abortion, certain

40:09

forms of contraception. There was an amendment

40:11

that took like regular birth control pills

40:13

out from the Comstock Act, but IUDs,

40:15

things like that, those could also very

40:17

much be targeted. So that stuff is

40:20

really scary. And, you know, will

40:22

the court stop it? I mean, on Comstock,

40:24

I think there's lots of ways that enforcement

40:27

of Comstock, I think is both inconsistent with

40:29

maybe the First Amendment and conceptions of liberty

40:31

that are pretty well settled, although Dobbs unsettled

40:33

a lot of them. So, you know, I

40:36

think Comstock is obviously unconstitutional in a pre-Dobbs

40:38

world. I'm not sure post-Dobbs it obviously is.

40:40

And in terms of like directing the FDA

40:42

to revisit the Mepha Pristone approval, you

40:45

know, the president doesn't typically just give directions

40:47

to agencies like that. And there's there are

40:49

statutes that say the FDA is supposed to

40:51

review drugs for safety and efficacy. But

40:54

courts just again, back to an answer I gave

40:56

to earlier, courts just have not been confronted with

40:58

a question of an agency saying we did what

41:00

we did because the president told us to. And

41:03

Project 2025 and a lot of the Trump team's

41:05

rhetoric right now is all about vindicating democracy. It's

41:07

really pretty perverse. But what they might say to

41:09

the courts is we promise to do

41:12

all of this and then we did it. And

41:14

so democracy has been sort of successful. And for

41:16

a court to undo all of that would be

41:18

fundamentally anti-democratic. And so if there are kind of

41:20

like gray areas in the law, the court should

41:22

resolve those in favor of, you know, like a

41:24

democracy principle and let, you know, let these actions

41:28

stand even if they're inconsistent with science and,

41:30

you know, best practices and things like that.

41:32

So I think I just come back

41:34

to an answer I gave before, which is that a

41:36

lot of it is unsettled. And I think

41:38

there's a very good chance that some of it could

41:41

be upheld. And I think that,

41:43

you know, immigration is also a place where so to

41:45

pivot for a minute to immigration, a

41:47

place where the executive has a

41:49

lot of delegated authority from Congress. And so

41:51

that's a place where and where courts are

41:53

not typically as, you know,

41:56

likely to second guess discretionary judgments made

41:58

by the president. and the

42:00

Insurrection Act is famously sort of

42:03

vague and susceptible to abuse and manipulation. It

42:05

hasn't as written, but it just

42:07

hasn't been used much until courts just haven't been in

42:09

a position of bringing that much. Yeah, you want a

42:11

law that allows the president to call up the military

42:13

and use it against American citizens to be as vague

42:15

as possible. Yeah, that's optimal. But

42:17

it's all, like, to what

42:19

you were describing earlier, just all

42:23

of these laws were written in

42:25

a way that presumed a certain

42:27

level of like Democratic and Republican,

42:29

small R, small D, fealty. Mike

42:33

Pence being able to overturn the election, of

42:35

course not's not there, but they found it

42:37

there. Right, in the 2025 document they talk

42:39

about basically using,

42:45

that they can ban pornography

42:47

and define pornography to basically include anything

42:49

that makes reference to transgender people, right?

42:52

That is an abuse of any of

42:54

the law in any way that you

42:56

could read it, but not if some

42:58

Republican, not if some MAGA appointed Trump

43:00

goon who had got their fucking

43:03

law degree in the mail two weeks

43:05

before being nominated decides that it's okay.

43:07

You mean Eileen Cannon? She's

43:09

not the only one. There's

43:12

a few people in that graduating class, the

43:14

Raisin Bran 2021 class of law. Future

43:18

justice, Eileen Cannon. Justice, oh Jesus, that's

43:20

terrible. Yeah, that's tough. We should have,

43:22

what was the name of the Bush

43:25

appointee that got withdrawn? Harriet Meyers? I

43:27

should have let Harriet Meyers through. Harriet Meyers should have gotten through.

43:30

That was a mistake, we blew that one. Well that

43:32

was him, their campaign. It was the Republicans who said

43:34

no. What did we do? We didn't do anything. I

43:36

know, but we should have gotten behind it. We should

43:38

have fought for Harriet Meyers. Don't say that too loud,

43:40

that'll be Biden's next time. Anyway,

43:43

Project 2025 is bad. Go tell your

43:45

friends about it. Spread the word, Project 2025, it's not great. And

43:50

that's it, it's not great, check it

43:52

out. It's pretty scary. And

43:54

the courts, you cannot count on the courts

43:56

and you cannot count on, even

43:58

if Democrats control Congress, right? because part of

44:00

this, I mean, a lot of it's unilateral

44:02

executive stuff. Yeah, well, part of what you're

44:04

referencing is that they believe in this, you

44:06

know, unitary executive theory, right? Which is the

44:08

idea that all power is invested in the

44:10

executive branch with the president, right? And so

44:12

the entire federal government, everything that's not Congress

44:14

and the courts, every federal agency, even if

44:16

it's independent, like the Department of Justice or

44:18

the FTC or the FCC or any of

44:20

these, that this theory is no, no, no,

44:22

they all work for the president. And so

44:24

Congress doesn't get to check them and the

44:26

courts don't get to check them. The

44:29

checks that they have on the president are their

44:31

only checks and otherwise, the president has all power.

44:33

Yeah, and again, like that's really, it's wildly inconsistent

44:35

with our kind of constitutional tradition that DOJ has

44:38

enjoyed a degree of independence since it's existed,

44:40

but there just isn't, you know, there isn't a

44:43

Supreme Court decision that says that, there isn't

44:45

even anything explicit in the statute. It's really the

44:47

norms and customs and practices of the Department

44:49

of Justice and the forbearance of

44:51

presidents who have respected this idea of

44:53

an independent chief prosecutor. And,

44:56

you know, obviously none of that is

44:58

secure under a, you know, Project 2025

45:00

slash Trump administration. And so weaponizing

45:03

DOJ as Trump has explicitly promised

45:05

to do to go after political

45:08

adversaries is something that, you

45:10

know, would be challenged and would,

45:13

the challenge would rely on, again, an under specified constitutional

45:16

principle that I think is a very real one, but

45:18

this really formalistic group of justices that is willing to

45:20

just sort of read the words of the constitution and

45:22

only some of them, like Article Two, the one that

45:24

empowers the president is in some ways the most important

45:27

one. And there's a few others, Second Amendment, the religion

45:29

clauses of the First Amendment. There's like, you know, there's

45:31

a list of preferred

45:33

provisions, but I'm not sure there's

45:35

anything that this court

45:37

would see as allowing it to

45:40

second-guess a presidential effort to

45:42

seize complete control of the Justice Department. Very

45:44

cool. All right, two quick things before we go to break.

45:47

If you would like to hear Kate

45:49

provide more brilliant legal analysis with

45:52

two people who are much smarter than me

45:54

and love it, listen to Strix scrutiny,

45:56

if you're not already, which you're crazy if you're not,

45:59

you can listen to Kate. Kate and Melissa Murray and Lee

46:01

Litman. I know you guys just did a show

46:03

at Tribeca. It was a great show. Thank you. And

46:05

you have a sold out show coming up Saturday in DC? We

46:08

do. Any sneak preview you can offer there? I

46:11

think I'm forbidden from providing any sneak preview,

46:13

but we have some very exciting guests. That's

46:15

all I can say. Interesting. And that will

46:17

be on... Saturday, the 22nd,

46:19

and then in your ear holes, the morning of

46:22

Monday, the 24th. Outstanding. All right, everyone subscribe to

46:24

Strix scrutiny. Also, Los Angeles

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a tour today. So

49:32

speaking of the legal stakes in this election, at

49:34

a big fundraiser in Los Angeles over the

49:36

weekend with Barack Obama and Jimmy Kimmel, Joe

49:38

Biden had the audacity to

49:41

criticize Kate's dear friends on the Supreme

49:43

Court, probably because Lovett, Tommy and

49:45

I were there egging him on. Let's listen.

49:48

So it's been almost two

49:51

years since the largely Trump-appointed justices

49:53

in the Supreme Court overturned Roe

49:55

versus Wade. And I

49:58

think we are all wondering... What

50:00

can we do about this? Elect

50:02

me. Again, I tell you why.

50:04

You know, I'm not just saying the

50:07

next president is likely to have

50:09

two new Supreme Court nominees. Two

50:12

more. Two more. He's

50:15

already appointed to that are been very

50:17

negative in terms of the rights of

50:19

individuals. The idea that if

50:21

he's reelected, he's going to appoint two

50:24

more flying flags upside down. By the

50:26

way, not on my watch. Not

50:29

on my watch. Yeah.

50:33

Yeah, so the point was good. The

50:35

broad strokes argument, I respect. We were there

50:37

into our last segment. He also,

50:40

President Biden, towards the end of the

50:43

night, just interjected and very loudly, institutions

50:45

matter. He's

50:47

which I immediately texted. And

50:49

I was like, let's look for another slogan.

50:53

I agree with him in principle. Somebody

50:56

shouted gay rights from the audience. Yeah.

50:59

And then and Joe Biden went, not on my watch. But

51:01

I think he meant. No, no, no, no, no,

51:03

because someone know what happened is someone saw

51:05

cut this for us. Thank you. So

51:08

because it went on for two minutes and it was

51:10

Jimmy speaking and Obama speaking. So we just got the good

51:12

stuff from Biden. What happened is someone yelled gay rights and

51:15

then Obama said, because you couldn't really hear them, but

51:17

Obama could hear them. And he said, oh, he's talking

51:19

about maybe maybe they'd undo same sex marriage. And then

51:21

Biden's because to me in the room, I didn't catch

51:24

that. Because for me, it sounded like someone's had gay

51:26

rights and Biden went, not on my watch. I knew

51:28

he meant more like not what Trump would do

51:30

on my watch. You get it. You

51:33

get it. And Julie Roberts was there briefly,

51:36

like five minutes. Briefly. You

51:38

can't put it on the invite never show, but

51:40

the very top for five seconds. She's like, see

51:42

you later. I'll go on a fucking I'm back

51:44

to man of O'Kenny with me. Kate

51:48

was was Biden's critique of the Supreme

51:50

Court more or less appropriate than when

51:52

Obama destroyed the Constitution by respectfully criticizing

51:54

the Citizens United decision in front of

51:56

the justices during the State of the

51:58

Union. I love imagining. like, uh, Sam Alito's

52:00

poker face, if he had actually been in the front

52:02

row of that fundraiser, what kind of

52:04

flag? You know, in retrospect, we all should have

52:06

known a little bit more about what kind of guy that

52:09

was, Sam Alito, right? Like, because he's shaking his hand. No,

52:11

he could barely control himself

52:13

in that State of the Union, and none of this

52:15

really should be that surprising. Were you in the council's

52:17

office at the time? Yeah, I was. Because

52:19

I remember, for all that whole controversy, by

52:21

the way, for those who don't remember, this was a

52:24

big—Barack Obama, during the State of

52:26

the Union, criticized, uh, Citizens United, and, and

52:29

Alito was shaking his head in the front row. No,

52:31

it was not true. Not true. And

52:33

it was this big controversy that followed

52:35

for the next couple days, several news

52:37

cycles, where, believe it or

52:39

not, it wasn't like it is today, where

52:41

everyone's like, yeah, obviously, Sam Alito is like,

52:43

you know, flying flags upside down and doing

52:45

crazy shit. It's like, what did

52:48

President Obama do to civility in our institutions

52:50

by bringing up a decision in the press?

52:52

He hated that news cycle so much. But,

52:54

like— Sam Alito was the villain of that, and

52:56

somehow the press decided that Barack Obama was the

52:58

villain. And— We were—I remember in preparing the speech,

53:00

and we ran it by you guys in the

53:03

council's office, and we all— We stand by it.

53:05

We really thought, like, we don't want to go

53:07

too far here, so what can we say that

53:09

criticizes a decision without really criticizing the court? Like,

53:11

in retrospect, we were too careful. But

53:13

it's, like, it's so funny. It was

53:15

a baffling controversy. It was a—I even

53:17

at the time, it was like, I

53:19

didn't even—he's—he was furious. He said he wasn't ever—has

53:21

he been back? He said he wouldn't go back, and

53:24

then I don't know if he ever came back. I'm

53:26

not sure he's been back. You might be right. I

53:28

think that he said that I was wrong to even

53:30

be there. Honestly, put that on the Obama accomplishments list,

53:32

then. Sam Alito never came back to you. Gotta get

53:34

home to Betsy Ross. I

53:36

don't know. I

53:43

thought Joe Biden sounded like he was listening to Dan

53:45

Pfeiffer's message box there. I thought that was good. Yeah.

53:48

Talking about the Supreme Court. Yeah, Dan wants everyone to talk about

53:50

the Supreme Court. Yeah,

53:53

maybe Dan is reading message box. Maybe people

53:55

around—I'm sorry, Dan is reading message box. Maybe

53:57

Joe Biden's reading message box. No, he just didn't say it. reading

54:00

message box. I do think that

54:02

talking about the Supreme Court from Biden is part

54:04

of the stakes. Like I know, you know,

54:07

we've talked, we've asked about this to

54:09

smart polling people and they'll tell you, well,

54:11

you know, you start talking about institutions and

54:13

processes and like voters sort of their eyes

54:15

glaze over. But I do think

54:18

like talking about the

54:20

consequences of a,

54:22

you know, a second Trump term and what the

54:25

court looks like there and what the

54:27

court looks like under Biden, particularly when

54:29

the court under Trump is not just

54:31

the court under four more years of Trump, but

54:34

potentially a couple of decades, right?

54:37

I mean, because he, when he was in the White

54:39

House, he understood the imperative of appointing ultra

54:41

conservative and super young judges in the

54:43

lower federal courts. And I think his

54:46

three appointments to the Supreme Court Trumps were,

54:49

you know, very, very conservative, but still

54:51

not as conservative as Clarence

54:54

Thomas and Sam Alito in certain respects. So

54:56

I think that if he has

54:58

a chance to make more appointments, Donald Trump

55:00

does, it will be very, very young,

55:02

you know, Aileen Cannon, Matthew

55:04

Kazemarek, that kind of profile of arch

55:07

conservative and, you know, willing to be

55:09

quite lawless jurists. And because, you know,

55:11

in some ways, like Amy Coney Barrett and Brett

55:13

Kavanaugh have occasionally joined the Democrats. I don't see

55:15

a future Trump appointee being sort of in that

55:18

kind of category. I do think it's

55:20

interesting Biden starting to criticize

55:22

the court and justices on it. I think

55:24

that feels like a development, doesn't it? This does not come naturally

55:26

to him. Well, you know, there's this

55:28

whole fucking debate after the fundraiser about

55:30

like, you know, this deceptively edited video

55:33

from the New York Post of like,

55:35

does Biden freeze as he was walking

55:37

off stage? Oh, right. You

55:39

know, really, he just stopped for a minute. He was

55:41

waving and he looked in the crowd and he just

55:43

saw love it. And he noticed he was back from

55:46

survivors. So I just caught him off guard. For sure,

55:48

understandable. But what really,

55:51

and then, you know, liberals fought about that and the

55:53

Biden campaign got mad about it. That was the news

55:55

out of that event. And, you know, the Biden campaign

55:58

tweeted that clip. they were

56:00

clearly happy with the answer. Yeah, he's, you know,

56:02

obviously a creature of the Senate and of the Senate

56:04

Judiciary Committee, and I think has had

56:06

this longstanding respect for the court as an institution. And

56:08

a lot of people have, I think, you know, myself

56:10

included, but I do think that at

56:13

a certain point, like reality has to

56:15

step in, and it's not an institution

56:17

that is performing consistent with the basic

56:19

obligations of a court in a democracy,

56:21

consistent with a limited role vis-a-vis

56:24

the Congress and the president. It's just, it just

56:26

isn't. And so I don't, I think that Biden

56:29

may be realizing that it's important to talk

56:31

differently about the court than courts of

56:33

yore, if the court is not gonna act like

56:37

a court at all, honestly. And so I really

56:39

hope that that's a shift that we're gonna see

56:41

going forward. I hope, yeah, I agree. I also

56:43

think part of this is dobs, but part of

56:45

this is also just the rampant corruption on

56:47

the Supreme Court that I think is an

56:50

alphabet of people. And I do wonder, right, like,

56:52

you know, people who understand the stakes around the

56:54

Supreme Court are probably people that are already part

56:57

of our coalition, so it's about reaching people and

56:59

making them understand the stakes for the Supreme Court,

57:01

especially when there's polling that shows, well, dobs happened

57:03

on Joe Biden's watch, right? Like abortion went away

57:05

when Joe Biden was present, right? And the question

57:08

is, do you view that something to get around,

57:10

or is that this issue important enough and big

57:12

enough where you actually wanna try to do the

57:14

work to educate the millions and millions of

57:16

people who need to come to understand the stakes of the Supreme Court in

57:18

a way that they currently don't? Yeah, well,

57:20

just talk about some of those upcoming

57:22

rulings and the stakes and the consequences.

57:25

I wanted to ask you about a few of the recent

57:27

big decisions and the big decisions still to come. We

57:30

talked about, if it's a stone, quite a

57:32

bit, the vault, but they

57:34

also, the Supreme Court on Friday, I

57:36

know you guys did a bonus episode

57:38

on this, they overturned the Trump administration's

57:41

regulatory ban on bump stocks put in

57:43

place after the Las Vegas shooting. Your

57:46

take on the decision there. It's a pretty

57:48

shocking decision. So for, you know, 100 years, machine

57:50

guns have been banned under federal law, and there's

57:52

also a provision that says that an accessory that

57:54

converts a semi-automatic gun to a machine gun is

57:56

also banned, and Clarence Thomas for a

57:58

6.3 majority in this. hyper-technical reading

58:01

of the phrase single function of

58:03

the trigger decides that because what

58:05

a bump stock does is it

58:08

internally does actually have a

58:10

trigger moving many, many times so it's, you

58:12

know, they can shoot these rifles equipped with

58:14

bump stocks can shoot up to 800 rounds

58:16

a minute. But

58:19

it's not, according to Justice Thomas, a single

58:21

function of the trigger if you look inside

58:23

the gun and he illustrates this with like

58:25

six kind of whimsical diagrams and a gif

58:28

like it is a truly deranged document like

58:30

that's the opinion. And I

58:32

mean, again, they're like weirdly playful. The images of

58:34

the inside of a gun is sort of hard

58:36

to describe, but he's obviously luxuriating in this kind

58:39

of like, you know, internal investigation of the mechanics

58:41

of a bump stock and comes up with like,

58:43

well, it's not really a single function because a

58:45

lot is happening inside. So it's not actually able

58:48

to be prohibited under the statute. And

58:51

so the ATF under the Trump

58:53

administration, which issued this regulation banning

58:55

bump stocks that regulation falls and

58:57

the, you know, 500,000 bump stocks

58:59

clearly that are already out there

59:02

are, again, fully legal. And I mean,

59:04

that is just like it's both a terrible opinion

59:06

when it comes to reading a statute and understanding

59:09

what a statute is trying to do and

59:11

interpreting consistent with that. But

59:14

obviously it has, you know, enormous

59:16

on the ground consequences in terms of reintroducing

59:18

again hundreds of thousands of these wildly lethal

59:20

accessories into the broader population. I mean, we

59:22

saw what one of these things did in

59:24

Las Vegas and it could happen again. And

59:27

you know, just to like close the

59:29

loop for people here, Senator Schumer said, all right,

59:32

I'm going to bring this up. And because basically

59:34

I think Alito said in a current opinion, like

59:36

Congress wants to ban these Congress can do it.

59:39

So Schumer says he's going to bring it up.

59:42

And Lindsey Graham said, I'll block it no matter what.

59:45

Even though again, this was something that the Trump administration

59:47

did. And then Republicans in

59:49

the Trump administration supported this when it

59:51

happened. The NRA supported it. This was

59:53

an NRA was OK with this regulation, although there's

59:55

some speculation. Well, maybe they were OK with the

59:57

regulation because they thought it'd be easier to undo.

1:00:00

down the road than a statutory change. But

1:00:02

regardless, this is Thomas way, way right of

1:00:04

the Trump administration and the NRA in this

1:00:06

case. And now the Republicans in the Senate

1:00:08

have taken their cue from Thomas and now

1:00:11

they're refusing to do this. And so when

1:00:13

people hear about the decision and

1:00:15

get upset that the Supreme Court did this thing

1:00:17

on bump stocks and Joe Biden couldn't fix it

1:00:19

and the Democrats couldn't fix it, it's because Republicans

1:00:21

have the votes to block it and they have

1:00:24

a Supreme Court that decided to do this. And

1:00:26

so it's like, those are the stakes of the

1:00:28

election right there. Can you talk

1:00:30

about the decision in Vidal versus Elster? Cause

1:00:32

it was a little bit under the radar,

1:00:34

but I heard you had

1:00:36

some larger concerns about it. I do.

1:00:39

So it's like this quirky little case, this guy Steve

1:00:41

Elster tried to get a trademark for the

1:00:43

phrase Trump too small after the sick memorable

1:00:45

Marco Rubio, Donald Trump like debate exchange about

1:00:47

Trump's hand size. You guys remember this. Not

1:00:50

so much about hand size. Right, right, explicitly.

1:00:54

Inuendo. That's

1:00:56

what we're talking about there. Talk about innuendo. This

1:01:00

is like a Lincoln project tweet come to

1:01:02

life. Yeah, yeah, basically. Yeah,

1:01:05

you walk around the tweet three times while saying a

1:01:07

Hebrew prayer, it becomes a kind of a monster. That's

1:01:10

about a golem for Rita, fellow

1:01:13

tribe member back there. Anyway,

1:01:16

Kate, go on. So

1:01:19

this Elster tries to get a trademark on the phrase

1:01:21

Trump too small and is

1:01:23

turned down by the trademark office because there's a prohibition in

1:01:25

federal law on getting a trademark with somebody else's

1:01:28

name without their consent. And obviously Trump does not

1:01:30

consent to the Trump too small shirts. So

1:01:33

he brings the First Amendment challenge and says,

1:01:36

well, the First Amendment protects my right to

1:01:38

get a trademark on this phrase. And the

1:01:40

Supreme Court had actually struck down other trademark

1:01:42

laws that had these provisions that prevented

1:01:45

registration of scandalous

1:01:48

marks or immoral marks or derogatory

1:01:50

marks. So actually there had been successful

1:01:53

challenges along these lines in recent years,

1:01:55

but this guy, this t-shirt, a

1:01:58

registrant is unsuccessful, the court. rules against

1:02:00

him unanimously. But I think what's really

1:02:03

distressing about this opinion, it's like the court has

1:02:05

so many cases it's deciding right now, it's really

1:02:08

hard to kind of keep track of all of

1:02:10

them, but there are very scary, like embedded suggestions

1:02:12

in a lot of these opinions, and this is

1:02:14

one of them. There's a suggestion in

1:02:16

this opinion that when you're deciding whether, you know, a

1:02:19

law, this is a trademark law, but in general,

1:02:21

survives a First Amendment challenge, you have to look

1:02:23

to history and tradition. So what have we

1:02:25

done historically with like common law treatment of trademarks

1:02:28

and whether you could use people's names, without

1:02:31

their agreement, and the

1:02:33

decision, at least for the plurality

1:02:35

of the court, is that history

1:02:37

and tradition tells us that yeah, that no, you don't have

1:02:39

a right to basically use somebody's name in this way.

1:02:42

But history and tradition is not how we

1:02:44

have typically assessed the First Amendment, right? Like

1:02:46

we've, until the 1960s, there

1:02:49

weren't really heightened protections for media if you wanted

1:02:51

to bring a defamation claim, so that's the New

1:02:53

York Times versus Sullivan case. Early

1:02:55

American history is not at all

1:02:57

protective of First Amendment rights, like,

1:02:59

you know, the Alien Insurgition Acts

1:03:02

are these very early statutes, right, that

1:03:04

allowed, that criminalized political speech, and

1:03:06

those were understood as consistent with the First Amendment.

1:03:09

So I just think there is potentially a

1:03:11

really ominous set of notes in this opinion

1:03:13

about how, you know, both Dobbs,

1:03:15

which you've talked about in brewing this big gun case from

1:03:17

2022, are both

1:03:19

about how important history and tradition are

1:03:22

in deciding what the Constitution means, and this

1:03:24

Elster case suggests to me the

1:03:27

court is gonna use that method

1:03:29

across maybe every body of law, and our

1:03:31

history and tradition is pretty dodgy in a lot of

1:03:33

ways, and if that's what answers the

1:03:35

question of what the Constitution means today, I think we're all

1:03:37

in a lot of trouble. This is like

1:03:39

they wanna party like it's 1776. Yeah,

1:03:42

exactly, sometimes 1868, depending on the day. Coming back

1:03:44

to the 2025 project and

1:03:46

the pornography. Just wanna go back to

1:03:48

the porn. Yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah. Just

1:03:51

get that on it, get Joe Biden. Not exactly history and tradition. All

1:03:53

right, you got Joe Biden to say abortion. Next

1:03:56

challenge, level two. We're

1:03:58

gonna get Joe Biden to say pornography. I don't know

1:04:00

that his people should take that advice. I'll

1:04:02

just go out and live. We talked a little bit about the immunity

1:04:04

case. Is it now officially too late

1:04:06

to start a trial before the election if it comes

1:04:09

this week? I mean, Judge Chukin

1:04:11

is a very impressive district court judge.

1:04:13

I wouldn't rule anything out. But I

1:04:17

would say it's in the single digit percent likely

1:04:19

at this point, an actual

1:04:21

trial. But there are ways that she

1:04:23

could figure out how to hold a

1:04:25

hearing potentially on this question of what

1:04:27

is an official act and what is

1:04:29

not. Because if that may be how

1:04:31

the case gets resolved, yes, official acts

1:04:33

get some kind of immunity. But the

1:04:35

indictment that Jack Smith brought has some

1:04:37

official acts and some things that were

1:04:39

clearly just conspiracies by an

1:04:42

individual outside of the scope of

1:04:45

the presidency. So some official acts, some non-official acts.

1:04:47

So it's been at least suggested that she could

1:04:50

hold a hearing on this question of what is official

1:04:52

and what is unofficial from the indictment. And

1:04:54

that that could serve as

1:04:56

something like a mini trial with a public facing

1:04:58

component. So there wouldn't be

1:05:00

a full trial. There wouldn't be a jury verdict. But it would be something. A

1:05:02

lot of it looks like that's weak sauce. That

1:05:05

might be right. Boo. It's

1:05:07

opening on Broadway. That's

1:05:10

how stuffs came to be. Hey,

1:05:12

hey. Let's

1:05:15

exist in a hopeful world for

1:05:17

a minute. Are there legitimate reasons

1:05:19

it's taking so long for them

1:05:21

to release this decision that aren't

1:05:24

just the conservative majority dragging its

1:05:26

feet? There are other reasons,

1:05:28

but none of them are reasons that are hopeful, I

1:05:30

don't think. So conservative majority dragging

1:05:32

its feet is, I think, one. And two,

1:05:34

just like writing a complex opinion

1:05:36

that sets forth some kind of immunity

1:05:39

that has never in American history existed,

1:05:41

immunity of an ex-president from criminal

1:05:43

prosecution is just

1:05:45

a wildly novel idea. And

1:05:48

so if you're defining what the kind of

1:05:50

outer parameters of that are, it might take

1:05:52

some time. But the longer it takes, the

1:05:54

less likely you have an opinion that just

1:05:57

basically says, affirmed, which is the DC circuit

1:05:59

rejected the immunity. arguments very

1:06:01

forcefully. One word, right, affirmed is honestly what the

1:06:03

Supreme Court opinion should say if it had to

1:06:05

take the case at all and obviously the longer

1:06:07

it takes the less likely that is. So you

1:06:09

know dragging their feet and writing something you know

1:06:12

complex but protective of the president I think are

1:06:14

the two theories and neither is good. I just

1:06:16

have like a process question about it like I

1:06:18

know it was the last case they heard. Is

1:06:21

there something to the order for it being like they could

1:06:23

just say no this is important and we want to do

1:06:25

this now. Absolutely. There's no they don't have

1:06:27

to like decide the earlier argued cases first

1:06:29

nothing like that. You know the complex cases

1:06:31

there are opinions right now flying back and

1:06:33

forth inside chambers because I'm sure there are

1:06:35

multiple writings and dissents and and all that

1:06:37

so so it does take time to kind

1:06:39

of hash out how the opinions talk to

1:06:42

each other but you know like think

1:06:44

about the Colorado disqualification case right like that was two

1:06:46

weeks and it was you know and it was you

1:06:48

know it was a short ish and there was you

1:06:50

know two separate writings and but they can they wanted

1:06:53

to move quickly because it was Super Tuesday and they

1:06:55

thought they should speak before the actual voting happened

1:06:57

on that day and they did so if they felt a

1:06:59

similar sense of urgency here we would absolutely have had this

1:07:01

opinion weeks ago. Can I ask you so you obviously like

1:07:05

you're saying they're contemplating an argument that that

1:07:08

that has never been been made before but also

1:07:10

they're dealing with an unprecedented situation of a president

1:07:12

former president being prosecuted in some cases for crimes

1:07:14

he committed while being in office. If

1:07:18

you were put aside the politics and the

1:07:21

reality that we're all living in and the

1:07:23

fact that you know Sanballito's wife is flying

1:07:25

fucking rebellion flags outside her I don't know

1:07:27

harbor property but is

1:07:30

there a way that you can see to like there

1:07:33

are complexities here that actually do need to

1:07:35

be grappled with that like you

1:07:37

know if this weren't such an sort

1:07:40

of obvious situation that that that a president

1:07:42

might be pursued for for what was being

1:07:44

construed as crimes for while a president was

1:07:46

in office. You know I think a charitable

1:07:48

read would be they're they're thinking seriously about

1:07:50

this question that there could be edge cases

1:07:53

where something we might want to protect that

1:07:55

a president engages in is subject to a

1:07:57

you know spurious prosecution and so it actually

1:07:59

is is important that there be some principle

1:08:01

protection of the president. But I think they don't

1:08:03

have to touch any of that because this is an

1:08:05

easy case. So I think they can just write something

1:08:07

that says, we're not gonna, if they want to, they

1:08:09

could say we're not gonna foreclose the possibility of some

1:08:12

kind of immunity, but it's obvious that

1:08:14

no such immunity exists here, remanded.

1:08:16

I think that that's the principled way the case should

1:08:18

be decided if they want to even entertain the possibility.

1:08:20

I think they could also just reject a wholesale affirmed

1:08:23

as I suggested, but either one would be fine with

1:08:25

me. So this whole, I think it was Gorsuch that

1:08:27

said, we're writing an opinion for the ages. Like

1:08:30

you don't have to. No, you're not supposed to.

1:08:32

You're not supposed to, right? Like if there

1:08:34

are very hard questions that touch these deep

1:08:37

kind of constitutional dynamics and relationships and powers,

1:08:39

and you don't have to answer them, you're

1:08:41

actually really not supposed to. Yeah. What

1:08:44

are the other big ones we're waiting on besides immunity that

1:08:46

you are thinking about? I mean, there's the other

1:08:48

J6 case, Fisher, which is not about Trump, but

1:08:50

about a lot of other individuals charged with January

1:08:52

six related offenses. And two of the four

1:08:54

Trump charges are under

1:08:57

the statute that's being considered here. And

1:09:00

so that case and a lot of the other January six defendants cases could

1:09:02

be thrown out. That was the tenor of the

1:09:04

oral argument. That's another really important one. You

1:09:06

have another big abortion case about emergency care

1:09:09

for individuals who might under

1:09:11

extreme circumstances need an abortion to preserve their

1:09:13

health. That's the EMTALA case, that one we're

1:09:15

still waiting for. There are a

1:09:17

bunch of cases about administrative agency power that are

1:09:19

again, difficult to talk about in the same way

1:09:22

that schedule F is difficult to talk about and

1:09:24

communicate about, but are like fundamentally about whether government

1:09:26

gets to act to protect health and safety and

1:09:28

wellbeing or the court is going to

1:09:30

decide for itself, like what a single function of the trigger means and

1:09:33

like what an acceptable amount of pollution in the air

1:09:35

and water really looks like, or whether expert

1:09:37

agencies are going to get to make those

1:09:39

determinations. Like four different cases the court

1:09:42

is considering present variations on

1:09:44

that question. And so sometimes dry

1:09:46

and technical, but enormously high stakes for

1:09:48

people's lives. Well, as

1:09:50

you guys say on strict scrutiny, time for

1:09:52

some bad decisions. There's a

1:09:54

23 plus outstanding, almost

1:09:56

all going to be really bad. attractions.

1:10:01

Kate Shaw, thank you so much for joining

1:10:03

PODSAVE America. It was such a pleasure. And

1:10:06

we will see you again on Dan

1:10:08

and Tommy. You're going to do Thursday's episode and we'll

1:10:11

post that on Friday. Bye. Plus,

1:10:30

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