Strict Scrutiny - Trump’s Assault on the Free Press

Episode Date: September 21, 2026

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. Check out Alex’s show, Runaway Country, wherever you pod.Favorite things: Leah:Alex Wagner’s The Steal; PONIES (Peacock); The Women of Yesteryear, Kate Manne (More to Hate); The Retirement Plan, Sue Hincenbergs Melissa: The Steal; Kash Patel getting roasted on social media Take the Strict Scrutiny survey.New Strict merch available here.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_cleGet tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE on November 6th in Washington, DC: Crookedcon.comBuy Melissa’s book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern ReaderBuy Leah’s book, Lawless, now out in paperbackFollow us on Instagram, Threads, and BlueskyFor a transcript of an episode of Strict Scrutiny please email [e-mail]

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 10 commandments in their classrooms. Texas politicians passed a law requiring the 10 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. They're going to go up, but we're going to fight to get them taken down.

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 forward slash 10C to learn more about this case and how you can help join the fight to protect church-state separation.

Chief Justice, it's an old joke. When I argue, man argues against two beautiful ladies like this, they're going to have the last word. 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 or for next. 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.

And I'm Leo Lippman, 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. 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. If you only knew what was going on in my life, listeners, if you only knew. 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 crooked colleague, Alex Wagner, about her amazing new book, The Steel. Four right-wing hardliners. Republican presidency and the raid on America's courts. Tittalating. Speaking my love language. 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. 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 contains 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. 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. 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 v. Sullivan and maybe also modernity. 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. for reconsideration. But King Donald needs a compliant press. So without overruling Sullivan, he has

pursued other ways to bring the free press to heal. 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? 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, MS Now, 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. Every president takes an oath to uphold the Constitution, which includes the First Amendment. I do too. How do you justify? 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 MS now, 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 P, it's political, I mean, they got a government, the government under Biden gave him like $8 million to keep them afloat. And the stories they wrote a fake. So there's a lot of news. And there may be others to join them. And maybe they can get better and would like to have them in. But our country has to have honest news. Now, just going to say, someone who 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. No. But on Saturday morning, MS Now reported that one of its reporters, Akala 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. And in a statement, MS Now 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's spokesperson for its part said, quote, we have a right under the U.S. Constitution to do that reporting without hindrance or interference

from the government. Big, if still true. 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. I think this is fucking bonkers. 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 going to 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 going to do. Well, so it's very clearly viewpoint discrimination, which tease 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 sales 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 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. Oh, wait.

Can they read? We don't know. But, you know, very into bending the knee. Speaking of bending the knee, folks, it's time for another episodes of Game of Thrones. 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.

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 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 because say it with me, folks, this man has an edifice complex. 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. Just like put a fucking tarp on it. Exactly. 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 D.C. 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. 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. And then, last Wednesday, the president announced our 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. 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. 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? 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. I mean, I love literally bulldozing. Yes, right? They are actually defiling, right? like our national monuments, our national collective memory in a perfect encapsulation of this administration. All because he wants his name. First of all, why do you want your name on this so

bad? I mean, like this triumphal arch, this Kennedy Center. I mean, like, sir, what? 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. So next scrutiny is brought to you by Smalls. Most cat food is filled with water and fillers. In fact, many cat foods contain so much carbohydrate filler that they're closer to a granola bar than a prey animal. But your cat needs protein, not empty carbs. And quality protein for your kitty means strong bones and toned muscles and sustained energy. My friend just got a cat.

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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. 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 President leaves office. Since it was enacted, and it was enacted in response to Watergate, all presidents have complied with these terms. Until now. There was, of course, the unfortunate Mara 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. The argument also draws support from Jody Cantor'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. 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. It's big. I learned from watching you, John Roberts, energy. Exactly. Exactly. Anyway, the question is going to go before court. The D.C. Circuit will hear oral argument on this issue on October 16, 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 underlade the Chief Justice's majority opinion in Trump v. 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. Weird. 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 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 beastiality. Excuse me? Yes, those who previously engaged

in beastiality, but are also the victims of said, bestiality because reasons can now be FBI agents, BEI, not DEI, Beastiality, Equity, and Inclusion. 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. What about the bestiality? Same thing, because the regs wrote it up in a fashion before I arrive that addressed prostitution, bestiality, and trafficking. They were there before I got there. 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. The bestiality? Yes. So you disqualified the animal? Well, I don't think we have great canines, but we're not going to disqualify it. I understand. Yeah.

So taking this in the most generous light possible, you know, previously engaging in beastiality, 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. Someone is in mind. Who are they? 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 into underscore that this is a party that cares about men and only men, possibly goats. Take a listen. Joe participated in beastiality, 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, 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. 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 were conjuring are fraternity hazing rituals? Like, what are we doing?

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 boss, but what if they were aspiring FBI agents. Jay Edgar Hoover would never. But he might. But he might. Moving on to other kinks, the amosexuals 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. 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? 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. 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 22 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? Yeah. The memo was signed and probably also

written in part by Assistant Attorney General T. Eliot 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. Kaylee 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. Geyser were recently served as Solicitor General for Ohio before returning to federal service. Again, what could go wrong with giving an election denier slash election interfere this power to shape the legal policy and views of the executive branch? And that's not all in the Amos Sexuality Beat.

The Fifth Circuit, always DTF, that's dead. down to fire. Pugh, pew, pew, pew, pew. 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.

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 us 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. Idaho's abortion ban was enacted in 2020, but it went into effect after Dobbs to 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. Now, Idaho is pretty solidly read, but Idahoans are skeptical of extreme ban. They're also skeptical of not having regular health care access, which is why those supporting the 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. 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 percent decline, even after accounting for doctors who then arrived in the state. So even with the advent of new physicians, so 35 percent decline. Currently, about half of Idaho's 44 counties lack a practicing OBGYN. What a great place for the ladies. Indeed. And as the ballot measures supporters emphasize, that has costs for everyone, just pregnant patients. Idahoans are facing longer wait times, higher costs, and reduce 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 EMTALA, 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 M. Tala overrode the state ban, leaving in place a lower court ruling that requires hospitals in Idaho to provide emergency abortion care when a pregnant patient's health or life is in serious danger. 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. 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 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 in the Florida heat as punishment. The report also notes that the facility flunked several other conditions, among the medical care and food service. 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 the 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 Surprese. 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 from academic or practical realities. Yes, that is the same DHS that is headed by No Spaces, Mark Wayne Mullen. 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, Kremlov was not only a guest at the nuptials or whatever this was, he also was a sugar daddy for the event footing the bill for some of the festivities. Republic reports that Kremlin spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Don Jr.'s wedding or whatever we're going to call it, perhaps including renting out one of the private islands. 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? 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. 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. 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. And a private island, not unconstitutional at all. 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. We're 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 Steel. But before we go, do you have your tickets for CrookedCon? We are so excited for CricketCon and our live taping of strict scrutiny in Washington, D.C., on November 6th, make sure you get your own Russian oligarch to fly you in on a private plane for your not CrookedCon, Crooked Con weekend. It's going to be absolutely fantastic. Our live show will be one day before the all-day Cricket Con event, so that's two days

of amazing programming. We are going to announce the guest lineup for our live show next week, And I'm just going to say, I think you guys are going to love this lineup. So get your tickets while you still can because tickets are going fast. You can join us for all the jurist nonsense you can handle. Head over to crookedcon.com right now. 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

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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. How did we get this conservative supermajority 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 Steel, four right-wing hardliners, one Republican presidency, and the raid on America's courts, which was released on September 15th. 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, with Alex Wagner on Substack. In her latest book, The Steel, 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. And that's where we start today. Welcome, Alex. Oh, M.G. What an incredible intro. So tantalizing. I owe you. Like, I'm not having any more kids, but I'd give you one of the ones I do have as things. I don't want any more

kids. I'm good. Well, yeah, more of a curse than a blessing. I mean, I love them. No, they're great. I'm just like, I'm tired. I'm old. I'm tired. 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 well, we await. 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. God bless. God bless. I worked. It was very, it was a labor of love, I guess, we'll call it. But I, 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. 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? 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. 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. So what you just said just reminded me of something. Do you remember back in the 80s when they had those designer impostors? Like, if you love Georgio, you'll love Primo.

Jean Nattay. If you love injustice, you'll love the Roberts Court. 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. Yeah, at Yale Law School and University of Chicago.

Yale and New 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 discrete 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. 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. These are Ed Mies, Paul Wyrick, 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 Wyrick, 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 do these four men come to be the engine of a movement that ultimately resulted in the capture of the courts. 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, we're not drinking Coors beer because of its labor practices. But, you know, Joe Coors and his brother. That was just the tip of the iceberg. Yeah. Joe Coors and his brother would include

close 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 and across the country in the 60s and 70s was like the trashing of America. And he felt very...

Just to be clear, what was happening was like people of color, just happening. And women. And women. And made clear that he wanted to spend his money on conservative causes. And joke wars, you know, there's interesting like sort of side 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' money man calls looking for conservative recipients for Joe Coors' money, and his name is Paul Wyrick, who is, I think if there's any character that should be a household name, who is not, it is Paul Wyrick. 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 is the attorney general. But Paul Weirich is really the brains of the operation. He sees Reagan as an opportunity to radicalize the right,

to make it the party of the new right, to get rid of the squishes like James Baker and the sort of mealy-mouthed, middle-centric conservative Republicans. These will be rhinos at some point. Exactly. This is the early rhino. And Wyrick 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 a certain line towards the real end goal, which is a 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.

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. Wait, wait, Alex. Spoiler alert. Does Ed Meese tap any young, enterprising, fresh-faced conservative foot soldiers for the Justice Department? Interesting foot soldiers that end up in Ed Mies' 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, and I think people... The crucible where they are formed.

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 gris 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 they 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.

I was surprised that Nino Scalia didn't make it into this pantheon of disgruntled men. 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 there is great, you know, you guys cover Thomas. There's amazing Slow Burn podcast tracing his personal history. Joel Anderson is a genius. Exactly.

And, you know, I cite like some of the seminal biographies on Thomas, Jill Abramsonsons, among them. Like there's 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. Throughout the book, I was like, this should be a movie. I mean, 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. Is he the— Does he have the manner of a formal, slightly constipated owl?

Paula, Paul Wyrick? 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. Here on Stricts scrutiny, we talked about the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025.

We tried to warn you, black women trying to tell you things. They tried to warn us. They were like, this is what we're going to do. Like, I mean, they tried to warn us. And we on Strict Scrutiny totally believe them. We called it disaster piece theater. But most Americans were just like, what's that? 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? Yeah, they're done. They can just close up shop. Look, initially Paul Weirich 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 yaboes 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 Foundation prints out in time for Reagan's an inauguration. And Meese, to his credit, whose charge with transition, make 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 going to do, and this is how it's going to go. So that's essentially. the role of the Heritage Foundation and something like that hadn't existed in conservative circles

up until Paul Wyrick 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. 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? I will. If I was going to 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. Young conservatives were like, this is our moment. Let's do something big. Sort of similar, maybe the analog might be to Charlie Kirk and his campus outreach 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. 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. Well, it was teaching this, yes. 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 be happy. Very amenable. 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 wouldn't fucking woodstock. And people are like, wood stick. Woodstock, they are sleeping on each other's floors. They're like having late night gab sessions or 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 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 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. No, and again, listeners, we have had on this podcast in the past Amanda Hollis-Brusky 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 these are people who feel completely disaffected, which to me, honestly, as a black woman, I was like, dudes, what are we talking about? But isn't that what we're dealing with now?

I mean, I feel like the essence of like the grievance. The true snowflakes. The people who melt are really the conservatives. They're still so angry about not being invited to the party. I feel like so much of American politics and American jurisprudence could be fixed if people who needed therapy would just get it. 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. Yeah, I think also maybe go on some dates. Like, maybe have sex. Like, I think human connection, feeling loved, feeling touch. Like, these are all essential parts of, like, humanity. And we're so closed off.

Like you're painting a picture again, Alex, and I don't want to say it. I think they were having sex at Wrightwin Woodstock, to be honest. And so maybe that didn't really change anything because look what we got. I mean, I'm not going to say anything. All I know is that there. There are a lot of reports coming from the Republican midterm convention, and apparently, allegedly, Grindr is going crazy. Right.

Okay. Well, so maybe disregard what I just said. Yeah, I just, I mean, lots going on. Go to therapy. Go to therapy. It's always good, too. 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

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MS now is streaming an episode of highlights from your favorite crooked pods, packing as much analysis, funny moments, and 100% correct opinions. into 40 minutes as humanly possible. Crooked on MS Now airs every Saturday at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific. The Steele 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? Well, I mean, I will say at the risk of like stepping all over the Neil Gorsuch Slowburn series, which I'm obsessed with, I'm sure you guys are too. So good. The Anne Gorsuch, Anne Gorsuch, Neil Gorsuch's mother is Crewella DeVille, essentially, running, you know, like descending into Washington, D.C. with cigarette and 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 in this is more familiar territory, I'm sure. But Clarence Thomas's drafting 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. He does not want a black job. 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 he, it has been an albatross around his neck, both when he was in school and as a professional in, in, in, Washington, D.C. 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 across he has born 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 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 and find any particular importance or reason to consider it in lawmaking, he realizes he can get far. He realizes, is if he becomes the guide that will be the apologist for racist, like, a legislation, he's going to be a real player in Washington, D.C. And it is very far from his wildest dreams 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. If you've listened to Joel Anderson's Slowburn 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. You're going to do this. You're going to do it because this is a stepping stone. And, you know, you're going to 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. him going forward. But it's just so interesting how he's opposed to sort of using race instrumentally until he's not. And then he's using race instrumentally. And then he rails against the idea of race being used instrumentally in the context of a firm action. Well, he's full of contradictions, our Clarence, Thomas. But what's so... Like I said, therapy. Therapy would have helped. Yeah. Well, what so is down? I mean, he goes on a sort of conservative rum springo where he like self-radicalizes with conservative mentors.

All the people, yeah. 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. Now, it's literally like Anakin Skywalker, like, I'm going to put the home on.

It is exactly that. Yeah. 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 maybe becomes another. and we can't overstate the importance of his fortuitous meeting with Virginia Lamp, 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 this. Virginia Lamp would become Ginny Thomas for those who are untutored in the Thomas verse. That was like a deep tease, a deep tease. She becomes Ginny Thomas and brings him in to a very, very conservative church. And she herself is a, as a, I won't say sion, but is part of a very conservative family. And, I mean, helps with the indoctrination and makes it, I think, a closed issue. I do love, there were news reports about this, the lamps when it becomes clear that Clarence and Jenny 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. 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 since his like, you know, carrying sense of. Iron sharpens iron, Clarence. Resentment. Exactly. You 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 Glass Nost and Oliver North and trickled down economics, his love of Nancy and jelly beans and the generation of Alex P. Keaton's who emerged in his wake. He is less known for his stunning takeover of the American judiciary. One, why is this asking? 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 federal judiciary and also state courts are part of the picture, too. Speaking in today 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. 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 at the court and what 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. I was going to say.

Don't go down south. Yeah, I think 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. Those are squished. Those are, 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 account by, 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. Which is great. in the Reagan years. But like what we, 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. So is there a lesson for us on this? I mean, the story you paint is so chilling, but it's also a blueprint. Right? 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. Are we disciplined enough to do this? I don't know. I mean, I think that's a huge question. We need a party of Virgos.

That's what I think. 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 board conomination. They thought Sandra Day O'Connor was a loss for them. They were like, she's too liberal. Well, this is what I'm saying.

And 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? Health care is 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. 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. You look fantastic. Girl, thank you. I'm on Sam Alito's skincare regime. I mean, I just literally like oiling myself with grievance every day. But I recognize that I don't know that I'm going to 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 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 everyone feels undersea. Yes. It's 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 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. 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. Amen. Alex Wagner, thank you so much for dropping by and dropping so much knowledge. This is fantastic. 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 going to 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. I love kids. And I love your kids. And I would happily, like, you can put me down as you're in case of emergency.

Auntie? Auntie, Melissa. I'm happy to be an auntie 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. Yeah, baby. You are the best. I love you forever. And now to our favorite things. So among my favorite things is Alex Wegener's book, The Steel. I mean, really, as we are leading into the midterms, 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. 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 Hinsonbergs, which is about a group of 60, some women who decide to murder their husbands to get the insurance money for retirement plan. Tons of twist and turns, right, all over. Very fun. I'm seeing a theme in all of you. Did you?

Did you? Like these ladies decided to turn their husbands into husbands. There we are. I also want a 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. You're just like, oh, my God, I got to find out, like, what happens next? You know what happens next.

You know. 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 stricties 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 Anne Harris and Professor Ed Cohn for the warm, Midwestern welcome.

I then headed to Philadelphia to talk about the Constitution and the place where it was born. So shout out to Riley, Caroline, Terry, Alley, 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 of the social media dragging Cash 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 Cash Patel with you. 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, Cash Patel's got that dog in him in the worst way possible. There's so, so much amazing content. 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 were always dogs barking. You know, like, like, freak like me by Edina Howard is a perfect example of this genre. Anyway, and there's this other one from at TV Daryl with two R's.

Cash Patel is in a bar somewhere drowning out his sorrows with a Moscow mule, probably ordered a drink too. Another one from Blair Erskine, who was on one. This one is tops. A lot of them are really good. That's true. I had a hard time choosing, not going to lie. So Blair Erskine writes, dog ate your homework.

You're lying. Dog ate your ass. I can't even say it. I'll say it. Dog ate your ass. You're hired by the FBI. 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. I had proposed to Leah that this entire show just be nothing but us reading threads in blue sky. Had nothing else happened this week? I would not have objected. Alas, the universe intervened.

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 earholes. See you soon. Strict scrutiny is a Cricket Media production. Our show is produced by Melody Rowell and Michael Goldsmith. Our music is by Eddie Cooper. Our team includes Matt Dubroat, Ben Hethcote, Johanna Case, Kenny Moffitt, Adam Lippert, and Eric Schute. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. If you miss some of your favorite Crooked pods this week, don't worry. You can now catch up on the week's best moments on MS Now on Saturday nights. MS Now is streaming an episode of highlights

from your favorite crooked pods, packing as much analysis, funny moments, and 100% correct opinions into 40 minutes as humanly possible. Crooked on MS now airs every Saturday at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific.