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 new polling from YouGov econ miss shows a slow but steady decline in mail support for the president over the past three months, slipping to forty two percent approval fifty three percent disapproval.

It's down eleven points.

We have such a great show for you today.

The Lincoln Project's own Rick Wilson joins us to discuss Trump's increasingly unpopular agenda.

Then we'll talk to The New York Times his own Adam Liptik that originalism and the Supreme Court and all the stuff they're doing to reshape our government.

But first the news.

Smile the tariffs.

As we know, mister Trump loves to pretend it's other countries paying for them, but really they're going to cost companies one point two trillion this year and that will mostly hit the consumers and have them pay for it.

Tariffs are going to cost one point two trillillion dollars this year.

They're going to be paid by consumers.

That's right, Mexico not building the wall nor paying for the tariffs.

So here's the study published on Thursday, SMP Global found that companies are now expected to pay one point two trillion dollars more than twenty twenty five expenses.

You know why, because Donald Trump put a tax on the consumers with tariffs.

Here's what happened.

What we told you would happen, Now it's happened.

I am not surprised by this even a little bit.

It is what we knew was going to happen.

Tariffs and trade barriers act as taxes.

That's right, Tariffs are taxes.

There are corporate taxes paid by the consumer.

Donald Trump has done this to us, by the way, his deminimous rule has made everything even more expensive.

That means that things valued at less than eight hundred dollars, which usually would not be taxed, are now being tariff to the hell out of them.

So you want to buy a two hundred dollars vacuum cleaner, that's now a two hundred and fifty dollars vacuum cleaner, a two hundred and thirty dollars vacuum cleaner.

Everything from cooking oil to dish.

So the Yale Budget Lab estimate in August that Trump's latest tariffs will cost US households about twenty four one hundred dollars this year.

Yeah, it's real good stuff there.

It's really going to go great going into the holiday season for employment and growth in our country Somali.

Trump is wetting the bed over Thomas Massey.

He says he's got to go from Congress.

Yeah, you know, why is it the sky Epstein that Trump was best friends with.

I think that sounds like I said, yeah, no, listen, this is incredible stuff we have.

Basically, Thomas Massey wants the Epstein files released.

Donald Trump has some worries about the Epstein files, as one does when your name is in that file.

I don't think the Epstein files are going away.

And this week Virginia Dufrain's posthumous memoir will be published, and I think it's going to mean I mean, it already means that Prince Andrew he is no longer the Duke of York.

Right, He's just like a snowmall, except except sex predator.

Yeah, so look, Epstein's not going away.

If Donald Trump could get rid of Thomas Massey, Ebstein still wouldn't be going away.

Let's see how this goes.

By the way, I think that Trump should continue attacking him.

I don't think Thomas Massey understands government.

I think he's a grandstander, says Donald Trump, the man who understands government really really well.

He's known for his understandment of government.

He's a high government understander.

That sounds about right to me, government understander.

Yeah.

So a US federal judge has ordered Ice to wear body cameras in Chicago.

I'm always shocked at when you see this footage, which ones you see wearing the body cameras and which ones you don't like.

In New York, I feel like every time I see the footage, I see the body cameras on them.

Yeah.

So there's a reason that cops started wearing barso cameras because courts couldn't trust what they were saying.

Now it looks like Ice might have to get into the body camera game.

Two.

I wonder if Peter Thiel makes body cameras.

It seems like pell and teers type of business.

But you know the reason they're doing this is because Ice is killing people.

I mean, here's what happens.

This is a country that has laws until Donald Trump stops having them, and so the body cameras are here we go.

So they have Les Lisel's shotguns, ammunitions launchers, pepperballs, tear gas which they use pretty much indiscriminately.

Well, now they're going to have to take videos of it.

The irony here is that Ice loves to videotape themselves.

Christy No basically exists for YouTube.

So good luck boys.

Yeah, I have a feeling that's not going to go well for them.

It's considering they're beating congressional candidates with the tons and throwing them on a regular basis.

Yes, speak for yourself.

I think it's going to go great.

So my Jim Justice reportedly one of the laziest senators we've ever had.

He doesn't want to show up to work for yourself.

She flies to work sometimes on his jet.

That is energy, my man, that is energy.

And also he is very.

Old, I know.

And I have to tell you, like you know, it's like a funny thing.

Is like we've often talked about prop dogs and politics over the years, and I love that baby dog does it for me.

So like I hate to see that Mamana has a tax scene against him because he ate paid his taxes.

Because there's no fucking laws in this country anymore.

I think this probably predates Trump.

My guess is yeah, yeah, Justice and his wife Kathy have a total bounds of more than eight million dollars in unpaid assessments, money that he spends on his private jet travel.

I don't know what to say.

First of all, he's supposedly a billionaire many times over, so he should just pay his fucking taxes.

And also he should try to, perhaps apps get a apartment in the district of Columbia where he works.

That's just but though maybe the government will be shut down forever and he won't need to.

But it's good to know.

Let's hope not.

My wife really needs a paycheck soon.

I don't know.

He's a reliable ally for President Trump, so maybe President Trump will give him a preemptive pardon.

We'll see, what's part of your tax payments.

Let's pardon your tax payments after all Trump has done Morse Rick Wilson is the founder of the Lincoln Partisan and the host of the Enemy's List.

Rick Wilson Molly John Fast, how are you, my friend?

I want to read your statistic.

Okay, I'm here for your.

It's always fun when i'd come in with things I want to read.

Adding to our new data are estimated turnout for the No King's Day protest yesterday has risen to five point five million, with an upper bound of eight point seven million, taking at the largest single day political pro test in US history.

This excludes the first Earth Day.

I've been to two No Kings protests in my little town of Tallahassee, Florida.

The first one had about five thousand people, and this one was much much, much larger in a town with three hundred thousand people, which is significant, and it was it was replicating across the country.

And it's interesting because in every single one of these places you saw yesterday, everybody just absolutely just like they're doing in Portland now and in Chicago, they absolutely refused to play to the bullshit Maga narrative.

They absolutely refused.

They're like, Okay, we're gonna have fun, we're gonna bring American flags, we're gonna be cheerful and singing and happy, and then we're not gonna let them play the game of.

The Communists are trying to take over with the pro humus you blah blah blah.

They just wouldn't do it.

It struck me yesterday when I was walking through all these people, this was a younger crowd than the first No Kings rally, a lot more young people.

That's actually really important.

Yeah, And it struck me that the the edginess and the huge of this one was much more front and center than the first one.

And the first one people seemed very scared.

This one.

They seemed there was also like an edge of like haha, fuck you.

Like I was walking up and I see you know, the the the you know, derriguar inflatable frogs, and I saw a baby shark and it turned out a friend of mine who I had no clue about her politics, was in baby shark.

Oh really, I had no clue about her politics at all, And I was like, wait, what is that?

You what?

I think It was a bad day for them, and they had to resort to Donald Trump posting really crap AI slop memes of him pooping on people.

Yesterday was a high stakes day.

If oh, yeah, there had been no turnouts, we would have been in a lot of trouble.

Right, If there hadn't been millions of people, it would have meant talk us through that.

I think I think if yesterday had been a flop, if yesterday had been a had been had been a wheeze, we would have the Maga media and Maga influencer space would be absolutely running rings around everybody today, jumping up in victory sing Donald Trump is the most beloved president ever.

But instead you have Bright Bart leading with a story about Trump posting the poop video, and you have Fox talking about, oh, the Democrats shutdown all day today.

So I think it's telling that they that they did not get what the Republicans did not get what they were hoping for out of this weekend, which was violence, anti Americans, images, arrests, et cetera.

From my understanding, the only arra and I was actually looking in this rabbit hole earlier, the only arrest I could find was of a MAGA guy who showed up at a rally I think it was in Buffalo, don't quote me on that, with a gun.

But he was a Maga guy because he'd been told that Hamas was there.

Yeah, well, because we the boy host press secretary said that all Democrats were Hamas.

Yeah, Hamas pro terrorist, all violent radical lectice the usual gibber jabber out of her pie hole.

So you know, Molly, I got I gonna say this.

I think Carolyn Lovitt, you know, it is one thing for me to make your mom joke on Twitter, but at some point even the magas are like, is the White House reduced to being like a D grade trolling shop?

And that's what jade Van says.

Oh God, yeah.

The reason jad Evans came out to defend the Young Nazi Youth League eg the YRS this weekend.

So basically the Young Republican chat.

This was a big piece in Politico.

They said things like I love Hitler, can't wait to.

Put so and so in the gas chamber, right, all that, And.

I think one of the things that I'm struck by with Jada Vance is he will defend any bad behavior on the rights because.

He's running for president in twenty twenty eight and he follows the Steve Bannon rule there are no enemies to my right flank, So he is willing to defend Nazis.

Molly, I gotta tell you, the Republican Party I was a part of for a long time had many, many, many, many flaws.

But any person in the party who was like, I love Hitler, Brown people are monkeys all that crap.

They would have been fired, they would have been cast out.

These people.

And by the way, folks, for those of you listening, if you think that's the only racist group, chat among the yrs, I haven't reach brand.

This is what they are now, the screeching.

Don't call us Nazis, all right, Well, stop saying Nazi shit and believing Nazi things and thinking about Nazi outcomes for your political enemies.

See you have these no King's day, you have millions of people, then you have this poor poll and you have Trump not polling well in all sorts of underwater on the economy and migration.

That does Trump not see these polls?

Do people not show them to him?

Tony Fabrizio, who has been his polster now for a long time, Tony the pollster.

Is not a stupid guy.

He's not a stupid guy.

He is.

He's also known to be a pretty good pollster.

Rights from getting too.

He is incredible and qualified poles.

He's not generating numbers that are just made up fantasy numbers.

He's not mutant res Musen right right right, who just literally make up like how many we please the king?

But I will say this, he's also not going to bring Donald bad news, because that's a quick way in Trump World to get sent out into the ether, to get fired, to get dismissed, to get ignored.

They know how bad Trump's numbers are, but like so much of what goes on in Trump World.

Now, the reason Trump says my approval rating is ninety seven percent is because they will now go out and say, well, mister President, our numbers have some issues here and there, but we found this poll from Red Eagle, Palin Polling or whatever that says you're so popular, and he will seize on the inaccurate bait and ignore the unpalatable truth.

So yeah, but his polling is continued to slip, continue to drop, continue to get into into worse and worse and worse areas.

Let's talk about what happens now.

We have Trump World bombing little ships in the Caribbean, patriating survivors, because why explain to what's happening here in American international diplomacy?

Killing it right is the hash.

Just well with the emphasis on the killing part.

With emphasis killing.

So so what they've done is declared a undeclared war on Venezuela.

Now, folks, why because the Donald Trump is in the Epstein files.

I kid you not, Donald Trump is in the Epstein files.

And that's what I will give you another.

Well, there's another art, there's another reason they're doing this.

There is a philosophical construct among the modern authoritarians where the world should below Russia should own Europe, China should own Asia, and America should own American north and South.

And that is sort of the the tripart height vision of the world that a lot of these maga populace really love.

Maduro is sitting.

On a gigantic amount of oil and natural gas off the coast of Venezuela.

It is essentially Saudi Arabia with jungles.

Now, look, Maduro.

There are no Maduro fans or defenders in America.

Nobody wakes up and goes man that Maduro is a great guy.

But what Trump has done is under the disguise of saying, oh, well, these are drug smuggling boats, which we have never seen evidence of.

By the way, this government has never produced a single shred of information or evidence or documents that say that these drug boats are drug boats.

Their entire amount of evidence is trust me bro.

So a lot of them seem to be fishing boats.

We are not using the traditional targeting and intelligence process to identify these boats.

We are not using standard intelligence vetting processes to identify these boats.

And that is why the four star general who runs Southern Command, which is that's the area of operation that Venezuela.

Falls under, just resigned.

Yeah, he said, I can't do this.

We're not this is not We're not being behaving legally or ethically.

Is if you know how to read military code language.

He was basically saying, I'm not going to be a part of a goddamn war crime.

And that's what we're doing.

We're probably shooting up a bunch of fishermen.

A lot of these boats are are of a design that is not meant to cross almost one thousand miles of ocean between Venezuela and Florida.

They're fishing boats.

But Stephen Miller and p Heseth and Donald Trump have decided this is a great distraction.

We're going to have a triumph when we depose Maduro and we install a pro Maga, pro Western government in Caracas.

I will tell you that, you know, I don't.

We've done really well.

My Spanish isn't great, but I don't think we're going to be greeted as liberators speak.

Of problems in the world and ethical lapses.

Donald Trump has freed the political an are known as George Santos.

George Santos will soon be named as the Viceroy of the newly conquered American colony of Venezuela.

Yeah, which we call Miami South.

What are we doing here?

Man?

Listen?

Santos is a great.

He's not the restitution now, by the way, because he decided he didn't want it.

He's commuted.

Mago wants to hear and needs to hear one message.

We're immune from consequence, We're immune from accountability.

We can commit any crime we want and Trump will pardon us, get out of jail free.

In a lot of ways.

And somebody said this to media, and I thought it was really smart in a lot of ways.

George Santos being freed was a lot was a message to a lot of these ice agents on the street.

Interesting, you can commit crimes, He's going to take care of you.

You can commit crime as long as you stay loyal, he'll take care of you.

Or there's something else.

I don't know what Santos would have on Trump.

God got God, God.

Knows, or somebody's doing someone a favor.

Right, or it's Roger Stone like cashing a shit.

I don't know, but look in terms of like the least sympathetic figures, and Trump has pardoned seven I think it's seven now ex Republican members of Congress who.

All were in jail or going to jail for criming.

Yes, not political questions, not like were they supporting jan Sis like stealing money or taking bribes.

And that message is to say to people on Trump's side, we don't play by their rules.

We don't have to be accountable.

You know, you can cash in, you can abuse your power, do what you want to do, go buck wild.

We're here for you.

I feel like the Santo thing bites him in the ass because he's a guy who will not shut up.

He's everywhere.

You have all of these maga Republicans who voted so him out of Congress.

Now they have to say.

The New York delegation, the New York delegation, including a lot of very reliable Trump allies like Mike Lawler and at least the Phonic We're like, no, bro, this ain't it.

This ain't the right.

Way, and Stephanic is running for governor in her like Trump adjacent but a little trumpy, but not that trumpy, but sort of trumpy.

I call it just the tip trump Ism, but nice.

I'm glad you could get.

You can always get the sort of most offensive way to you know, I appreciate it.

But sure the lack of gentility, yes, continue.

Yes, but at least I'm not sending out videos of people pooping on of their people like Trump did.

That's right.

See, do you think.

His staff is trolling him?

Do you think that's the comp you want?

No, I'm just kidding.

I want you to get back to Stefanic because I want to talk about the New Jersey governor's race for a minute.

So two twenty twenty five races happening in sixteen days.

One is this Virginia race for where Spamburger is probably gonna win against win Sears.

Sears.

Wins Seers sounds like a cowboy name and she.

But when she talks, she just sounds like a lunatic.

She sounds like somebody who's wandering the streets talking about how that somebody put a chip in her head.

Yeah, No, Winsome Sears wins seers.

You know, it's like you hear it tell you, like, are the voices in the room rate with you right now?

So I think Spamberger's got that locked up.

Look, I won't say locked up.

They had a little speed bump with this a G guy, which the Republicans tried to convert on, but I don't think it's gonna I don't think it's gonna change it.

So the AG sent a text to someone in twenty twenty two, right that was like we should That was terrible, basically saying like you should kill a candidate because that's the only way they'll learn.

Terrible, Also indefensible, indefensible and moronic.

And also like when you read the text, it's worse because his way of explaining it is stupid too, Like it's all stupid and that.

But they run on different tickets, like you know, don't vote for em okay.

Yep, which and I think she's navigated that.

Spanberger has navigated that pretty well.

But that rate look in Virginia, I know from our polling in Virginia that has not really changed.

The Spanberger equation.

Sears is in the classic trap Trump's not on the ballot.

The negative outcomes of Trump is in Virginia from DOJE and projects twenty twenty five cuts and everything else are on the ballot, and it's hard for Sears to say I'm going to bring back a great economic revival to Virginia when Donald Trump has taking one hundred and twenty thousand jobs out of Virginia.

So you know that is a state where the externalities of Trump are hurting.

I think it's also to go back to New Jersey for a second.

I think Chittarelli now has to with Trump canceling a gigantic infrastructure project that would have directly benefited New Jersey, and it was responsible for a lot of high paying jobs in New Jersey and Trump just killed it because President Russell Vaught decided he was going to kill it.

This is one of the interesting things about the shutdown.

You talk to reporters who talked to this White House and they'll say, these guys are thrilled with the shutdown.

This is what they'll say.

They feel they're winning the shutdown, they feel emboldened, they feel powerful, And I say, to these people, shut the fuck up.

I don't want to hear how they're spending you.

Number One and also this shutdown is now becoming about russ vaught canceling programs that were already in you know, some of them are being built.

Some of these things are already done or already i mean the contracts are done there way welt built.

Yeah, and none of it, none of it when you get down.

To it, Molly has the.

The uplift of like, we're cutting corruption, we're cutting fraud wasted because none of that's about this.

Trump is deliberately saying, I'm going out to cut democratic programs.

I'm going to cut the things you like.

I'm going to bring it punish.

I'm going to use the federal government to punish states that didn't vote for me.

He's now and especially on on now that we're in the now that we're in Mike Johnson's new phase of bsing, why this why the shutdown is here.

No, we would come back anytime as long as the Democrats agree to endorse everything we want above and beyond just the budget.

So you have these pocket recisions, were going to do this anyway, signed off on a budget, and then the Trump administration werecinded five billion dollars in foreign aid because of vibes and even you have Republicans saying like why would they trust?

Right?

The Republicans are hearing from their own pulse.

Okay, not from the White House, not from you know, smoke up your ass, Rasmussen Poles or Trafowger Poles.

They're hearing from their own polsters.

You're taking the blame.

You're the ones who won't come back.

You're taking the blame.

I don't think that the House candidates have a lot longer to run before the pressure on them politically reaches the point where one or two of them go to Mike Johnson.

And if one or two of them go to Mike john say Boss, you're killing me, it will start a cascade.

They understand that America the broad question across the country.

We have now had ten surveys since the shutdown among likely voters where they blame the Republicans by somewhere between six and eighteen points.

This is bad, bad, bad for the Republicans.

And no matter how magga they are on paper, no candidate in the end is going to burn himself down over a shutdown.

That is going to brand them as somebody who was willing to burn hit their own constituents it's not going to do it.

In the end.

You see Trump trying a redistrict that keeps going.

There is a world where they hit themselves in the head with us.

There is a world where the collapses in various national real estate markets, the terrible jobs outlook, the terrible economic picture, the continued damage of the tariffs, the shutdown.

They've become the party causing the problem.

They become the people causing the problem.

And I think that's a bad place for them to be in the fall of the year before a big, consequential election where the picture is not going to get any prettier.

Rick Wilson Bolly Junk Fast Adam Leptik covers the Supreme Court for the New York Times and writes sidebar, a column on legal developments.

Welcome to Fast Politics, Adam.

It's good to be here.

So you are one of the very smart people who write about the Supreme Court who I try to always read.

You write about other stuff too.

I mean I do write about courts, more generally.

I write about the law.

Yeah.

Yeah, this is a very interesting and a little bit probably disturbing time to be writing that law.

But you wrote this piece that absolutely captured my imagination about originalism.

So give us a sort of why originalism matters, who this guy is, who's sort of one of the fathers of originalism, and sort of why this is so important.

So, originalism is a theory of how to interpret the Constitution that conservatives generally like.

And it says the task of the judge is to unearth discover the original meaning of the constitutional text when it was drafted and ratified, and that is said to constrain judges.

It doesn't allow them to make up rights like conservatives state that the Warrant Court did in the sixties.

And it generally yields conservative results, generally, not always.

And the Supreme Court's conservative majority generally claims that originalism is their touchdown, the guide, and when you look at it, it's not clear that they're always being faithful to their own interpretive methodology.

This guy, yes, So, Caleb Nelson is one of a handful of really respected originalist scholars.

A straight shooter teaches at the University of Virginia.

Clerk for Clarence Thomas has been cited an extraordinary number of times at the Supreme Court.

A single citation for a scholar is a great honor.

He's been cited maybe more than a dozen times, and by every single one of the six members of the current Conservative supermajority.

And the Court will soon answer a question that it's been ramping up over the years to answer.

And it's particularly a salient now under Trump, who keeps firing the heads of supposedly independent agencies.

And that question is does the president have an unfettered right to remove people in the executive branch even when Congress says no, you have to have a good reason.

And the Court's going to hear arguments about this in December, and just as that argument is coming up, Caleb Nelson weighs in and says, you know what, I'm an originalist and I don't see the originalist argument for this.

The Constitution says something about how officials are appointed, you know, President Jesus Senate confirms it says nothing about removal.

In so many words, removal was never discussed at the Constitutional Convention.

There's mixed evidence from the.

Early years of Congress, and there's no good originalist reason to think that Congress, which is granted the constitutional authority to shape and manage the executive branch along many dimensions can't do this.

Also, and another.

Originalist scholar, William Bode, on social media, called this paper a bombshell, and when I happened to run into him not long ago, he.

Said to me, Caleb Nelson is never wrong.

And while I don't think this is going to change where the court is heading because it's been a long trajectory, it's certainly to complicate the case.

So what I want you to explain is is this a real schism or not.

There's an academic side to this, and I think some academics really do follow the evidence where it leads, and this will influence the scholarly debate.

Does it, you know, kind of dynamite the judicial project?

I don't think so.

I think there's a good argument to be made that originalism is often a kind of thig leaf.

It's available to you if it helps you reach the result you want to reach.

It's a surprisingly malleable interpretive methodology because depending on what level of generality you approach the question at, you can get liberal or conservative results out of it.

So I think it more illuminates that this supposedly neutral and constraining methodology is in fact nothing of the sort.

And you see that in these cases on executive power, where the court doesn't really look to the historical materials, it looks to what it's a conception of what the president should be able to do or not.

That was really most evident last year in the City granting Trump immunity.

I always thought of a Roberts Court.

It's really not the Roberts go anymore, really, but that the Roberts Court was always cared a lot about appearances, or at least wanted to make things look a certain way.

It seems as if the last two cycles that has not been as important.

We're so polarized that it's hard to see straight and it's hard for a court, even one that wants to appear measured and incremental and governed by law and institutionalist, to satisfy every constituency These days, from the perspective of the left, the Court has really given Trump the green light to do all kinds of really aggressive things to the government and not stood in his way at all.

So, if the Chief Justices goal is to preserve the authority, integrity, legitimacy of the Court, he has some real challenges.

Right, that's true.

But the voting rights case on Wednesday, the oral arguments.

Which is a good example of where we are right.

Yeah, talk us through that.

So in nineteen sixty five, the civil rights movement achieved one of its landmark victories with the enactment of the Voting Rights Act, for which people literally bled and died, and it was meant to protect minority, particularly black voting rights, and particularly in the South, whereas you know, the lawless Southern officials had stopped black people from voting pretty completely.

The Supreme Court, in the Roberts era has gutted one main component of the Voting Rights Act, it's Section five, which requires federal approval of voting changes and jurisdictions with the history of discrimination.

But it left standing another.

Part of the law, which allows after the fact lawsuits, Section two.

And in an argument this week, it sure seemed like the Court was either going to outright strike down Section two as unconstitutional or at least severely limited.

And it's thinking is somewhat like it's thinking in the Affronative Action case from Harvard and UNC.

The originalists on the Court claimed that the original understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was adopted to protect black people, actually adopted a colorblind view of the Constitution, so that a congressionally enacted statute like the Voting Rights Act, which takes a counter of rays and tries to help historically disadvantaged people, runs a fell of the Constitution.

And if it were to take that step, that would be a major blow to this landmark legislation, and it would have a practical effect also of helping Republicans in the midterms.

I mean, were you surprised by those oral arguments?

I guess a little bit the kind of signal that they were up to something because they had heard arguments about in this very case last term, and instead of deciding it, they set it down to consider larger issues.

And whenever the Court does that, it did that in Citizens United.

It turned a little case into a big case.

How you have the sense that they're turning it into a big case.

But the receptivity of the conservative justices to some of the broader arguments and did surprise me a big.

Us in that case, the only people who would be able to save it would be Amy, Coney and Roberts Well.

That's you identified the middle of the court.

Sometimes Brett Kavanaugh is also in the middle of the court.

But he was very He has this idea that he was pressing at the argument that the Voting Rights Act might have been well and good for a while, but it's reached its sell by date.

Yeah, there's no more racism.

Right, And it's not clear that statutes have a sell by date.

It's not clear that America has ended racism right.

And Section two requires courts to look at contemporary circumstances, So you have to prove that minority voters are being disadvantaged to win your case anyway.

So I'm not sure that makes a ton of sense.

That also has an echo with the affirmative action case, where in two thousand and two Justice Senrede O'Connor, you didn't expect we'd need affirmative action in twenty five years, and the Court got rid of it a couple of years early.

So many of the things that we see them decide seem like they are very politically advantageous for the right.

Do you think that the justices think that that's what's happening.

So I'm prepared to believe that the justices, all the justices are operating in good faith, and if you gave them ali detector test, they believe that they were applying legal principles to achieve legal results.

But they were picked for these jobs because people knew how they think, and they were picked for these jobs by sophisticated politicians the president of the Senate, in order to achieve certain goals.

And they have quite consistently voted as their appointing presidents might like.

So this question of you know, are they acting in bad faith is maybe not the most important question.

The question is what are the votes and what are the results?

Yeah, that's a good point.

It seems as if the only person who is as add to the court who has been at all surprising has been Justice Spared.

Yeah.

Justice Bart is an interesting figure.

She does seem to have both common sense and intellectual rigor, but it's easy to overstate how much she has transgressed, how much she has stepped away from the usual conservative line in all the big cases, all the big cases abortion, affirmative action, guns, immunity.

Whenever she might have had an opportunity to truly surprise, she did not and went along with the majority.

In less important cases, she has been the justice most likely to vote with the liberals.

This is true, right, But that's a good point.

And what she says in oral arguments is irrelevant if she then votes with the majority.

Yeah, agreed, and I mean I respect her she an oral argument.

She is a very rigorous thinker, and unlike some justices who seem inclined to make speeches rather than and try to elicit information from the advocates, she's authentically trying to get to the bottom of things.

Do you think that the Supreme Court?

Since you've covered the courts for such a long time through different incarnations, I.

Covered the Court for seventeen years.

I'm actually stepping away from the daily beat coverage, but I have some history.

With the court.

Seventeen years a long time.

Do you think the court is radically different than it was seventeen years ago.

Yeah, and for one reason and one reason only.

The Court for the first ten years that I covered it had Justice Kennedy on it, and he was at the middle of the court.

Some people call him the swing justice.

He was the fulcrum on which the court operated and he would mostly lean right, but in important cases on abortion, affirmative action, the death penalty, and especially gay rights, he would lean left.

And that five fourness of the court is very different.

It's a very different flavor than the six' to three court cases these days kind of seemed pre cooked the moment they grant the.

Case you know what's going to happen when justice can he was on the, court it did feel a little bit more like a court in which people had a fair shot winning their.

Case when you think about THE lgbtq rights, stuff the conversion therapy, case all of the sort of cases around trans.

Rights they have a bunch of those.

Cases what is your sense of this courts like this is a court that overturned.

Raw do you think that's where this precedent setting.

Ends i'll draw distinction first of, all between gay rights and trans.

Rights ten years, ago In Oberga, fell The court established the constitution right the same sex.

MARRIAGE i don't think there's a serious threat to.

That there are all kinds of ways in which religious groups can chip away at that, right dissent from it not, acknowledged and so, on but the basic right probably is.

Sound and then only five years, ago in an opinion By Joseph, gorsage The court found that both gay and transgender workers are protected from employment discrimination by a.

STATUTE i think that's the high water mark for gay and trans.

WRITES i think they're going to move it in the other.

Direction In, june as you, know in a case Called, scrimti they said That tennessee and other states could forbid gender transition.

Care they just heard this case on conversion therapy that's going to go against the trends.

Side they're going to hear a case on trans athletes that's going to go against the trans.

Side so this was a court which seemed to be moving in one, direction and as with the political climate and to some extent the social, climate it's taken a different.

Direction.

Yeah so.

Interesting does ultimately The Supreme court abandon legal academia as these two groups sort of go further and further away from each.

Other it's too complicated to make that kind of sweeping, statement AND i don't think academics have ever been all that.

INFLUENTIAL i heard a judge on The Second, Circuit Robert, sack once say that law review articles are like street lamps when you're, drunk used more for support than.

Illumination that, is you, know you cite a lot of your article that agrees with you for window, dressing not because it's persuaded you to take a different position than the one you came in.

With has a conservative legal movement been a huge?

Success?

Oh, yeah there's a bit of a pendulum to.

This the warrant court was quite.

Liberal we've now swung a completely different.

Direction but the conservative legal movement was a concerted, effort you, know from The reagan years to establish in law schools which were and are quite, liberal a kind of counter group and well funded and very, strategic and you, know running conservative law clerks into conservative chambers and then finding them good jobs and putting them on the bench and coming up with easy to understand theories like.

Originalism they've really outflanked the left in power on The Supreme court and in the lower.

Courts thank, You, adam.

Great to be.

Here thanks for having.

Me, No, rick Will Molly John?

Fast are you tough enough for the?

Army tough enough for the police?

Force?

No if the answer is, no why not join The department Of Homeland securities.

On Some, oklazon welcome to ice.

Baby those two women.

Still got, it still got, It they still got it twenty years, in they still got that ringing the bell of Weirdo.

Republicans what is your moment of?

Fuckery you know my moment of fuckery is In, well most of our nation's government workers aren't getting.

Paid Christy nome And corleywandowski have been given.

Too New you spell it with AN e because that's how she thought it was.

Spelled.

Apparently, yes they've been given two new private jets to.

Use The coastguard had to buy, them but they are exclusively for the use Of Christy nome and her.

Courtesan do you know much they?

Cost it was one hundred and fifty million for, both one.

Hundred and seventy two million for.

Both and by the, way, folks jack not to go into the weeds on these.

Jets but they.

FANCY i saw.

Pictures these are nice private.

Jets, yeah a Golf stream five fifty million to replace an aging one because she doesn't have a good.

One and then, aw so ooh it's so.

Fancy look at the white.

Leather, oh, yeah there it.

Is by the, way, folks a Golf stream, five even an older, one even a twenty year old Golf stream, five is an exceedingly nice.

Aircraft well speak for, yourself.

Baby these people are telling you That christinome and her Consort, corlewandowski and their film crew that travels with her at all, times her makeup and hair crew that travels with her at all.

Times they need a private jet that's.

New they can't use a jet that's five years.

Old my, god that's a that's a.

Travesty it reminds me of these people that are, LIKE i don't fly.

Scheduled, yeah well Apparently christinem doesn't fly, scheduled nor does she fly anything that.

Isn't still doesn't have that new private.

Jet Smell Rick, wilson, tumbrels, Pitchforks they're.

Coming that's it for this episode Of Fast.

Poly tune in Every, Monday, Wednesday thursday And saturday to hear the best minds and politics make sense of all this.

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