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. And our f K Junior's son leaked a video showing Donald Trump talking to his dad saying that he would appoint him to his administration. In case you're wondering why our of K Junior is worrying for President, he is running to help Donald J.
Trump.
We have such a great show for you today. We brought in the big guns. Yale professor Jason Stanley stops by to talk to us about the parallels between creeping bapcism in Europe and the United States. But we keep it light, don't worry. Then we'll talk to strict scrutinies Kate Shaw about the damage done by the Supreme Court this term. But first we have Atlantic columnist George Conway. Welcome back, too, Fast Politics, my friend, George Conway.
Hello back, I'm two thousand.
Yes, and yet we'd like more of you.
George Conway. I'm sorry to tell you well, you know, not fair, I know, but so let's get going here on the world's luckiest politician, especially legally, Can you explain to me what happened yesterday with Judge a lean cannon because that is it seemed inevitable.
But still, wow, it.
Did seem inevitable. And I sort of We had.
This lawyer who wrote an amicus brief for a group of lawyers pointing out that the argument that Trump was making about the question about the appointment of the special prosecutor, which is simply wrong. There's just no a challenge right for any number of reasons. And I remember joking to him, the lawyer who was actually going to go up and argue, which was very unusual for a district court to do, to have an amicus cury, I argue before a district court.
I said, make sure you concede the motion, lose the motion? Wait why, because that way it would be something to take up to the Eleventh Circuit. See the judge that nothing was ever gonna happen. Okay, she was clearly playing for time and for whatever reason, motivated to help him. And I hate to say that, I hate to question initial motives, but in that case, I really really do
question her motives. I question confidence as well. But you know, she basically if you look back at everything she's done, she's strung out the clock, and now she dismisses the case since it's going to take months for it to get back to her, if it ever does. And basically she feels like, Okay, I did my job, which was the basically protect him from this case, and that's all she ever seemed to do by slowing it down by
I mean, you look at the Menendez trial. That case was brought I don't know how much longer, way after the Marlago search for away, after the indictment of Trump.
I think it's almost done. Yeah, it's in front.
Of the jury right now. Charge as I understand it, and that you know, it's actually quite a very similar case in the following sense. You know, the FBI went to the guy's house and found all this stuff gold bar, the FBI went to Bump's house and found the stolen classified documents. I mean, it's a simple case. It's almost like a drug bus case. I mean, maybe maybe Menendez has a defense that you know, his wife was taking all this stuff and he didn't know about it, but
I don't know. I mean, we'll see, we'll see how that comes out. But the point is that they got that case to try a really fast and that's the way it's supposed to work, and that's the way it
should have worked here. But then, you know, what happened with her was in the summer of twenty It was twenty twenty two, for goodness sakes, right, you know, it was almost two years ago that the search warrant was executed at mar Alago, and they had engaged in two couple months of litigation about whether they could conduct an investigation because the District Court was infare with the investigation to the point where the Court of Appeals for the
Eleventh Circuit had to reverse her twice. And you know, ever since then, she basically will hold motions and delay them and sit on them and then hold arguments on on motions on whether to hold motions. I mean, you know, she was just basically every procedural delay you could possibly imagine she used to help Trump. And I think it's partly there is some favoritism there, but there's also an
incompetence there. I mean, that got to the point where I think The New York Times reported that the chief judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Flora, who is a Bush appointee, whose name was actually floated in I think two thousand and five or two thousand and six in it went in the run up to the choice that I think to replace Sandrade O'Connor at the seat that ultimately first was going to go to Roberts and then Ranquist died and then
it ultimately went to Aledo. She was one of the names that had been floated for that list. She's a very good judge by all accounts. And the point about it is she tried to get this woman to procures herself, Judge Cannon to accuse herself, and then apparently another judge did that also because they just felt that she just
wasn't handling it correctly. And it's amazing. You never ever hear that internal stuff happening in a court, and the fact that it happened to hear it, I mean, it just doesn't happen, first of all, and the fact that it here is just amazing. And the fact that it happened here and it got into the newspaper means it was just the talk of a courthouse. And that's you know, courthouse is our gossipy places. I'll tell you that right. Anyway,
The point is I'm rambling on here. I mean, if we were television, we you know the thing as it should have been like for ten seconds now Now now I.
Think people are interested in sort of the story behind it.
I mean, she just just delayed this case and delayed this case and delayed this case. And the reason why I made that argument to that lawyer, say, mat me, the joke half joking really that we want to lose this motion was so that you could go up to the Eleventh Circuit. And the circuit's going to reverse again. I don't think there are certainly not. I mean they're not. I could go up to the Supreme Court. I don't think so. But if it does, I mean I've been wrong about the Supreme Court so far.
Yeah. Are you shocked at how partisan the Supreme Court is?
I'm going to be careful with motives, Okay. I think the Supreme Court decision in the immunity case is raw for a lot of different reasons. I do understand the need to protect the presidency to some extent from baseless prosecutions, but that's a whole other story. Anyway. The point about this is there's a rule and unwritten rule in the Eleventh Circuit which is the federal judicial circuit that includes Flora.
That says basically that if a judge screws something up three times in the same direction, they reserve the right to take the case reverse it.
So could they take the case and reverse it?
Yeah, they're gonna this is going to go up.
And what do you think will happen?
The case was a dismissal and it's going to get reversed. I mean, there's a clear precedent that there's a statutory basis for the appointment, and there's no basis to conclude that the appointment is unconstitutional because this is an inferior officer.
Do you think then the Supreme Court will step in and save him.
I don't think so, not this one.
Because it's so clear cut, or.
It's just absolutely clear cut.
Right.
The United States against Nixon implicitly upheld the very same kind of mechanism where and the statute Congress has written in statute that basically, the Attorney General has the power to appoint whoever to prosecute cases, and that's his producative and it's totally constitutional on the appointmance cause of the Constitution because the person being appointed there is an inferior officer. He reports to the Attorney General. He can be fire
Attorney General. Office can be terminated by regulation of the by regulation issued by the Attorney General. He can be ordered to stand down. He's an inferior officer. And the only you know, under the constitution, the only officers that are required to be appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate are so called the non inferior offices on principal officers, and those are basically cabinet members who directly report to the President. And that's that's just different.
So there's just no issue here. But she got a role and it'll get reversed. But the point is that she's run out the clock right right, even a quick appeal on which I don't think is going to be warranted here for any reason. I mean, it's going to take it's going to take several months. So I don't see you this case. But this case wasn't going anywhere anyway because she had she had sufficiently delayed. I mean, basically, now I don't have to do any work on it.
I can just kick it because now it's come back to me. If it ever comes back to me again, it'll be twenty twenty five, and either.
Trump has won or he hasn't.
Pears. So's that's what happened there, and it's very disappointing and very disturbing.
The Trumps people are already talking about her as the Supreme Court justice.
I'm sure you've seen this.
She probably be the first appointment he'd make to the Eleventh Circuit Jesus.
I mean, it's crazy.
This feels like a very dark moment for a lot of Democrats, right, because I mean, just from my point of view, Vance is really a scary choice, right, it feels like a very dark We've had this terrible crushing Biden is old news cycle, then we had this really just kind of grim.
The thing that you should be pleased about with Jade Vance. He's a total shameless opportunist, right, so explain he doesn't actually believe in any Yes, that is true. Might think we've estaffed back over the years, so you know, Trump isn't a true believe either in it from themselves. I mean, that's just cynically. You might actually be able to take some solows in there.
But what I think is interesting about Vance is that I'm not convinced that he grows the electorate. Like as a woman, there's nothing about jd. Vance that appeals to me.
I agree with that.
I mean it was he was not the logical choice from a political standard.
If you were gaming this out politically, who in your mind? See, I think like, had he pick Nikki Haley.
Yeah, Haley would have been great for him. But of course Haley would have been great for the Republican Party, even though it might have issues with her. She would have won this election in the landslide, which is absolutely insane, Which shows you the Republican parties insane even after all that has happened, you know, five p. Thirty eight and you could take them for them for what they're worth. I mean basically says it's like fifty one percent chance of I forget who.
Winning, right, but it's very tight.
Yeah, and it's all gonna be determined by turnout. And you know, but the point is that if Haley.
Had been the nominee, it would have been loved in a five or ten point plot.
Yes, but she's not.
Oh no. But that's the point is that's that's how crazy the Republican Party is. I mean, they didn't you know, they had so many obvious choices that took to make and they had to go with this guy. Why it's just the same.
Right, I mean, part of it is they just don't have a real Like what I was struck by when you listened to Vance and you I watched last night.
I watched the whole thing. Thank you, I win for watching that whole thing.
And what was interesting to me about that night was that it was the rhetoric was really toned down because you had a lot of really crazy people up there. You had Amber Rose, who's a she's an only fans, she's famous for having dated Kanye. She has a tattoo on her forehead. I thought I was seeing something. I was like, I wrote to a political friend and I was like, it looks like there's something on her forehead.
It's a tattoo. Right.
I always feel like face tattoos should be where we call it off. But I mean, like tattoo anywhere else but your face. Right, What I was.
Struck by was the rhetoric was really toned down.
But for them, if you tone down the rhetoric, there's nothing else, right, Like, there's no policy. So it's not like Amber Rose is up there talking about policy. She was like, I was a Democrat, now I'm a Republican. Republicans love people, we all love each other.
But it's a cult. That's the nature of a personality cult. It's not a political party. It's personality cult. That's what it is essentially.
But Jadie Vance is like he is a recent convert to the cult. And also it feels to me like and I don't quite understand this. He does seem so ambitious that he would invoke the twenty fifth Amendment on Trump if he could.
He's an opportunity. It's sort of like Star Wars. We only end up with Sith Lord at a time because one ends up killing the other. Right, I wouldn't trust jd Vance as far as control, that's my take. But that's easier said than not. It's hard to get the emperor alone. I mean, look at how cowed the cabinet was. I mean, you'll talk about the twenties froth.
A meenment, right, No, it's true. I mean, that's a really good point. The president has a lot of.
Power, pa nearly a one who has such a committed or group of supporters who are completely insane. We saw that in twenty twenty one January. After January sixth, I mean, there should have been no question the guy was not in any condition to execute the office president of the United States, you know, And there were discussions on the cabinet members, but they were terrified to do it right and Pence within Pennsy would have had to go along.
I wouldn't trust JD. Vance, but Trump has seen enough sycophanic behavior from the guy that he knows that he feels he can keep the guy under control. For Trump, weird, Pence was the better choice. He doesn't have that kind of ambition. He's ambitious enough to sacrifice his principles, as we've seen, but he does have some kind of war sense of right and wrong. He just gets confused about
it from time to time. I don't think Vance has that core, since I think Vance is purely cynical in the way that how frankly appreciates.
But what's interesting about if you look at the choice of Pence versus the choice of Vans, Pence was really, you know, he needed the evangelicals. Pence got him the evangelicals. Then Pence was so good at getting him the evangelicals that Trump didn't need Pence anymore.
But when it comes to JD.
Vans and say it's nothing.
He doesn't grow the electorate. Like working class men love Trump. They're not going to love him more because of Jade Vance, are they. I mean, unless I'm missing something, No.
He doesn't pull off the you know, he came into this into the media environment after writing that book Killbilly Elergy, but he's not really one of them, and for any number of reasons, and he doesn't have the same kind a pull. I think he's not going to have the same kind of magnetism to the core MAGA base that that Trump does. He turns off women, there's no question about that. I think. I don't think he's he's attracted candidate to a lot of women.
I mean, not to me, But what do I know?
Right, I got an earful from a lot of people yesterday about that. It's like they couldn't believe women. They couldn't believe like, well, I wouldn't have picked him. That's that's that's good.
That's just good for them.
Yeah, go on, there's a joke somebody made about you think people from Pennsylvania like people from Ohio.
They don't rare.
Yeah, yeah, So I don't see what he ASTs Urubo. At least you you you know, you can lock down Florida. Florida probably will go Republican, but it's you. You never know. Florida's were logical choice with somebody else, But the best choice would have been a Nikki Haley, right, But he would never abide by that because he would never She's not sycophanic enough.
Well, and also so she can't really exist in mega right because the misogyny is the point.
And there's also racism. And we remember one of the things that Trump was quoted as saying, I forget who reported it, he said that Nicky Haley has a complexion problem.
Right, And the people discovering that Vance's wife is not white are having that same conversation online right now in varying degrees of disgusting. So there you go, just a completely crazy you run on racism and then.
Right you look at the headline on Drudge jduv called Trump voters idiots. Sounds kind of elitist to the.
Actually, George Conway, we got some legal, we got some political.
I still think that Joe Biden can do this.
I did that.
If you make this election about Donald Trump, Democrats can win.
That's what I've been saying. I've been seeing it publicly or privately, but somebody's got to actually do that, and it's got happling. See it.
Well, I hope it happens, and I hope that you are involved in it.
George Conway. I hope you'll come back.
I shall.
Are you concerned about Project twenty twenty five and how awful Trump's second term could be and will be if he wins, Well, so are we, which is why we partnered with iHeart to make a limited series with the experts on what a disaster trump Ism would be for America's future. Right now, you can find the first episode by looking up Molly John Fast Project twenty twenty five on YouTube.
If you're thinking you.
Are more of a podcast person than a YouTube person, all you have to do is look it up on YouTube and hit play and then lock the screen and then you can listen to it as a podcast. New episodes are dropping in the next few weeks as well. We need to educate Americans on what Trump's second term would do to this country, on what would happen in Trump's second term and what it would do to this Please watch and help US spread the word. Jason Stanley is a professor at Yale as well as the author
of a racing history. Welcome back to Fast Politics. My friend, and you actually are my friend. We do hang out, which is amazing because I feel like I don't have any friends.
Jason Stanley, Hi, Mollie.
It's always wonderful to be in conversation with you, even or perhaps especially in these dramatic times.
So you're a fancy Yale professor.
So because you're a fancy Yale professor, you spent your summer doing what fancy Yale professors do, which is teaching and lecturing overseas.
You've been in Ukraine, You've been in.
Germany, Germany and Austria.
So what's the mood.
Well over there different moods in different places. In Ukraine, obviously, the mood is grim. I was in Ukraine teaching in August twenty twenty three at the very beginning stages of the so called counter Offend, and the mood then was positive. It's turned very grim. Obviously. The US elections bear directly on that. The Ukrainians know what happens if the US gives up on them. They know that their democracy doesn't
just come to an end. But if anyone has seen pictures of what Russia does to the cities it invades, it absolutely levels them. So Ukrainians know that they can expect that if the US withdraws aid and they can expect an emboldened Russia that will have much more international power if they managed to win this war. So that was Ukraine. I expect that's going to be a topic of much more discussion now that Trump has selected JD.
Vance as his vice presidential running mink vance and is, like many of these far right politicians worldwide, is partial to Putin. So that's the Ukraine part of the story. I mean, they're waiting.
So Trump is also partial to Putin.
Absolutely, so now you have two politicians. Vance in particular is just one of his signature issues is not caring about what happens to Ukraine. So Ukrainians are defending democracy. They're defending their democracy, and they're defending democracy worldwide. This is a very grim time for them.
I just want you to expand on this.
Russia rolling into Ukraine is not ultimately terrible for Ukraine. But one of the reasons why they're getting all the support is not because of Ukraine is so important to the world. Though they are, you know whatever, They're relevant and important. But part of the reason they're doing this is because it feels very clear to a lot of people.
And I think I actually heard Joe Biden say this is that once Putin is able to take Ukraine, he will take Moldova, he will take these other smaller countries, and sooner or later he will roll into Poland. And that a lot of this is about stopping Putin's war of aggression before he gets to Europe.
Well, so there's multiple things here. It's whether or not you think Putin will eventually threaten Poland, and he may very well. Putin is one of the central figures and funding and backing the attack on democracy worldwide. If US gives up on Ukraine, it puts Putin in an immensely powerful international position. It shows to autocrats all over the world that they will have a free hand, that the
United States will not protect democracies. It sends a signal to China that they can do what they want with Taiwan. Whereas if Ukraine does win the war, it substantially weakens
Putin's power and say on the international scene. So Essentially, it really is the way we have to see the world right now is as a fight between a unified anti democratic international as we saw in the late twenties and thirties, the fascist Internationale and forces that support that are trying to defend replacing leaders by elections right system, and Ukraine replaces leaders by elections. It's one of the few countries in that part of the world that does.
Putin's Russia and Putin himself are the main supporters of attacking systems where you can replace leaders by elections, and so allowing Putin to shut down Ukraine's democracy and adding Ukraine to essentially his empire will not only, as you rightly point out, increase the military threat to Europe, but it means that the forces that want to end replacing leaders by elections will be massively empowered.
One of the things that was very hardening is what happened in France. That was exactly what you're talking about, this pro democracy coalition getting together and defeating the far right.
Can you explain that to us.
Yes, So Europe faces many of the same forces that we do. I mean, really it's an international fight, and in my month in Europe that was very clear to me, and I just smoothly rolled into lectures, interviews, media discussions about far right anti democratic movements that are vilifying immigrants, that are vilifying LGBT, pushing for restrictions on abortion. There's a lot of very similar issues happening, which is no
surprise given that we have an international anti democratic movement. Now, what we saw in France is it took people by surprise in a good way. Is we saw people who usually bicker with each other unifying. So what we have in the United States is we have we're seeing people who don't agree with each other unifying. On the right, we see LGBT billionaires like Peter Thiel supporting Christian nationalists. We see different forces lining up behind an an anti
democratic movement. We need different forces who disagree with each other lining up to defend democracy. And that's what you saw in France, different left wing parties that usually bicker and argue with each other deciding to run as a coalition. So you had, in a shock, a really complete defeat. I mean the pen she ended up with a large amount of seats, but I mean it was a shock. I think they finished third out of the three major parties going into that election. Everyone was expecting the worst.
You had, you know, usually divided left, unifying for democracy. And I just think it's a symbol for the world of what you need to do to beat autocracy in the UK, because.
The thing is, I feel like there are so many narratives that inadvertently or or perhaps purposefully, I'd like to think it's Inaverton want to sort of try to sort of pump up the narrative that this fall to autocracy is inevitable. But the UK is a really good example of they really did reject you know, they rejected gb News, which was a news station started by Rupert Murdoch to try to sell them Brexit, and then they rejected this far right party too.
Can you talk about the UK it's more complice because the Conservatives just destroyed the country and take an enormous amount of reality denial to look at the UKA and not just see that the Conservatives just utterly destroyed the UK and so fourteen years of rule and it's just like, you know, it's just on along so many dimensions. The country was so weakened, the NHL, National Health Service, the so many aspects of what makes the UK distinctive flourishing
were just severely damaged by the long Conservative rule. It was just self evident to so many people that the cultural politics of the Conservatives were hiding a really nefarious economic agenda that was terrible for Britain. So I think, when you know we see this in the United States, when you know we saw it, say under Bush, when to some extent we saw it in Trump's first turn,
and not to some extent we saw it. Republicans come in, they pass an enormous tax cut for corporations and billionaires while telling the working class that they're for them, and then the economy, the US spirals massively into some crushing economic crisis, and then the Democrats come in and have to clean things up. So that's what we saw with Biden.
We had multiple crises. Under the Trump's first term, we had this enormous tax cut that just you know, exponentially increased our deficit, and Biden came in and did things for the working class, and the US economy is thriving and flourishing. So I think that's really what happened in the UK, that the cultural politics of the Conservatives just people finally realized, Okay, this is ruining our country. But I think a country we can look to is Poland.
Yes, can you talk about that?
Yes? I think the two figures you need to look at in the world as sort of central figures in the attack on democracy are Puten and Victor o Abaun, and Victor Arbau is doing it within Europe. Of course, Victorn recently went to Moscow and then went to visit Trump in Florida. So Poland, the Peace the Law and Justice Party took up Victor Baund's politics in Poland. When they won, they replaced the courts. So there's now sort
of a standard mechanism. You replace the courts by justices that are loyal to the party, to the League and Poland or Bond died that. Poland did that. You find judges who are pretty explicitly in the pocket of the anti democratic party, and you strong arm your way through the justice system to replace more impartial justices by those justices. That's the first and most important stage. Peace did that,
or Bond did that long ago. Then you use the courts to target the media, to target your political opponents, to target business people, to target businesses that your friends desire, so you've can force help them to your friends. So or Buck perfected that, and Poland just took up that strategy. We can see from Orbond's frequent visits to the Heritage Foundation and tomorrow Lago that they're really taking advice from him about how to do this. So've already done it.
They've already done it to a large extent. But the second, if Trump wins, will see a much more complete destruction of the rule of law and the replacement of the rule of law by the rule of Trump and the courts. So in Poland, what happened is that Pea's lost, which one had predicted, because Peace had controlled the media, Peace controlled the courts, and Law and Justice is still a very powerful party in Poland. But they lost due to
to a unified anti autocratic, anti authoritarian political movement. The people who objected to what was happening to Poland, who didn't want to see Poland become another Hungary, lined up together and defeated the authoritarian party. Now, of course, we still have the justices in Poland, the legal judges in Poland that are essentially in the pockets of the Law
and Justice Party. We still have the damage that so many years of rule of essentially a kind of one party state did, but by unifying against them, they defeated them. That is really hopeful. And it's not like the case of UK where if you're still voting on make Britain Great Again, you're really just not seeing the complete dismantling of your country.
I'm curious if.
You could explain sort of what is appealing to American voters.
I understand that Trump has.
This message, but like very rich people are very very rich people, like the richest people in the world, all want Trump and it can't just be for the tax cut. There has to be something else that is driving this.
Right or now, Yes, there is something else driving this, as you know, but let's begin with the pragmatic issues that you've just raised. It's not just the tax cuts. It's the complete destruction of the regulatory apparatus of government that is prom and so you can basically pollute the SKA. You can see what's happened by the justices he's appointed
in the Supreme Court. You can dismantle the regulatory power, the power of the regulatory agencies, giving massive power to those who want to pollute the skies, exploit their labor, labor forces you're just giving you you know, you're bringing America back to the early twentieth century. So that just helps corporations who don't want to have to deal with
environmental issues. I mean, we have to remember, before there was an EPA, before there was serious environmental regulatory structure, you know, our cities were a lot filthier and more polluted than they are now. So we can expect to go back to that, and that's in the interests of all the businessmen who want to enrich themselves at the
cost of our country. So there's those practical elements. Then the second part, which is a mixture of practical and personal, is that the billionaire class often thinks this happened with Putin as well, often thinks that, oh, well, if we get ourselves in with the autocrat, then it will help us because he's going to have his favorites. So that's what you're seeing.
Now a lot.
You know, like, Okay, if we line up behind him, he's going to bend the government to our favor and that's right. Trump will pick people he likes, but you know it's going to be on very chaotic and arbitrary grounds. You're kissing his ass now will be fairly arbitrarily related to whether or not he chooses to use the quarts to punish you, to enrich other people he might be interested in enriching. It's just all about currying favor with him.
But what we've seen from the past is that, and even the recent past, is that the oligarchs think, oh, well, you know, I can make him my friend and that will benefit me over this system we have where it's all pretty fair. Free market capitalism not fair. But and then the final thing is this machismo. A lot of business. You know, I won't mention any names here. A lot of super powerful, wealthy people don't think democratically. Hitler was very aware of this. There's a speech he gave to
the industrialists who He's like, you don't think democratically. You think you're the boss. You shouldn't want a political system where everyone thinks democratically. You should want a political system where there's a boss and everyone else. And that's what's going on now. A lot of the oligarchs, they just are horrified or disgusted by the fact that Joe Schmoe
and New Jersey can vote to raise their taxes. You know, they think of themselves as people who did it all themselves, and it's a winners and losers world, and winners should get everything. And so that is the ideology Trump presents.
Right, and I guess that's very appealing to wealthy people, though it's insane, and we've seen before that what it will do ultimately is, you know, having a fed controlled by a leader will ultimately kill the economy. Jason, thank you so much for joining us. I hope you'll come back.
Thank you, of course, anytime.
Molly Kate Shaw is a law professor at University of Pennsylvania, co host of the podcast Strict Scrutiny, and an ABC legal analyst.
Welcome back to Fast Politics, Kate Shaw.
Thanks for having me, Molly.
I'm so happy to have you because I think of you as one of those people who makes the law accessible to me. And when we say accessible, it always sounds like, you know, that we're sort of saying the prison is a little bit stupid, which may or may not be true about me, But it's more that we're right now, we're watching the Supreme Court do things with the law that none of us could have anticipated, and so the more we talk about it, I feel like, the better it is for all.
Of us just to understand what the hell is going on. So my first question, this is like a long way of leading up to this, but my first.
Question is sort of we had these two seismics, blockbuster decisions, one that gave the executive more power immunity, right, Nixon, Whatever the president does is fine, because what are crimes anyway? And then the other one, which is this, you know, this sort of trying to dismantle the administrative state with Chevron. I would love you to talk about them, but also about sort of what you think is going on there.
Sure, I totally agree with that basic observation, which is that the law is kind of inaccessible and opaque, and a lot of the time I think that's by design.
I think the.
Justices shroud the institution in secrecy quite deliberately, and they say, well, our work product is transparent, anyone can read it, but they do not write in an accessible fashion, and so I do think a lot of translation is required. You know.
In some ways, I think the immunity decision was more direct and straightforward in that it really did say without saying the sentence you said, Molly, right, if the president does it that means it's not illegal, which is of course the famous Nixon comment and his interview with Robert Frost. That's basically what the decision says, that much of what the president does while president can never be subject to
criminal consequences even after the president leaves office. And that's just not something we've ever had as a principle in our law. In fact, everything in our constitutional tradition runs exactly in the opposite direction. I mean to go back to Nixon for a minute. You know, when Nixon left office, the understanding was that he was very vulnerable to criminal charge and trial and conviction, and the reason that his successor, Gerald Ford, pardoned him was to spare him and the
country from the process of a criminal trial. And the pardon itself that Ford wrote basically said, Nixon has already suffered this grave indignity of having to leave the office in disgrace, and that's pretty serious punishment. And for that reason, I'm going to grant him a pardon. But the pardon would never have been necessary if Nixon couldn't be prosecuted anyway.
And essentially that's what this immunity decision involving Donald try Trump says the president, when he does things as president, can never be criminally prosecuted, even if the things he does as president violate the law.
Right.
So that's I think the core holding of that opinion, and I think it's a wildly dangerous one, and I think it's it would be dangerous under any circumstances. It is especially dangerous in that it's been issued at a moment when obviously the front runner for the presidency right now, Donald Trump, has pledged to exact retribution upon his enemies and to engage in all manner of other activities, some
of which might violate law. But it turns out under this opinion, he himself will not face any possibility of criminal liability, even for violating clear statutory law. So that's decision one that I think was a real earthquake on the very last day of the term.
I would like to pause and just say, for the two of us, you know, you're married to someone who's on cable news. You're on cable news. I'm on cable news. There is it certainly a feeling. I don't know if you feel this way, but I certainly feel like Trump has already said that he's going to exact retribution on you know, whether it's Maggie or it's Joe, or it's you know, I mean, we are in the crosshairs here.
Yeah, I mean, I think he's been really clear that the people that he' views as his enemies, and that's some members of the kind of professional democratic classorate, actual politicians that Biden family, people like that, but also the press, Like he has said very clearly that on his enemies list are members of the press.
And you know, in addition to.
What's in the opinion about just kind of general criminal immunity, there's a long discussion of the basically sacricinct relationship between the president and the Department of Justice, and the suggestion is that the president can tell the Department of Justice to do anything he wants and that no court can second guess that, and that in some ways is as chilling to me as the holding about immune because there has always been an understanding in democratic and Republican administrations
alike that there is a degree of separation between the political actors in the White House and right around the president and the prosecutors in the Department of Justice, and there has been this kind of insurgent component of the conservative legal movement that for decades has basically said that the president actually needs to have more control over the entire apparatus of government, maybe most importantly the Department of Justice. But the traditions of the DOJ have been very opposed
to that. I mean, the reason that Trump got such pushback in DJ when he tried to weaponize the department to help him in his post election efforts is because those norms are so internalized by DOJ officials that no, you don't just do the political bidding of the president, because there is a degree of independence at the department basically since it's post Civil war, founding has been understood
to possess. And the opinion says basically that none of that is constituted required and maybe it's even constitutionally problematic for the DJ to exercise independent So that suggests, you know, the president would be immune from going after adversaries, but also that he has the constitutional authority to tell DOJ
to do whatever he wants it to do. And I mean, I think it's actually really important to try to push back on that opinion in that age, just because the court says it that's just one actor, and you know, individuals inside the Department of Justice can decide the court is incorrect and its assessment of the proper relationship between
the Department of Justice and the president. But also I think it's possible to read the opinion as saying, well, the President can never face consequences for telling DJ what to do, you know, even if it's for you know, corrupt motives or self serving motives or things like that. But that does not mean that that DOJ attorneys don't
have their own legal obligations. And if there are statutes that require them to act based on their best view of the law and not what the president's sort of whim suggests they should do, and constitutionalms and obligations, that DOJ attorneys still have those. So I actually think there's that that's a really important part of the opinion, like what it says, and I think it says quite dangerous
things about that relationship. But it doesn't totally end, in my mind, at least, the practice, the long settle practice of the DOJ understanding itself to have a degree of independence and autonomy from the president.
Yeah, that's right, and it is really just unbelievably scary and also weird. I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, there is a feeling I think a lot of people are having right now, which is that the Supreme Court and the billionaire class are pretty committed to trying to make Donald Trump president and they will do anything. I'm a little bit in despair about it. I don't know how you feel. Tell me something that will make me feel less depressed about this.
Well, that's usually my role on the podcast that I co host, Like I think dispositionally inclined to optimism and like ascribing good faith to most early least a lot of actors. And I too feel like pretty despairing at the moment. I mean, I think despair is not an option, like we have to keep at it because there's no alternative.
But I think it is very very difficult. I mean, I think that, and that's part of the reason I'm actually coming back to DOJ because I too feel that I have very little faith that if it comes down to one or two outcome determinative states in the presidential election, and there's some litigation that ends up at the Supreme Court, the notion that the Court will simply act in good faith and decide what the law requires it seems so naive.
To even like entertain that possibility.
So it does feel to me as though if it's close and the court is going to make some decisive determination, things will obviously break in favor of Donald Trump. It's very hard for me to see if there's a remotely plausible legal argument, and good lawyers can always make them.
And so this is I guess a place to maybe like locate a little bit of hope if there is any I mean one lawyers will have a lot of power here to decide whether to cooperate in advancing a set of legal arguments that are specious but maybe could be made to look plausible that could help Trump win in one or two states that could tip the balance,
or they could decide not to. I mean, I do think you saw many, many, not all, but many law firms and practicing lawyers essentially turn away from assisting in the post election efforts to contest Joe Biden's victory in twenty twenty, and so, like you know, the kind of legal culture and legal norms and norms in the world of law that discourage and maybe meet out professional consequences
to individuals who assist an effort to thwart the Democratic will. Like, I think that's one possible like lever that could matter, And I do think another one is you know, the levers inside government, and that presupposes that Trump wins. But I do think that in terms of, you know, staunching some of the worst potential consequences of a Trump victory, there will be actors inside the federal agencies that will be in a position to actually push back in meaningful ways.
Although I do think the Supreme Court made it much harder. But that's already like at a pretty big bleak place. I'm saying, like, here are some things that can be done to mitigate the awfulness of a second Trump administration. But I think that it would again be naive not to be thinking about that. Maybe the last thing I'll say is like, if there's a very decisive win for the Democratic candidate that cannot be undone.
Then maybe we get to keep American.
Yeah, so it's organizing and its politics. I mean, the law in the courts I don't think are the place to locate your hopes right now.
Yeah, it's so funny because it's like we were told Mahler would save us. I mean, I'd say this as just a journalist and on the opinion side, no less. But we were told that the courts were going to save us. We were told that Maler was going to save us. We were told that this guy who's done a million different crimes is going to be held responsible.
And in fact, it falls again to the voters. The thing I found the most dispiriting, now that we're just talking about my mental health here was, you know, very rich people who who I know who are just just want the tax cut, and they don't care about the end of American democracy. And one of the things I'm struck by is the trump Ism is not just about cutting taxes for the wealthy. I mean, that's sort of
the more of the Mitt Romney school. This is really about like radically changing the way America works.
It feels to me so shortsighted, even as a matter of like personal, you know, financial interest for the very wealthy class, in that a lot of what the Trump administration would a second Trump administration would entail the kind of deregulation.
And this ties back to the Supreme Court.
So these other major decisions, including the one that overruled Chevron, but a handful of others that are a little bit more under the radar, have I think ensured that if a president comes into office who wants the federal government to not only work to advance, you know, like the fight against climate change, but essentially to give carte blanche to industry to act as aggressively, you know, as they want to maximize profits and you know, accelerate the destruction
of the planet, they'll be able to do that, right and at a certain point, like a wildly unstable climate isn't a favorable business environment.
And so I mean, and maybe it's.
A time horizon issue, but I just think that climate disaster is going to be wildly expensive, and of course it will fall in wildly disproportionate ways on the individuals with the fewest resources, but it won't be good for anyone. And so I actually do think that I'm not sure, I'm not the person to make the case, but it does feel to me like there are very strong cases to be made that are like the business cases against authoritarianism.
I'm not sure if the individuals who are just thinking about the very short term, you know, tax benefits that a Trump administration might confer on them would be open to that.
But if they think even like a half.
Generation or a generation out about kids and grandkids and like.
The imperative of a habitable planet.
Even if democracy as a concept feels abstracted, people like if it's a people motivated by their kind of bottom line and sort of pocketbook interest, like it feels as though there too, just climate alone should be enough to at least get people pause about what a second Trump administration would mean.
It's so insane.
You know, we're in this really important window where you know, we have about five years before we get into like I mean, I think we're already probably past that, but for climate, we're in a really delicate spot. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about what sort of you're seeing right now. So the Supreme Court is done with this insane semester, do you think you could talk for a minute about what it would look like. Just come with me to fantasy land. Democrats hold the Senate,
they win the House, and they win the presidency. We have the Supreme Court that's radically remaking our country. What would be the least disruptive way to get this Supreme Court to look a little more like the country.
This is, I like residing in this kind of fantasy
landns me too. But I think you're right that, like, you know, even if somehow the Democrats have an incredible election, there is still this quite radical Supreme Court that, without any kind of reform, stands in the way of meaningful policy that the voters, you know, in this scenario would have chosen, because any new legislation, certainly any new regulation promulgated by an agency under a democratic administration, would run into the buzzsaw of this Supreme Court that wants government
to do as little as possible at least, you know, when it comes to matters involving like the general health and welfare redistribution, you know, those sorts of things, like they're they're fine with certain kinds of aggressive government action like a big, you know, tax cut for example. I can't imagine them entertaining a serious challenge to But that's legislation too. It's just they're very hostile to some kinds
of legislation. So I think one would be you just add you know, some more seats to the Supreme Court, and it's not I don't think you know, you add you know, another add another five seats to the Supreme Court, right, like actually increase the size to keep pace with the size of the country and to keep pace with the size of other supreme courts, and you know, kind of relative terms, our Supreme Court is actually really small. So you could do that, and you could do it, you know,
you'd have to get rid of the filibuster. I presume I don't know if your scenario was like sixty Democratic senators.
It's fantasy land, so we can do whatever we want.
But assuming that the fantasy there is just like I don't even know if the math is possible. It's like, I guess it's possible, but say you're under sixty but over fifty Democratic senators. Yeah, I mean, I think to do anything, not just on the Supreme Court, but you know, most things, you need to either totally jettison or really
restrict the availability of the filibuster. And then you could just buy statute add some seats to the Supreme Court and fill them with justices who are not going to be this wildly hostile to anything a democratic administration might want to do. And again I'm saying democratic administration because
I think that's also what's so hard. If you are inclined to kind of look in good faith at these justices in some ways, like the tension between the two big cases that you mentioned and some of their very different treatment of you know, say, arguments by the Republican presidential front runner for immunity and arguments that the democratic president and his agencies get to just like make policy.
They are just so deeply hostile to anything that the Biden administration has done, whether we're talking about COVID policies, whether we're talking about student loan forgiveness. You know, they have struck down again and again relatively routine agency action if the agency happens to be part of a democratic administration, and they have just been wildly receptive to even the most outlandish arguments offered by former President Trump, including obviously
in the immunity case, but also in the case regarding disqualification. Right, that's earlier this term. So it's almost like feels like AI history.
Can you talk about that where they quickly put him right back on the ball after a few days.
Talk about that, because that's so interesting time.
That was a case where the State of Colorado tried to invoke this provision of the Fourteenth Amendment that disqualifies individuals who had been in public office and then engage in insurrection from holding future public office. And you know, this was an argument that had gained some traction in academic work and you know, op ed pages and things like that, and the voters of Colorado actually decided to try to invoke this provision to keep Trump off the
Colorado primary ballot. And the Colorado courts actually took a good look at the Constitution and assessed the events leading up to and on January sixth, and said, yeah, what the constitution is. This part of the Constitution is designed to address exactly the scenario, which is someone who has engaged in insurrection and is trying to come back to public office and he is constitutionally Trump is constitutionally ineligible
to run for office. And so they kept him off the ballot, and the Supreme Court, in you know, lightning speed, basically within a couple of weeks, took the case up and ruled against what the Colorado Supreme Court had concluded and held that Trump had to be back on the ballot.
And honestly, if you survey academics, law professors, people who really do read and teach the Constitution for a living, there's almost no one who will defend the substance of the courtse analysis in that case, even if some people say, like, yeah, it was actually reasonable for the Court to say, it would be so destabilizing for each date to decide for itself who is on the presidential about like, there is a pragmatic reason that it was dangerous for Colorado to
do what it had done and to open the door to some states trying to keep Biden off and other states trying to keep Trump off. But what's so galling, and this is I think true about the Immunity case and the Colorado case, is this is a Supreme Court majority that has said to us again and again, courts are not supposed to worry about consequences. Courts are not supposed to worry about policy. Courts are supposed to read the words of the Constitution. And that is their job.
That's the way they stay in their assigned institutional role. So when it comes to questions about like the Second Amendment and what it would mean for our country and our children and schools and mass shootings, what it would mean to read the Second Amendment in one way versus another, or what it would mean for people's liberty and equality to read the Constitution to protect or not to protect
the ability to terminate a pregnancy. The Court in all those kinds of cases has said, it's not to us to think about consequences, like we read the words of the Constitution.
That's it.
But of course, when it comes to these efforts by former President Trump to get bailed out of these, you know, either of this disqualification in Colorado or this criminal prosecution in DC, all of a sudden, the court is perfectly willing to consider the consequences of adopting one reading of the Constitution versus another.
And it is the inconsistency that I find so calling.
Yeah, and they're hypocrites.
Thank you, Thank you, Kate Shaw, so interesting, really appreciate you.
Thank you so much for having me.
No moment secret. Jesse Cannon, my Jong Fast.
I know I've told the story on here before of how long I've known Bob Benandez was corrupt, but it's nice to see the law is finally caught up to something I've known for almost two decades.
And we don't want to be partisan here, though we are, but we do want to say corruption is bad.
If you're on the left or the right.
Gold bars should be in safes and not in the trunk of your car. Menande should resign, but then again, so should Donald Trump.
And that is our moment of fuck array.
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.