Authoritarian Creep(s) [TEASER]

The Trump administration has moved at breakneck speed to suppress free speech, mass deport hundreds of individuals without due process, and target judges who dare cross him – moves straight out of an authoritarian playbook. If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To hear this and other Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and more, join at fivefourpod.com/support http://fivefourpod.com/support. 5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. This episode was produced by Dustin DeSoto. Leon Neyfakh provides editorial support. Our researcher is Jonathan DeBruin, and our website was designed by Peter Murphy. Our artwork is by Teddy Blanks at Chips NY, and our theme song is by Spatial Relations. Follow the show at @fivefourpod on most platforms. On BlueSky, find Peter @notalawyer.bsky.social, Michael @fleerultra.bsky.social, and Rhiannon @aywarhiannon.bsky.social. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information. Our Sponsors: * Check out Mint Mobile and use my code mintmobile.com/fivefour for a great deal: https://www.mintmobile.com * Check out Quince and use my code FIVEFOUR for a great deal: https://www.quince.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Speaker 00

  Hey, everyone. This is Leon from Prolog Projects. On this subscriber-only episode of Five to Four, Peter, Rhiannon, and Michael are talking about the latest horrors coming out of the Trump administration: suppression of free speech, attacks on federal judges, and an ongoing campaign of mass deportation without due process.

• 0:23Speaker 01

  Nearly 300 Venezuelans are in El Salvador tonight after being deported from the United States without a hearing, under a rarely-used 18th-century law, and despite a federal judge's order blocking the move.

• 0:35Speaker 02

  An administration official claiming many are members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, but they gave no evidence for how they determined the migrants are connected to the gang.

• 0:46Speaker 00

  Already, the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to weigh in on its use of an 18th-century law to deport nearly 300 Venezuelans to El Salvador. As you'll hear, many more of the legal battles Trump has provoked will likely reach the court in the coming months and years. Five to Four will be here to dissect and analyze every last one. Well, depending on how many there are. This is Five to Four, a podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks.

• 1:15Peter Shamshiri?

  Welcome to Five to Four, where we dissect and analyze the Supreme Court cases that have weakened our civil liberties, like a Department of Defense group chat weakening our national security.

• 1:24Speaker 04

  Oops.

• 1:25Peter Shamshiri?

  I'm Peter. I'm here with Michael.

• 1:28Speaker 04

  Hey, everybody.

• 1:29Peter Shamshiri?

  And Rhiannon. Hello. They have the same op-sec that we do.

• 1:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:34Peter Shamshiri?

  With some of our group chats.

• 1:36Speaker 04

  Worse. Worse.

• 1:38Peter Shamshiri?

  Worse because they're inviting journalists who work for The Atlantic, and one hard and fast rule of our group chat is no one who works for The Atlantic is allowed. Certainly not Jeffrey Goldberg.

• 1:50Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 1:51Peter Shamshiri?

  Hell, no. Hell, no. You won't catch me fucking dead with Jeffrey Goldberg in my group chat. In a group chat with Jeffrey Goldberg.

• 2:02Peter Shamshiri?

  That's the difference between me and Pete Hegseth. All right. So we promised everyone that we'd be checking in from time to time on the Trump administration. And here we are again. The first couple of months were sort of narratively defined by Doge's rampage through the federal government and the resulting constitutional crisis, which of course is still ongoing.

• 2:28Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 2:28Peter Shamshiri?

  But we are starting to see a sort of second phase, at least narratively, where the shape of Trump's mass deportation campaign is starting to crystallize. So we are going to talk about that today with a related discussion about the administration's attack on free speech. We are sort of seeing the different modes of authoritarianism play out, right? We've seen Trump seizing power away from the other branches of government. And now we are seeing crackdowns on disfavored populations, starting with the most politically vulnerable, and that is immigrants.

• 3:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, this is, this all goes back to consolidation of power in the executive, it seems, with this Trump administration. And I know we did promise, and I'm happy to do these kind of check-ins with the shenanigans happening with the Trump administration. But we're a Supreme Court podcast, and really, a lot of this is like preview for Supreme Court cases.

• 3:30Peter Shamshiri?

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:30Speaker 05

  As a lot of this stuff makes its way through the legal system. So we're still a Supreme Court podcast.

• 3:37Peter Shamshiri?

  I think the way to think about a lot of this stuff is that the Supreme Court, they're rubbing their hands together mischievously, looking at all of this, right? They're gonna uphold some of it. They're gonna strike some of it down. Either way, they're excited. This rules if you're a power-hungry little rat in a robe.

• 3:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:55Peter Shamshiri?

  Because you get to decide a bunch of things that you never thought you would in America, right?

• 4:00Speaker 05

  Right.

• 4:01Peter Shamshiri?

  It's exciting. It's exciting for the judicial fascists among us. So let's sort of frame this up. Hey, folks, if you want to hear the rest of this episode, you're going to have

• 4:10Speaker 06

  Have to subscribe. This episode is one of our premium Patreon-only episodes. Membership starts at just five bucks a month. So if you want to hear the rest, join us at patreon.com/54pod. That's 54pod all spelled out. Members get a bunch of stuff. Not only do you get access to the premium episodes, but access to subscriber-only events, discounts on merch. And at the $10 a month level, you get bigger discounts on merch and membership in the incredibly rowdy 5to4 Slack. So again, that's patreon.com/54pod, 54pod all spelled out. Become a member today.