Trump’s Assault on the Free Press

Melissa and Leah cover this week’s legal horrors out of the Trump administration, including the President’s ban on certain media outlets from the White House, as well as his attacks on the Kennedy Center and the Presidential Records Act. Also covered: Kash Patel on bestiality, ammosexual wins of the week, a proposed ballot measure in Idaho to protect reproductive freedom, and Donald Trump Jr.’s Russian oligarch sugar daddy. Then, Melissa sits down with Crooked’s very own Alex Wagner to talk about her new book The Steal: Four Right-Wing Hard-Liners, One Republican Presidency, and the Raid on America's Courts https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-steal-four-right-wing-hard-liners-one-republican-presidency-and-the-raid-on-america-s-courts-alex-wagner/79e2bee385d4c18b?ean=9781250901637&bkshp-astro=t. Check out Alex’s show, Runaway Country https://www.youtube.com/@RunawayCountrywithAlexWagner, wherever you pod. Favorite things: Leah:Alex Wagner’s The Steal https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-steal-four-right-wing-hard-liners-one-republican-presidency-and-the-raid-on-america-s-courts-alex-wagner/79e2bee385d4c18b?ean=9781250901637&bkshp-astro=t; PONIES https://www.peacocktv.com/watch-online/tv/person-of-no-interest/5421618614267564112?cid=2601genttsexterndseo310065&utm_campaign=2601gentts&utm_source=ggl_ggl_1bx&utm_medium=ernd_seo_seoopt_1bx&utm_term=googleusers&utm_content=peacock&source=Media_Actions_Feed (Peacock); The Women of Yesteryear https://katemanne.substack.com/p/the-women-of-yesteryear, Kate Manne (More to Hate); The Retirement Plan https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-retirement-plan-a-novel-sue-hincenbergs/aaf37901632ed42f?ean=9780063398009&bkshp-astro=t, Sue Hincenbergs Melissa: The Steal https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-steal-four-right-wing-hard-liners-one-republican-presidency-and-the-raid-on-america-s-courts-alex-wagner/79e2bee385d4c18b?ean=9781250901637&bkshp-astro=t; Kash Patel getting roasted on social media Take the Strict Scrutiny survey https://crooked.com/strictsurvey. New Strict merch available here https://store.crooked.com/products/were-gonna-need-a-bigger-court-graphic-t-shirt. You can now listen to Strict Scrutiny for CLE credits in California, New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Washington, and Oregon! More info at crooked.com/strict_cle http://crooked.com/strict_cleGet tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE on November 6th in Washington, DC: Crookedcon.com http://crookedcon.com/Buy Melissa’s book,The U. S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-constitution-annotated-for-the-contemporary-reader-melissa-murray/8e7f0dfa472fc3ca?ean=9781668221938&next=t&Buy Leah’s book, Lawless https://bookshop.org/p/books/lawless-how-the-supreme-court-runs-on-conservative-grievance-fringe-theories-and-bad-vibes-leah-litman/5b562d6fcb316d6e?ean=9781668054642&next=t, now out in paperback Follow us onInstagram https://www.instagram.com/strictscrutinypodcast/?hl=en,Threads https://www.threads.net/@strictscrutinypodcast, andBluesky https://bsky.app/profile/strictscrutiny.bsky.socialFor a transcript of an episode of Strict Scrutiny please email [email protected]

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

• 0:00Melissa Murray?

  Strict Scrutiny is brought to you by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. It's back to school season, and this year, 5 million children across Texas are going to be greeted by the Ten Commandments in their classrooms. Texas politicians passed a law requiring the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom, forcing their religion on every kid in those schools. 28 families in Texas, supported by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, are taking the fight to the Supreme Court, and we need you to amplify their voices before the Supreme Court gets its hands on this case.

• 0:32Speaker 01

  They're gonna go up, but we're gonna fight to get them taken down.

• 0:38Melissa Murray?

  That was Texas public school parent Ted Lowe. Ted and Rebecca Lowe are an interfaith couple. Ted is Jewish, and Rebecca is Christian, and their kids are enrolled in a Texas public school. The story they tell in this video is moving, and we hope everyone hears and shares it. There is a human cost of Christian nationalist policies like those Ten Commandments laws and the decisions that the Supreme Court, hands down. You can visit au.org/tenc to learn more about this case and how you can help join the fight to protect church-state separation.

• 1:12Speaker 02

  Coca-Cola. For the big, for the small, the short, and the tall. Peacemakers, risk-takers. For the optimists, pessimists. For long-distance love. For introverts and extroverts. The thinkers and the doers. For old friends and new. Coca-Cola. For everyone. Pick up some Coca-Cola at a store near you.

• 1:41Speaker 03

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• 1:56Speaker 03

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• 1:59Speaker 04

  Mr. Chief, justice, please afford. It's an old joke, but when a hargoned man argues against two beautiful ladies like this, they're going to have the last word.

• 2:11Speaker 05

  She spoke not elegantly, but with unmistakable clarity. She said, "I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks."

• 2:41Melissa Murray?

  Hello, and welcome back to Strict Scrutiny, your podcast about the Supreme Court and the legal culture that surrounds it. We're your hosts. I'm Melissa Murray.

• 2:50Leah Litman?

  And I'm Leah Litman, which means we've got two regular hosts here today in the late summer rotation. But don't worry, all three of us will be back together soon, specifically next week.

• 3:01Melissa Murray?

  I do think they ought to be grateful that there are two of us. I mean, like, I mean, we can't even find the Supreme Court right now.

• 3:06Leah Litman?

  If you only knew what was going on in my life, listeners, if you only knew.

• 3:10Melissa Murray?

  We're doing this out of love. We love you, and we're so glad to be here together today. And today's episode is going to be some rollicking fun, so buckle up, buttercups. We are going to cover the legal news, and then we are going to have a book conversation with our Cricket colleague Alex Wagner about her amazing new book, "The Steal: Four Right-Wing Hardliners, One Republican Presidency, and the Raid on America's Courts." Titillating.

• 3:35Leah Litman?

  Speaking my love language.

• 3:36Melissa Murray?

  Totally my love language. I found this book so amazing and compelling, and I actually know how it ends, which is even more amazing. I loved it, and I know the ending. Okay. And then, listeners, speaking of endings, we are going to end, per usual, with our favorite things, and it's a doozy. Let's get started.

• 3:56Leah Litman?

  Okay, so, listeners, you all have definitely heard us discuss a case called New York Times versus Sullivan. Sullivan arose when civil rights advocates placed a full-page ad in the New York Times criticizing the Montgomery Police Department for its treatment of civil rights protesters, including Dr. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. The ad contained some factual errors, including the number of times that King had been arrested in Montgomery, honestly hard to keep count and track. And based on those errors, the chief of police sued the New York Times for defamation.

• 4:26Melissa Murray?

  As you do. However, in a unanimous decision that is widely regarded as the bedrock of a free press, the Supreme Court ruled for the New York Times and held that, in addition to establishing the traditional elements of a defamation claim, those charging defamation also have to show that the false statements made against them were made with, quote, "actual malice." If you were wondering, actual malice is actually a very high standard, and it allows for the media to make inconsequential mistakes without fear of being held into court.

• 4:57Leah Litman?

  At least when we're talking about public figures. But Donald Trump hates this precedent. He's actively called for it to be overruled. Justice Thomas, of course. DTF, down to fuck with the free press, has indicated he agrees that he should revisit, we should revisit, New York Times versus Sullivan, and maybe also Modernity.

• 5:16Melissa Murray?

  Anyway, the court hasn't seemed that press to do the president's bidding, at least on this issue. A few terms ago, it declined to review an appeal brought by casino giant Steve Wynn that would have teed up the Sullivan precedent for reconsideration.

• 5:31Leah Litman?

  But King Donald needs a compliant press, so without overruling Sullivan, he has pursued other ways to bring the free press to heel. There are, of course, the myriad defamation lawsuits that the president has filed against media entities in his personal capacity. And although he files them as a private citizen, they often result in media companies settling, despite the media companies having strong cases, because no one wants to litigate against someone who, in his official capacity, has the power to regulate you, the media. See what I mean?

• 5:59Melissa Murray?

  I do see what you mean. All to say that there's been a lot of shit going on with regard to the media, and there has now been a new development in the president's assault on the free press. On Friday afternoon, the president announced in person and on Truth Social that he is banning CNN, MSNBC, and Politico from the White House, which means that those individuals who cover the news for those outlets will not be allowed to cover the White House. Take a listen to what he said.

• 6:26Speaker 07

  Every president takes an oath to uphold the Constitution, which includes the First Amendment.

• 6:31Speaker 05

  I do, too.

• 6:32Speaker 07

  How do you justify?

• 6:33Speaker 05

  Much more so than you. Because they're fake news. You get so tired of reading and seeing fake news. When you look at CNN, it's just fake. That's why their ratings are no good. When you look at MSNBC, which used to be MSNBC, which some people call MSDNC, Democratic National Committee, it's fake news. It's fake news. And, and, excuse me, excuse me. And when you look at Politico, I mean, they got a government, the government, under Biden gave them like $8 million to keep them afloat. And the stories they wrote are fake. So there's a lot of news, and there may be others to join them, and maybe they can get better

• 7:18Speaker 05

  and would like to admit. But our country has to have honest news.

• 7:22Melissa Murray?

  Now, just gonna say, someone who's spent a whole year writing a book about the Constitution, that banning the media because you think they're mean to you definitely sounds constitutional. Not, it is not very First Amendment forward, sir.

• 7:36Leah Litman?

  No. But on Saturday morning, MSNBC reported that one of its reporters, Akayla Gardner, and a cameraman had their White House access badges confiscated and were barred entry. A producer from the network was allowed entry, according to the New York Times.

• 7:49Melissa Murray?

  And in a statement, MSNBC said that it, quote, "intends to take any and all steps necessary to defend our First Amendment rights and the essential role of independent journalism in our democracy." CNN spokesperson, for its part, said, quote, "We have a right, under the US Constitution, to do that reporting without hindrance or interference from the government." Big, if still true.

• 8:10Leah Litman?

  But as this is suggesting, who needs a SCOTUS challenge? The president seems to have found a way to sideline the courts and unfavorable law altogether, at least for a certain period of time.

• 8:21Melissa Murray?

  I think this is fucking bonkers.

• 8:23Leah Litman?

  Oh, yeah, completely. Well, again, it's just one of those instances where he makes totally transparent that he's doing this for illicit reasons. We can all see he's doing this because it's fake news, i.e. not favorable press coverage, and he's gonna barrel forward, implement it, and maybe some lower courts try to stop him, but he can get away with some things in the process, and who knows what the Supreme Court is gonna do.

• 8:46Melissa Murray?

  Well, and so it's very clearly viewpoint discrimination, which tees up a very obvious First Amendment problem. There's also the Jim Acosta precedent, so, you know, there are questions about whether or not there are Fifth Amendment considerations and due process provisions that have to be offered to these reporters before their credentials can be confiscated, so there's all of that. But I think you're right. You know, this is meant to signal both to big media outlets who have the resources to fight that they should make their coverage more favorable, but also to smaller outlets who don't have the resources, that they should trim their sails a bit. It also means that, you know, for those outlets that are inclined to be favorable to the president, if they're even more favorable, maybe they get better access, which I think is a big deal in a world

• 9:31Melissa Murray?

  where they're competing against each other for scoops and whatnot. So this is all bad. It is so out of step with the history and tradition of the First Amendment. I'm thinking of 1735 and John Peter Zenger, who was hauled into court on seditious libel because he was critical of New York's royal governor. Like, it's almost like these folks never read the Constitution.

• 9:53Leah Litman?

  Oh, wait. Can they read? We don't know. But, you know, very into bending the knee.

• 10:00Melissa Murray?

  Speaking of bending the knee, folks, it's time for another episodes of Game of Thrones.

• 10:06Leah Litman?

  Back in 2025, the president ousted the board of the Kennedy Center in what amounted to a Kennedy Center coup. He not only installed his loyalists on the board, he named himself chairman of the board, something no president has ever done. He then began changing the programming and making it stink. Less drag shows, more Kid Rock, you get the idea.

• 10:26Melissa Murray?

  Then, in May 2025, he went even further and slapped his name on the Kennedy Center's facade. Now, I'm not saying that any of this is correlated, but I will note that ticket sales and donations to the Kennedy Center plummeted, and program revenue fell by 16 million, and grants declined by 30 million. Again, causation is not correlation, but you should have the information. In any event, mainstay programs pulled out of the Kennedy Center's schedule because nobody wants this. In February 2026, the board renamed its annual gala "The Trump Kennedy Center Honors." Again, nobody wanted this. And the president then announced that the center would close for two years to undergo a complete renovation

• 11:08Melissa Murray?

  because, say it with me, folks, this man has an edifice complex.

• 11:13Leah Litman?

  Among many other things. So, back in May, Judge Cooper of the District of the District of Columbia issued a ruling declaring that adding Trump's name to the building's exterior without congressional approval was illegal. He also blocked the planned two-year closure. Trump's name was temporarily removed from the facade, covered with a tarp, which seems right, and I'm hoping we can just do that with this entire period.

• 11:36Melissa Murray?

  Just like, put a fucking tarp on it?

• 11:38Leah Litman?

  Exactly.

• 11:39Melissa Murray?

  Put a tarp on it, and a bird. Okay. Obviously, folks, when Judge Cooper issued this ruling, some people took that personally. So, the government went bawling to the DC Circuit, asking them to make, "Mean Judge Cooper, stop telling us to do that. Stop telling us to do that." The appellate court refused the government's request, probably because it was written in crayon.

• 12:02Leah Litman?

  So, last week, in a court hearing, Judge Cooper rejected the board's latest efforts to justify the name change. Hours later, the board voted to shutter the Kennedy Center immediately, citing severe structural hazards and impending bankruptcy.

• 12:15Melissa Murray?

  And then, last Wednesday, the president announced on Truth Social that the renovation will not happen unless his name is permanently restored to the building's facade. That evening, he was photographed aboard Air Force One, studying a placard that appeared to be labeled "Kennedy Center demolish" above an image of a demolition site. Dun dun dun.

• 12:38Leah Litman?

  On Thursday, lawmakers, including Representative Joyce Beatty, representing ex-officio board members, that is, board members who were appointed by Congress and cannot be removed by the president, filed for emergency injunctions after eyewitnesses reported construction crews installing heavy physical barriers and forklifts repeatedly striking the facility's pillars.

• 12:57Melissa Murray?

  And on Friday, Judge Cooper issued a directive ordering the Trump administration to provide 30 days' advance notice before executing any construction or demolition at the Kennedy Center. Public activist groups have begun organizing a human chain around the building's perimeter to prevent any unauthorized demolition. Again, Leah, what the actual fuck?

• 13:19Leah Litman?

  It's just another example of the Trump administration's attitude toward the courts. They will bulldoze ahead, you know, make the court stop them, and then implement changes that are virtually impossible to unwind. And they have had this course of action laid out for them by the Supreme Court, which has indulged it, and so it continues apace.

• 13:39Melissa Murray?

  I mean, I love literally bulldozing.

• 13:41Leah Litman?

  Yes, right? They are actually defiling, right, like, our national monuments, our national collective memory, in a perfect encapsulation of this administration.

• 13:52Melissa Murray?

  All because he wants his name. Only first of all, why do you want your name on this so bad? Like, I mean, like, this triumphal arch, this Kennedy Center, I mean, like, sir, what?

• 14:02Leah Litman?

  I've read different psychological accounts, exactly, for what might be going on here. And, you know, I don't know, I don't have an intuition, but yes, it does seem like something that therapy might address. There would be not as much bulldozing of federal buildings if therapy occurred on a regular basis.

• 14:27Melissa Murray?

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• 15:08Melissa Murray?

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• 15:47Melissa Murray?

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• 16:01Melissa Murray?

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• 17:09Leah Litman?

  So, in other news, yes, remember that time when the president left office and went back to his beachfront mansion in Palm Beach, taking a bunch of classified documents with them and storing them in one of the mansion's many gold-plated bathrooms? Well, same energy, but now we're going to apply it to all presidential records.

• 17:25Melissa Murray?

  In 1978, Congress enacted the Presidential Records Act, which requires presidential documents to be preserved and disclosed, for the most part, after five years, and with a few exceptions, no later than 12 years after a president leaves office. Since it was enacted, and it was enacted in response to Watergate, all presidents have complied with these terms. Until now.

• 17:48Leah Litman?

  There was, of course, the unfortunate Mar-a-Lago storage incident, but now the President of the United States is going even further, arguing that this statute enacted in 1978 is unconstitutional. Why is that, you say? It's basically the latest fucked-up separation-of-powers unitary executive twist that insists that, quote, "Congress cannot invade the independence of the president and expropriate the papers of the chief executive," end quote. I'm pretty sure he only has those papers because Congress paid for them and gave them to him, but whatever.

• 18:21Melissa Murray?

  The argument also draws support from Jody Kantor's recent reporting in The New York Times regarding the papers of Supreme Court justices. We talked about this article a few weeks ago. Basically, Jody reported on how the justices' papers are effectively their private property, and they get to decide when and how they are disclosed to the public. In recent years, the justices, with some coordination from the Chief Justice, have imposed rules requiring disclosure of their papers relating to cases only after all of the justices who participated in that decision are dead, which means that we will not get the actual inner workings of various decisions until a very long time from now, because there are so many young people on the court.

• 19:04Leah Litman?

  And that, of course, isn't great for transparency and accountability. And for some people, the absence of transparency and accountability is actually quite appealing. According to the Trump administration, if the Supreme Court can make its own rules about whether and how a justice's papers are disclosed and made public, well, so too should be able, the president, to do so, right? If they're above the law, I get to be above the law. If they make rules governing themselves, I get to make rules governing myself.

• 19:30Melissa Murray?

  It's big. I learned from watching you, John Roberts energy.

• 19:34Leah Litman?

  Exactly. Exactly.

• 19:36Melissa Murray?

  Anyway, the question is going to go before a court. The D.C. Circuit will hear oral argument on this issue on October 16th, 2026. And the government has filed a brief arguing that the Presidential Records Act exceeds Congress's authority and therefore is an unlawful violation of the separation of powers. We should also note that in addition to citing the court's practices, the government also seems to be rehashing some of the logic that underlaid the Chief Justice's majority opinion in Trump versus United States, namely that the president has to have virtually no accountability or oversight in order to perform his executive duties fearlessly and impartially. And yet, every other president has had no problem presidenting and abiding by this statute.

• 20:21Melissa Murray?

  Weird.

• 20:22Leah Litman?

  Also, to the extent the government is relying on Trump versus United States as justification for insulating the president further from the law, it is complete bullshit that the court gets to shroud itself and its decision making, including in Trump versus United States, in this kind of secrecy, make them both subject to public disclosure requirements. And speaking of public disclosures, speaking of public disclosures, someone publicly disclosed a lot of information that, I don't know, we weren't really ready to hear. And so, listeners, if you missed our short explainer pod covering the court's decision regarding the so-called election integrity executive order, you not only missed us dragging

• 21:05Leah Litman?

  Brett Kavanaugh for filth, you also missed a very special breaking news segment in which Leah dutifully reported that the FBI is going to the dogs. Literally. The beast in me. If you don't know what we're talking about, what have you been doing with your life? Yes, ladies, gentlemen, and non-binary listeners, in a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing, Cash, that's Cash with a dollar sign, Patel, the man who brought the new DEI to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, announced that he has also made the venerable agency safe for those having engaged in bestiality. Excuse me? Yes, those who previously engaged in bestiality but are also the victims of said bestiality

• 21:50Leah Litman?

  because reasons can now be FBI agents. B E I, not D E I. Bestiality, equity, and inclusion.

• 21:59Melissa Murray?

  Folks, that hearing was something. So, the senators grilled Patel about the recent changes that he's made to the Bureau's hiring standards. So, let's listen to Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana with some questions that prompted both answers and new questions. Take a listen.

• 22:22Speaker 03

  What about the bestiality? Same thing, because the regs wrote it up in a fashion before I arrived that addressed prostitution, bestiality, and trafficking. They were there before I got there. Yeah, but tell me what it said before. It automatically disqualified any individual who participated on either side of it. Obviously, we are never going to hire the criminals. This side of what? The bestiality? Yes. So, you disqualified the animal? Well, I don't think, we have great canines, but we're not going to disqualify. I understand.

• 22:56Leah Litman?

  Yeah, so, taking this in the most generous light possible, you know, previously engaging in bestiality, prostitution, or sex trafficking, regardless of whether you had been the perpetrator or the victim, would disqualify you from serving in the FBI now under the new regulations. Director Patel is saying, if you have been forced into engaging in bestiality or prostitution because you were trafficked, you would not be disqualified from serving in the FBI. Now, that's not like, actually what the new regs say, but also like, you know, you know that this change, he has someone or some people in mind.

• 23:34Melissa Murray?

  Someone is in mind.

• 23:35Leah Litman?

  Who are they?

• 23:37Melissa Murray?

  That's such a good question, right? Because this was animated by something. And viewed in a generous light, listeners, you might understand this policy to be a kind of progressive, sex-positive, victim-forward, maybe even pro-woman approach to things. But then Senator Kennedy stepped in to underscore that, uh-uh, this is a party that cares about men and only men, possibly goats. Take a listen.

• 24:04Speaker 03

  If Joe participated in bestiality, not as the animal, but as the human, don't you think he ought to be qualified, disqualified? If he voluntarily did it, sure, but if he was trafficked into it. Okay, how do you involuntarily do it? In a lot of these cases, when human traffickers, who are some of the worst individuals on planet Earth, they don't just traffic you for prostitution, they traffic you for degrading acts of all kind, and they force you into that type of conduct.

• 24:32Melissa Murray?

  Does not matter what the context is. These dudes stay on their hustle, and the hustle is dudes. How are you talking about sex trafficking, human trafficking, and the images you are conjuring are fraternity-hazing rituals? Like, what are we doing?

• 24:48Leah Litman?

  It's so unclear. And also, I have to say, I have been more carefully watching my dog's Instagram feed now, because who the fuck is trying to slide into her DMs? You know, like, sometimes you get those creepy messages that I assumed were bots, but what if they were aspiring FBI agents?

• 25:05Melissa Murray?

  J. Edgar Hoover would never.

• 25:08Leah Litman?

  But he might. But he might. Um, woo. Moving on to other kinks, the amisexuals also had a big week. Department of Justice announced that it will not be enforcing the federal law banning the sale of firearms to 18 to 20-year-olds. That decision comes on the heels of a memo from the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel that concluded the statute violated the Second Amendment.

• 25:36Melissa Murray?

  This means that federal prosecutors are being directed not to enforce a law that was duly enacted by Congress and that the Supreme Court has never actually invalidated. Think about that. The decision could also give adults under the age of 21 access to the country's licensed handgun market. What could go wrong?

• 25:57Leah Litman?

  The memo maintains that 18 to 20-year-olds can vote and serve their country, and therefore they should be able to holster a handgun. While the opinion said criminal enforcement of the ban was unconstitutional, it did not address whether agencies like the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives could continue administrative enforcement. The memo stands as controlling legal advice for the executive branch, though it isn't a court ruling and does not bind judges or, you know, erase the statute.

• 26:23Melissa Murray?

  So, what is the state of the law here? Well, the Supreme Court has denied cert petitions asking it to review the constitutionality of state and federal bans for adults younger than 21. However, federal appellate courts have split on whether age restrictions are permissible. Three have struck them down, while three others have upheld them. And obviously, the court's 2022 Bruin decision requires any gun regulation to be consistent with the country's historical tradition of firearms regulation. I will just say that this new memorandum, this new enforcement priority, seems designed to make sure the court takes up this question for real, for real?

• 27:03Leah Litman?

  Yeah. The memo was signed and probably also written in part by Assistant Attorney General T. Elliot Geiser, who is a graduate of Hillsdale College and the University of Chicago Law School. He has also served as a law clerk to a real trifecta of winners, Edith Jones of the Fifth Circuit, Naomi Rao of the D.C. Circuit, and Samuel Alito. Kayleigh McEnany, the press secretary in the first Trump administration, also named Geiser as the person who floated the notion that Vice President Mike Pence could refuse to certify Biden electors in the wake of the 2020 election. Geiser recently served as Solicitor General for Ohio before returning to federal service. Again, what could go wrong with giving an election denier slash election interferer

• 27:48Leah Litman?

  this power to shape the legal policy and views of the executive branch?

• 27:52Melissa Murray?

  And that's not all in the amisexuality beat. The Fifth Circuit, always DTF, that's down to fire.

• 28:01Leah Litman?

  Pew, pew, pew, pew.

• 28:05Melissa Murray?

  The Fifth Circuit invalidated a federal law that banned the buying and selling of guns across state lines. Turns out that there were no historical firearms regulations that prevented James Madison from hauling his musket from Montpelier to New York. Go figure.

• 28:21Leah Litman?

  And obviously, that resolves the constitutional question. Now, speaking of allowing 18 to 25-year-olds the ability to make certain choices or not, we have been talking a lot about the upcoming midterm elections. And with good reason, a lot is obviously at stake in the midterms, which is why the president of these United States has put his back into trying to get states to redistrict and trying to convince everyone that voting by mail, which is how he votes, is a conduit to election fraud, or at least giving his federal government the power to just throw out batches of ballots whenever they so choose. But I digress. The upcoming election is also one where voters in the gem state, that's Idaho, will get the chance to vote on a ballot measure aimed at restoring abortion access in the state.

• 29:05Melissa Murray?

  Idaho's abortion ban was enacted in 2020, but it went into effect after Dobbs as a trigger law. It prohibits abortion in nearly all circumstances, with a narrow exception if staying pregnant would threaten the pregnant person's life. The proposed ballot measure, Proposition 1, would enact a new law establishing a state right to reproductive freedom, which the proposition defines as allowing residents to make their own decisions in areas including fertility treatment, contraception, and abortion. In particular, it would establish a right to abortion until fetal viability and afterward in medical emergencies. But notably, the proposition will not amend Idaho's constitution, which means that the state's Republican legislature could overturn it.

• 29:48Leah Litman?

  Now, Idaho is pretty solidly read, but Idahoans are skeptical of extreme ban. They are also skeptical of not having regular healthcare access, which is why those supporting the measure have taken a new advocacy approach. They're not talking about how the measure will restore abortion access. Instead, they are focusing on how Idaho's draconian abortion ban has caused physicians and medical professionals more generally to flee the state in droves.

• 30:13Melissa Murray?

  According to The New York Times, in the four years since Idaho criminalized doctors who provide abortion care, the number of obstetricians and gynecologists practicing in the state has plummeted. According to a recent study, Idaho had 268 physicians practicing obstetrics when the ban took effect. In the first two years the ban was in place, that number dropped to 94, a 35% decline, even after accounting for doctors who then arrived in the state. So even with the advent of new physicians, so 35% decline. Currently, about half of Idaho's 44 counties lack a practicing OBGYN. What a great place for the ladies.

• 30:52Leah Litman?

  Indeed. And as the ballot measure supporters emphasize, that has costs for everyone, not just pregnant patients. Idahoans are facing longer wait times, higher costs, and reduced access to routine preventative care. There have been legal challenges to the Idaho law. You'll recall that plaintiffs filed suit arguing that the Idaho ban conflicted with MTALA, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, a federal law that requires hospitals that receive federal funds to provide stabilizing emergency care, which could include abortions to patients. On June 27, 2024, the Supreme Court dismissed the case without making a final decision on the core legal question of whether MTALA overrode the state ban, leaving in place a lower court ruling that requires hospitals in Idaho

• 31:36Leah Litman?

  to provide emergency abortion care when a pregnant patient's health or life is in serious danger.

• 31:42Melissa Murray?

  And that means that there are still questions as to what would constitute a life-threatening emergency for which an abortion must be provided. Last year, a state court ruled that doctors should interpret the law's exceptions broadly and that patients could receive abortions if they had health conditions or complications that meant that staying pregnant would threaten their lives. However, the court also said that patients could not receive abortions if they discovered fatal fetal anomalies in their pregnancies or if they had a mental health condition that made pregnancy dangerous. All to say that this is all very unsettled, and this ballot measure would do a lot to settle things.

• 32:18Leah Litman?

  But Idaho is not the only state where abortion is on the ballot. In Virginia and Nevada, states where the procedure remains legal, residents will consider ballot measures that would amend their state constitutions to protect abortion rights. And in Missouri, voters turned out two years ago to amend their constitution in favor of abortion rights. But this fall, they will be asked once more to weigh in on a measure that would amend the constitution again to overturn those same protections. TLDR: Midterms matter, get out and vote, and vote always. Another beat on the midterms mattering. We are going to talk a bit about what this administration is trying to do in our names. So the inspector general released its report on Alligator Alcatraz. That is the immigration detention facility the administration constructed in the Florida Everglades

• 33:03Leah Litman?

  to house detainees. The facility houses people in extreme heat and unlivable conditions. Shocking no one, the inspector general found that the now-closed detention facility violated multiple ICE standards. Chillingly, the report confirms reporting and allegations that detainees were placed in metal cages and in the Florida heat as punishment. The report also notes that the facility flunked several other conditions, among them, medical care and food service.

• 33:31Melissa Murray?

  In other news, a district judge invalidated DHS's final rule on the duration of status for certain visa holders. This ruling blocks the administration's attempt to impose a final rule, which would put a four-year limit on certain student visas. That durational limit would have been a huge blow to our ability to supply world-class higher education. The judge wrote that the government's rationale for the new rule was, quote, "exceptionally weak." Kells surprise. It also noted that the government's contention that the rule furthered national security interests, quote, "borders on the absurd." Again, shocking. According to the court, quote, "to the extent DHS engaged at all on substantive issues, its responses were largely disconnected

• 34:16Melissa Murray?

  from academic or practical realities." Yes, that is the same DHS that is headed by, no spaces, Mark Wayne Mullen.

• 34:25Leah Litman?

  Yeah. So no real transition here, at least that is immediately coming to mind, except that ProPublica can't stop, won't stop with its anti-corruption hustle. So last week, it broke the story that among the guests at Don Jr.'s Bahamas wedding, the one his father couldn't be bothered to attend, was Umar Kremlev, a former biker who is now a Russian oligarch with close ties to President Vladimir Putin. It gets even better, or worse, depending on whether you just married Don Jr. So according to ProPublica, yeah, it gets worse. According to ProPublica, Kremlev was not only a guest at the, you know, nuptials or whatever this was, he also was a sugar daddy for the event, footing the bill for some of the festivities. ProPublica reports that Kremlev spent hundreds of thousands of dollars

• 35:10Leah Litman?

  on Don Jr.'s wedding, or whatever we're going to call it, perhaps including renting out one of the private islands.

• 35:17Melissa Murray?

  Now, speaking of whether this was a wedding, a wedding weekend, or something merely wedding-adjacent, Trump Jr.'s wife, Bettina, disputed the entire account. As she explains, "The couple already had a separate private wedding, only with family, and that the weekend that followed the wedding, quote, 'was never intended to be our wedding weekend. It was just, quote, 'two incredible nights of celebrations for us after our wedding.'" That was very generously hosted by, quote, "our dear friend, Umar." And also, this is me, where the new bride wore white to many of the festivities and celebrations, as you totally do on your not-wedding-weekend weekend?

• 35:57Leah Litman?

  Yeah, this all checks out, right? The fact that it happened immediately after the wedding means he didn't pay for the wedding. He just paid for a weekend after the wedding that wasn't supposed to be the weekend after the wedding. It was just like a big party after the wedding that had all of their friends on a private island? Obviously, right? You can easily follow this.

• 36:14Melissa Murray?

  I mean, so it's definitely unconstitutional to have a Russian oligarch pay for your wedding, but it's not unconstitutional to have a Russian oligarch who is also your friend pay for your not-wedding-weekend weekend?

• 36:25Leah Litman?

  It is not unconstitutional to take a flight to the Bahamas that are chartered out for you by a Russian oligarch right after your wedding, along with however many of your closest friends.

• 36:35Melissa Murray?

  And a private island, not unconstitutional at all.

• 36:37Leah Litman?

  No. But reading Bettina's account and response made me wonder, did John Roberts or Clarence Thomas write her statement? Because the reasoning sounds an awful lot like the Supreme Court's opinion in McDonald versus United States, which threw out a conviction for public corruption, where a governor and his wife allegedly received a bunch of money for, among other things, and gifts for their daughter's wedding.

• 37:04Melissa Murray?

  We are going to take a short break right now, but when we come back, we will be joined by Crooked's own Alex Wagner to talk about her fantastic new book, The Steal. But before we go, do you have your tickets for CrookedCon? We are so excited for CrookedCon and our live taping of Strict Scrutiny in Washington, DC on November 6. Make sure you get your own Russian oligarch to fly you in on a private plane for your not-CrookedCon CrookedCon weekend. It's going to be absolutely fantastic. Our live show will be one day before the all-day CrookedCon event, so that's two days of amazing programming. We are going to announce the guest lineup for our live show next week, and just going to say, I think you guys are going to love this lineup.

• 37:49Melissa Murray?

  So get your tickets while you still can, because tickets are going fast. You can join us for all the juris nonsense you can handle. Head over to crookedcon.com right now.

• 38:05Melissa Murray?

  Strict Scrutiny is brought to you by Babbel. There are so many vacations where you're so excited to have a great time and you realize, I'd probably be having a better time if I could communicate with the people in this city in their native language. And you can't because you don't know how to speak their native language. This is where Babbel comes in. The language barrier is exactly what Babbel was created to close. Not textbook grammar, not leaderboard streaks, just the words and phrases that you would actually use with a real person in a real place. Babbel gets you there faster than you think. People who use it just 10 minutes a day can start having real conversations in a new language in as little as three weeks.

• 38:46Melissa Murray?

  Babbel is built around real life conversation, not random vocabulary lists or endless grammar drills. Who needs that? It's designed by more than 200 language experts, so what you're learning is what people actually say, not what they wrote in a textbook 30 years ago. More importantly, Babbel fits into real life. A coffee break, a commute, 10 minutes before bed, whatever time you have, Babbel's bite sized lessons can work around your schedule. That's why it's sold more than 25 million subscriptions and carries a 14 day money back guarantee. So folks, I've been dying to go to Paris in the wintertime to be bundled up in some fabulous coat and walking by the Seine, just being fabulous.

• 39:27Melissa Murray?

  You know, it would make me even more fabulous if I could say something in French to someone in Paris in the wintertime while I was bundled up in my fabulous coat. And I'm going to get there. I'm going to commit to learning the language to make sure that my personal trip is not just personal and fantastic, but absolutely fabulous. And you can do it too. Start learning a new language today with Babbel. Right now, Strict Scrutiny listeners can save up to 60% off at babbel.com/strict. That's babbel, B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash strict for up to 60% off. Rules and restrictions may apply. Strict Scrutiny is brought to you by OneSkin. A lot of skincare makes big promises but can't deliver, almost like those folks who

• 40:09Melissa Murray?

  talk about reducing gas prices if you'll just give them one more chance. You know what I mean? Well, OneSkin is different, and that's why I love OneSkin products. OneSkin never set out to become a skincare company. It was founded by four PhD longevity scientists who were focused on one thing, skin aging. Quick fixes or marketing trends were never the point. They tested the best selling anti-aging products on the market and they found the same hard truth over and over. None of them were working on the actual causes of aging. They were all just working on the surface signs of aging. It turns out that some didn't really work at all. After years of research and testing over 900 novel peptides, OneSkin developed OS1,

• 40:51Melissa Murray?

  their proprietary peptide that is proven to address a leading driver of visible skin aging. It's the foundation of every product that they make. So over time, you see smoother skin, more even tone and radiance, and visibly fewer fine lines. Skin that both looks and acts younger. I love OneSkin because, one, I like products that work. Two, I like products that don't require a lot of time. And OneSkin is both. One product, I love the lotion, the moisturizer, I put it on my face every night, every morning, and it actually works. My skin feels supple and moisturized, and many of the fine lines that come from frowning because I hate the things the Supreme Court does are becoming visibly softer and less noticeable. And I like that.

• 41:36Melissa Murray?

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• 42:21Melissa Murray?

  As you know, Strict Scrutiny has always been a podcast about the Supreme Court and the legal culture that surrounds it. As part of that charge, we have often speculated about how certain justices became the goblins that they are today. What exactly is their villain origin story, if you will? So Neil Gorsuch, as we've speculated, may be the product of some very serious mommy issues. And Clarence Thomas's views on race, and again, a race neutral constitution, may be shaped by his hard scrabble upbringing in Pinpoint, Georgia. But what we have not yet speculated on or done a deep dive on, listeners, is the origin story of this goblin court itself.

• 43:03Melissa Murray?

  How did we get this conservative super majority that by itself is responsible for so much of what we are dealing with in our politics and in our lives? But happily, listeners, help is on the way. Today, friend of the pod, Alex Wagner, is here to discuss her book, The Steal: Four Right-Wing Hardliners, One Republican Presidency, and the Raid on America's Courts, which was released on September 15. Alex is a familiar voice at Crooked. She is the host of Runaway Country, one of my favorites. She's also a contributor to Pod Save America, injecting some much needed estrogen into that show on a regular basis. And she is also a senior political analyst at MS Now and the author of How the Hell?

• 43:47Melissa Murray?

  with Alex Wagner on Substack. In her latest book, The Steal, Alex does a deep dive all the way back to 1980 and the election of President Ronald Reagan to give us the Roberts Court's villain origin story. She explains, "The Reagan presidency was a time when, after decades on the fringes, the conservative right rose to power, and it used that power to reshape American foreign policy from tax cuts to trickle down economics. But," as Alex reveals, "those outward facing policy agenda items were just the tip of the iceberg." At the heart of this book is the Reagan presidency and those four right wing hardliners and their quest to transform not just the American executive, not just the American Congress, but also the courts.

• 44:32Melissa Murray?

  And that's where we start today. Welcome, Alex.

• 44:35Leah Litman?

  OMG, what an incredible intro.

• 44:38Melissa Murray?

  So tantalizing.

• 44:40Leah Litman?

  I owe you, like, I'm not having any more kids, but I'd give you one of the ones I do have as thanks.

• 44:45Melissa Murray?

  I don't want any more kids. I'm good.

• 44:47Leah Litman?

  Well, yeah, more of a curse than a blessing. I mean, I love them.

• 44:49Melissa Murray?

  No, they're great. But I'm just like, I'm tired. I'm old, I'm tired.

• 44:53Leah Litman?

  Maybe flowers. Maybe just flowers. I am so honored that I have you, like, talking to me about this book. There's literally nobody I would rather talk to about it. You obviously know far more than I do about the law, but I feel like this is a very juicy, very juicy period in American history that has, you know, implications for today, like literally this hour as we await.

• 45:16Melissa Murray?

  That's why I had to give you that breathless intro because I read this. This book was propulsive, Alex. I mean, I know how it ends, and I was still like, can I stay up late to do this? Can I elevate my cortisol to read this book all night long? I don't know.

• 45:29Leah Litman?

  God bless. God bless. I worked, it was very, it was a labor of love, I guess we'll call it, but I learned a lot. And I do think it was like, you know, it's eye opening for people who aren't familiar with the origin story of the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation, but just also the injection of partisan politics very explicitly into the judicial system.

• 45:50Melissa Murray?

  How did you decide to cover this? Like, you have done so many things in your career and you've covered so many important topics. Why did you decide to focus on the Reagan presidency and this plot to basically capture the courts?

• 46:03Leah Litman?

  I am, like you, Melissa and Kate and Leah, incensed by this goblin court. By the way, excellent descriptor. I feel like I understand the separation of powers. I understand nominally how the founders wanted it. And I think what we are living through is an utter bastardization is too weak a word, but like a corruption of the judicial branch. And it is so undemocratic, the way Roberts is running it and the way, you know, the opinions we get from Alito and Thomas, just make your eyes bleed. They are so out of step with both the Constitution and public opinion and where our society is headed. And it just, I can't, this sounds so sort of rosy, the river, I can't stand injustice.

• 46:43Leah Litman?

  And I just feel like the injustice of this particular judicial branch galls me. So I'm very, like, it wasn't, it wasn't always like this.

• 46:53Melissa Murray?

  So what you just said just reminded me of something. Do you remember back in the 80s when they had those designer imposters? Like, if you love Giorgio, you'll love Primo. If you love injustice, you'll love the Roberts Court.

• 47:04Leah Litman?

  Yeah, exactly. If you love bastardizing the Constitution, may we introduce you to someone named Neil Gorsuch. First of all, I wrote a different, very different book, much more personal, much more driven by the politics of identity than the politics of, well, the presidency. It's called Future Face. I'm very proud of that too, but it was very different than this one. And I vowed I would never write another book because it's such extraordinarily difficult work. And yet I was talking with my book agent and we were talking about this period where you had the dawn of the Federalist Society. And the origin story is so unusual, people I don't think realize that it was like three students who were tired of woke lives on campus.

• 47:43Melissa Murray?

  Yale Law School and University of Chicago.

• 47:45Leah Litman?

  Yale and U Chicago, and there was a professor named Nino Scalia that would help advise them and a professor named Robert Bork. And from there, they were off to the races. But even the Heritage Foundation and the origin story there and the way in which, you know, we talk so much about Project 2025, it began with a mandate for leadership, which was their version of Project 2025 in 1980. And just all these things that exert like outsized influence on our lives as Americans really were born in this singular, discreet period in American history. And once I sort of came to that realization, I thought, well, fuck, now I need to write a book about it.

• 48:21Melissa Murray?

  You start off with the dawn of Ronald Reagan's presidency. So morning in America, if you will. And the point of the book, I think, is that Reagan's kind of an ancillary figure. Like, we think of him as, you know, the father of American conservatism. But he's very quickly sidelined in this story. You describe him as, quote, "merely a sunny figurehead." And his sunny nature is actually in stark juxtaposition to the people under him, who are literally fueled by anger and grievance. Like, they are pissed off. Like, they've been in the wilderness for so long. And you talk about four very influential men from the shadows.

• 49:04Melissa Murray?

  These are Ed Meese, Paul Weyrich, Joe Coors, and Robert Bork. And your description of them is absolutely hilarious. You call them, quote, "a disheveled police enthusiast with a punitive streak." That's Ed Meese. "An ultra-religious college dropout with a thing for trains." That's Paul Weyrich. "A joyless paranoid beer magnet who believed that zip codes were an insidious government plot." That's Joe Coors. And "a testy conservative contrarian who was a one-time advocate for the New Deal," Robert Bork. I love this. Could not, like, best descriptions ever. How did these four men come to be the engine of a movement that ultimately resulted in the capture of the courts?

• 49:45Leah Litman?

  Well, listen, I think the big-picture answer to that is the conservative movement is particularly good at developing generals and foot soldiers who are tenacious, who are unstinting in their focus, and who are really patient. And that is something, I think, you know, you can read this, and it can be a horror story for you, but it also can be a manual for, I think, what progressives and liberals need to think about as they launch their efforts in the next coming years to reform all the things that need to be reformed, which is patience, tenacity, money also helps. But, you know, they did it because they needed money. Joe Coors had a lot of money. Coors Beer, you may remember it. I'm old enough to remember the 80s, when people were banning, you know, libs, good libs, like the ones I grew up with, were not drinking Coors Beer because of its labor

• 50:30Leah Litman?

  practices. But, you know, Joe Coors and his brother-

• 50:32Melissa Murray?

  That was just the tip of the iceberg, literally.

• 50:34Leah Litman?

  Yeah. Joe Coors and his brother would enclose literature from the John Birch Society with their employees' paychecks. Like, they were ardent segregationists. They hated the civil rights. They thought what was happening across the country in the 60s and 70s was like the trashing of America. And he felt very strongly-

• 50:52Melissa Murray?

  Just to be clear, what was happening was, like, people of color just happening.

• 50:56Leah Litman?

  And women.

• 50:57Melissa Murray?

  And women, yeah.

• 50:58Leah Litman?

  And made clear that he wanted to spend his money on conservative causes. And Joe Coors, you know, there's interesting, like, sort of sidebars that you can go into. Like, he worked with a young man named Roger Ailes, trying to launch a conservative television station. You may remember Roger Ailes from his stint at Fox News. But one day, there's a young staffer that picks up the phone when Joe Coors's moneyman calls, looking for conservative recipients for Joe Coors's money, and his name's Paul Weyrich, who is, I think, if there's any character that should be a household name, who is not, it is Paul Weyrich. I mean, people may have heard of Joe Coors because they know beer. People may have heard of Robert Bork because they remember his failed Supreme Court nomination. And people may remember Ed Meese, who was the Attorney General. But Paul Weyrich is really the brains of the operation.

• 51:43Leah Litman?

  He sees Reagan as an opportunity to radicalize the right, to make it the party of the new right, to get rid of, like, the squishes, like James Baker, and the sort of mealy-mouthed, middle-centrist conservative Republicans.

• 51:59Melissa Murray?

  These will be Rhinos at some point.

• 52:01Leah Litman?

  Exactly.

• 52:02Melissa Murray?

  But this is the early Rhino.

• 52:03Leah Litman?

  And Weyrich starts a number of organizations. Among them, Alec, which you may remember from the organization that writes legislation that then gets turned into law, including stand-your-ground laws all across the country. He creates something called the Moral Majority, which harnesses the power of Christian evangelicals. And he creates, among others, the Heritage Foundation. And really understands that people in elective office are often held hostage by politics. And what they really need is a conservative beacon to hold them accountable. And that beacon becomes the mandate for leadership, but also all the activism he does on the outside to ensure that real conservatives pass a litmus test and that they march in

• 52:45Leah Litman?

  a certain line towards the real end goal, which is rewinding civil rights progress and social progress of the last 20 years. And then, of course, there's Ed Meese. He's critical because he's actually inside the government and eventually becomes the head of the Justice Department.

• 53:00Melissa Murray?

  Right.

• 53:01Leah Litman?

  And Ed Meese can then bring in the newly emboldened, newly indoctrinated foot soldiers trained in places like the Heritage Foundation or the Federalist Society, and make them lawyers in the Justice Department, and maybe, just maybe, ensure that one day they become judges themselves.

• 53:17Melissa Murray?

  Wait, wait, Alex. Spoiler alert: Does Ed Meese tap any young, enterprising, fresh-faced conservative foot soldiers for the Justice Department?

• 53:27Leah Litman?

  There's some interesting foot soldiers that end up in Ed Meese's Justice Department. Among them, a man named Samuel Alito and another one named John Roberts. John Roberts, in particular, works hard to figure out how to unwind the Voting Rights Act, something he does with alacrity, once he's made the Chief Justice of the Roberts Court. But this is the field where these guys are trained, you know?

• 53:50Melissa Murray?

  The crucible where they are formed.

• 53:52Leah Litman?

  It is. It really, truly is. And they need a theologian for this holy war. And that theologian is Robert Bork, who is the eminence Greece of conservative law, who mainstreams originalism and makes it the doctrine of the new right. And, you know, also is, his scuttled Supreme Court nomination turns into a recruitment bonanza for angry conservatives. So they all play, like, essential roles, both inside and outside the administration. And it couldn't happen without them. And I think people don't really look holistically at the collection of strange toys that made this moment a reality.

• 54:32Melissa Murray?

  I was surprised that Nino Scalia didn't make it into this pantheon of disgruntled men.

• 54:39Leah Litman?

  Yeah. I mean, I think the reason, part of, I didn't want to focus on Supreme Court justices, in part because, first of all, there are and will be amazing biographies written about. We get into the Thomas nomination because it's very much an expression of all the work that the right has been doing for the previous decade. But it's, there is great, you know, you guys cover Thomas. There's amazing slow burn podcasts tracing his personal history.

• 55:07Melissa Murray?

  Joel Anderson is a genius. That is a great podcast, yeah.

• 55:10Leah Litman?

  Exactly. And, you know, I cite, like, some of the seminal biographies on Thomas, Jill Abramson's among them. Like, there is great writing about Supreme Court justices. What I was interested in were the political actors who helped make their ascensions inevitable, because that's the less-told story. And also, you know, I like politics a lot.

• 55:33Melissa Murray?

  Throughout the book, I was like, this should be a movie. Like, I mean-

• 55:37Leah Litman?

  I agree.

• 55:38Melissa Murray?

  And that's a credit to you, Alex. I mean, the writing is so gripping and propulsive that I was like, I could totally see Jesse Eisenberg in one of these roles.

• 55:46Leah Litman?

  Is he the, does he have the manner of a formal, slightly constipated owl, à la Paul Weyrich?

• 55:53Melissa Murray?

  I think he does. I really think he does. It's such an interesting story. And one of the things I think you convey so clearly is that this is not serendipitous. You call it a steal, and you refer to it throughout the book as a heist, but their plan to remake the judiciary is deeply considered, pathologically plotted, and they just stay on their hustle for the long term. So I want to just sort of talk about the various elements that go into this long play. Like, I mean, this is the long game for real. So we know the Heritage Foundation. You know, here on Strict scrutiny, we talked about the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025. We tried to warn you, black women trying to tell you things.

• 56:38Leah Litman?

  They tried to warn us. They were like, this is what we're gonna do.

• 56:40Melissa Murray?

  Like, I mean, they tried to warn us, and we were like, and we on Strict scrutiny totally believed them. We called it disaster piece theater. But most Americans were just like, what's that, huh? I don't get it. But they've been plotting this for a long time. So the mandate for leadership was the beginning, and Project 2025 is merely the progeny of it. But what was the point of the Heritage Foundation? And what is the point of the Heritage Foundation today, when so much of what they were planning and plotting has actually come to fruition?

• 57:08Leah Litman?

  Yeah, they're done. They can just close up shop. Look, initially, Paul Weyrich, as a young staffer on the Hill, saw the interlinkage between organizations like Brookings and People on the Hill. They understood that there needed to be connective tissue built between conservative lawmakers and conservative thinkers. And that is the essence of the Heritage Foundation, right? To basically set out the roadmap and then have the yabbos up on the Hill execute on it. They don't essentially trust people in office enough to get it done. They think they need it really, I mean, and they're not wrong, and Alec is another expression of that. They need someone to think through it for them, hold them accountable, and give them the mandate, essentially. And so that's the mandate for leadership, which is a massive book that the Heritage

• 57:53Leah Litman?

  Foundation prints out in time for Reagan's inauguration. And Meese, to his credit, who's charged with transition, makes sure there's a copy of the mandate for leadership, AKA Project 1980, on the chair of every senior advisor and cabinet official in the incoming Reagan administration. Just to make clear, this is what we're gonna do, and this is how it's gonna go. So that's essentially the role of the Heritage Foundation. And something like that hadn't existed in conservative circles up until Paul Weyrich dreamed it up on a walk with his wife and saw a sign for Heritage Houses, and thought, that's a good name for a foundation.

• 58:35Melissa Murray?

  How did we get the Federalist Society? So, these are often talked about in tandem, but they are very different organizations. They have very different origin stories, but they come together and complement each other in this quest to execute this heist of the judiciary. How do they work together? And how does this come about?

• 58:52Leah Litman?

  I will, if I was gonna make a movie, I would probably focus on this because the origin of this kind of buttoned up conservative, like, very kind of wonky, I guess, is being forgiven, but fusty organization comes from like, a story that everyone who's ever been in college or grad school can understand. Three law school students, Lee Lieberman, Dave McIntosh, and Steve Calabrese, two of them go to the University of Chicago, one goes to Yale, are in Arlington, Virginia, for the summer, and they're sitting around having a late night bull session one night. They're all working internships on the Hill. And they're talking about the fact there's, I think we don't clock how much enthusiasm and energy there was around the conservative movement once Reagan came into office.

• 59:34Melissa Murray?

  Yeah.

• 59:35Leah Litman?

  Young conservatives were like, this is our moment, let's do something big.

• 59:38Melissa Murray?

  Yeah.

• 59:39Leah Litman?

  Sort of similar, maybe the analog might be to Charlie Kirk and his campus outreach or in the Trump years. Like, there was palpable enthusiasm among young conservatives on campus. And they thought, you know, there's no organization that services us. College campuses coming out of the 1970s are awash in, you know, late night rap sessions and circle, you know, circle discussions with the peace pipe, talking about desegregation and civil rights and women's lib and equality. Fuck that.

• 1:00:04Melissa Murray?

  Well, this actually is interesting to me because I could see how like a Steve Calabrese might look around Yale Law School where they're literally just like people hanging around from the civil rights era, teaching classes. And could say like, okay, there's no one for me here, although Robert Bork was at Yale.

• 1:00:22Leah Litman?

  Was teaching this, yes.

• 1:00:23Melissa Murray?

  Yeah, so I mean, it wasn't like he was completely in the wilderness. But the University of Chicago seems like a place where young conservatives would find it very amenable.

• 1:00:31Leah Litman?

  I think it is probably a common, having not been there to talk to them about what their motivations were. I think it was a combination of both, we feel alone in some of these conversations, but also, we know there's energy and enthusiasm, but there's no formal structure by which we can convene and debate. And that is, as it turns out, incredibly desired at college campuses across the country because they have their first symposium, the Federalist Society does, in April of 1982 on the Yale campus. And it's like, you know, Politico did some great reporting on this. Attendees were like, it's Woodstock. I call it right wing Woodstock because let's just be clear, it wasn't fucking Woodstock. And people are like-

• 1:01:12Melissa Murray?

  Woodstick.

• 1:01:13Leah Litman?

  Woodstick. Hoodstock? They are, they are sleeping on each other's floors. They're like having late night gab sessions. They're smoking cigarettes and talking to Nino Scalia. There's like energy in the air. And it becomes such a hit that other colleges and universities start calling and saying they want to set up Federalist Society chapters on their campuses. In attendance at that first summit, if you will, are members of the Reagan administration, people who will all, one day end up, including Ted Olson, Solicitor General, inside the machinery of government and serve to, you know, build a pipeline to bring these young, bright eyed conservatives formally into government. So, it's like, just an unusual, interesting,

• 1:01:57Leah Litman?

  sort of humble beginning for an organization that has since become, and you can speak to this better than I can, the most important society organization staging ground, if you will, for ascension to the Supreme Court of the United States.

• 1:02:13Melissa Murray?

  No, and again, listeners, we have had on this podcast in the past, Amanda Hollis Bruski from Pomona College, who wrote Ideas with Consequences, which is a history, a genealogy of the Federalist Society. And it's absolutely brilliant and really lays it out. But the picture you paint, I mean, again, it is very cinematic, Alex, but like, these are people who feel completely disaffected, which to me, honestly, as a black woman, I was like, dudes, what are we talking about? Like, but they do feel-

• 1:02:41Leah Litman?

  But isn't that what we're dealing with now? I mean, I feel like the essence of like-

• 1:02:46Melissa Murray?

  The grievance.

• 1:02:46Leah Litman?

  The true snowflakes. The people who melt are really the conservatives. They're still so angry about not being invited to the party.

• 1:02:55Melissa Murray?

  I feel like so much of American politics and American jurisprudence could be fixed if people who needed therapy would just get it.

• 1:03:05Leah Litman?

  Seriously.

• 1:03:05Melissa Murray?

  Just go to therapy. Like, just talk about like, you know, I'm super conservative and no one wants to hang out with me. And just talk to someone about it. Like, make a plan. Get some better help.

• 1:03:14Leah Litman?

  Yeah, I think also maybe go on some dates, like, maybe have sex. Like, I think human connection, feeling loved, feeling touched, like, these are all essential parts of like humanity and we're so closed off.

• 1:03:25Melissa Murray?

  You're painting a picture again, Alex, and I don't want to say it.

• 1:03:27Leah Litman?

  I think they were having sex at right wing Woodstock, to be honest. And so maybe that didn't really change anything because look what we got.

• 1:03:33Melissa Murray?

  I mean, I'm not gonna say anything. All I know is that there are a lot of reports coming from the Republican midterm convention. And apparently, allegedly, Grindr is going crazy.

• 1:03:44Leah Litman?

  Right, okay, well, so maybe disregard what I just said.

• 1:03:47Melissa Murray?

  Yeah, I just, I mean, lots going on.

• 1:03:48Leah Litman?

  Go to therapy.

• 1:03:49Melissa Murray?

  Go to therapy. Like, it's always good, too.

• 1:03:58Melissa Murray?

  Strict Scrutiny is brought to you by bookshop.org. Folks, would you be surprised to learn that we are living in the age of the resurgence of independent bookstores? A renaissance, if you will? More than 1,000 new bookstores have opened in the last five years. You love to see it. Independent bookstores do more than just sell books. They take care of and pour back into our communities. They create safe spaces that foster culture, curiosity, and a love of reading. And when you purchase from bookshop.org, you're supporting more than 3,000 local independent bookstores so they can continue that essential work. Right now, I'm reading a lot of fantastic books. I, of course, have the US Constitution, fantastic book, available on bookshop.org.

• 1:04:43Melissa Murray?

  I love Lawless, another fantastic Strict Scrutiny read, also available at bookshop.org. And of course, this week, I absolutely loved Alex Wagner's The Steel. Again, available on bookshop.org. But your next read is waiting for you right there at bookshop.org. So get in there, find your next fantastic book, and support your favorite local bookstores while you're doing it. If you go to bookshop.org right now to find that great read, you can use code strict26 to get 10% off your next order at bookshop.org. That's 10% off at bookshop.org with the code strict26.

• 1:05:23Speaker 02

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• 1:05:57Melissa Murray?

  So, The Steel focuses on players who are less well-known to us court watchers. So, we have the folks that, you know, maybe pass under the radar. But you also do note, as you just mentioned, some of our current justices who were literally formed in the crucible of this effort to transform the court and its jurisprudence. What details did you learn about certain justices and their origin stories that would give us a better lens through which to understand their jurisprudence and their work on the court today?

• 1:06:30Leah Litman?

  Well, I mean, I will say, at the risk of like stepping all over the Neil Gorsuch Slow Burn series, which I'm obsessed with, I'm sure you guys are too.

• 1:06:38Melissa Murray?

  So good.

• 1:06:39Leah Litman?

  The Ann Gorsuch, Ann Gorsuch, Neil Gorsuch's mother is Cruella De Vil, essentially, running, you know, like descending into Washington DC with cigarette in hand and fur coat. I mean, props, like, at least she's glamorous, right? And her time in the barrel, paraphrasing Roger Stone, as the head of Reagan's EPA and her summary dismissal or resignation really has a profound effect on Neil Gorsuch and his desire, I think, that is calcified at this point, to fight, fight, fight like hell and disregard your critics is like a very essential part of his origin story. Likewise, and then this is more familiar territory, I'm sure, but Clarence Thomas's drafting

• 1:07:22Leah Litman?

  into the Reagan administration is really interesting. He's just so adamantly against wanting to have a job that a black man would have. He bears this-

• 1:07:31Melissa Murray?

  He does not want a black job.

• 1:07:33Leah Litman?

  He does not want a black job. He does not want to talk about race. And he despises affirmative action because it's a, you know, he feels like it has been an albatross around his neck, both when he was in school and as a professional in, in Washington DC and other places. And he is very, he's pissed, you know? He's pissed about race. He's pissed about racial equity. It is a cross he has borne his whole life. And therefore, he realizes, around the time that he goes into work for the Reagan administration reluctantly as head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the EEOC, that if he forsakes

• 1:08:15Leah Litman?

  the traditional role of a black man in society, which is to be someone perhaps who understands and holds close the experience of a black man in one's professional life, and forsakes that in lieu of conservative ideology, which does not look at the experience and lived reality of black men with any, and find any particular importance or reason to consider it in lawmaking, he realizes he can get far. He can, he realizes if he becomes the guy that will be the apologist for racist, like, legislation, he's gonna be a real player in Washington DC. And it is very far from his wildest dreams

• 1:09:00Leah Litman?

  that he'll become a judge. And basically has to be convinced to put his name in the hat to be a federal court judge. And then he becomes one, and we know where he goes from there.

• 1:09:10Melissa Murray?

  If you've listened to Joel Anderson's Slow Burn, Becoming Justice Thomas, this is not unfamiliar. I mean, he does not want to be in the EEOC. That is truly a black job, dealing with race discrimination. And it is his mentor, Senator John Danforth, who comes to him and says, I don't care if you think this is inappropriate at an Uncle Tom assignment. You're gonna do it because this is a stepping stone. And, you know, you're gonna make your name here, and then you'll go on. And, you know, and Thomas has no problem doing that once there is this intervention and, you know, the path is laid out and, you know, lit for him going forward. But it's just so interesting how-

• 1:09:49Melissa Murray?

  He's opposed to sort of using race instrumentally until he's not.

• 1:09:53Leah Litman?

  Totally.

• 1:09:54Melissa Murray?

  And then he's using race instrumentally. And then he rails against the idea of race being used instrumentally in the context of a

• 1:10:00Leah Litman?

  Well, he's full of contradictions, our Clarence Thomas.

• 1:10:04Melissa Murray?

  Like I said, therapy, therapy would have helped.

• 1:10:06Leah Litman?

  Yeah, well, what's so astounding, I mean, he goes on a sort of conservative rumspringo where he like self radicalizes with conservative mentors.

• 1:10:13Melissa Murray?

  Thomas Sowell, all the people, yeah.

• 1:10:15Leah Litman?

  And like, really, it is a concerted effort to become the man, he doesn't naturally come to it, he makes a decision, this is the life I'm now going to have, this is the person I will be, and slips into it, never looks back.

• 1:10:31Melissa Murray?

  No, it's literally like Anakin Skywalker, like, I'm gonna put the helmet on.

• 1:10:34Leah Litman?

  It is exactly that.

• 1:10:35Melissa Murray?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:35Leah Litman?

  Yeah, if only Anakin and Clarence had gone to therapy. I mean, he goes through a remarkable transformation, to your point, like, he is one person and then becomes another, and we can't overstate the importance of his fortuitous meeting with Virginia Lampe, the white conservative lady who never dares to date a black man, never dreams that such a thing will be possible, and then flips the script on that and becomes, I think arguably, the most important person in, I mean, we talk a lot about like-

• 1:11:02Melissa Murray?

  Virginia Lampe would become Ginny Thomas, for those who are untutored in the Thomas

• 1:11:08Leah Litman?

  That was like a deep tease, a deep tease. She becomes Ginny Thomas and brings him into a very, very conservative church, and she herself is a, I won't say scion, but is part of a very conservative family, and, I mean, helps with the indoctrination and makes it, I think, a closed issue.

• 1:11:29Melissa Murray?

  I do love, there were news reports about this, the Lamps, when it becomes clear that Clarence and Ginny are getting hitched, they say something to the effect of, like, he was just so nice that we were, you know, we had to accept him.

• 1:11:44Leah Litman?

  Well, it's so interesting, right, for someone who's so obsessed with this idea of being accepted and not being seen as a black man, he puts himself directly in the crosshairs, whether as a Supreme Court Justice, or as a mouthpiece for conservatives, or as the husband of a white conservative Christian lady whose parents are, I can only assume, people who are maybe fans of segregation, like, he keeps putting himself in the most robust testing grounds he can. And I think that further develops his, like, you know, caring sense of-

• 1:12:14Melissa Murray?

  Iron sharpens iron, Clarence.

• 1:12:15Leah Litman?

  Yeah, resentment, exactly.

• 1:12:17Melissa Murray?

  We're gonna do it. All right, let's zoom out and think about the bigger picture that you articulate in the final pages of the book. So you write, Alex, quote, "As president, Reagan is remembered for Glasnost and Oliver North and trickle-down economics, his love of Nancy and jelly beans, and the generation of Alex P. Keatons who emerged in his wake. He is less known for his stunning takeover of the American judiciary." One, why is this aspect of Reagan's legacy so overlooked? Two, when we do appreciate what the Reagan presidency did for the court, why do we think only of the court? Because as you note in the book, this is a transformation from the bottom up, the entire

• 1:13:00Melissa Murray?

  federal judiciary, and also state courts are part of the picture, too.

• 1:13:04Leah Litman?

  Speaking in today's terms, I think it's hard for us to understand how Reagan initiated a conservative takeover of the lower courts, because in the Trump era, the lower courts are almost the saving grace of the federal judiciary, right? Like, look at where we are with the Supreme Court, constantly at odds with the lower courts, they are seen as the bulwark of democracy. So it's hard to understand that overall, the judiciary was made significantly more conservative, and partisan, I will say, in the 1980s, given that the expression of it right now, in this particular moment, is one of, I won't say liberalism, but just lawfulness, which has become de facto liberalism.

• 1:13:44Melissa Murray?

  I don't think we fully appreciate how the first Trump administration actually did change the complexion of the judiciary, like, very, very significantly. I think the Biden administration was able to do a lot of work to counteract that, but it's all being reinstated in Trump, too, with the kinds of judges who are being appointed. And so, you know, maybe this is just a story that we don't register what's going on with courts. Like, when Jimmy Carter died, I did this whole thread on Blue Sky about his impact and diversifying the federal judiciary, and people were like, oh my God, this is amazing. And I'm like, literally, that's what he did. He just never got any Supreme Court justices, so we don't really register what Carter did with the court. I think we do not fully appreciate what presidents can do with the court and what

• 1:14:26Melissa Murray?

  they have been doing, because the Trump administration has very diligently reshaped this administration. We may not feel the effects of it now, in part because a lot of these cases challenging the administration are being filed in places where there are hospitable, I think, judges, like, true rule of law judges. If we branch out into some of these other districts, take Missouri, for example.

• 1:14:46Leah Litman?

  Oh yeah, I was gonna say.

• 1:14:47Melissa Murray?

  Like-

• 1:14:47Leah Litman?

  Don't go down south.

• 1:14:48Melissa Murray?

  Yeah, I think that it might be a different picture, and it's changing rapidly as more and more of these Trump 2.0 judges come online, and they're not even the ones being vetted by the Heritage Foundation or the Federalist Society.

• 1:15:01Leah Litman?

  Those are squish, the Federalist Society is now at a point where there are a bunch of squishes, right? We're now in like, a whole new territory of fighters and warriors that are less beholden to law and the Constitution than their predecessors. I will also say, I am hopeful that people pay more attention to judicial appointments, because the courts just matter so much more than they have, in part because Congress has been castrated, or self-castrated in some, if you think of the Republicans in Congress. But the legislative branch has been so hobbled that the judicial branch has really taken such a place of prime importance, that people are paying attention to it more. You know, like, state Supreme Court races now get national attention. That wasn't the case in the Reagan years.

• 1:15:42Leah Litman?

  But like, what we, I don't think understood is like, the idea of injecting explicitly partisan politics into the judicial selection process, into the Department of Justice, into the judicial system writ large, that is a confection of the Reagan era. Confection is too light a word, but that is, that is one of the longest-lasting legacies of the Reagan years.

• 1:16:04Melissa Murray?

  So, is there a lesson for us in this? I mean, the story you paint is so chilling, but it's also a blueprint, right?

• 1:16:11Leah Litman?

  Yes, yes, and that is, that is also, that is, like, I think you can, like I was saying before, you could read it, you could read this as a horror story, that we are now living in the, you know, the after effects of, or you can read it as a blueprint for how the left or democracy-minded individuals can seek to reform the institutions that have been sullied or castrated or otherwise tossed asunder in the Trump years.

• 1:16:36Melissa Murray?

  Are we disciplined enough to do this?

• 1:16:37Leah Litman?

  I don't know.

• 1:16:37Melissa Murray?

  This took discipline.

• 1:16:38Leah Litman?

  I think that's a huge question, you know, I think it's-

• 1:16:41Melissa Murray?

  We need a party of Virgos, that's what I think.

• 1:16:44Leah Litman?

  As a Sagittarius, I disagree, but that's what I would do as a Sagittarius. Anyway, I'm just, I think that the thing that struck me is how, again, they saw catastrophic losses, like Sandra Day O'Connor and the end of the Borg nomination.

• 1:17:01Melissa Murray?

  They thought Sandra Day O'Connor was a loss for them, really, she's too liberal.

• 1:17:05Leah Litman?

  Well, this is what I'm saying, and they, they were like, oh, they retrenched and kept going, and they didn't lose sight. And I think that is one of the biggest takeaways, and I think you need to, I mean, you need to read the book, because it's so good, but also to have the full picture, it's like, you have to understand the sort of way, the temperament that is required, the funding, and the lack of expectation that you'll get any payout, maybe even in your lifetime. That's the thing. That, you know, I go back to that AOC quote, she's like, why be president, healthcare's forever. That's the attitude that I think legislators and activists need to have, that they're in it for the lifetime goals, not the sugar high of an election.

• 1:17:47Melissa Murray?

  People have been asking, you know, what do we work for, what do we do? And I'm like, listen, I'm 50 years old, 51 years old at this point.

• 1:17:54Leah Litman?

  You look fantastic.

• 1:17:55Melissa Murray?

  Girl, thank you, I'm on Sam Alito's skincare regime, I just literally, like, oiling myself with grievance every day.

• 1:18:03Melissa Murray?

  But I recognize that, I don't know that I'm gonna be around long enough to realize or take advantage of the things that I am working to see happen. And so I think you have to be okay with digging wells from which you will not drink, and planting trees-

• 1:18:21Leah Litman?

  Yes.

• 1:18:22Melissa Murray?

  -whose shade you will never sit under. Like, you have to be okay with that. And I wish we, like, it requires, I think, a kind of collective-mindedness that is very hard to muster at a time where you feel like, like, everyone feels under siege.

• 1:18:38Leah Litman?

  Yes, it is very hard to be patient when people are losing their lives, losing their residences, losing their jobs, I mean, losing so much, there's the fierce urgency of now. But the reality is that change, lasting change, takes work and blood and sweat and tears, and it often takes way, way, way longer than anybody would care to admit. So, that's one of the takeaways of the book, which ironically is my hopeful takeaway, that it is possible, but you have to dig in.

• 1:19:05Melissa Murray?

  That's right. You remind us that these were just four misfits with nothing but a legal pad and a dream, and look what they did. It took them a long time, but they did it. And you know what? We've got four misfits in the Democratic Party somewhere, we definitely have legal pads, we can do this.

• 1:19:21Leah Litman?

  Amen.

• 1:19:21Melissa Murray?

  Alex Wagner, thank you so much for dropping by and dropping so much knowledge, this is fantastic.

• 1:19:27Leah Litman?

  You're the best. Thank you for being a supporter, thank you for the essential work you do on all fronts. We owe you a debt of gratitude. I'm not gonna give you one of my kids, because that doesn't seem like a gift, that seems like more work, but I will send you flowers.

• 1:19:40Melissa Murray?

  I love kids, and I love your kids, and I would happily, like, you can put me down as your, in case of emergency.

• 1:19:46Leah Litman?

  Auntie Melissa?

• 1:19:47Melissa Murray?

  I'm happy to be an auntie to, to your brood. But listeners, you don't have to be an auntie to Alex's book, you can adopt this book and take it home and make it yours. The book is called The Steel: Four Right-Wing Hardliners, One Republican Presidency, and the Raid on America's Courts. And it is just as titillating and tantalizing as "That Made It Sound." It is a must-read, gripping, thrilling, and rollicking, and you can get it wherever you get your books, I like to get it at bookshop.org.

• 1:20:14Leah Litman?

  Yeah, baby. You are the best. I love you forever.

• 1:20:23Leah Litman?

  And now to our favorite things. So, among my favorite things is Alex Wagner's book, The Steel. I mean, really, as we are leading into the midterms and then the 2028 election, just getting more people to be educated about the right-wing takeover and plan and capture of the courts, I just think is essential to building the momentum for pro-democracy changes, ideally after 2026 and 2028. Kate Mann had a post on the "yesteryear" book on her Substack, and it was "Everything That I Didn't Know I Needed, But Absolutely Loved It."

• 1:20:55Melissa Murray?

  I just finished watching Ponies. Unfortunately, a show that got canceled after one season. Extremely sad. I enjoyed it immensely. And then I also read The Retirement Plan by Sue Hincenbergs, which is about a group of 60 some women who decide to murder their husbands to get the insurance money for a retirement plan. Tons of twists and turns right all over. Very fun.

• 1:21:18Leah Litman?

  I'm seeing a theme.

• 1:21:19Melissa Murray?

  Did you? Did you?

• 1:21:23Leah Litman?

  Like, these ladies decided to turn their husbands into Wusbuns.

• 1:21:26Melissa Murray?

  There we are. I also want to plus one Alex's book. Like I said, I already know how this ends, but Alex is such a brilliant writer. I mean, it's so compelling and propulsive. Well, you're just like, oh, my God, I got to find out like what happens next. And you know what happens next? You know, you like, you can't get an abortion in half these states. So you know what happened next, but it's still an amazing read. So make sure you go and grab it. Another favorite thing this week for me was meeting so many striktes in the wild. I met Patty, Sasha, Jonah, and Alex at Grinnell College, where I delivered the Rosenfield Lecture for Constitution Day. Many thanks to Grinnell President Ann Harris and Professor Ed Pone for the warm Midwestern welcome. I then headed to Philadelphia to talk about the Constitution and the place where it was born.

• 1:22:11Melissa Murray?

  So shout out to Riley, Caroline, Terry, Ally, and the great audience of lawyers at the Philadelphia Bar Association's Bench and Bar Conference. Thank you. But, folks, my absolute fave of the week was all the social media dragging Kash Patel. And I just want to say, folks, I have not always been excited about Strict Scrutiny's migration to YouTube, because sometimes you just want to slap on a baseball cap and sit in your podcast closet and broadcast from there. But this week, I've come to understand the true value of a visual medium, because it means that I can share screenshots of the online dragging of Kash Patel with you.

• 1:22:52Melissa Murray?

  So take yourselves over to YouTube to enjoy these little tidbits in their full glory. So first up, one of my favorites comes from at Blair Erskine, who is a very funny lady. I believe she is a stand-up comedian, who provided us with the following. Quote, "Kash Patel's got that dog in him in the worst way possible."

• 1:23:16Leah Litman?

  There's so, so much amazing content.

• 1:23:20Melissa Murray?

  I love this one because it reminded me of a 90s era song. You know, those songs from like R&B in the 90s, where there are always dogs barking, you know, like, like,

• 1:23:29Leah Litman?

  Yes.

• 1:23:29Melissa Murray?

  Like Freak Like Me by Adina Howard is a perfect example of this genre. Anyway, and there's this other one from at TV Daryl with two Rs. "Kash Patel is in a bar somewhere drowning out his sorrows with a Moscow mule. Probably ordered a drink, too."

• 1:23:48Melissa Murray?

  Another one from Blair Erskine, who was on one.

• 1:23:51Leah Litman?

  This one is, this one is tops.

• 1:23:55Melissa Murray?

  A lot of them are really good.

• 1:23:56Leah Litman?

  That's true.

• 1:23:57Melissa Murray?

  I had a hard time choosing, not going to lie. So Blair Erskine writes, "Dog ate your homework? You're lying. Dog ate your..."

• 1:24:04Leah Litman?

  I can't even say it.

• 1:24:05Melissa Murray?

  I'll say it. Dog ate your ass? You're hired by the FBI.

• 1:24:12Melissa Murray?

  And then finally, I mean, finally, only because Leah insisted that I limit myself to four, from at Liz Warren Austin. "Number of Haitian immigrants eating dogs? Zero. Number of Republicans and/or FBI recruits fucking dogs? Not zero."

• 1:24:29Melissa Murray?

  I had proposed to Leah that this entire show just be nothing but us reading threads and blue sky.

• 1:24:36Leah Litman?

  Had nothing else happened this week, I would not have objected. Alas, the universe intervened.

• 1:24:43Melissa Murray?

  Well, the universe intervened and we responded. So that's all we have for you this week, folks. We're Strict Scrutiny. We hope we'll see you at CricketCon. And until next Monday, when we'll be back in your ear holes. See you soon.

• 1:24:59Melissa Murray?

  Strict Scrutiny is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Melody Rauel and Michael Goldsmith. Our music is by Eddie Cooper. Our team includes Matt DeGroot, Ben Heathcote, Johanna Case, Kenny Moffett, Adam Lippert, and Eric Schut. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.

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• 1:25:50Speaker 02

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• 1:26:32Speaker 04

  In business, there's the easy way with Staples or the hard way. Hard means...

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  So how do they look?

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