Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discuss the top political headlines with some of today's best minds and a House ethics panel that's investigating claims of sex and drugs involving Matt Gates are eyeing new allegations. We have such a great show for you today. Will Rollin stops by to talk to us about his run in California's Palm Springs area, where my dad lives, and he's going to beat Ken Calvert or we hope. So then we'll talk to the Breton Centers Michael Waldman
about the continued corruption of our Supreme Court. But first we have the host of the time of Monsters, the Nation's get here. Welcome back, too, Fast Politics, your friend and mine, geet here.
Good to be back.
We're so happy to have you. We're in this strange moment in American life where every thing feels just completely crazy and strange. One of the things that there's a lot of anxiety about for people like me who like American democracy and realize that only one party still believes in it is that Biden is having trouble keeping the left. As you and I both know, there was a quote which said in fact that it's very hard to win
as a Democrat if you don't have the left. And in twenty twenty, the left and the middle really did make a sort of peace and we're able to really run together and defeat Trump and trump Ism. How can Joe Biden win back the left or can he?
Yeah? I think he can actually. I mean this might surprise people, but when heard before Gaza from people on the left was, you know, like Joe Biden was not my pick. He wasn't my guy, and there's a lot more he could be doing. But he's actually turned out to be, you know, the most progressive American politician on domestic issues since at least in the Johnson I think that's right, and I think that there was a lot of good wells and which is still can be tapped, especially on like the labor front.
Yes, he's been amazing on labor. You've never seen an American president like that.
That's right, But also continued action on the student debt front, the prescription drugs. I mean, I think that he does actually have stuff to run on, and I think the problem is foreign policy has kind of blindsided him in a way that I mean Leaving aside the issue of where one stands on this, the fact is that if that's the foreign policy is what's being talked about, the other things aren't talked about. So the more time that like foreign policy takes up the headlines, the less there
is for everything. And I would add, like climate, I mean, like which is becoming like you know, we're seeing what the heat waves, just like you know, like a crucial, crucial issue. That's one where there's an immense difference between Biden and Trump. Not just like you know, like one supports X, one supports why, but Trump's policies are actually
like climate change bring it on. Because if you just say, as Trump does you know climate change is a hoax made by China, and also that we should be getting you know, we should have the oil, it's a as Trump is opposed to actual or climate change, I would say is actual poses are to make climate change much worse than it's otherwise going to be under like you know, like there's so much Biden could run on whether he can like get the message across, I'm not so sure.
And I think the question people then have to ask themselves, this is the problem the message or is it the messenger, and I think the White House that's were reported is very frustrated that the you know, like economic stuff that they've done, the genuinely good economic news, you know, like the sustained job growth that we've seen, you know, is really without precedent.
The economy is ten times better than any one thought it would be.
That's right, That's right, yeah, yeah, and much better than other nations that you know, like every nation suffered through COVID and has you know, been struggling with you know, supply chain issues which led to inflation. America is doing okay. The question in though, is like can Biden get the message across? Yeah, transmit that message. The next thing that comes up to me is it shouldn't just be on Biden.
I'm really a supporter of what I call it sort of teammate strategy, which is that you really bring out early, like all the surrogates that you usually keep out for you know, to the last few weeks, get out Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama, and just put like all the people out there who can reach the audience that needs to be reached. I think that that would give you a lot of leverage that could actually change things on some dimensions.
One of the things that I'm hoping we could talk about for a minute, because I think it is really a strange phenomenon, is it seems to me that Biden is able to push this economic populism without making people freaked out the way that Elizabeth Warren freaks people out. Do you think that's true? And why is that?
One obediate answer is sort of like sexism. So it's a very sort of subtle kind of sexism where like, you know, it's like do you want the woman to be the boss? You know, like the one's actually making effective changes. The other one is like Biden kind of did run on this idea that you know, like I'm not going to be the president who's in your face, I'm not going to be on Twitter all the time. And he sort of kept that, And but the downside of that.
Is nobody knows who he is.
He knows who he is. You know. A comparable thing might be like the sort of Mexican situation where like Avlo, you know a lot of people breat critics of him, but you know, he did push you a lot of you know, economic populism. Here's a pension and minimum wage that really like improved a lot of people. But also
he was on TV every single day every day. You know, he was like, you know, like Trump during the pandemic, but like through the whole presidency, Avlo was like talking about the stuff he his cover was doing poor people, and that became like kind of regular TV watching. I think for a variety of reasons, like Biden, his instincts were not to kind of take all the credit that
he could have taken in some ways. You know, the strategy was always like to work out these kind of like bipartisan deals and get the Republicans that you can. But if you're doing that, you don't want to like, you know, spike the football right in a partisan way that could undermind future negotiations. And then so you're kind
of like a little bit stuck in a trap. But I mean I think that also politicians have pre existing audiences and people who trust them, And right now where Biden is suffering is the people who had supported Bernie and Elizabeth Warren and also people who supported like Barack Obama.
I think he rented those voters and didn't own them.
Yeah, no, he's never owned them. But I mean, I think, to me, that's why I think this sort of teammate strategy of just like bringing out all the big guns. You see that, Al and I think both like Bernie and Elizabeth Warner becoming much more vocal. You know, you're going off with Biden. I'm not one of those people that says, let's bring out the smokefield rooms, because I gotta tell you there's no smoke field rooms. There's no mechanism we're replacing.
Biden did smokefield rooms. Me and I know that he's very smart, the person whose idea this was, but it's such a stupid idea. Americans are so filled with anxiety about, you know, some guy pulling the strings that the idea that then you would have some guys pull the strings on that is so insane.
Of course, they would imediately have no legitimacy, would be like usually unpopular with quart a backlash. It's just this, you know, like we're going with Biden.
And it would delight Trump by the way.
Yeah, yeah, I think the question is to make it about party rather than just individuals. And this is the big difference for twenty twenty. The Democratic Party is more popular than Biden. And what sesus in poling with Like this is like Ohio where like you know, like Biden was ever gonna win Ohio, but he's actually deeper in the whole that he was last time. But you know, shared Brown is actually looking pretty good in Ohio. And
then we see this like all across the country. We see this some special elections where like even in like very red places where there were guys like I still lose, like they're losing by far less than they had been previously. And so there is a sense in which the party is in better shape than the president. And if that's the case, then I think you run with the party.
You really highlight all the party leaders and have them be the voice to you know, reach the audiences that Biden can't reach, and to be able to speak to people who trust them, like people who might trust Elizabeth Warren but don't trust Biden. People might trust Bernie Sanders but don't trust Biden. I think EOC is becoming much more prominent, and I actually think that seems like that's a party decision to like, you know, bar ground her because she can reach those voters that Biden, I'm sorry
to say, like he needs those voters. I think Biden is other doing other good stuff, Like I thought on the immigration front, like you know, extending the City of Dacap protections very popular and very necessary.
And the spouse stuff is good too.
Yeah, exactly, exactly, yeah, yeah, so the Senate death stuff continues to be good. Right now. It seems like a lot of this is like mess I'm okay with like emphasizing Trump as a convicted fellow, and I actually supported that, as you know, like that yeahs over independence. But there is a kind of economic message that we made which
I don't think people have really addressed. And I think this is where the public would be on side with Biden, which is like, you know, if Trump gets in, his tax cuts are up for renewal in twenty twenty five, so what over the next president is working with Congress, They're going to decide the fate of those tax cuts. We're talking about brillions of dollars here, like overwhelmingly skewed towards rich people, and those tax cuts weren't popular with
the public. I think the idea of extending them even further so that they you know, started putting things like Medicare and social Security in Jeopardy that would be very unpopular, and so I think, yeah, I think, you know, like prescription drugs, you could hammer on that. You know, there's a lot of messaging stuff. I think on the inflation
side of it. The stuff that Elizabeth Warren keeps talking about is emphasizing the corporate gouging, you know, like these kind of profiteering that some company he took advantage of as a result of the pandemic and as a result of supply chain difficulties and the Biden White House, you know, like they've been going back and forth on this. They did talk about it for a while, then they became silent.
They're talking about it again now, and I think that all the polling shows this is very popular, and this is actually a way of addressing the inflation issue in a way that the Democrats can win and separate them out from the Republicans. Because maybe Trump will like opportunistically say heal also go after corporate gouging. But I think you can play to his own record.
Yeah, there's no world in which Trump is going after corporate gouging. That's like a complete joke.
Of course, that's his mold model for any buddy. So you know, the Biden White House. I think they have a good issue there and I think they're talking about it again now, But I don't know if like they have the credibility that Elizabeth Warren os. So I honestly think like, you know, like having Warren out there and saying, you know, like my good friend Joe Bidens is like, you know with me on this, and then you know
the way House kind of agree with that. But I mean like there's a lot of stuff like that that they can really emphasize, you know, have her home, point out the differences, I point out the way like not just that Biden has done good stuff on the economy,
because a lot of people are still purtying. I mean, the whole pandemic was very traumatizing, but actually say like Biden's actually gonna fight for you on this front and that these are the actual villains who are responsible for the inflation to some degree, Like this sort of message goes against Joe Biden's instincts, which are sort of conflicted verse, which aren't in favor of like kind of you know,
making corporate American escapeboat. But if he can't do it, I think there are other people in the party that can make that message.
Right now, now, agreed, How does Biden break through this sort of media bubble? You know, if you get your news from newspapers, use Fort Biden, And if you get your news from many other venues, you support Trump. So how does Biden break through that media bubble?
Yeah, this is like such a big problem that it's somebody you kind of need a time machine because you know, like if I were could go back ten years and tell like, you know, Democratic billionaires to be investing in anything, it would be like, you know, all these kind of like fake websites for local news that the Republicans have set up, Like if they could have done the same thing now. But having said that, I mean they are
all that. Podcasting is one example. There are things that kind of reach people that don't pay attention to newspapers, you know, like Obama went on like WTFF that Mark bren podcasts and that sort of stuff, and went on sports podcasts. I think like if both Biden and the Democrats that kind of had a media strategy that's focused on these kind of alternative venues, that might be it. And especially like non political stop like I think you
go on a sports show or an entertainment show. Then people who habitually tune out politics, you can possibly reach them. But again I want to underscore, I think this has to be a Democratic party scene, not a I didn't think do it in some ways. I mean, like the Obama people, you know, really use that strategy in twenty twelve, that even afterwards in terms of trying to push you some of Obama's agenda. So I mean I think that they're the ones worth listening to on this.
Yeah, I think that's a really good point. Get here, Thank you so much for joining us.
Oh always great to be out.
Spring us here, and I bet you are trying to look fashionable, So why not pick up some fashionable all new Fast Politics merchandise. We just opened a news store with all new designs just for you. Get t shirts, hoodies, hats, and top bags. To grab some head to fastpolitics dot com. Will Rollins is a candidate for Congress in the forty first district of California. Welcome back to Fast Politics, hopefully soon to be Congressman Will Roland.
Thanks Mollie, great to be back.
We have a lot of congress people on this podcast and a lot of people running for Congress on this podcast. But you are a member of my family because you represent, or you will hopefully represent, the district that my father lives in.
Yes, the Coachella Valley, hom Spring, Mom, Desert, Rancho, Mirage, Lakinta, Indian Wells. So we got some great cities to represent in the House.
Tell us who you represented by and explained to us what this looks like.
Yeah, so this is a brand new district in southern California that was created in redistricting. And Ken Calvert, who's my opponent, had represented a traditionally deep red part of the Inland Empire, and in redistricting he lost very Republican cities Marietta, where my cousins still live, a northern Temecula, and he picked up the Coachella Valley, which is a
much more heavily Democratic area in registration. And so after twenty twenty two, the district went from a Trump plus seven to a Democratic majority electorate in November of that year, and it's kind of seesawed back and forth between rs and d's with just a few thousand votes either direction and about ninety thousand independents. So it's become one of the most competitive house races in the country and a critical pickup opportunity for Democrats in twenty four.
I want to point out that Ken Calver sucks, but tell us why. I'm known for my subtlety.
He's been in Congress since nineteen ninety two, so I was eight years old when he was first elected, and in that time his net worth has gone up by twenty million dollars if you look at his financial disclosures, and part of the way that he's made his money has been through real estate and using earmarks to benefit his own investments. And I'll just give one example of that, which interestingly, Fox News did a seven minute documentary talking
about his use of earmarks for personal gain. And he buys up vacant parcel of land earmarks transportation projects nearby, turns around flips the property for enormous profit. So it's a version of insider trading that basically involves real estate. And I've found that a lot of folks in the district, you know, cross party lines, don't like their tax dollars being used to line the pockets of their own member
of Congress. So that's been one of the many reasons why I think we're going to flip the seat in the fall. But he's also had, you know, a horrible record on democracy, on choice, on LGBTQ rights, and really just delivering for working families. I mean the guy, you know,
those of us in blue states. He actually increased our taxes with that twenty seventeen bill that made it harder for us to deduct state and local income taxes, made it harder for us to deduct our mortgage interest at a time when the rates are at all time highs.
And so I've really tried to focus on what he's done to hurt the pocket books of constituents, whether it's you know, voting against capping the cost of insulin at thirty five dollars a month, voting against capping the out of pocket prescription drug costs at twenty five hundred dollars a year for senior, all of these really bread and butter issues that are driving a lot of voters in the Inland Empire who are faced with rising costs and
seeing their own member of Congress get twenty million bucks since he was first elected.
And I always ask.
People when I'm in rooms, I'm like, how many people here have seen their net worth go out by twenty million dollars since nineteen ninety two. You know, shockingly, no hands go up in the room. And we've got a member of Congress who's really been using his position to enrich himself, which I think is one of the biggest motivators for people in our district.
I'm really shocked that he hasn't made more money. I mean it's been a many years. I mean, you know, like if you're doing something that sketchy like anyway. But he's probably not that smart. So let's talk about how it's been. You've run before. This is the second time you've run. You came very close to the first time. Talk to us about that.
Yeah, So I had a very different career before I ran for Congress in twenty two. I worked in federal law enforcement. I was a federal prosecutor in Southern California, and I especially in counter terrorism and counterintelligence, and I loved the job. Honestly didn't think that I would leave
that job for a very long time. But after January sixth, there were about two dozen people who flew back to Southern California after attacking the capital, and part of our job was to help our colleagues in Washington, round these spokes up, get them arraigned, help the FBI with search warrants after the capital attack, and get them back to
DC where they could face trial. And while we were doing that, Ken Calbert was voting to decertify the election, voting against the Committee to investigate, and then final straw for me called for dropping charges against these people. And so, I mean, the truth about the first time I ran is that I was just pissed off. I felt like it was righteous. It was a Trump plus seven seat. Everybody told me it was unwinnable. I didn't really care. Famous last words to my partner, I was like, I promise,
I'll only do this once. Here we are now, because I literally found out that I lost the election while I was on the floor of the House of Representatives a new member training in twenty twenty.
Two, because it was so close, right.
And they were still counting ballots, and we expected that the ballots would break our way because the registrar had said that the remaining were mail in, but unfortunately for us, that included mail in ballots that people had completed at home and then physically dropped off at a drop bot. And so it ended up swinging towards Republicans at the end.
But ultimately, at the end of the day, i'ming that close with only six months after my primary and looking at some of the underlying data in this district, you know, figuring out that we ended up being the only challenger in the state of California to win. Independent voters had a really good performance compared to the Biden number in
this district. Neither Biden nor Trump broke fifty percent in this district, and we lost less than one percent off Biden's vote share, which I think is a very good sign when you have a low turnout conservative electorate in California, where we had almost an eight point gap between registered Republicans sixty one percent of whom voted in twenty two
and only fifty three percent roughly of registered Democrats. And so in a presidential year, when you can get that close in a midterm and you come back and do it again, build up your name ID, you have a much better shot. And I'm really excited this time because our name ID has been going up and even with just fifty to sixty percent name IDA in the district, now we already have a one point lead in the
polls Calvert Scott, you know, eighty to ninety percent. Name idea which tells me we have room to grow even from that narrow lead that we currently have.
Sounds like what are you running on?
Economic populism is a big part of this campaign and anti corruption reform because of the unique nature of the matchup. I talk a lot about my experience working alongside Republicans and Democrats in law enforcement. You know, my first job out of college was for a Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger,
even though I've been a lifelong Democrat. And it's really a theme of public service versus self enrichment And who do you want to be your voice in Washington, d C. Do you want somebody who's going to enrich himself to the team of twenty million since he got elected. Do you want somebody who's been ranked one of the most corrupt members of Congress? Do you want somebody who's Republican colleagues tried to keep them off the Appropriations Committee because
they were worried about his ethics? I mean, or do you want somebody who's going to vote to ban all members.
Of Congress from trading stock?
Do you want somebody who's going to vote to impose a lifetime lobbying by former members of Congress to vote to overturn Citizens United so that we get dark money and the power of special interests in corporations out of politics, because there's no way that you're going to pay less for your gas, your groceries, your rent if you have a member of Congress who is only worried about his real estate portfolio. And I talk a lot about that because people in the Iland Empire are seeing huge increases
in their rents. I mean, studio apartments in Corona are going for two thousand bucks a month now, and our member is one of the largest real estate owners in the district. And I think there's just this contrast between working families and you know, the support we've gotten from so many incredible labor unions who are really earning a
living because of the power of collective bargaining. I mean, being able to earn six figures in a county where the median income is seventy thousand dollars per household because some of these folks are going out and working on the ninety one seventy one exchange in Corona, for example.
Can you explain what that is.
Yeah, so this was a project in the Inland Empire. The ninety one and seventy one are notoriously congested freeways in our district, and there's an exchange that is trying to kind of alleviate some of the traffic in that area that has been funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill. At least part of the funding has come from that
bipartisan legislation that Calvert voted against. And there's about three hundred million in infrastructure funding overall coming to Riverside County over the objection of Ken Calvert.
That was again an bill that he voted against.
And so it's pretty incredible to go to these job training facilities that these unions have and I just went to the sheet metal Workers job training facility last week and seeing the faces of these apprentices light up when they're talking about the careers and the path that they have ahead of them.
And you don't need a college degree for this.
My grandfather was a welder, never even finished high school, ended up starting a small business that still operates to this day. And I think that kind of opportunity and living the American dream and seeing the ability to earn a living and have a retirement is something that everybody can relate to, no matter what party you belong to. You just have to have or of Congress who cares about actually delivering that for Riverside County. And so that's
some of them. I think the most important things that we've been campaigning on in this district.
I am very obsessed with the idea of stopping trading. Members of Congress not trade stocks. There is some bipartisan support to it. Do you think there's a world in which you could actually do that, you could actually get that done?
I do, And I think about the example of Abigail Spamberger and Matt Gates, who I think have co sponsored a bill to do this, And I think if you can see people like that, who are about as different as they come, you know, unite on that kind of a ban, it tells you how popular it is for one thing across party line. And we've seen this in our districts. I mean ninety percent of people in both
parties ninety percent plus ninety percent of independence. And I actually think Democrats this cycle have an opportunity to champion that kind of good government reform to channel the populist rage that we've all seen directed at Congress with all time low approval ratings into productive change. I mean, Congress needs to show the American people that it cares about policing itself, that it cares about turnover in that body, that it cares about passing the torch to a new
generation too. I think a lot of people have seen, you know, people like Calvert go for three decades, which is a big part of the reason I've been talking about term limits this cycle that are also popular across you know, ninety percent of party lines, and I know there's Look, there's good arguments on both sides of this issue.
At the end of the day, I think the public's confidence in the institution needs to be restored with a massive change, and I think that we as Democrats are in a unique position to campaign on that kind of populist for reform because unfortunately, right now the other side will never never support any of these kinds of good government reforms, But the public are craving it, and so I think that's why it's been successful for us.
Certainly true, when you talk to people in your district, what do they tell you? What are there besides the real estate being expensive, which again partially the FED is to blame for people not being able to buy houses, but also California is notoriously expensive for the estate wise. What else do you see that you're listening to people say that you think could help the Biden administration, could help the Biden campaign, or could help Democrats win Just in.
General, I think we need to lean in on the issues where Republicans think that they have the high ground, you know, and that includes things like immigration and crime. And so when people talk to me about they say that they're worried about the border, or they're worried about
prime in California. I talk a lot about my bio and I make sure that people know the contrast between you know, somebody who worked in federal law enforcement and prosecuted members of m S thirteen, the Cinelo Cartel, Fedanyl traffickers, and Calvert, who has said that the FBI has been infiltrated by rot who has voted defund federal law enforcement.
I mean that was one.
Of the votes, the last votes when McCarthy was Speaker, that Continuing Resolution, you know, voted to cut funding from border patrol. And you know, the guys got signs all over our district that say secure the border, and I say, the guys had thirty two years to secure the border and he hasn't gotten it done. And his allies just killed the toughest bipartisan border security bill in a generation because they just want to use it as a campaign issue.
And we have to keep repeating that message and talk about what we want to do to secure the border. You know, modern technology, drones, thermal imaging, more boots on
the ground. And by the way, the Border Patrol Union supported that bill that Calvert refused to support, and so I think we as Democrats have to lean in on that issue and know how hypocritical and cynical some of these members of Congress are in the GOP caucus and certainly at the top of the ticket, the same is absolutely true because Trump told Congress to kill the bill so that he could use it as a campaign issue.
And I think that all of us as Democrats, collectively, from the top of the ticket on down, cannot surrender. On immigration, crime, economy, these are the issues where Republicans think, oh, you know, we're just inherently trusted to deal with this, and they're horrible on each one.
Of those issues, and we have there.
We really just have to keep hammering our own messaging on it. We want a secure border, We want to bring folks here who can help with the labor shortage but are here legally, right. We want to provide a path to citizenship for DOCA recipients, but all of that needs to be couched in the framing of border security.
And also talking about Brian, I mean, these guys are now campaigning proudly for a convicted felon, but setting aside Trump, right, I mean, just think about their criminal justice policies and how unsafe they make all of us. I mean, I give the example of gun violence. After 'v allde Calvert votes against background checks for weapons. We've had two Riverside County sheriff's deputies killed in the past few years by felons who never should have gotten their hands on firearms.
So these guys have no idea how to keep you or your kids safe at school, and we as Democrats have to be talking about public safety more and what we want to do to get guns out of the hands of people who are a threat to our community. With a basic federal red flag law, for example, that just says, if you threaten to shoot up a school with an AR fifteen, the cops can go with a court order and take away AR fifth team before you
commit the mass shooting. I mean, even NRA members in my district I've talked to have said, yeah, that makes sense to me. And if you're if you're getting some agreement from even the line members regular you know, members of the NRA in Riverside County, it tells you how out of step Ken Calvert is with the general public. And why, you know, we got to own these issues where ninety percent of the public is with us and we just have to keep talking about them to make sure our messaging sinks in.
Yeah, exactly. Thank you so much, Will Rollins. I wish you all the best. Michael Waldman is President and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. Welcome back to Fast Politics, Michael, Thank you for having me. So it's Supreme Court season. Do you live and breathe the court and the law. But I, as a hobbyist, get a big break from how they're fucking up our country and then in and I am reminded of what lunatics they are don't we still have like twenty seven cases to go.
One of the lessons here is this sort of like school teacher lesson, don't save your work for the last minute. It suggests that there's still a lot of brawling going on behind the scenes.
Oh does it say more about that.
The cases they have taken are extraordinarily controversial, extraordinarily political. One assumes that at least on some of them, the dissenters, you know, most often that's going to be Sodo Mayor and Kagan and Jackson are trying to get their licks in, so we'll see. But this idea that we sit around every June waiting for these government officials, because that's what they are. You know, they're not wizards, even though they
wear robes, they're not religious figures. They're just government officials with a lifetime job. Waiting for them to tell us what country we live in is not how other countries do it. It's not also how our country has done it for a lot of its time. And it's a it's kind of nutty in my view.
It's completely nutty. And I'm hoping you could talk for a minute about what I've been struck by. Is like they said, Robert said, like, we're done with abortion after they overturned Row right after Dobbs. And in fact what happened was they now have two cases in the docket. One is this methapristone abortion pill, which was kicked off
on standing. But the fact that the Fifth Circuit even got excited by it, though the Fifth Circuit is very right wing, was crazy, right, Like, that's not a victory for liberals that they weren't going to just take away a drug because people in Texas wanted them to. And then this Imdala case. Can you talk about those sort of implications of both of them.
Yeah, I think the MEPhI prisone case is really significant. It's not just the Fifth Circuit, which is the most reactionary federal court in the whole country. This sort of root and toot in Texas federal appeals, right, that even this Supreme Court these days seems to enjoy, you know, swatting down. It's that there was this one judge in Amarillo, Texas, Judge Kasmeric who's a big anti abortion activist, right, who used to.
Be a real activist, right, I mean he was never he was like a real anti choice activist.
Well, his sister very helpfully told journalists that his mission was to end abushed in the United States. But you know, the rules in Texas and only in Texas, are that you basically can pick your judge. And so people go to Amarillo and they form a group in Amarillo to
bring a case. And this was the issue with standing was not just that they basically took a right wing tweet and tried to get it made into a Supreme Court ruling, but that they made up the plaintiff so they could go to this one courtroom in this one town in Texas to get this one judge to make this ruling that mephipristone, which is the way the majority of abortion care is done in this country, that the Food and Drug Administration had messed up the way it
did its approvals two decades ago. It was absolutely a ridiculous argument. And among other things, the gazillion dollar pharmaceutical industry was a guest.
Right, I mean that you could see how they might have problems with it.
I was not surprised that the court ruled the way they did, and it was nine to nothing. As you said, on standing, first of all, and this goes to the problem, right now with the Supreme Court, I would have been absolutely astonished if they'd done anything other than rule to keep methipristone on the market. And the reason is if they had ruled otherwise, Democrats would have won three hundred
House seats. And if you want a predictive lens right now, look at the Supreme Court on how it's making rulings. Understanding what is in the electoral interests of the Republican Party is probably the best way to make predictions. You would do pretty well on that. But they also winked on this and said, there's this law from the nineteen hundred, the eighteen hundred, I mean the Comstock, which was this kind of banning smut in the males and contraception and.
The rifles to keep women from becoming lasidious.
Yeah, and that they could use that meaning come back to us after the election. It was a little bit of a hint.
And we heard it in the oral arguments too. I mean they both Alido and tom As mentioned Comstock, not by name but by number.
Yeah.
And this idea that, oh, you know, we're just letting the people decide, We're letting the states decide. They're kind of noticing that every time the people get a chance to decide this, they decide for reproductive freedom. So you know, at least for a Thomas and Alito, they're letting their free flag fly here a bit. The truth is, there was a settled consensus on abortion rights in the United States for many years. It was not necessarily what the
most ardent pro choice activists wanted. It was certainly not what the anti abortion activists wanted, but it was reflected in the case called Casey, which allowed for some restrictions but basically broadly you know, reproductive rights and throwing it open to the system has led to chaos, confusion, women being forced to flee their states, but also lots and
lots more lawsuits and so you know. The other big case that they haven't ruled on yet has to do with whether emergency rooms have to provide stabilizing care to patients. This is also one of these things where doctors already have all kinds of conscience clauses and other things. This one will also very possibly be decided not on the kind of guts of it, but on questions of whether federal law preempts or not. But they're going to just having to hear more and more of these cases over time.
Yeah, it's such an interesting point because the broad strokes in which the Supreme Court is interested in remaking the country are pretty profound and alarming. I want you to sort of talk us through kind of where we are and what could happen and what the sort of thinking is to save American democracy.
I think that we're in period and this has happened a few times before in the country's history, not all that often, but a few times before, where the Court has been captured by a faction of a faction. It is now fully in the grip of the federalist society and of a very extreme conservative politically conservative set of views. Fully, and you know, it is an institution with vast power, and it turns out minimal accountability and thus really significant
susceptibility to this kind of thing. My book is called the Supermajority because there's now six of these justices and they move more or less in lockstep. And in the first year that they had control, they overturned Roe v. Wade.
They put all these other privacy rights at risk. They also issued the most extreme Second Amendment ruling by far in the country's history, in a case called Bruin, which said that you can, in effect that you cannot consider contemporary public safety concerns when deciding if a gun law is okay under the Second Amendment only quote history tradition, meaning what were the gun laws in seventeen ninety one.
This opens the door to this insane textualism, which I would love you to talk about, but keep going.
Well.
And the third thing they did in that first three days that they were ruling was begin an assault on the ability of the government to protect the environment, public safety, public health, that kind of thing. And that is something that is if you want to say, well, what's continued. You know, last year they overturned the use of race
and college admissions. One of the things they're doing now, case after case after case, they're chipping away at the ability of regulatory agencies of the government to protect public health and safety and fair markets, and that stuff is like, you know, it's less vivid, it's more arcane. But a lot of these earlier cases were for the I always said was for the base. This is for the paying customers.
This is what a lot of businesses and a lot of right wing legal advocates have wanted, which is to try to use for Thisupreme Court to try to use its power to curb the ability to act to protect the public. And that's going to continue for a long, long long time.
So that's like Koch brothers fantasy stuff.
It's what they pin on their dorm wall.
Yeah.
Right.
The question is what can we do about it? The Court is acting in this political way, and there is a backlash. And in our country's history when the Supreme Court has been extreme or partisan or unduly activist, there is very often a very significant and very political backlash. And this is not really a backlash that's going to come in courtrooms or even in law review notes, but in the in the ballot box and on the streets.
And the issue of the Supreme Court has to become and how to reform it and its corruption have to become central political issues. And that's how we can gain control of the situation.
I think, so talk to us about what that looks like. First two two minutes on textualism, because I think I think our listeners need to understand that the way that the right is lying about these insane decisions they're making is that they're saying that they come from the text of the Constitution. Can you say more about that?
Yeah, And it's the text of the Constitution, and it's the text of these laws too. So originalism is the idea that the only legitimate way to interpret the Constitution is to ask what it meant to the people who ratified it, meaning most of the time property owning white men from the seventeen hundreds, that we should be governed today by their social values. Textualism is kind of like a cousin of originalism. It's the same notion in a way.
And it's the idea that when you look at a provision of the Constitution, but especially of a law that was passed by Congress, you don't ask, well, what's the idea here, what's the idea behind this law? Have things changed? How do we apply that idea? What did Congress mean when it did this thing? Textualism the way they do it is look at the word on the page, like cut it out with the scissors, and let's look at
the word and get a bunch of dictionaries. Literally, they sit around quoting dictionaries and saying, well, this is what this word means. Well, no, this is what this word means. As though, of course we all carry around dictionaries all day, don't we. I mean, and certainly one of the things I like to point is there had not been any dictionaries at the time of the Constitutional Convention. Noah Webster didn't do the dictionary until several years later. So the
idea that everyone's sitting around with dictionaries. But so, this bump stock gun case was not really a case about the Second Amendment. It was a pro gun case. But they didn't say, oh, the Second Amendment says you can't
do this. Remember, this was what after this demonic person modified his semi automatic weapon to make it into a machine gun basically, and killed fifty six people at a music festival in Las Vegas and wounded I think hundreds more out the window of his hotel room, and the Trump administration, backed by believe it or not, the NRA, issued this ruling that said, oh, you know, that's like a machine gun, and machine guns have been illegal since
the nineteen thirties. Congress passed the law responding to the threat. This is true of Bonnie and Clyde and John Dillinger. They've made machine guns illegal, but the text of the law didn't say you must not use a bump stock to turn your weapon into a machine gun.
Perhaps because they didn't have bump stocks back then.
Right, And it was obviously what Congress intended. They were not saying, we, you know, we really want you have a machine gun as long as you use the right dictionary. But that's basically what the court said, and it was yet another six to three ruling. It was just a
pro gun ruling, right. And a lot of the time, now what Congress, what the Supreme Court is doing on these cases involving again environmental and other kinds of regulation, is they're taking the power away from the government agencies that sometimes have to act to protect the public without waiting around for Congress to pass a new law. And very often Congress has passed a law, and sometimes the laws are kind of broad, and they expect them to
be implemented by the people who are the experts. And that's kind of what Congress wants, that's what our democratic system wants. These right wing judges are saying, oh, no, no, no, no, Congress must pass a law with great specifics about what it is they want to have happened, which of course means much of the time that right wing judges get to decide what agencies can and can't do. And are Congress, who we love so much, you know, they're not like
the most functional legislative body in the world. Right now, who's kidding who about what they're going to be able to do?
Right exactly? There are a lot more decisions. We're taping this on Tuesday. It'll come out of Wednesday, on Thursday and Friday. There are more decisions and more decisions and more decisions. One of the things that this Supreme Court has historically done is they have historically released the last controversial decisions earlier and saved the really big decisions for right when they go on vacation, so they don't have to deal with protests. How unusual is that? And is
that what they're going to do with immunity? You don't have to predict, but it sure seems likely.
It doesn't, so I think of it as like foaming the runway. So they did this, that's mephropristone ruling first. So the liberals will go, ah, they're really so fair minded, you know.
Right.
Look, to my mind, there's some big rulings yet to come. They may trim back their crazy doctrine on the Second Amendment in a case called Rahimi.
The oral arguments during Rahimi sounded like they might not go crazy. But again, sometimes these guys in the oral arguments sound saner than they actually are.
Right, Yeah, Yogi Berra, the great baseball player said, never make predictions, especially about the future. But I think we can expect them to further curb the ability of government agencies to protect the environment and other things by overturning something called Chevron defference.
Talk about Chevron deference because it's so important what it means.
There's a long standing rule for decades, a practice that said that if a law passed by Congress is unclear, that the experts and the regulatory agencies can interpret it, and judges will defer to the way the experts and the agencies see what the language means, unless there's a
good reason not to. And this would say no, no, no. Judges basically can make these decisions, and added to other things that the Supreme Court has done in recent years, it would again really significantly undermine the ability to act on everything from the next pandemic to climate change, to health and safety regulation and others. To me, the biggest thing the Supreme Court is going to be remembered for
this year. You know what historians will look back, if there are historians, what they look back at this term as being about is the Donald Trump immunity case. And on that one, court has already done its damage in my view right.
Because they've been giving him time to differ so he wins.
Yes. In other words, it is a legally easy case. Yes, Donald Trump is not immune from prosecutions for trying to criminally overthrow the Constitution. Even if you think there is a distinction between official and unofficial act, it's not an official act to try to overthrow the Constitution. Even if you're sitting in the Oval office when you do it and conspiring with other government employees to do it, that
doesn't make it an official act. Jack Smith, the Special Prosecutor, asked the Supreme Court to clear this up last year, and instead they hammed the haud. They made sure the lower courts took their sweet time, they heard the argument in the last hour of the last day that they heard arguments, and they made it clear they had all kinds of profound thoughts they were going to want to take their time to put on paper just as Gorsuch said, we must rule for the ages and when they could
have ruled on the spot. We will likely hear some kind of an opinion that says, no, presidents are not immune from prosecution. Maybe in some instances they are, but presidents are not immune from prosecution. We will probably hear a beautiful rhetoric about you know, nobody is a ko president is a king, and nobody is above the law. But meanwhile they've given him what he craves, which is time.
They've made sure that it is very very unlikely that the voters will know the information from the trial and whether he's guilty in a court of law before the election, and that was what he wanted. And people say, stop the steal, you know, start the stall. The stall to me is the most egregious political intervention by a Supreme Court that I can even think of. I mean, much worse, for example, to me than bush vik Or where there
was kind of like a tie election that year. This is just bailing him out.
Michael, thank you. I hope you will come back.
I hope I can come back. And we need to make sure that this is an election issue that people talk about, term limits, that people talk about ethics that the Democrats Joe Biden started to finally talk about. This keeps at it, and not just in fundraisers, but on camera.
No moment full Jesse Cannon.
My Junk Fast. Those clips of Sinclair where they all say the same thing, bashing Biden, it never stops. What are you seeing here?
So Sinclair, which is an organization owned by a conservative millionaire, perhaps billionaire he's hoping. Basically, they brought up all these affiliate stations, local news. You watch your news, your weather, and they sneak in a little bit of Fox, so you think you're getting the weather, but really you're getting a little bit of Rupert Murdoch. And we saw last week. You know they're pushing this message that Biden is somehow infirmed quite successfully as a way to try pretty hard
to make Trump look better. But since Claire is going to try. So if you watch sin Claire, or you have a loved one who does, turn it off, 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.