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Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of The Oath and the Office.

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I am John Fugel Sang and on this week we've

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got a very special guest in Jody Kanter and Donald

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Trump's new one point eight billion dollar anti weaponization fund,

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which is the most honest corruption scheme in American history. Friends,

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most politicians try to hide their bribes. Donald Trump is

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basically stable to post it note to the Treasury Department

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that says money for my friends. For more, let's go

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to the star of our show, the author of The

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Oath and the Office, Ivy League political science professor the

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mac Corey Bretschneider. Welcome, professor, it's good to see you.

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Speaker 2: Thanks John.

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Speaker 3: You know, the corruption is just getting so much more rampant,

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so much more blatant, and yet you know, every week

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we get to talk to each other at focuses me.

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It gets me ready for the fight ahead, to be

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honest about what's happening, but also to talk about how

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we can have hope in the midst of that. And

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of course, after our discussion about the important recent topics,

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we're going to go to somebody who I think is

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just the premiere person uncovering what's actually happening at the

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Supreme Court. So much of what we'll discuss today is

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relevant to the shadow docket, the secret emergency orders of

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the court, where they don't tell us why they're doing

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what they're doing. Well, Jody Kanter did more to uncover

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this process, the motivation, and the reality behind it than

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anyone else.

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Speaker 2: Will talk about that.

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Speaker 3: Also, her reporting on the immunity case, revealing aspects of

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that that weren't in the light until she came to it,

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So it's really an incredible person. Of course, she also

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is the person who broke the Harvey Weinstein story and

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in many ways is responsible for the Me Too movement.

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So it's really another incredible episode on the backs last

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week of an incredible episode with a legal director, Cecilia Wang.

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And I've heard from so many of you about the

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power of that interview, so John, I look forward to

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another great discussion.

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Speaker 1: Well, Corey, thank you. I'm really thrilled about Jody Kanter,

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and I'm thrilled to talk about this presidential slush fund

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with you, This massive compensation fund for people claiming they

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were victims victims of a law enforcement of Biden era

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government weaponization. This is all Trump settling his own fake

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IRS lawsuit, tying himself financially to the process. I mean,

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this isn't even normal corruption, Corey. This is corruption with

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stadium lighting at a gift shop that the president controls,

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the Justice Department he controls, the treasury, he sued the

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government he controls. Then the government he controls agreed to

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give him one point eight billion of hour dollars to

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fund people that he appoints and supports, to reward people

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who claim they were victimized by investigations for their crime.

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We have achieved venmo for fascism, Corey. And clearly this

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is Greeban's politics dolled up in executive power. This will

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be in the history books as legendary corruption. They don't

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seem to care how it looks in history. But let

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me ask you about the history. I mean, do authoritarian

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movements often create systems that reward political loyalty while framing

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the leaders as permanent victims? Is this new?

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Speaker 2: Well?

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Speaker 3: Definitely, the phrase venmo for fascists, I think I've ever

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heard that before, and it captured so much of what's happening,

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because you know, it really is just a payment scheme

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from the president to himself or to his political interests.

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And you know, let me just say in answer to

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your main question, like, how can this happen? And the

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answer is because of the structure of our system. It's

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the same way that Trump has escaped liability for his

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crimes because the Justice Department, despite the immunity case, could

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continue to prosecute him. That's never going to happen because

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who controls the Justice depart the president. Who controls the irs,

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it's the president. And although there were protections to try

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to insulate civil service decisions and public interests from president's

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own ambitions, those have turned out to be you know,

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weak to non existent checks. And increasingly we've talked about

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the theory of the unitary executive, the control by the

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executive over the various executive branches, even the civil service.

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Speaker 2: Well, you're seeing an extreme.

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Speaker 3: You know, this would have been an absurd, hypothetical example

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in a law school exam ten years ago. Now it's reality,

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which is that the president, because he controls the irs,

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because he controls the Attorney General, has basically come in

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and say, hey, I want you to pay me to

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apologize for all the wrongs that were done to me,

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to the irs.

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Speaker 2: Now you know his.

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Speaker 3: Lawyers, and there was a court process that was about

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to get underway. Something got to him to realize, you

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know what, that might be a little too on the

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nose to corrupt two in the spotlight, too much, really

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sticking a you know, middle finger in the face of

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the American public. So he comes up with this alternate scheme, that.

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Speaker 2: Is, is it as bad. It's just different.

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Speaker 3: It is as bad, and it's to reward his supporters

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for participating in his own coup.

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Speaker 1: Yes, and reward criminals and terrorists, to reward people's bread

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pops for a lie. I mean, even Vladimir Putin, Corey

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Vladimir Putin has the decency to launder money through oligarchs

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and shell companies. You know, this is just there's no

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oversight whatsoever. The fund literally says it can decide its

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own rules. It can decide who gets this two billion

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of our money a secret. It has no judicial review.

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It's just it's a guy who ran a casino into

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bankruptcy's saying, trust me right, Like, what safeguards, if any,

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exist against a president effectively turning the federal government into

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a personal piggy bank for his friends and flunkys.

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Speaker 2: Wow, this is the oath in the Office podcast.

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Speaker 3: The president takes an oath to preserve and defend the Constitution.

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But our question from the beginning has been, while if

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the president disregards that oath, what can we do? Well

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in that IRS case, there was a judicial proceeding, there

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was some pushback, there was at least bringing it to light,

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and it was such obvious self dealing because it was

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the president financially and his sons who were going to benefit.

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So he shifts it a little bit well to demand

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in settlement support for his militia for those who attacked

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the capital. He didn't pay the militia as far as

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we know directly before, but now he is and that's

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what's happening. So yeah, it is a kind of you know,

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fascists often have stormtroopers, and those stormtroopers.

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Speaker 2: Ideally are going to be rewarded.

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Speaker 3: While they were rewarded with a pardon, but you know,

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that puts them back to zero.

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Speaker 2: Now here, they're in the black.

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Speaker 3: They're going to be paid, and it incentivizes to future

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action and loyalty, not to the law, not to the Constitution,

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but to this president. Amazing, and let me just say

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it again, because you know, we brought it up a

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couple of times. But I want to be so clear.

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In a very, very vulnerable system, the president of the

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United States has more than two million people in the

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executive branch. And although there used to be in the

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nineteen seventies and before, either norms or legal limits on

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the president's ability to do whatever he wants with those

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two million plus people, with this enormous budget, increasingly the president,

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under this theory of the unitary executive, enabled by the

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Supreme Court in part, has exerted control.

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Speaker 2: Now what you're seeing is legislation.

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Speaker 3: That handed over money to the Department of Justice to

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compensate was thought in you know, good faith in dealing

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with people who were wronged, and there really.

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Speaker 2: Don't seem to be many limits on that.

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Speaker 3: Now, what happens when a president abuses that trust, Well,

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it's unclear. I mean, I think there will be litigation,

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will be an attempt to stop this, but I'm not

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confident about it.

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Speaker 1: I mean, January sixth, terrorists, which is what they are, folks,

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I mean, go to a dictionary. They were terrorists. If

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you're using violence or the threat of violence to bring

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about policy change, you are a tea word New York

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Times letting you know they're now getting paid by we,

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the taxpayers, for the violence they committed at our capital.

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And Trump allies and flunkies and conservative influencers. I'm sure

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Trump himself is going to get a taste of all this.

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And the legal logic, professor, is incredible, because if the

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president can sue himself and settle with himself with our money,

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why would Congress ever control spending? Again, isn't that the

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real scandal. It's not just Trump's stealing money. He's establishing

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a principle that the presidency itself is above accountability, that

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Congress appropriates funds unless the emperor would prefer cash.

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Speaker 2: Am I right?

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Speaker 1: I mean this reinforces the whole strategy of redefining accountability

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itself as persecution.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: And you know, at the same time that he's claiming

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to be a victim, he is victimizing the rest of

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us because he's taking this trust. You know, in Congress

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hands over money like this and gives lots of discretion

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to the President and sendling lawsuits.

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Speaker 2: What are they doing.

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Speaker 3: They're essentially, you know, giving over a good faith effort

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in the thought that the president is acting in a

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good faith way. Wake up, Congress, that's not what's happening here.

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And we haven't seen Congress push back on those delegations

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and those allocations of funds without any limits and the

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consequences when you have, you know, bad faith, a criminal president.

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Let's not call it bad faith, it's way beyond that.

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He's going to abuse that trust. And we have a

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structure of presidentialism where the president has been given so

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much authority and a bad, bad, criminal president who's just

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able to you know, it's not clear what stopped them

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exactly from stealing the money from the irs. That's what

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it was an attempt to do, but he clearly got

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a little too embarrassed, so he just shifted the focus.

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Speaker 1: Unless this was always the plant, unless this was always

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the play on. Maybe always this was always the play on.

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And you go with the lawsuits, so you have the

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settlement at the end, right, and the law suits trum

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intimidate your way to the settlement that you want to have.

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It's just incredible to me. These Republicans spent decades screaming

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at government that this welfare creates dependency, and now they've

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created a billion dollar grievous stimulus package for professional victims.

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I mean, this is affirmative action for insurrectionist terrorism. And

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the whole message is stay loyal, protect the boss. There's

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money in it for you, right, I mean, it seems

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like grievance is effective as governing philosophy corp. You can

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make a buck. Trump is not really running as president.

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He's running as a plaintiff in America versus everybody else.

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Speaker 3: You know, the Constitution has two emoluments clauses which bans

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exactly this kind of self dealing using the presidency for profit.

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There's a foreign emoluments clause that keeps you from negotiating

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with foreign leaders in order to benefit yourself. Of course,

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we're seeing tons of violations of that, with the president's

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son in law, for instance, using negotiation to benefit himself.

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Speaker 1: And at his sons and the hunter.

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Speaker 2: Biden is screaming, and there's us.

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Speaker 3: So domestic emolument's clauses is a paradigmatic violation of that,

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which is using the office to either profit yourself or

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arguably to throw money to your close allies. And yet

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we don't have legislation that stops it. We're going to

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talk with Jody canter about the origin story of the

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immunity case that has enabled Trump given him essentially a

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get out of jail free cards, even though he's doing

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things that are arguably illegal and criminal. All the time,

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he thinks to himself, I'll just say it's official duty.

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With the immunity case says, just to clarify for people

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Trump versus the United States, as it says, the president

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is at least presumptively immune when he's acting in his

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official duty. So if he's going to kill somebody on

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Fifth Avenue, maybe he wouldn't get away with it it

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was for personal reason. But as long as he says, well,

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it's for my official duty, that's why.

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Speaker 2: I killed somebody on Fifthavenue, that's it. He might get

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away with it. And at least that's the logic of

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how he's thinking.

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Speaker 3: And that's what's so disastrous about that case that we're

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going to talk about, that it leads to this kind

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of blatant corruption that we're talking about right now.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and again, you know, this is why

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I don't call Donald Trump a fascist. I can't do

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it because fascists believe in things right. His movement is fascist.

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He's surrounded by fascist flunkys and henchmen. But I mean,

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corruption isn't a side effect of trump Ism. Corruption is

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the governing philosophy. It's not conservativism, it's not populism, it's

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not Christian nationalism. With this guy, it's friends of Trump

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eat free. And that's it. The corruption is the point.

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The fascism is just the side effect. The fascism is

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just the car that follows the hood ornament that is Trump.

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And to that end, I want to ask you about

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the Supreme Court because the politics of abortion are getting

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increasingly difficult for Trump. He's always been able to straddle

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the line and lie and say I wanted to go

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back to the States, when in reality that's not what

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they want it. They want to ban it. They want

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a government that tells citizens they are forced to be

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pregnant against their will. And we see the conservatives in

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his circle are not satisfied with getting rid of Roe v.

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Speaker 2: Wade.

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Speaker 1: They want national restrictions. Swing voters are not going to

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let that happen. And the Supreme Court keeps handling major

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abortion questions through the emergency docket without often any opinions

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or even transparency. I mean, Professor has this party painted

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itself into a corner by overturning Row and then discovering

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voters didn't want that and don't like the consequences.

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Speaker 3: Well, I've been saying in our discussions from the beginning

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that when it comes to the question of abortion, the

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Dobbs decision which ended Roe v. Wade, sold itself by saying, Okay,

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we're restoring the power of democracy. We're restoring the ability

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of the states to make this decision abortion or no abortion.

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Speaker 2: But from the.

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Speaker 3: Beginning I worried that people like Alido and Thomas and

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Justice Gorsich as well, have a deeper agenda.

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Speaker 1: And John Roberts to Roberts, he's more. We're going to

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talk a lot about John Robert all of them. He's

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smart enough to know better. He's more.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there's two.

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Speaker 3: John Roberts is the one that we see in the

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public and one that we see in private. But at

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least these other justices, it's been very clear that they

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have a different kind of agenda. Gorsich, for instance, in

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his dissertation in his first book, gives i'll call it

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very strong hints that he favors a national ban on

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abortion because if the fetus, after all, is a person

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and recognized under the Constitution. There has to be a

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national equal protection guarantee for that person, and that means

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a national ban on abortion.

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Speaker 1: Now, none of this is in the Bible, folks, None

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of this is in the Bible. None of this is

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in the Constitution.

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Speaker 3: Definitely not. And Alito and Dobbs does two things. He says, yes,

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we're returning it to the States, but he also talks

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a lot about the status of the fetus in a

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way that sounds very close to what I just said

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about Justice Gorsich. Well, now we're seeing this question, which

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is we have a supreme national federal law that okays

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as safe hast own abortion drug, and yet we have

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a ban on abortion in states like Louisiana.

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Speaker 2: So Louisiana is.

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Speaker 3: Like, hey, you know, you can't continue to act in

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this national government way without interfering on our power to

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make abortion illegal. So the state right is now conflicting

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with the federal power to enact mifipristone. And people like Alito,

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sure enough, are like, hey, you're undermining by allowing that

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drug to be shipped to states where abortion is banned.

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You hear him screaming this, you're undermining the Dobbs opinion. Well,

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you know, the reality is that we live in a

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national system, and yes there are states, but the idea

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that you're going to just coordin these off I think

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from the beginning this has always been an issue that's

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going to have one resolution, and the state's rights compromise

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can't last. You're seeing that also from pro life groups,

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and ultimately there's going to be a question, I think,

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not of what states are going to say, but what

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this government will say. I hope certainly that the right

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to privacy is affirmed, the right to abortion, but the

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forces on the other side would like to bring in

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a different way. Meanwhile, just allow sentence. Donald Trump is

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pretending I think there's no issue.

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Speaker 2: Don't look over here, you know, I look somewhere else.

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This isn't a winning issue for him.

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Speaker 1: Well, and before the break, I wanted to ask you

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about that, because man baby is trying to speak both

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languages at once. Right states rights to these folks over

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here and the national anti abortion signaling over here. I mean,

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it's not legally coherent and it's politically impossible. It's just

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another sign that Donald Trump doesn't really have any ideology

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beyond whatever helps me is what I want.

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Speaker 2: I think that's right.

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Speaker 3: You know, I think the idea that he's got some

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coherent view on abortion, somebody who brags constantly about his

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you know, sexual libertinism. Then you know, at the same

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time sometimes pretends to be a serious Christian.

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Speaker 2: What does he really think. He really doesn't think anything.

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He really thinks.

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Speaker 3: I want to do whatever is going to get me ahead,

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and oll cater to evangelicals when it serves them, and

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O cater I'll pretend to be a moderate on abortion

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when when that serves them, that's it. And I think

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he was hoping, well, Dobbs was sort of the perfect

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answer for him. Oh, I can say this state rights thing,

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I can say democracy.

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Speaker 2: And then in the end, what he's learning is it's

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much more complicated than that.

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Speaker 3: It's because we have federal laws that okay abortion drugs,

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and we have state laws that ban it.

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Speaker 2: And I again, I don't think that conflict's going away.

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Speaker 3: And see docket here was used by the liberals this time,

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and you know, I think I want to actually call

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that out. You know that usually they're complaining about it. Oddly,

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you have Alito saying, well, the liberals aren't giving any reasons.

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It's like, yeah, Supreme Court, give reasons. Don't be relying

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on this secret process all of you.

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Speaker 1: And I just want to point out that Donald Trump

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always supported women's reproductive freedoms. He was staunchly, as they say,

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pro choice for many years until he realized he could

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gain more power by pretending to be against abortion, pretending

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to be a conservative, pretending to be a Christian, and

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pandering to people who watch pro wrestling and then break

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off into discussion groups. It's all been a con and

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it's driven up the infant mortality rate. We got to

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take a quick break. When we come back, let's talk

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a bit more about the corpse of the voting right.

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Speaker 2: Sack.

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Speaker 1: This is the Oath in the Office. Welcome back to

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the Oath in the Office. I'm John Fiegelsang, Professor Bretschneider.

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The Supreme Court has now allowed Alabama to go ahead

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with elections under their newly redrawn congressional maps, again through

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the emergency docket, and again with very little explanation. This

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is a feeding frenzy, and it goes to show that boy,

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all along, they were going to do exactly what they

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were going to do. As soon as they got that

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meddling voting right sack taken away, all the critics have

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been proven correct. And this follows Louisiana redistricting throwing out

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thousands have already cast votes amidst these continuing fights over

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the bra I mean, the Court is just rewriting voting

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rights law without openly saying so.

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Speaker 3: Right, it's such a good way to put it, John,

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And we've talked about this Louisiana case that essentially tended

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that the nineteen sixty five Voting Rights Act remains in place,

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and yet eviscerates it because what it says is the

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only way to really rewrite districts in a way that

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preserves black voting power is if you can show that

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it's correcting intentional discrimination.

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Speaker 2: That's very, very hard to show.

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Speaker 3: Even as we talked about, even in the travel ban case,

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the Supreme Court wouldn't admit that the.

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Speaker 2: Muslim ban was a Muslim ban. And so what does

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it leave us.

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Speaker 3: It leaves us with a green light as long as

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people don't admit that they're trying to dilute black voting power,

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as long as they say this is partisan. Jerry mandering

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partisan rewriting of the borders.

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Speaker 2: They can do whatever they want.

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Speaker 3: And if we had any doubt of that, because the

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case makes it more ambiguous, the Supreme Court went it

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not on the shadow docket, went and said, oh, we're

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not getting rid of the nineteen sixty five Voting Rights

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Act now that it's implementing that ruling through the shadow docket.

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And that's why it's so important that we're going to

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talk to Jody Canter about the details of how this

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began and how it works, this shadow secret docket.

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Speaker 2: Seeing them say, yeah, do whatever you want.

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Speaker 3: And so Louisiana, you know, Alabama, all of these red

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states want to rewrite their rules to destroy black voting powers.

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Speaker 2: That's the Court's giving them a green light and not

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telling us the reason why.

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Speaker 3: They're just you know, keeping it secret. But that's it's

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stay ocated. In that case they got they essentially got

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rid of the nineteen sixty five Voting Rights Act.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's death by a thousand cuts. I mean, this

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is a process that John Roberts began with every fiber

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of his racist or aristocratic, shriveled up blackened heart back in

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twenty thirteen. I mean, they're weakening the Voting Rights Act

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incrementally because they don't have the actual manhood to just

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overturn it outright? Is that fair to say?

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Speaker 2: I think that's right.

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Speaker 3: Clarence Thomas probably would have said, you know, at least

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Section two is unconstitutional. It conflicts with the meaning of

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the fifteenth Amendment. That historically is false. But that's the

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view that Clarence Thomas.

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Speaker 1: Clarence Thomas would sy lemonade at a lynching, wouldn't he'd

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show up to He'd show up to give pedicures to

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the lynchers when it was done.

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Speaker 2: Well, you know, I think too.

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Speaker 3: John Roberts, who are going to talk much more about

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with Jodi Kanter, has this public persona. He's famous, by

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the way, talking about balls and strikes and judges or umpires.

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Speaker 2: Meanwhile, this guy was.

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Speaker 3: In the Reagan administration and he was from the beginning

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talking about trying to basically undo the Voting Rights Act

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from the nineteen eighties.

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Speaker 2: And so the idea that.

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Speaker 3: This is some sort of neutral balls and strikes, you know,

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person of integrity, I mean, I just don't buy it.

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And when you read which we'll link to in the

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show notes, the secret memos from justice. Roberts talking about

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why it is and this is in a different case,

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but why it is that he's especially worried about, of

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all people, all entities, the coal industry. You really see

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this kind of libertarianism, and that is the philosophy that

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I'd say it is an extreme libertarianism, not thinking the

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federal government should intervene with decisions about protecting against racism,

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not intervening to protect black voting power.

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Speaker 2: That was all.

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Speaker 3: Undermined freedom season and the freedom of the coal industry

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is another part of his freedom.

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Speaker 2: That he cares about. So the idea that.

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Speaker 3: This is some neutral justice, yes, he's got this public persona,

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he's giving speech as always about umpires and neutrality. This

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is not somebody who's operating in that way. And you

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know what, it It all be conjecture except for the

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fact that Jody Canter found the good. She showed us

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the memos as we'll talk about that reveal the true

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John Roberts. And the other place that we're seeing it

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certainly is in this voting rights area as well. Well.

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Speaker 1: I'm ready to talk to Jody Canter. Let's take a

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quick break. We'll be right back. This is the oath

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and the Office.

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Speaker 4: Heyl Clan Kirshner Here, So, friends, I hope you'll join

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00:22:44,160 --> 00:22:48,440
me on my audio podcast, Justice Matters. You care about

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00:22:48,799 --> 00:22:54,920
ethics and government, criminal justice reform, a conflict free federal judiciary.

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I thought so. On Justice Matters, we take on issues

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involving the need to reform our government and its institutions,

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and we talk about real, achievable reform. I hope you'll

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00:23:08,720 --> 00:23:12,720
join us. Look for Justice Matters wherever you usually get

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00:23:12,720 --> 00:23:13,559
your podcasts.

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Speaker 3: Welcome back to the Oath in the Office. It's my

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pleasure today to welcome Jody Canter. Jody Canter is a

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reporter at the New York Times, and it goes without

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saying that her journalism has really been a shining light

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into the hidden functioning of the Supreme Court, an institution

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that we need to know more about and often don't

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know a lot about how it actually functions. And I'll

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mention in particular, and we'll talk to her in depth

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today about her major work on the origins of the

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what's often called the shadow docket.

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Speaker 2: She's a winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

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Speaker 3: And of course we'll ask her to and I need

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to mention her new book which is a New York

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Times bestseller. It's called how to Start Discovering Your Life's Work,

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A guide for recent graduates, college graduates, and others. Many

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people listen to this show or in that position, they're

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going to want to know.

473
00:24:05,160 --> 00:24:05,839
Speaker 2: How to start.

474
00:24:05,920 --> 00:24:08,839
Speaker 3: So I look forward to talking about that too, Jody,

475
00:24:08,880 --> 00:24:11,759
if you don't mind, will start by asking about a

476
00:24:11,839 --> 00:24:14,759
question that really is on all of our minds. Listeners

477
00:24:14,799 --> 00:24:17,359
to the show, our guests, we've all been talking about

478
00:24:17,680 --> 00:24:21,400
the Shadow Docket. I think our listeners know what it is,

479
00:24:21,519 --> 00:24:23,640
but we do have new listeners, and if you wouldn't

480
00:24:23,680 --> 00:24:27,640
mind just saying something about what the Shadow Docket is,

481
00:24:27,880 --> 00:24:31,839
and also what you're reporting revealed about the origin story

482
00:24:31,839 --> 00:24:34,920
of the Shadow Docket. Sometimes the court pretends that it's

483
00:24:34,960 --> 00:24:38,519
been doing whether it's the theory of originalism or whatever

484
00:24:38,559 --> 00:24:41,200
its work is, that this has been going on since

485
00:24:41,200 --> 00:24:43,480
the eighteenth century or something. You, of course, tell a

486
00:24:43,559 --> 00:24:46,680
much more recent origin story. So what is it and

487
00:24:46,759 --> 00:24:49,039
what did you reveal in your reporting about its origin?

488
00:24:49,720 --> 00:24:52,200
Speaker 5: Okay? Great, So, first of all, thank you so much

489
00:24:52,200 --> 00:24:54,599
for having me on pleasure to be with you. When

490
00:24:54,599 --> 00:24:58,920
we think of Supreme Court cases, we think of a

491
00:24:59,000 --> 00:25:02,960
slow speed think of deliberation, We think of being very

492
00:25:03,079 --> 00:25:07,039
very careful. Your classic Supreme Court case takes a really

493
00:25:07,079 --> 00:25:10,799
long time to play out, and there are many, many, many, many,

494
00:25:10,839 --> 00:25:17,200
many steps that ensure careful consideration, like rounds of briefs,

495
00:25:17,880 --> 00:25:20,720
like oral arguments that, as you know, can go on

496
00:25:20,880 --> 00:25:24,400
for quite a long time, many hours, in which the

497
00:25:24,519 --> 00:25:27,720
justices really hash out the legal issues with the attorneys

498
00:25:28,119 --> 00:25:32,000
and the public can listen in via audio. There are

499
00:25:32,759 --> 00:25:36,799
opinions that circulate within the Supreme Court before they become

500
00:25:36,839 --> 00:25:40,799
public in draft form, and that's in part so that

501
00:25:40,960 --> 00:25:44,240
as the collective they can improve the opinions. They can

502
00:25:44,319 --> 00:25:47,000
really think about what they want to say, they can deliberate,

503
00:25:47,079 --> 00:25:50,000
they can change their minds. Another step in the process

504
00:25:50,599 --> 00:25:53,240
is that for merits cases, or what we think of

505
00:25:53,279 --> 00:25:56,960
as classic Supreme Court cases, the justices meet in person

506
00:25:57,200 --> 00:25:59,680
to discuss them and vote. They have this meeting called

507
00:25:59,839 --> 00:26:03,880
the conference meeting, that is a super confidential meeting. It

508
00:26:03,960 --> 00:26:07,000
happens in a special room, at a special table. And

509
00:26:07,200 --> 00:26:10,720
the point of all these steps is that they are

510
00:26:10,839 --> 00:26:15,480
meant to ensure thoroughness. So let's think of that as

511
00:26:15,640 --> 00:26:18,559
like kind of the ideal of Supreme Court decision making.

512
00:26:19,160 --> 00:26:23,319
The shadow docket is an alternate track, and it's existed

513
00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:26,519
for a long time, but until about ten years ago,

514
00:26:26,799 --> 00:26:31,359
it was really used for true emergencies like death penalty

515
00:26:31,400 --> 00:26:35,440
cases or election cases that had to be decided immediately.

516
00:26:35,839 --> 00:26:39,759
In the last ten years, what we've seen is that

517
00:26:39,799 --> 00:26:43,960
the shadow docket has swelled, that the Court is making

518
00:26:44,039 --> 00:26:50,200
more and more decisions on this emergency basis. And just structurally,

519
00:26:50,440 --> 00:26:54,160
it's not as in depth or slow or careful, and

520
00:26:54,200 --> 00:27:00,119
it's much more secretive. It is a rushed, fast track process. Yes,

521
00:27:00,880 --> 00:27:04,319
And the reason why so many people have criticized that

522
00:27:04,640 --> 00:27:07,440
is that they're really too worries. I mean, first of all,

523
00:27:07,640 --> 00:27:10,680
the Court has awarded a tremendous amount of power to

524
00:27:10,759 --> 00:27:14,720
President Trump using the emergency docket. Since President Trump returned

525
00:27:14,720 --> 00:27:18,160
to office, it's been over twenty cases. And these cases,

526
00:27:18,200 --> 00:27:21,319
as I said, like move very very quickly. The justices

527
00:27:21,359 --> 00:27:24,400
are skipping some of the time tested steps of deliberation.

528
00:27:25,079 --> 00:27:29,079
They're also very secretive. Perhaps the most important step that

529
00:27:29,119 --> 00:27:33,240
they often skip is these cases don't really have opinions,

530
00:27:34,640 --> 00:27:37,599
they have orders. Some of these if you've never seen one,

531
00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:40,920
to picture one of these orders, picture like a paragraph

532
00:27:41,079 --> 00:27:43,759
of legal boilerplate. We counted when we wrote about it

533
00:27:43,759 --> 00:27:47,440
was one hundred and forty two words. And they don't

534
00:27:47,440 --> 00:27:51,240
have any reasoning, like they say such and such. You

535
00:27:51,240 --> 00:27:53,279
know the court is going to green light this or

536
00:27:53,319 --> 00:27:58,720
red light this. But the essence of how a court

537
00:27:58,799 --> 00:28:03,039
gets author already in trust is an opinion. A judge

538
00:28:03,079 --> 00:28:08,240
sits down and writes an opinion that is an act

539
00:28:08,480 --> 00:28:14,039
of humility and accountability, saying here's how I got to

540
00:28:14,119 --> 00:28:16,839
the result that I got to. And you may not

541
00:28:17,079 --> 00:28:20,640
like it, you may disagree. This decision may be bad

542
00:28:20,759 --> 00:28:23,480
for you personally, but I want you to know that

543
00:28:23,559 --> 00:28:25,839
I did it in good faith and I really followed

544
00:28:25,880 --> 00:28:27,039
all the steps of the law.

545
00:28:27,680 --> 00:28:28,839
Speaker 2: So I mean, that is.

546
00:28:28,759 --> 00:28:31,160
Speaker 5: What the docket is. And then I could then if

547
00:28:31,200 --> 00:28:32,960
you want, I thought I should stop for a second,

548
00:28:33,240 --> 00:28:34,920
But if you want, I can tell you about the

549
00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:38,519
particular sort of scoop and reveal we had about how

550
00:28:38,519 --> 00:28:39,880
the shattered docket originated.

551
00:28:40,319 --> 00:28:40,519
Speaker 2: Yeah.

552
00:28:40,559 --> 00:28:43,160
Speaker 3: I was going to say also in transition that you know,

553
00:28:43,279 --> 00:28:46,839
as you noted, so much of the these recent decisions

554
00:28:47,000 --> 00:28:49,680
enabling President Trump, who have been done in secret without

555
00:28:49,680 --> 00:28:53,200
any kind of reasoning, and that reveals on the one

556
00:28:53,240 --> 00:28:55,880
suspicion is that that reveals the kind of partisanship on

557
00:28:55,960 --> 00:28:59,079
the part of the justices, the conservative majority, doing this.

558
00:28:59,799 --> 00:29:01,759
And what I wanted to ask you about the origin

559
00:29:01,839 --> 00:29:06,119
story is it seems to further excite that worry because

560
00:29:06,240 --> 00:29:09,920
its origin seems to be about conservatives blocking a more

561
00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:13,160
liberal president. So yeah, tell us that origin story, and

562
00:29:13,279 --> 00:29:15,720
maybe you could in the process tell me.

563
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:17,839
Speaker 2: I mean, am I right? Is it as bad as

564
00:29:17,880 --> 00:29:19,240
it looks in your reporting?

565
00:29:19,799 --> 00:29:23,519
Speaker 5: So here's what we've been in the paper that felt

566
00:29:23,759 --> 00:29:27,960
momentous at least us For a couple of years now,

567
00:29:28,559 --> 00:29:32,039
many many, many observers of the court, people like yourself,

568
00:29:32,160 --> 00:29:36,960
scholars have been saying, how did the Court start doing this?

569
00:29:37,240 --> 00:29:42,480
Like why, like, especially given historically low trust ratings in

570
00:29:42,559 --> 00:29:45,960
the court, and given the fact that the Chief Justice

571
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:50,400
really has a reputation for being careful and you know,

572
00:29:50,599 --> 00:29:55,240
very conservative but also very deliberate, why would they kind

573
00:29:55,240 --> 00:29:59,480
of throw out the time tested judicial playbook and adopt

574
00:30:00,480 --> 00:30:04,200
this rushed and secretive new way of doing cases. So

575
00:30:04,799 --> 00:30:06,759
they didn't do it, obviously, all in one day. But

576
00:30:06,839 --> 00:30:09,240
there's one case that's like really a Hinge case. It's

577
00:30:09,279 --> 00:30:12,799
a pivot point, and that is a twenty sixteen case

578
00:30:12,839 --> 00:30:18,000
in which the Court blocked Obama's climate change plan. It

579
00:30:18,079 --> 00:30:21,720
was really a shocker at the time because the Court

580
00:30:21,839 --> 00:30:25,039
stepped in front of the DC Circuit to intervene, which

581
00:30:25,200 --> 00:30:28,960
the Court had never done anything like that before, and

582
00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:32,640
there was this tiny little order that had no explanation.

583
00:30:33,319 --> 00:30:35,559
And so when we look back at like the origins

584
00:30:35,720 --> 00:30:37,880
of the modern shadow docket and the origins of the

585
00:30:37,920 --> 00:30:41,839
controversy over it, this is like the Signal case. So

586
00:30:41,960 --> 00:30:47,400
usually Supreme Court papers are secret for a long time,

587
00:30:47,680 --> 00:30:51,000
like generations to come. So I am I think if

588
00:30:51,079 --> 00:30:53,759
people are listening to this particular podcast, they might know

589
00:30:53,880 --> 00:30:56,759
about this New York Times article already. But I'm just

590
00:30:56,799 --> 00:30:58,599
going to say for anyone who missed it that I

591
00:30:58,640 --> 00:31:00,880
am really happy to tell you that Adam Liptak and

592
00:31:00,920 --> 00:31:07,039
I put sixteen pages of the Justice's internal correspondence into

593
00:31:07,079 --> 00:31:10,680
the paper, allowing you and anybody else in the world

594
00:31:11,039 --> 00:31:14,200
to finally see the reasoning behind this decision, which the

595
00:31:14,240 --> 00:31:18,359
Court never shared, and to literally see the origins of

596
00:31:18,400 --> 00:31:21,880
the shadow docket. With these papers, we can eavesdrop and

597
00:31:21,960 --> 00:31:28,279
witness the justices backing into this new way of doing things,

598
00:31:27,960 --> 00:31:32,039
like literally the moment of the decision where they're saying, yeah,

599
00:31:32,079 --> 00:31:34,079
we usually like we've always done it this way, but

600
00:31:34,119 --> 00:31:35,920
now we're going to do it. Now, We're going to

601
00:31:35,960 --> 00:31:38,640
do it this way. So to your question about like

602
00:31:38,720 --> 00:31:42,119
does this reveal a totally part is in court? I

603
00:31:42,160 --> 00:31:45,160
think what I definitely reveals a part isn't divide in

604
00:31:45,200 --> 00:31:47,880
the case, right. I mean, the conservatives are rearing to

605
00:31:47,960 --> 00:31:52,200
go and the liberals are truly worried about what's happening.

606
00:31:53,240 --> 00:31:57,799
The figure who really leaps out is Chief Justice John Roberts,

607
00:31:57,880 --> 00:32:05,559
because he's cultive this reputation, as I said, for you know,

608
00:32:06,720 --> 00:32:10,359
being very deliberative, being very careful. He's talked about being

609
00:32:10,359 --> 00:32:14,200
a minimalist and only calling balls and strikes. And the

610
00:32:14,319 --> 00:32:17,240
figure who and he doesn't say much in public, right,

611
00:32:17,279 --> 00:32:19,759
this is like not a person who gives regular interviews.

612
00:32:20,559 --> 00:32:23,039
The person in the papers comes across as a really

613
00:32:23,039 --> 00:32:27,799
different jurist. He's super duper in a rush, like he's moving.

614
00:32:28,039 --> 00:32:30,640
This whole thing is a flurry of five days of

615
00:32:30,799 --> 00:32:34,000
It's like five days that changes the Supreme Court. They're

616
00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:37,640
moving very very fast. He from his very first memo,

617
00:32:37,799 --> 00:32:40,519
he's like a bulldozer. He comes on very strong. He

618
00:32:40,640 --> 00:32:43,599
wants it the way he wants it, and he doesn't.

619
00:32:43,839 --> 00:32:46,799
There is some back and forth among the justices, but

620
00:32:46,960 --> 00:32:52,200
when the liberal justices raise like pretty common sense procedural objections,

621
00:32:52,200 --> 00:32:55,759
they're saying, I've never done this before, We're uncomfortable. Why

622
00:32:55,799 --> 00:32:59,960
the rush, he's very dismissive. And it also turns out

623
00:33:00,359 --> 00:33:04,200
that he's in a power struggle with the Obama administration

624
00:33:04,359 --> 00:33:07,440
and particularly the EPA. He feels that the Court was

625
00:33:07,519 --> 00:33:13,160
sidelined in a previous EPA case and he doesn't want

626
00:33:13,160 --> 00:33:17,000
that to happen again. So it's not like I want

627
00:33:17,000 --> 00:33:19,960
to be careful. People should look at it themselves and

628
00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:22,079
see what they think. It's not the kind of rank

629
00:33:22,200 --> 00:33:26,640
partisanship where you know, the justice where like the conservative

630
00:33:26,759 --> 00:33:30,519
justices are saying like, great, we now get to, you know,

631
00:33:31,400 --> 00:33:36,720
like enact our anti regulatory agenda. What I would say

632
00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:42,279
the standout is is that it's nobody's idea of like

633
00:33:42,640 --> 00:33:45,559
really first class liberation.

634
00:33:46,720 --> 00:33:49,839
Speaker 3: It's not legal thinking the way that the justices need

635
00:33:49,880 --> 00:33:53,640
to display when they're doing asking questions in oral argument

636
00:33:53,720 --> 00:33:54,799
or writing opinions.

637
00:33:55,559 --> 00:33:57,680
Speaker 2: And yeah, that's something to dig into.

638
00:33:57,759 --> 00:34:00,480
Speaker 3: More is well, what does it reveal and one thing

639
00:34:00,519 --> 00:34:02,359
that you've told us, which I think does jump out

640
00:34:02,359 --> 00:34:04,920
at you, is that this balls and strikes neutrality that

641
00:34:05,000 --> 00:34:06,000
Roberts portrays.

642
00:34:06,119 --> 00:34:09,400
Speaker 2: That's not what's going on behind the scenes. And it

643
00:34:09,480 --> 00:34:10,480
might be obvious with just.

644
00:34:10,440 --> 00:34:13,000
Speaker 5: For lit one in one case, like I just feel

645
00:34:13,000 --> 00:34:16,760
the need to save fairness. It's very, very very rare

646
00:34:16,960 --> 00:34:21,159
to see these kinds of papers, right, Like this is

647
00:34:21,480 --> 00:34:25,000
one example in years and years and years the Chief

648
00:34:25,159 --> 00:34:27,800
Justice's writings. For all we know there is.

649
00:34:27,840 --> 00:34:30,159
Speaker 2: Like, right, there's a bad moment or something.

650
00:34:30,760 --> 00:34:33,519
Speaker 5: Well, there could be five x or ten x the

651
00:34:33,559 --> 00:34:36,159
material in which he is that cautious figure.

652
00:34:36,199 --> 00:34:38,920
Speaker 3: We're going to ask you about what it portrays about him,

653
00:34:38,920 --> 00:34:42,119
because it does strike me as such a huge contrast

654
00:34:42,159 --> 00:34:45,360
from this public persona when I was reading the sort

655
00:34:45,360 --> 00:34:48,280
of sympathy for the coal industry and for industry, the

656
00:34:48,719 --> 00:34:53,039
worry about cost. You know, those are not the way

657
00:34:53,280 --> 00:34:56,280
that conservative justices who focus on the text of the

658
00:34:56,320 --> 00:35:00,920
Constitution or its original meaning or the me meaning of statutes.

659
00:35:01,119 --> 00:35:04,159
It's really seems to be not just a straightforward policy

660
00:35:04,760 --> 00:35:08,239
one worry about an administration doing regulation.

661
00:35:08,920 --> 00:35:11,159
Speaker 2: I mean, am I reading it wrong? I mean that's

662
00:35:11,159 --> 00:35:11,400
what j.

663
00:35:11,360 --> 00:35:14,400
Speaker 5: I'm saying about he comes across as extremely skeptical of

664
00:35:14,440 --> 00:35:18,199
regulation and it's interesting, you know that, so like not

665
00:35:18,239 --> 00:35:21,760
to get too technical, but the term irreparable harm comes

666
00:35:21,840 --> 00:35:26,039
up in these decisions because the standard for moving quickly

667
00:35:26,199 --> 00:35:29,480
is like, oh, is there going to be some irreparable harm?

668
00:35:30,119 --> 00:35:34,320
That provides a rationale for moving quickly, like meaning if

669
00:35:34,320 --> 00:35:37,280
we didn't do this thing, would there be some irreparable harm?

670
00:35:37,599 --> 00:35:42,079
And he talks about irreparable harm to the coal industry,

671
00:35:43,239 --> 00:35:48,920
to the state. Nobody, none of the justices mentions irreparable

672
00:35:48,960 --> 00:35:51,960
harm to the climate, like basically what Alma was trying

673
00:35:52,000 --> 00:35:56,440
to do. And by the way, again for fairness, there

674
00:35:56,519 --> 00:36:01,440
was a real legal question about whether the Obama administration

675
00:36:01,679 --> 00:36:04,760
was within the boundaries of the Clean Air Act, like

676
00:36:04,800 --> 00:36:09,480
were their actions awful? Tru legal debate there they were

677
00:36:09,519 --> 00:36:13,400
pushing it right and differents has felt things broke down

678
00:36:13,719 --> 00:36:18,440
along partisan lines basically about the merits stage of the case.

679
00:36:19,119 --> 00:36:25,199
But what we see is a Chief Justice who is

680
00:36:25,760 --> 00:36:29,239
extremely concerned about what's going to be expensive for industry

681
00:36:29,239 --> 00:36:32,679
and states. In fact, like Justice Brier, who's always been

682
00:36:32,719 --> 00:36:36,000
a close ally of the Chief says what's the rush,

683
00:36:36,119 --> 00:36:39,079
Like why would we do this, and the chief's answer

684
00:36:39,400 --> 00:36:42,559
is we have to move quickly because this is the

685
00:36:42,599 --> 00:36:47,039
most expensive regulation that has ever been imposed.

686
00:36:48,199 --> 00:36:50,079
Speaker 2: On the I mean, that is what leaps out at me.

687
00:36:50,199 --> 00:36:52,320
Speaker 3: I mean, if it was a behind the scenes look

688
00:36:52,440 --> 00:36:54,440
at sort of the blunt way they talk about their

689
00:36:54,480 --> 00:36:58,679
own judicial philosophies, I could imagine Robert saying, Wow, this

690
00:36:58,760 --> 00:37:01,360
is a blatant disregard of the text of the.

691
00:37:01,320 --> 00:37:04,199
Speaker 2: Clean Air Act, and this is an instance in which.

692
00:37:04,320 --> 00:37:09,000
Speaker 3: The EPA is surping its authority and threatening constitutional governance

693
00:37:09,079 --> 00:37:11,440
because this is really the domain of the legislature and

694
00:37:11,480 --> 00:37:14,239
there's no delegation of power something like that.

695
00:37:14,239 --> 00:37:15,000
Speaker 2: That's emphatic.

696
00:37:15,639 --> 00:37:17,960
Speaker 3: Okay, that wouldn't have been as careful maybe as what

697
00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:20,840
you get in public. But instead, I guess what I'm

698
00:37:20,880 --> 00:37:24,159
reading is a kind of blunt libertarianism, which is that

699
00:37:24,280 --> 00:37:27,119
there is an excessive regulation that's going to be high cost,

700
00:37:27,679 --> 00:37:30,719
and not the kind of reasoning that you usually get

701
00:37:30,760 --> 00:37:35,400
from a justice who claims allegiance to you know, textual interpretation.

702
00:37:35,599 --> 00:37:37,320
Speaker 2: So that, I guess is why I was thinking.

703
00:37:37,719 --> 00:37:40,960
Speaker 3: Not partisanship in the sense of, you know, for against

704
00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:43,960
one party, but a kind of partisan libertarianism.

705
00:37:44,320 --> 00:37:46,440
Speaker 2: These are the politics that I care about.

706
00:37:46,440 --> 00:37:48,960
Speaker 3: This is the policy views that I hold, and that

707
00:37:49,119 --> 00:37:52,599
is something that some justices over time. Justice Holmes for instance,

708
00:37:52,679 --> 00:37:54,920
said let's just do policy, and sometimes you do hear

709
00:37:54,960 --> 00:38:00,199
that from Justice Bryer. But the whole basis of modern conservatism,

710
00:38:00,239 --> 00:38:02,199
it is supposed to be this allegiance.

711
00:38:01,719 --> 00:38:03,400
Speaker 2: To the text and it's neutrality.

712
00:38:03,440 --> 00:38:06,199
Speaker 3: It's not about policy, and I guess that's what really

713
00:38:06,320 --> 00:38:09,679
grabbed me and reporting, And although you're being careful about it,

714
00:38:09,719 --> 00:38:12,000
I guess I don't hear you dissuading me from that

715
00:38:12,079 --> 00:38:15,159
idea that Roberts really is not doing what we think

716
00:38:15,199 --> 00:38:17,400
of as law here, but as a kind of policy.

717
00:38:17,480 --> 00:38:19,639
But there might be more to it, or a more

718
00:38:19,679 --> 00:38:21,000
sympathetic justification.

719
00:38:22,159 --> 00:38:24,400
Speaker 5: Well, what I was going to say is that I

720
00:38:24,440 --> 00:38:27,320
think the biggest like a lot of people have asked

721
00:38:27,320 --> 00:38:31,159
the question, there have been different readings of the papers.

722
00:38:31,199 --> 00:38:34,400
I mean, not surprisingly, it's broken down along partisan lines.

723
00:38:34,639 --> 00:38:37,679
There are many many people who've had the exact same

724
00:38:37,719 --> 00:38:41,159
interpretation as you did. There are other people who have

725
00:38:41,239 --> 00:38:45,880
focused on the fact that there was a real legal

726
00:38:45,920 --> 00:38:49,840
issue with like whether a Clean Air Act authorized the

727
00:38:49,840 --> 00:38:53,920
Obama law. The Obama administration was leaning pretty heavily on

728
00:38:54,039 --> 00:38:57,159
like a you know, kind of obscure provision of the

729
00:38:57,239 --> 00:39:02,559
Clean Air Act. But what No, No, I haven't heard

730
00:39:02,719 --> 00:39:08,400
a good explanation on the right for the rush or

731
00:39:08,400 --> 00:39:15,119
the lack of transparency, particularly the lack of transparency you know,

732
00:39:15,239 --> 00:39:19,079
as you know, Justice Kavanaugh has defended the courts handling

733
00:39:19,079 --> 00:39:22,920
of the emergency docket to some degree, But in the commentary,

734
00:39:23,880 --> 00:39:26,760
I have not heard I maybe I missed something, but

735
00:39:26,920 --> 00:39:30,360
I have not personally heard anyone, even on the right,

736
00:39:30,559 --> 00:39:36,559
say yeah, that's totally fine to be big moved without

737
00:39:36,599 --> 00:39:42,840
issuing opinions. I think that is a major thing to

738
00:39:42,920 --> 00:39:45,639
focus on again, because I mean, listen, Corey, I'm not

739
00:39:45,719 --> 00:39:50,079
a like, I'm a law school dropout, right. I'm a proxy.

740
00:39:50,679 --> 00:39:54,280
I'm not a law professor type. I am a proxy

741
00:39:54,440 --> 00:39:58,840
for the everyday reader who wants to ask common sense

742
00:39:58,960 --> 00:40:03,159
questions of the Supreme Court. And I think a powerful

743
00:40:03,199 --> 00:40:09,039
common sense question is court's issue opinions. That's how courts

744
00:40:09,159 --> 00:40:14,480
protect their authority, even if your views are very conservative,

745
00:40:14,639 --> 00:40:17,599
like don't you want to win people over, Don't you

746
00:40:17,639 --> 00:40:22,480
want people to buy in to what you're saying. Don't

747
00:40:22,519 --> 00:40:26,599
you want to preserve your own authority. So like, here

748
00:40:26,679 --> 00:40:29,480
is where we get I think, beyond our reporting and

749
00:40:29,559 --> 00:40:33,719
into like, you know, a realm of psychology that is

750
00:40:34,199 --> 00:40:36,119
very hard to touch as a reporter. But we can

751
00:40:36,159 --> 00:40:38,480
ask the question even if we can't answer it, which

752
00:40:38,519 --> 00:40:43,199
is like, okay, Chief Justice John Roberts, given that the

753
00:40:43,320 --> 00:40:47,360
use of the shadow docket has so greatly expanded over

754
00:40:47,400 --> 00:40:50,639
the course of your tenure, given that there are so

755
00:40:50,719 --> 00:40:55,000
many important decisions that the Court hasn't explained, how do

756
00:40:55,039 --> 00:40:58,719
you justify that? And what effect do you think it

757
00:40:58,800 --> 00:40:59,960
is having on public trial?

758
00:41:01,119 --> 00:41:01,360
Speaker 2: Right?

759
00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:05,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I should say you're being extremely modest.

760
00:41:05,599 --> 00:41:09,679
Of course, you've done more to explain what's actually going

761
00:41:09,719 --> 00:41:12,440
on with this court than I think years and years

762
00:41:12,480 --> 00:41:13,199
of scholarship.

763
00:41:13,280 --> 00:41:15,000
Speaker 2: You know, a common way to study the.

764
00:41:14,960 --> 00:41:18,039
Speaker 3: Court is to praise the justices or to take their

765
00:41:18,159 --> 00:41:21,320
words at face value. And I think what this reporting

766
00:41:21,400 --> 00:41:23,880
shows in a really deep way is that there is,

767
00:41:23,920 --> 00:41:26,159
of course the politics of the court that's going on.

768
00:41:26,320 --> 00:41:28,760
We've known that, but what it is we haven't known,

769
00:41:28,840 --> 00:41:31,880
and now we do know it. So I mean that sincerely,

770
00:41:31,920 --> 00:41:35,320
you have taught us a great deal way more than

771
00:41:35,639 --> 00:41:39,519
certainly most law professors or political scientists could teach us,

772
00:41:39,559 --> 00:41:41,039
So thank you for that. I mean, I do want

773
00:41:41,039 --> 00:41:44,199
to transition as a way of getting into your question.

774
00:41:44,320 --> 00:41:48,880
You're really deep, deep question here about what happens when

775
00:41:48,920 --> 00:41:52,079
this court writes opinions as opposed to what they do

776
00:41:52,800 --> 00:41:56,280
in secret. And one worry is there too that I'm

777
00:41:56,280 --> 00:41:59,079
not convinced about their genuineness.

778
00:41:59,559 --> 00:42:00,920
Speaker 2: And I know that in.

779
00:42:00,840 --> 00:42:04,480
Speaker 3: Particular, you and Adam Liptak did some amazing reporting on

780
00:42:04,519 --> 00:42:07,599
the immunity case, which we've often focused on Trump versus

781
00:42:07,599 --> 00:42:10,239
the United States, and so I wanted to ask you

782
00:42:10,320 --> 00:42:13,199
about that case and going at the same time go

783
00:42:13,320 --> 00:42:18,519
deeper into the views or even psychology of Justice Roberts

784
00:42:18,559 --> 00:42:22,519
in particular, because he does present himself as wanting unity,

785
00:42:22,639 --> 00:42:25,599
wanting to be neutral. And yet what stands out to

786
00:42:25,639 --> 00:42:28,920
me about this case, and you know I give my

787
00:42:29,159 --> 00:42:32,199
opinions bluntly and freely, so I'll just say is that

788
00:42:32,239 --> 00:42:35,519
it really is crafted out of thin air. That there

789
00:42:35,599 --> 00:42:39,679
is a precedent that they rely heavily on about Richard

790
00:42:39,760 --> 00:42:43,719
Nixon firing of Richard Nixon in a civil immunity that

791
00:42:43,800 --> 00:42:48,039
he was given the Fitzgerald case for this firing. And

792
00:42:48,119 --> 00:42:51,559
yet you know, it's a totally different question than January sixth,

793
00:42:51,599 --> 00:42:55,000
the destruction of our democracy and a criminal case, by

794
00:42:55,039 --> 00:42:57,000
the way, not just any kind of crime, but the

795
00:42:57,079 --> 00:43:00,320
crime that is linked to a possible coup. And yet

796
00:43:00,320 --> 00:43:03,880
here Roberts is, you know, acting in public as though

797
00:43:03,920 --> 00:43:06,159
he's got this carefully crafted opinion.

798
00:43:06,760 --> 00:43:07,639
Speaker 2: So what's going on?

799
00:43:07,719 --> 00:43:10,960
Speaker 3: I mean, what is your reporting about Roberts in the

800
00:43:10,960 --> 00:43:14,119
court generally, when I mean the dissenters, the liberals have

801
00:43:14,280 --> 00:43:16,559
been willing to say Trump is a threat to democracy?

802
00:43:17,079 --> 00:43:20,119
What is going on in the understanding of John Roberts

803
00:43:20,119 --> 00:43:20,840
and Donald Trump?

804
00:43:21,119 --> 00:43:22,039
Speaker 2: Is it? I mean?

805
00:43:22,119 --> 00:43:24,880
Speaker 3: Here again, you know, I just have to, as I

806
00:43:24,920 --> 00:43:28,280
exclude other possibilities, I think, well, it looks like a

807
00:43:28,360 --> 00:43:31,480
kind of sympathy or partisanship, and no, he's not really

808
00:43:31,599 --> 00:43:34,360
that bad or so what to help me here? Helped

809
00:43:34,400 --> 00:43:36,679
me when we when we look in particular Trump versus

810
00:43:36,719 --> 00:43:37,480
the United States.

811
00:43:38,280 --> 00:43:40,719
Speaker 5: Well thank you, and also I'm glad you mentioned Adam.

812
00:43:40,719 --> 00:43:43,039
I meant to say his name about ten times on

813
00:43:43,079 --> 00:43:47,000
the podcast. He's my reporting partner and also my teacher

814
00:43:47,039 --> 00:43:49,159
when it comes to a lot of Supreme Court matters.

815
00:43:49,679 --> 00:43:53,960
So yeah, So a couple weeks after the immunity decision,

816
00:43:54,199 --> 00:43:57,840
came out. Adam and I published a story taking readers

817
00:43:57,880 --> 00:44:01,599
behind the scenes, and there were some really clear there

818
00:44:01,599 --> 00:44:06,199
were two clear questions to ask about that decision, just

819
00:44:06,239 --> 00:44:10,159
to refresh the memory of anybody who's you know, has

820
00:44:10,199 --> 00:44:13,760
like an understandable fog about all these different Tumps. This

821
00:44:13,920 --> 00:44:18,719
was actually before the presidential election. President Trump was going

822
00:44:18,719 --> 00:44:21,400
to be held criminally accountable. He was going to be

823
00:44:21,440 --> 00:44:25,199
tried for what he did on January sixth. There was

824
00:44:25,239 --> 00:44:28,320
a huge legal fight, which we won't go into here about,

825
00:44:28,360 --> 00:44:32,119
you know, whether he could be tried or not. Like essentially,

826
00:44:32,159 --> 00:44:36,599
he petitioned the court. He appealed a decision made by

827
00:44:36,599 --> 00:44:38,880
the d C. Circuit that said, you know, of course

828
00:44:39,280 --> 00:44:41,880
he can be tried for these things. It went up

829
00:44:41,920 --> 00:44:46,159
to the Supreme Court. The whole thing was super sensitive

830
00:44:46,199 --> 00:44:50,119
because it was like running up against a presidential election,

831
00:44:50,320 --> 00:44:54,519
So even relatively small procedural matters like well, what's the

832
00:44:54,559 --> 00:44:56,880
timing of how this is all going to be decided like,

833
00:44:56,960 --> 00:45:01,079
got very very hot, And in the end the court

834
00:45:01,400 --> 00:45:04,920
awarded President Trump, this is a few months before the

835
00:45:04,960 --> 00:45:10,519
presidential election, way more immunity than most legal experts thought

836
00:45:10,559 --> 00:45:14,039
they would. So the two big questions about this decision

837
00:45:14,079 --> 00:45:18,440
were whoa had they end up giving him such broad immunity,

838
00:45:18,519 --> 00:45:21,199
like kind of even more than his lawyers asked for.

839
00:45:23,199 --> 00:45:28,599
And then second the decision, as you say, was scholars

840
00:45:28,880 --> 00:45:32,039
almost across the board thought this decision didn't really like

841
00:45:32,199 --> 00:45:35,639
work as a piece of legal reasoning, that it was disjointed,

842
00:45:35,679 --> 00:45:38,320
that it was messy, that there were holes. It raised

843
00:45:38,320 --> 00:45:41,719
as many questions as it answered. There was a lot

844
00:45:41,760 --> 00:45:45,840
of worry about like whoa does this decision like legitimate

845
00:45:46,159 --> 00:45:51,400
bribery by a president? And especially since we know that

846
00:45:51,719 --> 00:45:55,599
the Chief Justice who wrote the decision has a reputation

847
00:45:55,639 --> 00:45:59,679
as a really solid judicial craftsman. That was question number

848
00:45:59,679 --> 00:46:01,760
two is like why is this not a more well

849
00:46:01,840 --> 00:46:05,800
constructed decision, even you know, for people who disagree with it.

850
00:46:06,440 --> 00:46:09,440
So what we found and this was also like very

851
00:46:09,480 --> 00:46:13,599
sensitive reporting in which we were able to obtain some

852
00:46:13,719 --> 00:46:18,599
information internally from the Supreme Court. It was a little

853
00:46:18,639 --> 00:46:21,119
bit similar to the shadow dock at reporting. We talked

854
00:46:21,159 --> 00:46:26,000
about where the Chief Justice like was holding the ball,

855
00:46:26,760 --> 00:46:30,320
and he came out of the gate really strongly like

856
00:46:30,400 --> 00:46:34,920
he had he had very definite views about how this

857
00:46:35,199 --> 00:46:39,679
should all go down. And what he I think was

858
00:46:39,760 --> 00:46:44,480
trying to do was not deal so much with the

859
00:46:44,559 --> 00:46:50,239
trumpness of it all, but write a decision for the ages.

860
00:46:50,480 --> 00:46:53,960
You know, like the opinion is like, you know, like

861
00:46:54,079 --> 00:46:57,360
has all this like soaring rhetoric about like George Washington

862
00:46:57,440 --> 00:47:03,039
and a vigorous presidency, And he was trying to Like

863
00:47:03,119 --> 00:47:05,800
what we see in the opinion and in the reporting

864
00:47:05,880 --> 00:47:08,280
is that he was attempting to kind of like glide

865
00:47:08,280 --> 00:47:13,239
over politics and write something very far reaching. But the

866
00:47:13,280 --> 00:47:18,440
response of many people was like, you're not really dealing

867
00:47:19,360 --> 00:47:23,760
with like the thing you described, like the grave crisis

868
00:47:24,599 --> 00:47:30,679
provoked the January sixth insurrection, like this presidential this former

869
00:47:30,719 --> 00:47:34,639
president and presidential candidate tried to overturn an election, and

870
00:47:34,760 --> 00:47:38,800
like the if you're not accountable for that under the law,

871
00:47:38,960 --> 00:47:41,480
like how do we go forward as a country. So

872
00:47:43,239 --> 00:47:46,719
you see the Chief Justice's reluctance to deal with that

873
00:47:47,360 --> 00:47:50,840
glaring issue. And then what's also interesting is you see

874
00:47:50,840 --> 00:47:53,599
the other conservative justices like sort of egging him on.

875
00:47:54,199 --> 00:47:58,079
We obtained some bits of their response is internally to

876
00:47:58,119 --> 00:48:02,159
the Chief Justice and like here is he's the Chief

877
00:48:02,239 --> 00:48:04,320
Justice has written this decision that's about to be like

878
00:48:04,440 --> 00:48:08,719
massively criticized, But inside the Court. There's like total backslapping

879
00:48:08,880 --> 00:48:14,400
going on, and Justice Kavanaugh and Justice Gorsic are telling

880
00:48:14,639 --> 00:48:18,559
the Chief Justice, this is a brilliant opinion. This is amazing, incredible.

881
00:48:18,599 --> 00:48:23,360
It feels like they're egging him on, or you know,

882
00:48:23,559 --> 00:48:24,519
kind of pumping him up.

883
00:48:25,119 --> 00:48:28,480
Speaker 3: Yeah. When I read those congratulatory notes, you know, in

884
00:48:28,519 --> 00:48:31,159
the midst of what I would have assumed, they would

885
00:48:31,199 --> 00:48:34,360
have understood how much this opinion is going to be criticized.

886
00:48:34,960 --> 00:48:38,679
And you know, he leaves exceptions there, and it's immunity

887
00:48:38,760 --> 00:48:43,920
for outside the core areas of executive power. It's presumptive immunity,

888
00:48:44,000 --> 00:48:47,159
it can be overcome. It's within the outer perimeter of

889
00:48:47,159 --> 00:48:51,320
official duty. And yet what you get from those memos

890
00:48:51,400 --> 00:48:54,199
is the sense that you know, this was an obvious decision,

891
00:48:54,239 --> 00:48:57,599
not because it's subtle, but because it defended our guy.

892
00:48:57,480 --> 00:48:59,519
Maybe I'm going too far and you didn't read it

893
00:48:59,519 --> 00:48:59,760
that way.

894
00:49:01,760 --> 00:49:03,519
Speaker 5: In my work, I really try not to be in

895
00:49:03,559 --> 00:49:05,000
the justice's heads.

896
00:49:05,039 --> 00:49:06,920
Speaker 2: I just just reported out.

897
00:49:07,239 --> 00:49:10,840
Speaker 5: Yeah, just out of reportorial restraint, we don't know. And

898
00:49:10,880 --> 00:49:13,679
then also remember that there was another concern at the

899
00:49:13,679 --> 00:49:16,000
same time, which is that Trump was going to be

900
00:49:16,039 --> 00:49:20,320
elected and try to prosecute Biden. So what conservatives have

901
00:49:20,400 --> 00:49:24,519
said is like God, is this is the court trying

902
00:49:24,559 --> 00:49:32,639
to protect Biden from being prosecuted inappropriately. So last question

903
00:49:32,679 --> 00:49:35,079
about this do you only know when I reported about

904
00:49:35,079 --> 00:49:35,639
what they thought.

905
00:49:36,280 --> 00:49:38,280
Speaker 3: My last question about this, and it does tie back

906
00:49:38,360 --> 00:49:41,960
to our great conversation about the shadow docket, is about timing.

907
00:49:42,719 --> 00:49:45,719
You know, here he had to know that intervening in

908
00:49:45,719 --> 00:49:48,119
the case although you know it never resolved the question

909
00:49:48,159 --> 00:49:50,360
of whether or not there is immunity for January sixth,

910
00:49:50,400 --> 00:49:52,519
and maybe this isn't. Trump is going to have to

911
00:49:52,559 --> 00:49:55,280
show it's somehow official duty. And you know that was

912
00:49:55,320 --> 00:49:57,679
what they were prepared to do, but we didn't get

913
00:49:57,840 --> 00:49:59,760
It's not like the opinion says Trump is.

914
00:50:00,360 --> 00:50:02,239
Speaker 2: In the end, they give a set of standards.

915
00:50:02,239 --> 00:50:06,079
Speaker 3: They sent it back, but they do, for all intents

916
00:50:06,079 --> 00:50:09,239
and purposes, clear the way for Trump to run for office,

917
00:50:09,239 --> 00:50:12,320
and once he wins, you know, nothing is happening of

918
00:50:12,360 --> 00:50:15,360
course with that case, with this Department of Justice. So

919
00:50:15,719 --> 00:50:18,480
I mean, what about that kind of worry that the

920
00:50:18,639 --> 00:50:20,920
sort of logic and I'm trying to put it in

921
00:50:20,960 --> 00:50:23,440
as careful a way as I can, but that they

922
00:50:23,519 --> 00:50:25,880
had to realize that they were intervening in a way

923
00:50:25,920 --> 00:50:28,760
that did clear the path for him to run for

924
00:50:28,960 --> 00:50:31,760
and possibly win the presidency. And isn't that a kind

925
00:50:31,800 --> 00:50:36,079
of well, non lawyally non judicial way of thinking.

926
00:50:36,840 --> 00:50:38,920
Speaker 5: I mean, you are really getting at why we are

927
00:50:38,960 --> 00:50:41,599
stepping up our reporting on the Supreme Court. You know,

928
00:50:41,679 --> 00:50:43,559
I'm not the only player at the times here. We

929
00:50:43,639 --> 00:50:47,360
now have a five person So like the past was

930
00:50:47,920 --> 00:50:51,159
these heroic, incredible reporters like Linda Greenhouse and I'm love

931
00:50:51,239 --> 00:50:56,599
Tech took kind of sole responsibility for covering the Supreme Court, huge,

932
00:50:56,719 --> 00:51:00,840
huge job. The service they performed, which is essential is

933
00:51:00,880 --> 00:51:06,519
explaining the cases and arguments and decisions. But we've recently

934
00:51:06,559 --> 00:51:09,079
built on that and we're going further. And it's me,

935
00:51:09,360 --> 00:51:14,039
it's Adam, it's ros Helderman, our editor, it's Anne Merrimou,

936
00:51:14,239 --> 00:51:17,320
it's Abby van Sickle. We each perform a different functions,

937
00:51:17,320 --> 00:51:19,440
but we really work together as a group, and we're

938
00:51:19,480 --> 00:51:22,480
trying to ask some of the big questions about the

939
00:51:22,519 --> 00:51:26,039
Supreme Court. And you're alluding to a very important one,

940
00:51:26,079 --> 00:51:30,320
which is is the public version of these cases the

941
00:51:30,360 --> 00:51:33,400
same as the private version. There is a story we

942
00:51:33,519 --> 00:51:37,199
hear in the oral arguments and in the opinions. On

943
00:51:37,639 --> 00:51:41,760
some cases, that's like the same thing that happened in private.

944
00:51:41,840 --> 00:51:47,199
There's no real interesting differential. On some cases, there's a

945
00:51:47,280 --> 00:51:50,000
gap between the public explanation of how the law was

946
00:51:50,039 --> 00:51:55,480
decided and what really happened and the timing concerns that

947
00:51:55,519 --> 00:52:00,320
you're talking about. I think are in that category glory

948
00:52:00,519 --> 00:52:05,440
of things that the justices consider privately but don't discuss publicly.

949
00:52:05,559 --> 00:52:07,960
I know that, for example, because Adam and I did

950
00:52:08,320 --> 00:52:11,760
a behind the scenes story about the Dobs case that

951
00:52:11,840 --> 00:52:17,679
overturned Row, and the justices were heavily weighing timing considerations.

952
00:52:17,880 --> 00:52:20,239
You know, there was also a lot of speculation if

953
00:52:20,320 --> 00:52:23,639
we want to actually do something current about the Voting

954
00:52:23,719 --> 00:52:27,239
Rights Act case, which launched, you know, a whole new

955
00:52:27,320 --> 00:52:33,159
round of redistricting wars. And so you know, given that

956
00:52:33,199 --> 00:52:37,440
the justices are making this decision in the middle of

957
00:52:37,559 --> 00:52:42,800
this chaos over redistricting and know that their timing is

958
00:52:42,840 --> 00:52:45,679
going to have a lot of influence relative to election day,

959
00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:48,599
how do they think through that? And you're right, and

960
00:52:48,719 --> 00:52:52,440
like it's interesting because like how can they not like

961
00:52:52,480 --> 00:52:56,400
they're you know, citizens of planet Earth. But as you say,

962
00:52:56,440 --> 00:52:59,719
it's an extra judicial factor it's not part of a

963
00:52:59,719 --> 00:53:01,079
stray legal calculation.

964
00:53:02,039 --> 00:53:03,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, isn't part of it too? Just looking

965
00:53:03,880 --> 00:53:06,480
at the history of these justices. They don't come, you know,

966
00:53:06,880 --> 00:53:09,840
to us fresh once they're nominated. They have long histories

967
00:53:09,840 --> 00:53:13,920
and commitments, and many of them Roberts included, associated with

968
00:53:13,920 --> 00:53:17,679
the Republican Party in the Reagan administration in particular. So

969
00:53:17,800 --> 00:53:19,639
is that part of it that what we're seeing in

970
00:53:19,679 --> 00:53:24,079
these behind the scenes is reveal of yeah, a longstanding partisan,

971
00:53:24,920 --> 00:53:27,679
they might say their philosophical commitments.

972
00:53:27,199 --> 00:53:29,039
Speaker 5: But it has changed.

973
00:53:29,480 --> 00:53:29,760
Speaker 2: You know.

974
00:53:29,880 --> 00:53:32,599
Speaker 5: One thing that was so educational about doing this twenty

975
00:53:32,639 --> 00:53:36,119
sixteen story is that we spoke to people who were,

976
00:53:36,639 --> 00:53:39,760
you know, knowledge of the deliberations at the time, and

977
00:53:40,400 --> 00:53:44,119
they really described this court as a different place in

978
00:53:44,159 --> 00:53:48,239
twenty sixteen, even though I mean the composition was somewhat different,

979
00:53:48,280 --> 00:53:53,119
not entirely, but even though that court leaned conservative, the

980
00:53:53,360 --> 00:53:57,559
court felt very alive with debate that Justice Anthony Kennedy

981
00:53:57,679 --> 00:54:01,239
was a true swing vote, that there there's a genuine

982
00:54:01,280 --> 00:54:05,440
sense of suspense inside the building about which way cases

983
00:54:05,440 --> 00:54:06,039
would come out.

984
00:54:07,400 --> 00:54:09,239
Speaker 2: Very interesting and it is not that.

985
00:54:09,199 --> 00:54:12,400
Speaker 5: And in a decade that has really changed.

986
00:54:12,719 --> 00:54:12,880
Speaker 2: Well.

987
00:54:12,920 --> 00:54:14,840
Speaker 3: Linked to the story so that, as you said, people

988
00:54:14,880 --> 00:54:17,760
can read these amazing memos for themselves. And of course,

989
00:54:17,800 --> 00:54:21,639
what a rare important moment actually for democracy to have

990
00:54:21,760 --> 00:54:25,119
them revealed, to see these primary sources rather than guessing

991
00:54:25,119 --> 00:54:27,960
what's going on behind the scenes, or worse, just taking

992
00:54:28,000 --> 00:54:32,559
the opinions and the public presentation of justices as empires,

993
00:54:32,599 --> 00:54:35,360
you know, baseball umpires of face value.

994
00:54:35,480 --> 00:54:37,559
Speaker 2: I'm anxious to ask you about your book.

995
00:54:37,639 --> 00:54:40,199
Speaker 3: Of course, there are listeners to this podcast who are

996
00:54:40,679 --> 00:54:44,039
recent graduates. I'll mention the name again, how to start

997
00:54:44,119 --> 00:54:45,559
discovering your life's work.

998
00:54:46,039 --> 00:54:47,360
Speaker 2: Tell us about it, you know.

999
00:54:47,760 --> 00:54:49,679
Speaker 3: I mean, I'll throw one thing in as a transition,

1000
00:54:49,800 --> 00:54:52,920
which is I just know from students, and I'm so

1001
00:54:53,039 --> 00:54:55,679
inspired by so many of them that although they're worried

1002
00:54:55,679 --> 00:54:58,320
about the future of the economy, you know, a lot

1003
00:54:58,360 --> 00:55:02,960
of them are devoted to wanting to fight threats to democracy,

1004
00:55:03,079 --> 00:55:05,800
to seeing the rise of authoritarianism in the United States

1005
00:55:05,840 --> 00:55:06,639
and doing.

1006
00:55:06,639 --> 00:55:09,039
Speaker 2: Something about it. So I mean, tell us about the

1007
00:55:09,079 --> 00:55:09,800
book and tell.

1008
00:55:09,719 --> 00:55:11,840
Speaker 3: Us, you know, what can I It's a very practical

1009
00:55:11,920 --> 00:55:14,000
question for me, like what can I tell people who

1010
00:55:14,079 --> 00:55:15,719
really want to know, Like what can I do to

1011
00:55:16,360 --> 00:55:18,719
save democracy? To make the world better, and you know

1012
00:55:18,800 --> 00:55:21,840
they mean it. I think, especially at that age, absolutely

1013
00:55:22,159 --> 00:55:22,679
the worst.

1014
00:55:22,519 --> 00:55:24,519
Speaker 2: Thing would be to not have a good answer. So

1015
00:55:24,599 --> 00:55:26,000
I'm looking to you for one.

1016
00:55:26,639 --> 00:55:29,599
Speaker 5: Well, I'll tell you how the book started, and then

1017
00:55:29,599 --> 00:55:31,280
I'll tell you the most important thing in it. So

1018
00:55:31,320 --> 00:55:36,480
this was like really unexpected. As we have established, Corey,

1019
00:55:36,559 --> 00:55:38,519
I am really busy with my Supreme Court.

1020
00:55:38,599 --> 00:55:40,679
Speaker 2: I did not plan. I'm like doing a.

1021
00:55:40,679 --> 00:55:44,760
Speaker 5: Whole other thing on earthing secret memos from the Supreme Court.

1022
00:55:45,119 --> 00:55:49,239
But what happened is that in February of twenty twenty five, Columbia,

1023
00:55:49,400 --> 00:55:52,719
my alma mater, asked me to give the undergraduate commencement address,

1024
00:55:53,360 --> 00:55:58,360
a huge honor. But your listeners will remember what was

1025
00:55:58,360 --> 00:56:02,480
happening at Columbia. It was like total meltdown and toxicity.

1026
00:56:02,599 --> 00:56:05,079
So it was kind of a bad offer. And my

1027
00:56:05,800 --> 00:56:09,960
friends from college were very protective. They were like, you're

1028
00:56:10,000 --> 00:56:14,079
going to get booed, don't go callin se But something

1029
00:56:14,199 --> 00:56:17,599
in me was like give me those kids. For fifteen minutes.

1030
00:56:17,639 --> 00:56:22,039
I was just so upset to see like how far

1031
00:56:22,079 --> 00:56:25,519
down the place had slid, and wanted a chance to

1032
00:56:25,559 --> 00:56:28,679
say something to the graduating class. And then they asked

1033
00:56:28,679 --> 00:56:32,039
me an incredible question, you know, like I love hard questions,

1034
00:56:32,039 --> 00:56:34,400
and this is one of the best ones I've ever heard.

1035
00:56:34,440 --> 00:56:37,760
They said, in this crazy environment, how do we find

1036
00:56:37,800 --> 00:56:42,159
and start our life's work? And their question gripped me because,

1037
00:56:42,280 --> 00:56:44,199
I mean, it's very similar to the question you just

1038
00:56:44,280 --> 00:56:47,599
asked about your students. And also, I've covered employment for

1039
00:56:47,679 --> 00:56:50,000
most of my career, like my partner Meg and Twey,

1040
00:56:50,000 --> 00:56:53,800
and I broke the Harvey Weinstein story. I've reported for years.

1041
00:56:53,840 --> 00:56:58,000
I've reported stories about the digital transformation of the workplace

1042
00:56:58,039 --> 00:57:00,920
and what it's like to be managed by machines and

1043
00:57:00,960 --> 00:57:04,440
the effect it has on relationships and the employer employee relationship,

1044
00:57:05,039 --> 00:57:09,679
and so I really wanted to give them something good.

1045
00:57:09,760 --> 00:57:14,039
I saw the rising cynicism about the workplace, the dread,

1046
00:57:14,360 --> 00:57:17,679
the fear. I saw that, you know, seeking work has

1047
00:57:17,760 --> 00:57:22,280
become a very lonely endeavor. It was always anxiety producing,

1048
00:57:22,679 --> 00:57:24,880
but it used to be more of a social process,

1049
00:57:25,000 --> 00:57:30,599
involving like coffees and handshakes and interesting encounters. Job applications

1050
00:57:30,639 --> 00:57:35,519
have become very digital, very sterile, very lonely. First round

1051
00:57:35,519 --> 00:57:38,960
screening is taking place more and more by AI. So

1052
00:57:39,079 --> 00:57:42,920
AI is performing interviews and so in addition to it

1053
00:57:42,960 --> 00:57:47,159
being a rough job market for entry level workers, like

1054
00:57:47,480 --> 00:57:52,000
their first encounter where the workplace is so lonely and negative,

1055
00:57:52,000 --> 00:57:54,079
they're seeing things to me like Jody, I applied for

1056
00:57:54,239 --> 00:57:57,960
one hundred and fifty jobs and I didn't meet anybody

1057
00:57:58,480 --> 00:58:01,880
in the process, and like this is a black box

1058
00:58:02,000 --> 00:58:04,719
and I can't even get any feedback, you know, or

1059
00:58:04,760 --> 00:58:08,480
tell how I'm being received. So I wrote this book

1060
00:58:09,039 --> 00:58:12,559
essentially as an argument to fight for your ambitions and

1061
00:58:12,639 --> 00:58:15,599
dreams and to still have belief in the workplace, not

1062
00:58:15,679 --> 00:58:19,320
like a blind optimistic belief, but at a time when

1063
00:58:19,320 --> 00:58:22,599
we see so many parts of our political system failing

1064
00:58:22,800 --> 00:58:27,519
or feel very stuck, I still believe that the workplace

1065
00:58:27,719 --> 00:58:32,400
is our engine of progress. Like, we can't afford to

1066
00:58:32,480 --> 00:58:36,199
give up on the workplace. It's you know, it's it's

1067
00:58:36,239 --> 00:58:38,559
how we do new things, it's how we move forward.

1068
00:58:39,320 --> 00:58:41,920
And so that goes to your second question, which is, like,

1069
00:58:42,079 --> 00:58:45,239
what is the most important thing to tell people? The

1070
00:58:45,280 --> 00:58:48,159
most important thing to tell people? And I will read

1071
00:58:48,159 --> 00:58:51,639
you the most important paragraph in this book. Do not

1072
00:58:51,800 --> 00:58:55,159
give up before you start, because like I'm talking to

1073
00:58:55,480 --> 00:59:00,840
undergrads and recent grads who are writing off any possibility

1074
00:59:00,840 --> 00:59:04,719
for achievement or happiness in the workplace too early, before

1075
00:59:04,760 --> 00:59:08,119
they're really in the game. And I understand that it's

1076
00:59:08,119 --> 00:59:10,639
tough out there. I'm a reporter, but I want them

1077
00:59:10,679 --> 00:59:14,639
to try. So here is like the key. Here's the

1078
00:59:14,719 --> 00:59:18,679
key paragraph. Do not give up before you even start.

1079
00:59:19,199 --> 00:59:23,960
Frustration and disappointment are certain, failure is possible. But if

1080
00:59:23,960 --> 00:59:27,639
you abdicate the search for satisfaction now, you will put

1081
00:59:27,639 --> 00:59:30,639
it further out of reach. Resist the urge to arm

1082
00:59:30,639 --> 00:59:36,480
yourself with uninformed cynicism masking as OsO wise pragmatism. That's

1083
00:59:36,599 --> 00:59:39,760
really just good old fear of rejection. We do not

1084
00:59:40,039 --> 00:59:44,400
yet know what the world will offer you nice.

1085
00:59:44,760 --> 00:59:47,440
Speaker 3: I mean, we've talked about some worrying things, you know,

1086
00:59:47,599 --> 00:59:51,280
insurrection and sort of high the real reasoning, and so

1087
00:59:51,400 --> 00:59:54,280
we're always on this podcast trying to put hope in

1088
00:59:54,320 --> 00:59:57,280
there too, because you know, we've faced threats to democracy

1089
00:59:57,360 --> 01:00:00,000
before and have prevailed. And then you're bringing this down

1090
01:00:00,119 --> 01:00:02,920
to a personal level. Is really helpful too. That, of course,

1091
01:00:02,960 --> 01:00:06,239
individuals who want to do the right thing have meaningful

1092
01:00:06,440 --> 01:00:09,679
lives and careers, especially as they're starting out or facing

1093
01:00:09,760 --> 01:00:12,199
a lot of their own crises.

1094
01:00:12,000 --> 01:00:17,199
Speaker 5: And totally and problems are opportunities. They are like they

1095
01:00:17,599 --> 01:00:22,559
offer a chance to contribute, and you can, like, I

1096
01:00:22,599 --> 01:00:25,760
think what you really want is a craft that helps

1097
01:00:25,800 --> 01:00:30,880
you contribute. Like reporting is my way of coping with

1098
01:00:31,000 --> 01:00:34,880
what's going on in the world, not on an ideological basis,

1099
01:00:34,880 --> 01:00:38,239
but just by saying, like, our information systems are not

1100
01:00:38,360 --> 01:00:41,440
doing well, and so I'm just going to contribute the

1101
01:00:41,480 --> 01:00:45,199
best information I can to our public debates. And it

1102
01:00:45,239 --> 01:00:50,000
brings me tremendous peace of mind in this truly shattered

1103
01:00:50,000 --> 01:00:51,800
world of ours, because I get up in the morning

1104
01:00:51,880 --> 01:00:54,599
I say, I get what my role is on the

1105
01:00:54,639 --> 01:00:57,880
playing field of democracy. I'm going to play it as

1106
01:00:57,960 --> 01:01:02,880
best I can and know that I made my contribution well.

1107
01:01:02,880 --> 01:01:05,440
Speaker 3: On behalf of the listeners, Jody Canter, I want to

1108
01:01:05,480 --> 01:01:08,159
thank you not just for joining us for this great conversation,

1109
01:01:08,280 --> 01:01:11,480
but also for your amazing reporting, which, as I keep saying,

1110
01:01:11,679 --> 01:01:14,320
really has taught us what's going on behind the scenes

1111
01:01:14,320 --> 01:01:17,119
in a way that's been hidden from us deliberately. And

1112
01:01:17,239 --> 01:01:19,920
I can't think of anything more important in this moment.

1113
01:01:20,000 --> 01:01:21,760
If we're going to save democracy, we have to know

1114
01:01:21,800 --> 01:01:25,320
what's actually going on in the halls of power.

1115
01:01:25,119 --> 01:01:26,760
Speaker 2: And that's what you're teaching us about.

1116
01:01:27,199 --> 01:01:29,239
Speaker 3: And thank you for this book as well and the

1117
01:01:29,239 --> 01:01:33,400
inspiration that it'll provide, especially to young listeners. Jody Canter,

1118
01:01:33,559 --> 01:01:35,559
thank you for joining us on the oath in the office,

1119
01:01:35,559 --> 01:01:38,280
I'll give you one last chance to share a final

1120
01:01:38,320 --> 01:01:39,280
thought if you want.

1121
01:01:40,480 --> 01:01:43,800
Speaker 5: I'll say this, like, maybe this ties together everything we've

1122
01:01:43,840 --> 01:01:46,480
talked about. I'll take a shot at it, which is like,

1123
01:01:46,599 --> 01:01:49,599
truly thank you for having me on. And one of

1124
01:01:49,639 --> 01:01:52,679
the reasons it's so significant to me is because I

1125
01:01:52,719 --> 01:01:55,039
did drop out of law school to become a journalist,

1126
01:01:55,199 --> 01:01:58,440
and so like it burned out many years later, Like

1127
01:01:58,480 --> 01:02:00,800
I was very drawn towards the law, but it turns

1128
01:02:00,840 --> 01:02:03,360
out I wanted to report on it, not practice it.

1129
01:02:03,760 --> 01:02:06,639
But if you ever would have told me that I

1130
01:02:06,639 --> 01:02:09,239
would be reporting on the Supreme Court, I never would

1131
01:02:09,239 --> 01:02:12,440
have believed you. But the magic of journalism really is

1132
01:02:12,480 --> 01:02:15,840
that if you learn these tools, and you learn this craft,

1133
01:02:16,239 --> 01:02:20,440
we can scrutinize people in power. This is a time

1134
01:02:20,599 --> 01:02:27,280
tested tool of democracy, right like a peaceful civil tool

1135
01:02:27,360 --> 01:02:32,400
that involves words and involves truth that I just think

1136
01:02:32,440 --> 01:02:34,840
has like tremendous meaning and power. So thank you so

1137
01:02:35,039 --> 01:02:38,440
much for spending this time and for anyone who's listening,

1138
01:02:38,480 --> 01:02:42,639
thank you. Thank you so much for buying into the

1139
01:02:42,679 --> 01:02:47,079
idea that newspapering can still be a contribution.

1140
01:02:47,880 --> 01:02:50,519
Speaker 2: Thanks so much, Jody Canter, what an amazing conversation.

1141
01:02:51,239 --> 01:02:51,679
Speaker 5: Take care.

1142
01:02:52,360 --> 01:02:52,599
Speaker 2: Wow.

1143
01:02:52,639 --> 01:02:54,400
Speaker 1: I want to thank Jody Canter, and I want to

1144
01:02:54,400 --> 01:02:56,960
thank you, professor for setting up that interview.

1145
01:02:57,039 --> 01:02:57,360
Speaker 2: Corey.

1146
01:02:57,360 --> 01:02:59,239
Speaker 1: What is the best way for our listeners to follow

1147
01:02:59,280 --> 01:03:02,039
you and to keep up with your astonishing brilliance on

1148
01:03:02,079 --> 01:03:04,039
a regular basis the other six days of the week.

1149
01:03:04,360 --> 01:03:06,760
Speaker 3: Well, the first thing I've got to say is subscribe.

1150
01:03:06,760 --> 01:03:10,079
Wherever you listen to us. We're on of course Apple

1151
01:03:10,239 --> 01:03:13,000
and Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts, click that

1152
01:03:13,079 --> 01:03:13,960
subscribe button.

1153
01:03:14,400 --> 01:03:17,119
Speaker 2: Review us. That helps spread the word, send it to

1154
01:03:17,199 --> 01:03:19,440
one person. And if you want to check out the

1155
01:03:19,480 --> 01:03:21,199
other areas, the other places where you.

1156
01:03:21,159 --> 01:03:22,920
Speaker 3: Can find the Oath in the office, There's the Oath

1157
01:03:22,920 --> 01:03:25,559
in the Office substack, There's the Oath in the Office

1158
01:03:25,599 --> 01:03:28,400
YouTube channel. You can also find me on Blue Sky

1159
01:03:28,519 --> 01:03:29,840
as Democracy prof.

1160
01:03:30,079 --> 01:03:32,280
Speaker 1: Right on, and I'm at John Fugelsang on all the

1161
01:03:32,280 --> 01:03:35,119
socials at John Fugelsang, i have a substack and I'm

1162
01:03:35,119 --> 01:03:37,800
on Serious XM Progress five nights a week. My book

1163
01:03:37,840 --> 01:03:40,800
is called Separation of Church and Hate, and I really

1164
01:03:40,800 --> 01:03:42,880
want to thank Wendy and Beowulf and all of the

1165
01:03:42,920 --> 01:03:45,559
brilliant people who help us put this show together every week.

1166
01:03:45,639 --> 01:03:48,639
Most of all you, Professor Bretzchneider. Thank you so much again.

1167
01:03:48,960 --> 01:03:50,719
Speaker 2: Thank you, my friend. What a pleasure to do this

1168
01:03:50,800 --> 01:03:51,039
with you.

1169
01:03:51,519 --> 01:03:53,559
Speaker 1: Thank you Corey. There's going to be no shortage of

1170
01:03:53,599 --> 01:03:56,239
Malfeasons in the week's ahead. I'm very grateful of long

1171
01:03:56,280 --> 01:03:58,480
hot summer is going to have your brilliance to talk

1172
01:03:58,559 --> 01:04:01,079
me off a ledge. Will you guys next time on

1173
01:04:01,119 --> 01:04:03,000
the Oath and the Office