Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's best minds. We're on vacation, but that doesn't mean we don't have an amazing show for you today. Mark Rascoe Lusto drops by to talk to us about his recent trip to Ukraine. But first we have law Dorc news is Chris Guidner. Welcome back to Fast Politics. Chris, Hi, I'm so excited to have you this Supreme Court season. They took the pills, the abortion pills. They have a
case with that. They have a lot of stuff on their docket that could be really fucked discussed.
This is a big term.
We say that every year, and sadly it's often true. I mean, we've now got this possibility of Trump related cases going up quickly. We've got this case over medication abortion.
We've got these really big cases over the administrative state, which sounds really intricate and boring, but it really comes down to who in our government has the power and whether the executive branches is actually able to govern or whether the Supreme Board is just going to have the final say and be able to tell us at all times what government is able to do.
I mean, I've heard a lot of speculation, read a lot of speculation about the Supreme Court and what it might do and how it might try to prove itself to be lost in saying that it has I mean, am I just the boy whistling in the dark to keep myself from being afraid?
I don't think you are completely with the caveat that anything can always get worse. I think that we are seeing evidence that the public attention and public pressure on the Court is having an effect, and that is a
good thing. I think we are seeing evidence that, particularly Chief Justice Roberts and then the three trumpetpointees, who, let's face it, they're looking at this as I'm going to be on the Court for the next twenty years or so or longer, and so it's not necessarily a one month decision about what to do, and they are looking at the long term implications for the credibility of the Court and realizing that you might need to find some limits.
Or you're going to lose all of your authority.
It's true, there's a lot. I mean, I'm looking at the dock at now, and I'm just looking at all these case says Purdue Pharma case. I mean, there's some environmental cases, there's More versus United States. Well there's another NR case. I mean, what are you looking at here?
The More case is a perfect example.
It's a case that when the Justices took it, it's about this weather. Unrealized income can be taxed under the sixteenth Amendment, And the original sort of take when the Supreme Court took it was this could be a huge case where they essentially rule any wealth tax off the board.
Which is the dream. Let's be honest, all those billionaires, that's their dream.
The Wall Street Journal issued an editorial the day after the Supreme Court granted cert saying, this is a really big case about the wealth tax. But then we got into arguments and it turned out to sort of be I mean, it's not obviously not a dud of a case.
It's still important, but the debate and discussion ended up being over a much more narrow issue, and it seems like we're gonna get a lot of that this term where it only takes four justices to grant certain a case, to agree to hear a case, but that doesn't mean that that's where a case is going to end. This is the fallout from Dobbs. We've talked for a year and a half about the fallout from Dobbs on abortion, both for restrictions and also for how it's sort of
changed the electorate. But I think there's a real long term effect on the Court, or at least a mid term effect on the Court that they realized that there are political, small pe political consequences to the courts standing in society when they go to far. We're watching cases like more, We're watching cases like it was originally low or bright enterprises, but now it's this case called Relentless that is addressing how much deference federal agencies get at
interpreting laws. And the reality is that the federal government is so big that you need to give some deference to agencies or you're not going to be able to run a government. But the counter of that is maybe there are some people who don't want the federal government to be able to run, and so they would like that deference to be gone. And we're going to have arguments in that case toward the middle of January.
And then there's the big blockbuster, which is raining.
There was the big Blockbusterrahamian then weheard arguments in it, and this is the case about there's a federal law that if somebody has a standing domestic violence restraining order out against them, that they cannot have a fire. And the question in the case is whether that federal law is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. In light of this Clarence Thomas inspired Second Amendment history and tradition, if the
founding fathers could beat their wives, then why can't people? Now, Yeah, that's sort of the harsh end of Clarence Thomas's interpretation of the Second Amendment. And this case is a put your money where your mouth his case in a way. And when we heard arguments, it sounded like a whole lot of the Court is not willing to go that far, and they're likely to sort of pull back on what Bruin means in practice. Bruin was the case striking down New York's gun case.
Right. That's interesting because they just decided Bruin like ten weeks ago. I mean, why do you think that is?
I think it was another situation liked Awe where the Supreme Court has been going since Heller for nearly twenty years in this direction of a robust Second Amendment right and Bruin came down.
And the goal with Bruin was to limit states, cities, municipalities from being able to create their own gun restrictions.
Yeah, and it seemed like it was sort of this goal was being reached from the right, from the NRA people. But then reality set in, and as is the modern reality in America, there were a lot of mass shootings and it became pretty clear that this was not going to be a workable solution. And so we got the Rahemi arguments that were very skeptical of a world in
which this federal law would not be allowed. And then we perhaps even more surprisingly, just in December here the Supreme Court allow to Illinois's assault weapons ban to remain
in effect during litigation. After the Seventh Circuit had held that the ban was allowed the Supreme Court, the challengers to Illinois law came up to the Supreme Court on the shadow docket and asked for the Illinois law to be put on hold during their expected appeal to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court last week, with no descents, said the law can go into effect until we make a further decision on it that sends a message to the lower courts that that is a law that they
are allowing to go into effect. It's on the shadow docket. It wasn't a decision on the merits. But just like the bad shadow docket decision. Second message, Like with Texas SP eight back in the day, this sends a message as well.
So let's talk about this abortion law. This is this case, the metha pristone. It was brought to a crazy trump a judge on a docket that they knew they would get him, Matthew cosmeric and in Texas, in Northern District of Texas. They knew they were going to get him. They knew he was a trumpet point d. They knew he was a complete zealot. He was like, that's it. The FDA is wrong, even though it's been a proof since two thousand and the Comstock Act is legit, and
let's let's go ban this thing now. It's cooked up to them. This is a case, I feel like where it's about abortion, but it's also about can you take drugs off the market because you don't like what they do?
Well, yeah, this was the weird situation where you had planned.
Parenthood and the FDA and big pharma all on the same side.
We don't get that a lot this.
Is ultimately could be devastating to big pharma.
It could in a sense.
We did have an example of sort of good news such as it comes from this court.
Right, good news. It needs quotes around it, Yeah, good good good issue.
Let these twenty twenty three edition news which was now When this case was heard at the Fifth Circuit, the Fifth Circuit pulled back part of Kesmeric's ruling. What they said is the original two thousand approval of mephropristown. The challenge to that was on time. You can't bring it, you're too late. What the Fifth Circuit upheld was Kasmeric's ruling as to the later changes easing access to the drug in twenty sixteen.
In twenty twenty one.
That includes the ending of the in person requirement, so allowing it to be sent via mail, and the DOJ and Danko, who makes miffrapracts, went to the Supreme Court and said, we want you to hear this appeal to reverse the Fifth Circuit on those decisions so to allow the eased access. The challengers to mif for pristone's approval said if you take DOJ's case. We also want you
to take the underlying two thousand approval. We want to appeal the Fifth Circuits ruling against us on that, and what the Supreme Court did earlier in December said we're going to take DOJ and Danko's request about reversing the Fifth Circuit on the eased access, but we're not going to take the challengers appeal of the two thousand approval. So that again for twenty twenty three, is a good sign. That says the Supreme Court doesn't even want to consider
the two thousand approval. That is fine, that is safe and is not going to be on appeal at the Supreme Court. All that's going to be appealed, which is still important, particularly in a post row environment, is the eased restriction. It allows for later prescription, allows for fewer appointments.
Have they had the oral arguments yet?
No, That will be probably in April, could be in March.
I haven't looked at the calendary. It would either be late March or late April.
Do you think that this Supreme Court as you're listening to them, I want to ask you about this idea that Allie Mestyle had told me once that he thought, actually, Amy Cony Barrett was the smartest of these new justices.
Oh, that's definitely true. Okay, it's like level degrees of difference.
But yeah, so talk to me about that, because I think that's pretty interesting. I mean, she's definitely a zalad, a crazy religious salad. But let's talk about that.
The really interesting thing. And I just read somewhere about it. Oh it was people were we're sharing information news articles from when Sandrade O'Connor was confirmed, and there was the line in the New York Times article from Linda Greenhouse from the day of her confirmation vote about the fact that basically you don't know what's going to happen after a justice is on a court for a long time
once they're confirmed. The fact is that all of these justices that were basically hand picked by Leonard Leo were largely picked to overturn Row, and they did that. But the fact is that the law is a very broad area.
There's a lot of things that are covered.
By the law, and I think what we're going to see over time is that it's very easy in light of the outcome in Row, in light of some of the most clear ideological cases overturning affirmative action. That like to see these three new justices as the three trumpet points, and I there will be some ways in which they're similar, but they're also just very different. And I think over time, as they are on the court for longer and sort of stake out their areas of expertise, like, we're going
to see them in different ways. And I think the fact is that Justice Barrett is really smart, and I think we see that already in the ways in which sort of her and Justice Kagan engage on things, the ways in which she's engaged already with Justice Jackson on things.
And while I would gladly get rid of her.
Vote anytime that we could on the court, I don't think she's often going to be voting in ways that I agree with. I think that she definitely helps raise the level of argument in a way that honestly helps Kagan at times being able to fight with somebody at her level.
So is Kagan the smartest of the liberal.
Justice I don't know about that. I think the Jackson is certainly holding her way.
Yeah, she's very smart, but we're.
Still very new and her time on the court, I always say, like, you don't want to judge a justice their first like year or two, because, like, especially if they've been in an appeals court judge before, this is very different. You're making the decisions now, and if you were an appeals court judge before, you sort of had adapted to a way of thinking that was like deferring to what the Supreme Court's precedents were, that you don't need to do anymore.
And so a lot of people think this year is going to be less insane than previous years of this court. Do you think that's right or do you think we're all setting ourselves up?
I think that's right.
I think the big problem with this term is that some of the most important cases are the least sexy cases. They are these administrative lost cases. There was this case over the method of funding the Consumer Protection Bureau consumer Financial Protection Bureau. There is going to be this relentless
case over whether we cheap deference to agencies. This issue of who has the final say, the executive branch, the legislative branch, the judicial branch at different points in our history has changed over time, and as the federal government grew, it became pretty clear that there were so many decisions being made that you had to let the experts within agencies who had been hired, not political people, but people who were spending their lives working at the EPA, working
in the Social Security Administration, working in the securities in exchange commit we have to defer to them to make these basic decisions about how we're organizing these things. And if the Supreme Court pulls that back and says, no, we're not going to defer to agencies, it could really upend the stability of a whole lot of agencies and then with that rippling out from there, a whole lot of industries.
Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks that was great, Thank you, Molly. Mark Rostau Lusto is a scholar of religion in Hungary and Romania, as well as managing editor of the Journal of Global Catholicism. Welcome back to Fast Politics, Mark Gustau.
Maali, it's great to be here.
So you have been in a lot of places. Explain to me what's happening in western Ukraine right now.
I just got back from two weeks of reporting in Ukraine. I was really kind of all up and down the western area of the country up to Leviv and down to cities around the Slovakian and Hungarian border. And I have to say that the mood of the country right now is really anxious, very very anxious, very insecure. The war is just ruling. The most professional soldiers, the ones who have had trained to be in the army at the beginning, they have died and recruits are replacing them.
In the small western Ukrainian city where I was spent, where I spent most of the time, which was really far from the front lines, now, I had to pause in my car behind long funeral processions multiple times a day. There were air raid sirens and people were you know, they're very aware of the war and the way it's going, and it's causing a lot of people to have a deep sense of insecurity and unease they are.
Economy was so flooded with aid, buddy, right, I mean, now is it just completely dried up?
There is still aid coming in the EU, and certainly the the US government is still sending aid and there are humanitarian organizations that are working with the huge numbers of internal refugees in the country. You know, over five million people were displaced just inside Ukraine. But it is true that militarily, the summer did not show a lot of improvement in terms of the moving of the front lines. I spoke with one man, a friend who works for
humanitarian NGO. You know, he was really wanted to tell me about the kind of political situation that's going on in Ukraine right now. He said that Zolinsky has really boxed himself into a corner.
It would be a.
Great tragedy and really the West's fault if Ukraine had to see territory to putin Although it might have to happen, he said, the problem is that Zelinsky has really staked his entire political career on winning back everything, every little inch of land, and so Zelensky is stuck between a rock and a hard place because if negotiations do begin, he would really have to resign. So my friend said,
you know, I don't know who takes his place. That's one of the other kind of really anxiety provoking things. It's not really clear if there's a better option. Zelensky has done such an amazing job.
Zelensky is losing the confidence of his people.
I wouldn't go that far, Molly, but you know, I think that my friend finished everything. He wanted to say by saying he's the best that we have, right, So you know, I wouldn't say that he's losing the confidence. I would just more kind of broadly say that it's a difficult time and people are really wondering what the way forward is.
Is there a way to make a deal here? It feels like they're going to just keep going with this. I mean, isn't there a way to make some kind of deal with Putin? Or do you think it's just he's so unreliable you.
Can I mean, I think history has told us that when you make deals with fascist dictators doesn't lead to happy things for the rest of the world.
Right, Oh this is true, But I mean I don't trust Putin. But I also I don't know where you go, right, because there's no appetite from America, right, there's fairly appetite for Israel, and Israel has sort of more of a historical relationship with the American AID and even they are just really may not even get any aide. So do you think there's any sort of hail Mary here?
Well, I don't think we should be looking for easy solutions, you know, I mean, wars never end with you know, easy, quick, idealistic and idealized endgames. That's not how geopolitics works, even when we're talking about kind of peaceful conflicts. And here we're talking about a brutal, imperialistic state trying to take over another state. So I don't think there's going to
be a Hail Mary. I think people who presented the conflict as something that could be easily one we're at the beginning at least, we're you know, optimistic, too optimist.
But the other thing, you.
Know, I think that what we're sort of losing touch with and this was why I went there, which was one of the reasons why I went and did this reporting, is that what Ukrainians are trying to do right now, and one of the reasons why we in the United States, especially on the left, should support the US military aid for Ukraine is that they're trying to build a multi racial,
multi ethnic, multi religious, open and free democracy. And that's really what we're trying to support in Ukraine right now, through military aid, through humanitarian aid, through all sorts of different kinds of aid. You know, we're talking about an aspiring European society, and you know, Europe itself, the EU has recognized that aspiration to be realist sincere by agreeing to open formal accession negotiations.
Yeah, but I mean, we're barely hanging on here, right, Get it.
When people on the left say that we have problems of our own at home, not to demonize that position, but I would say that the left has an isolationist problem of its own that we need to confront. You know that everybody talks about the isolationism of the right, but there is absolutely an isolationism of the left, and
both are problematic, not equally problematic, but problematic. So there have been increasingly strong calls amongst progressives to stop sending money to Ukraine military aid and all sorts of other kinds of aid. And you know, oftentimes those arguments are paired with the claim that we have injustices of our own in the US to reckon with. And oftentimes people on the left say that the war is NATO's fault for expanding into Russian's fear of influence and provoking Russia.
I don't think anyone thinks that. I mean, I've read it in the Nation, right, but I mean, ultimately that's a very, very sort of horroreshoe I mean Putin just decided this was an easy get for him. I don't think there's anything that Ukraine could have done that would have prevented it. I mean, he tried it before, you know. I mean, this is just he feels that Russia is still entitled to that. Nobody wants Ukraine to have to make a deal with Putin. But Ukraine might have to
make a deal with Putin. What would that look like?
That's hard to say, Molly. I'm not going to be sitting around that table. I don't think that Ukrainians should approach that table anytime. I don't think that the US government should force them or push them strongly.
I mean, I don't think the US government can force them. The US government is just one of the many kind of supports that Ukraine has, And there's really I mean, there's certainly a school of thought that Europe may backstop them. But I'm just thinking about sort of like in the case of like you have sort of a limited window of what you can get done, what does that look like?
Well, So, I mean I would say that, Molly, if you plopped yourself down in Ukraine and you said to the average person on the street, you're going to have to negotiate with Putin, you get thrown out of the room, not probably aggressively, but you'd get shown the door. If those conversations are happening, and I'm not saying that they are, but if they're happening, they're happening amongst.
Ukrainians, right right.
I mean it's not for us on the left in the US public commentators or even politicians to start telling Ukrainians exactly how to handle that, right.
It's more of like a game. Thats how with may question what can they do?
I can't answer the question.
I can't speculate down that path because the consequences of doing that are just going to be way too strong. Okay, to publicly question the Ukrainian war effort right now, even despite all the anxieties and all the uncertainties that people have, there is too politically damaging. I mean, it plays into Putin's hands. Putin wants people to start questioning Ukraine's collective will to defend itself.
I mean I just meant like, if they can't get any more money, I mean, you.
Know that also benefits him.
I know it benefits him. Here's the problem. It's like in my mind, and again, you have a problem in America, which is a people under fifty they are very anti intervention. This may not be completely true, but from what I see anecdotally, and what we're seeing is that people under the edge of fifty really do not want to fund foreign wars because we've had so many disasters. Yes, what I think Biden has done really well is he's sort of giving Ukraine all of our old toys and making
new ones. The problem is now that this war has become so hyperpartisan and you don't have Republicans who are willing to get on board with it, it gets harder and harder to get them the money that they need, and so they are going to ultimately, I mean, hopefully they get backstopped by Europe for a certain amount of time, but you could see a world where their choice has become more and more limited. It's not up to America
to do anything. But if they can't get the cash from America, they have a problem.
Well, I think the response to that is to say, let's get them the cash. I mean, I think it's still very possible. I guess I just don't share your pessimism, and I think it's up to us on the left help Ukrainians make the case for why America should stand in solidarity with them, especially folks on the left. I was old enough to march against the Iraq War, you know. I mean I was living in New York City at the time, and I remember that we filled up the
entirety of the East Side. We've blocked traffic on multiple avenues to protest that criminal intervention. And I think it was one of the most stupid foreign policy decisions in I don't know a recent history, but I don't think that we should let the shadow of that past mistake cloud our judgment. Now.
It's interesting because I also marched against Iraq War, and I was part of that, and I was actually pregnant. I agree that the Iraq War was just awful, and I agree, but ultimately, I think the problem in Afghanistan was a disaster of Vietnam. I mean basically all the wars in America has gotten into since World War Two. I mean, you could argue we don't have a great
track record of nation building. And ultimately, my problem, like fundamentally in a theoretical sense, is that like the endgame is you're going to remove Putin and then you're going to nation build in Russia. I mean that seems like a disaster.
Right, Yeah.
No, I mean I don't think that's the game at all. I mean I also don't think that the US is going to be nation building in Ukraine. No, I don't either, at least if we think of nation building in the way that George Bush used it in a completely ridiculous sense in Iraq. Right. So the point being that the European Union has stepped up to the table and said, we're going to be helping Ukraine build a nation. Yeah, they're taking the lead on that. That's what it means
when they have open formal accession negotiations, you know. I mean, if you want to reinterpret that term, it's kind of a technical term. But what they're saying is, all right, let's work together to build an open and free, multi religious, multi ethnic, multi racial society.
Right, which is great. It's just not necessarily going to happen.
Right.
Well, nothing is ever guaranteed. I mean, we're talking geopolitics, right, we have to be realistic. But I think that the fact that we're doing this with partners with NATO, with the EU, we're not footing the bill entirely by ourselves. This is not a George W. Bush type Hail Mary attempt at taking over the world and buying oil for the US.
I mean, not to be annoying, but with the first Golfer, America had tons, they had a whole consortium of countries. I mean, I think it's hard to make the case for Ukraine when we're not in them per se. But there are two different wars now raging, right.
You know, I am in no way qualified to try to draw lines of connection between what's going on in the Middle East and what's going on in Ukraine.
No, but I mean it's more just exhausting resources and also like psychologically exhausting for the American voter.
You know. And honestly, I don't think it's actually exhausting America's financial resources. I mean, in relative terms, I'm sure that we spent a lot more in Afghanistan and Iraq.
But there was appetite for it then.
Right, it's the psychological appetite for it.
And I think thatism on the left is a really really dangerous thing right now, you know. I mean I think that you know, we need to find reasons on the left to support Ukraine, and I think creating an open society is a major major reason with partners like the EU and NATO, helping Ukraine build an open society is really crucial and I think that's a reason that the Left can get on board to support aid for Ukraine.
Marcos Stowe, thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you, Molly, Molly. These conversations are always some of the most fun that I have.
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.