‘A Sword and a Shield’: How the Supreme Court Supercharged Trump’s Power

[@carlossalgado5524]

This is a GOOD reminder that IF you give the state TOO much power in a democracy, you will EVENTUALLY regret when somebody you DON'T like is elected.

[@MrRhomas913]

I knew that getting rid of the filibuster for the appointment of federal judges, cabinet members, and ambassadorships would come back to bite us. Trump got his 3 SC justices and here we are.

[@MattyV001]

I will never ever get over that immunity decision. That is as crazy as anything our reality show president has done or tried to do.

[@MrRhomas913]

Yeah. Just think if Biden had been brought up for the murder of those soldiers in Afghanistan who died at the gate by some DA in the home county of the dead soldier. We would have had Harris as president and she likely would have been elected.

[@ndavies8]

There will be more craziness to come. We live in our own version of an oligarchy. Any other person will be doing hard time now.

[@kevinwoolley7960]

29:20 The SCOTUS of the early 1930s was correct and this is a return to correct Constitutional principles.

[@insertname5371]

Wait did she just say that the court started to accept the changes in 1937? As in the year of the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937 the one that Stacked the courts? Well that seems an important detail to leave out.

[@kevinwoolley7960]

34:35 LOL none of us, literally none, are concerned about firefighters and teachers. We are concerned by administrative non elected beaurocrats forgiving trillions in student loan debt or mandating CO2 restrictions in a way that Congress never approved. It's time for Congress to do their job and actually vote on hard things instead of grandstanding.

[@robertlee8805]

Yeh. You'll love the DAMAGES from extreme weather.

[@scarletsletter4466]

@@robertlee8805his point is that Congress needs to vote on major matters like that. Unelected bureaucrats should not be making serious policies. We elect representatives to Congress

[@Miiro55]

Can't trump just blanket pardon his staff or key members like biden did to his son? That gives the executive branch immunity just like the president in that case no?

[@parker9012]

Yep, that's why I found the immunity decision a little boring. The president can just pardon himself and his staff, the last day of office.

[@scarletsletter4466]

“Self-pardon” has never been tested and would likely not be allowed. Further, blanket pardons like Biden gave his son are very rare & practically unheard of. The Nixon pardon comes to mind, but even that was arguably more narrow. Hunter Biden was given a pardon for 11 years for crimes he hasn’t even been prosecuted for

[@ThinkingMan482]

Immunity from prosecution for illegal acts would never have mattered to any other president in my lifetime (with the exception of Richard Nixon.) With Trump, it's a prospect at any moment.

[@TheAuthenticFloridaMan]

Tell that to joe and hunter biden you iidoit

[@TheAuthenticFloridaMan]

Your thinking is about as deep.as the pimple on my face dummy

[@kevinwoolley7960]

Who just granted his own son complete immunity for any and all crimes for the last 10 years?

[@abrahamroloff8671]

Ignoring the two commenters that don't understand the difference between presidential immunity and presidential pardons... Our last 4 presidents all committed crimes in office, they just weren't prosecuted for them.

[@ThinkingMan482]

@@TheAuthenticFloridaMan Surely you jest! Trump has an endless string of frauds and transgressions that are beyond forgiveness.

[@x.GHOB.x]

both of these people sound so arrogant and full of themselves.

[@LaoZi2023]

They know what they are talking about. It's sad to think that because someone knows what they are talking about it is seen as arrogant. Gillian is a professor at Columbia Law School. She knows this topic inside and out. Shaw is a law professor. what do you expect? After working for doctors and lawyers I found that once I released my insecurities, I found they were much easier to handle.

[@af031987]

I am honestly shocked at the dishonesty and bias displayed in this conversation. The fact that the reasoning behind thing like unitary power theory or reduction of the administrative state isn’t discussed is borderline journalistic malpractice. You can disagree with the legal theories but at least discuss why you believe they are wrong rather than just decrying their follow on effects.

[@onedroprule]

First, this is an opinion podcast, not a Wikipedia article. They're not under any duty to explain every cockamamie far right legal theory. Second, checks and balances: Presidents should not be free from consequences and accountability.

[@psycoloco1113]

The unitary power theory is nonsense because the constitution is specifically set up to split all government power into three branches, and setup in such a way so that each branch can counteract the other so that no other branch is supreme to the other. It is easy for lunatics and autocratic types to interpret laws in our system so as to enrich themselves or rule with an iron fist. Congress makes laws somewhat vague and broad and not direct to allow a president leeway in it's administration, all it takes is one person to come in and destroy the constitutional system that only functions if people are honorable. As for diminishing the administrative state I think you guys end up missing the forest for the trees on this one, if the argument was hey how can we review a law to make it work for our 21st century issues then we could have a discussion on how to change things to streamline them and make them better instead of getting rid of them entirely, administrative offices exist for a reason, often times that reason has been death, maiming, and other harms placed on regular people by the elites. The current America is so spoiled by being free of disease, having access to safe food, little to no conflict in their homes that they take the system working properly and take it as an overreach on their freedoms. The FDA exists because of how badly industry behaved in the past, the fed exists because investors and industries behaved so badly that destabilized the economy, etc. but instead it's always the same argument from right wingers tear it down, instead of reform.

[@jhaokip23]

​@@onedropruleDon't be surprised when "theory" becomes practice.

[@insertname5371]

@@onedroprule If your talking about the court and its belief in a theory presumable you should describe what the theory is and where it arises from.

[@scarletsletter4466]

Agreed. I’m an attorney and was extremely disappointed in this podcast. I’m actually a Dem but it’s really frustrating that NYT is just subject to complete audience capture. It’s basically a partisan propaganda outlet at this point, hence why I cancelled my subscription after the “fact checking” on the legal matters in the VP debate (which were objectively incorrect).

[@CharlesWasserman]

As is his usual MO, Trump will just do things (which are outside of normal convention) and dare someone or something to stop him.

[@kevinwoolley7960]

24:48 This argument is garbage. Congress cannot delegate interpretation of a staute to a regulatory agency. Interpretation of a statute is by definition a judicial duty and Congress cannot subvert the judicial branch in this way. If Congress wants to make an ambiguous statute clear, it can legislate, so this decision actually increases the power of the legislative branch. The problem is that Congress wants to dodge all decisions so they can grandstand and raise campaign money while unelected beaurocrats make all the hard choices.

[@theEvilLord90]

The court took the power of interpretation, they don’t have it explicitly. Judicial review is something they just decided they have by default

[@scarletsletter4466]

Exactly. The fact that they’re even discussing it this way is borderline comical

[@aleccraig7283]

I know this conversation isn’t the exact place for the argument… but the argument is Removing Government Fat/Gridlock vs. Status Quo I feel like this is the actual conversation that isn’t happening, but it more closely addresses the motivations behind the actions.

[@Dan-dy8zp]

1) What can be done about gridlock since the us constitution is quite hard to change? 2) We already have the richest 3 guys having more money than the poorest ONE HALF of voters, and their share is constantly growing. The 'fat' is what the billionaires call anything that slows the process of them growing their share even faster.

[@aleccraig7283]

@@Dan-dy8zp 1) the Constitution doesn't have to change to make meaningful changes in the government. Optimizing operations and execution of laws benefits everyone (except people profiting of the inefficiencies). 2) Perhaps billionaires are not the right people for the job. If a billionaire WERE the right person for the job, they better have a track record of eliminating inefficiencies of an extant large system....however, I don't like the conflicts of interest with SpaceX and Gov't contracts.

[@Existential8Ball]

Not only is constitutional change slow, but we’ve had an entire era of McConnell style obstructionism. They wanted to “show” public projects don’t work by destroying them and its processes. Now their donors get to sweep in a buy up its corpse.

[@theEvilLord90]

Government isn’t even THAT fat as many like to say. The only time government expanded drastically in last 2 decade was from 2016-2020.

[@traviswhitescarver738]

ATF?

[@michaelavery1978]

If you squint your ears, it sounds exactly like Ezra with a bit of a female filter.

[@michaelavery1978]

..the huge variation in tempo and breathy stuff...the Ivy League Valley accent.

[@tristan7216]

My theory is that all of them, and most the announcers on NPR as well, are Ira Glass, using audio software. Since 1995 at least.

[@michaelavery1978]

@@tristan7216 Yeah, very similar!

[@scarletsletter4466]

This podcast was so disappointing that I’ll never listen to legal analysis from NYT again. I’m a Dem but I’m also an attorney and it saddens me that NYT has become so partisan & ideologically captured that you’re incapable of providing a balanced analysis on ANY TOPIC. On this podcast, the legal doctrines and the rationales for SCOTUS decisions weren’t even explained. It’s like a child’s level convo where you just babble from the assumption that the current SCOTUS is “the bad guy” & therefore everything they’ve done is wrong & just meant to politically serve the GOP. For example, why would you post a discussion of unitary executive theory without explaining it? There’s zero substance here, & no point in listening to it. NYT legal content is very poor and you should either stop producing it or pay attorneys who are capable of giving a balanced informative analysis rather than partisan babbling. I cancelled my subscription after your purported “fact checking” on the VP debate, which was objectively incorrect on the few legislative points I was familiar with. When you’re supposedly the “paper of record” but not accurately providing basic legal info that any midlevel associate could produce, I can’t chalk it up to incompetence. Your management either doesn’t care about accuracy or outright tells the staff to reach pro-leftist conclusions. I’m a progressive, but I don’t want to pay for that. I want the actual information. It should disturb SOMEONE on NYT mgmt that you got everything on the election wrong & even your legal analysis is wrong. Another example of NYT legal content being absurdly partisan: you recently published a legal opinion that Trump couldn’t have won that ABC case, but any mid level attorney can tell you that’s not true. In fact, as a defense attorney, if I were representing ABC, I’d be thrilled that Trump accepted $15 million. Would you really want to bet that in discovery there won’t be evidence that the pundits false statements were malicious? Let’s get real

[@LaoZi2023]

If I were you I would write a real letter to the New York Times editor, and make these concerns clear to someone who might actually have some sway in the situation. Telling us knuckleheads will not get you anywhere, although we people in the peanut gallery appreciate your nuanced opinion.

[@collinbober6707]

nothing like drinking 2 to 3 beers watching new ezra klein podcast

[@donbalduf572]

I see what you did with the "sword and shield" language. Perfect.

[@florianwicher]

I love that there's always book recommendations :) thanks!

[@obsidi2]

They act like the President can't disagree with what the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" in the Fourteenth Amendment. I have no doubt that Trump will assert that some people fall within that provision. And that will be litigated in the Courts. But it is silly to say it won't get to that. Maybe you just don't understand the arguments.

[@tpm1999]

MAGA will not be stopped

[@Dan-dy8zp]

When was it greatest? What are we going back to?

[@QuantumIllusionStudio]

Clown discussion

[@Pasta-B1FBA]

♟️we are the new normal BGR 🛋