Strict Scrutiny - War Crimes, Christian Nationalism, and the 25th Amendment

Episode Date: April 13, 2026

Even though the Supreme Court took a break from hearing oral arguments, there was still plenty of legal news breaking every day. Katie Phang joins Leah to recap that news, including Trump's threats against Iran, the overt Christian nationalist rhetoric coming from the Secretary of Defense, and a disturbing case that SCOTUS decided not to hear. Then, Emily Amick, joins Leah to talk all things 25th Amendment-- where it came from, why we probably won't see it invoked here and now, and why we should keep talking about it anyways.Favorite things: Leah: Democracy in Retrograde by Sami Sage and Emily Amick; “Drunks, Lampposts, and the Birthright Citizenship Case” by Steve Vladeck; Levain Bakery’s carrot cake cookie Katie: her dog Lucky Emily: Strangers by Belle Burden; Smitten Kitchen’s zucchini butter spaghetti; meet-ups with the EYP community  Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE in New York City on June 20th. Learn more at  http://crooked.com/eventsVote for us in the Webbys! Preorder Melissa’s book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern ReaderPreorder a signed paperback of Leah’s book, Lawless, here.Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and BlueskyJoin the Empire City Podcast Club from Crooked Ideas: https://crookedideas.org/empirecity/

Strict scrutiny is brought to you by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Since the nation's founding, the values of religious liberty and pluralism have been central to the American identity. Those values are now under accelerated attack. The government has no authority to pick and choose which religious beliefs to promote and which to marginalize. Religious freedom for only some is religious freedom for none. The Trump-Fantz administration's Religious Liberty Commission is pursuing a culture of Christian nationalism that seeks to divide and isolate people across our nation. The fatally flawed way this commission was assembled makes clear that the predetermined outcome

isn't just un-American. It's against the law. The Trump-Vantz administration has failed to uphold our country's proud religious freedom tradition, and we need to hold them accountable. Be part of the movement that's pushing back and standing up for freedom. You can register today to attend the summit for religious freedom at the SRF.org. Mr. Chief Justice, may it please report. It's an old joke.

But when I argue, men, 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 off our next. Hello, and welcome back to strict scrutiny, your podcast about the Supreme Court and the legal culture that surrounds it. I'm your lone regular host for today, Leo Lippman. Here to announce that I, too, have never been friends with Jeffrey Epstein.

Indeed, I have also never had a relationship with Epstein or his accomplice Maxwell. Of course, my I'm not friends with Epstein or Maxwell shirt has a lot of people asking questions answered by my I'm not buddy buddy with sex traffickers shirt. Anyways, the Supreme Court did not hear oral arguments last week, which means this is just going to be a legal news episode. And with Kate and Melissa out, I am delighted to be joined by two repeat guests to help me break down WTF happened last week. First, Katie Fang is going to talk with me about this week in the Unitary Executive, which, as far as I can tell, meant a lot of war crimes and Christian nationalism.

We'll also talk about a bad decision out of the Supreme Court you probably haven't heard about and some goings on in the courts of appeal. Then, Emily Amick will explain what all the 25th Amendment talk is about and help me say goodbye to Justice Rebecca Bradley, aka Becky with the bad takes of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. But first up, joining me in the co-host chair is the wonderful Katie Fang, independent journalist and trial lawyer who hosts a YouTube channel, the Katie Fang channel,

that is part of the Midas Touch Network where she delivers must-hear daily news analysis. Welcome back to the show, Katie. Oh, I'm happy to be back. I do think this would have been a good week for some Taylor news, but other than her planning her wedding right now, we don't have any updates.

Did you get to save the date? I mean, are we on like an NDA? Like, we're not supposed to talk about it, right? I'm like, why are you out? That's what it is. Why are you outing us like this? I mean, hello. But I kind of feel like they would have taken the edge off of all, you know, the Christian

nationalism genocide this week. But, yes, I am thrilled to be here no matter what. I should also say you can find Katie on substack, Katie Fang, over at that platform as well. Okay. Katie, as you were kind of suggesting, this last week felt, at least to me, like one of the more unsettling. disorienting unreal weeks that I can remember in a year and a half that has always felt that way, like with the president threatening war crimes, genocide, maybe using a nuclear weapon, and giving us a weird deadline slash timeline for him making a decision about whether to unleash all of this.

It just felt surreal. How did you experience this past week? We didn't even have to make it through an entire week to be able to have that experience, right? I felt like, you know, Tuesday, well, we started it on Sunday, did we not? Easter Sunday with expletive-laden posts threatening the continuation, I will say, of war crimes, because that is my opinion. I feel like the war crimes, it's not like they haven't started. They've been kind of ongoing. And then it kind of merged and kind of like evolved into will we have an active genocide by either by way of a nuclear warhead or maybe some huge ordinance, right, on Tuesday. but that became Taco Tuesday

with them made me wonder are we going to have a war crime Wednesday? I mean, I don't say this tongue in cheek. You know, you kind of say it tongue in cheek and I'm not trying to make light of it, but my biggest, and it's so funny, I just had a conversation with our good friend, Ellie Mistal, about it, not even an hour ago.

I was like, were we going to wake up Wednesday morning and think like everything is back as business as usual, even in the legal perspective, right? Because I felt like we were so close to the edge of that precipice. We didn't have to go over it, Leah, for us to have really crossed the Rubicon. I firmly believe in every way we have now crossed this line that we cannot go back to

as a society and as a world. And now we sit in this midst of a ceasefire, non-seasfire, and wonder what's next, sadly. Yeah. And so since you mentioned the posts, I just want to kind of recite them for our listeners who might have missed them because only the actual words can convey the nuttiness. So the Sunday one, I think, is what read, quote, Tuesday will be power plant day and bridge day all wrapped up in one in Iran. There will be nothing like it, multiple exclamation points. Open the fucking straight, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell. Just watch, praise be to Allah, President Donald J. Trump. That was Easter Sunday. Sunday. I'm like, I just, I'm like, you know, sometimes when you have to laugh uncomfortably, like I'm laughing uncomfortably because I was in church, right? Like, I was in church. And you don't even have to be a Christian on Easter Sunday to be appalled by what it is. But it's just even the taunting at the end with the praise be all stuff just really was so beyond the pale, right? Oh, yeah, completely. And then it was also Passover, you know, when he just kind of unleashed the, you.

as well. But then the Tuesday morning one, the truth began, quote, a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. And then it continued, like, with an all caps, who knows, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, like teasing that maybe it will, maybe it won't. So, Katie, you are, as I mentioned in the intro, a wonderful independent journalist, like, how do you think about covering stuff like this? Because at least in my observations, it felt like there was a lot of sanewashing of this in the media and coverage, like people talking about Trump escalation or adopting hardline stances when this is just straight up violations of the laws of war, even the threats.

Yes and yes. I think this was the quintessential moment of, and it should have been appreciated as an inflection point for all people that participate in media, whether it's legacy mainstream or independent, to have that gut check on how you cover. Trump in this regime. And it doesn't have to be a partisan coverage. It has to be the truth, which is why I'm grateful that you took the time to walk through those truth social posts. Because as we know in the law, an admission by a party opponent is the most damning way to impeach someone, right? I mean, and I would love impeachment and every sense of the legal idea of impeachment conviction removal

of a president. But, you know, to do so, using someone's own words against them is often, oftentimes the most powerful way in front of a judge or jury to be able to show that person's intent. Is that big, he admitted energy? Like Stringer Bell, are you truthing a motherfucking criminal conspiracy? Because as you know, like for war crimes, you have to establish the actor's intent. And they're usually not just posting it. No, in writing. So then you don't even have to question it. Was it a he said, she said moment? Oh, no. It was in writing. And, you know, you don't even have to wonder if there's a mistaken attribution. This was not a Even if the idea sprung from the brain of Stephen Miller in this very perverse Greek mythological way, you didn't have to wonder because at the end of the day, the way it was presented and rolled out on truth social was epically trump, right? And all of the weird caps and syntax and lack of punctuation and run out shit.

But it was the criminal intent that was so brazenly obvious. And, you know, there was nothing strategic about it either, right? I mean, some people are like, oh, he's just posturing. Yeah, posturing by the threat of the commission of a war crime is not posturing. It's the threat of a commission of the war crime. So, you know, knowing all of that, it really gave a lot of us, including myself, a very sobering cause for pause, which is, do you just shrug your shoulders and enjoy the breeze from the Overton window being moved so far into another country at this point that you would need a passport to live in it? Or do you actually say we can't go back now. Like, this is where we are. And the fact that it wasn't enough for some, some members of Congress to immediately put their britches on and haul us back to D.C. was, I think, another galling takeaway from this week. One of the worst responses was, I don't agree with genocide, but. Like, that was a sentence that some people actually uttered. And it's like, no, no, no, no but after that. There's no Lipsy's after that. Just full.

Just full stop. But I know in arrested development, the father says, I have the worst fucking attorneys. Every lawyer for the federal government and Donald Trump personally has to be saying I have the worst fucking client with those posts. But a bit on those lawyers because last week, Deputy Attorney General, Todd Blanche, assumed the role of acting slash interim attorney general. Katie, how did his premiere go in your eyes? Thank you, Shermay, I have another. Thank you, Sarah may have another. I was waiting for Todd to, in the theme of religion, I was waiting for him to whip out something and be like the self-flagellation of, I'm so sorry, sir, I am here in piety to be able to do what you will.

Anytime, I have never, and I've been on the surface for 51 years this year, Leah, I have never heard any iteration of an attorney general, either an assistant United States attorney, an attorney general, deputy AG, whatever the hell you want to call them. I have never heard any of them say, I love you, sir.

I've never heard them say, I love you. Since you introduced it, let's play that clip because here is Todd Blanche on the guy upstairs, by which he means Donald Trump himself. Not God. I love working for President Trump. It's the greatest honor of a lifetime. And if President Trump chooses to keep me as acting, that's an honor. If he chooses to nominate me, that's an honor.

If he chooses to nominate somebody else and I go back to being the DAG, that's an honor. If he chooses to nominate somebody else and asks me to go do something, else, I will say thank you very much. I love you, sir. So I don't have any goals or aspirations beyond that. He said that, literally. It's funny because I actually covered that presser in one of the episodes on my YouTube channel. The thrust of that was to talk about the hypocrisy of them announcing this new fraud enforcement division when Trump himself has pardoned or given clemency to more than 70 of his allies, donors, friends, and people that have paid to play to get access. And they've all been convicted of for fraud and that more than $700 million in restitution and fines

has now gone by the wayside, courtesy of Trump's clemency by way of pardons and commendations. That was the thrust of that episode I did. But of course, I played several clips from Blanche because it was a 24-minute press conference. And to give him credit, he took questions. And yet the level of just obsequious, disgusting, kind of like, let me grovel. to say that I would love whatever you do to me was a little personal, Leah. I felt a little uncomfortable. It was a little like I'm watching something. I'm not in a cult of personality shirt, you know, asking questions answered by that shirt. I also did want to highlight one other clip that came up in Todd Blanche's media kind of bonanza this past week, which we will play here. And this is his take on ethics. I mean, look, if you were a prosecutor and you were trying to prosecute your boss, you have ethical duties as a lawyer that I think prevent you from continue to work in that environment. Katie, is that ethics?

Not the kind that I learned or that I got tested on to become a member of a bar. And you know what's crazy is it dovetails with that clip is that he actually, it's so funny, if you only heard some portions of what the men. man had to say it sounded noble and with integrity, right? He's like, if you're going to work here, then you need to believe in things. But then if you were to cut it there, you'd be like, oh, that sounds so great. But then he keeps on going and saying, because the only agenda here is the president's agenda. And I was like, bro, whatever happened to the rule of law and your oaths to the Constitution. But that just goes to show anybody, Leah, who piped up and said, ooh, maybe Todd Blanche is a better Pam Bondi. You are full of shit. Because there is no way Blanche is going to

to sit there and allow Bondi to outdo him when it comes to the ass kissing. Blanche is like, I get the gold medal, even though I am the guy responsible with Emil Bovi for my client to get 34 convictions on felonies and the only jury trial that Trump ever had. I have that claim to fame, but I will not allow Pammy Joe with the bad hair to outdo me when it comes to the ass kissing. This episode of strict scrutiny is sponsored by BetterHelp. Y'all, I can still remember when I graduated from law school with a student loan bill that was six figures, and it really, really weighed on me. How I was going to pay off those law school loans was something I thought about all the time. Financial stress can affect us more than we know. It affects more than just our bank accounts.

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and then asked you to kind of react to the insanity. So here he is at one of them. Our troops, our American warriors deserve the credit for this day. But God deserves all the glory. tens of thousands of sordies, refuelings, and strikes carried out under the protection of divine providence, a massive effort with miraculous protection. It's been reported that Hegsef has held Christian worship services at the Pentagon. And in one of the recent ones that post-dated the administration's war on Iran, here's some of what he said.

First, a reading from the book of Psalms, chapter 18, verses 37 to 42. King David writes, I pursued my enemies and overtook them and did not turn back till they were consumed. He also recited a prayer given by a military chaplain to troops who participated in the capture and kidnapping of Nicholas Maduro. Almighty God who trains our hands for war

and our fingers for battle. You who stirred the nations from the north against Babylon of old, making her land a desolation where none dwell. Behold now the wicked who rise against your justice and the peace of the righteous. Snap the rod of the oppressor, frustrate the wicked plans, and break the teeth of the ungodly. By the blast of your anger, let the evil perish. Let their bulls go down to slaughter,

for their day has come, the time of their punishment. Pour out your wrath upon those who plot vain things and blow them away like chaff before the wind. Grant this task force, clear and righteous targets for violence, surround them as a shield, protect them, innocent and blameless in their midst, make their arrows like those of a skilled warrior who returned not empty-handed, let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation. Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy. So, Katie, I realize I am asking you some version of this question a lot, but like how do you

talk about or convey the enormity and gravity of this misuse of the military? You always have to start with the strong emphasis on the separation of church and state because that has gone out the window. Trump term 1.0, by the way, let's be clear. It's not just a novelty act that has jumped up right now in Trump term 2.0. But the separation of church of state is just the baseline where we start whenever we talk about this. But then the, the, the, The thing about Heg-Seth is that, you know, I was waiting for him to order everyone in that presser to bow their head in prayer. I mean, I was waiting for Trump to stand there with the collection plate at the end of the

row, and then he pockets the money from the collection plate from the offerings. I mean, that's the type of thing I felt like was going to take place. But when you blur these lines, it's intentional. It is not, number one, it's not sincere because there's nothing about Pete Keggs. breath that ever smacks of sincerity. That's good. Keg's breath. That's better than Kegseth.

I love it. I'm going to credit you for it. You can totally do it. I'm sure I crimped it from somebody else. But number two, the nefarious and very insidious part about all of this is the allowance, if not the overt pushing of this violation of church and state, right? It ends up working towards their advantage toward the narrative of this is a holy war. Yes.

And when you reduce it into very basic precepts of good versus evil. And when you couch it in a way where we are leading a crusade against infidels, which, by the way, he does have a tattoo that says infidel. He also has the book American Crusade in which he basically argued the Crusades were justified. And he also argued for war crimes that there's no such thing as a war crime. He's never met a war crime. He didn't love. Right. And that he didn't think people should be prosecuted as soldiers for war crimes because there are no rules of engagement.

Right. I mean, these are walking textbook, like examples of illegal conduct. And then you just have him in an enabling role like Trump has all around him so that Trump can continue to post the insanity he posts on Truth Social, which is, I'm going to commit a war crime. Why? Because my secretary of defense commits war crimes on the daily based upon the fact that God has now told him. And by the way, the Pope has told both of them. Oh, we're going to get to the Pope. The Pope said no to all of this. It's like, yeah, peace out, brothers. That is not how God works here. But it is amazing that the entire, the base of Maga, which likes to cloak itself, even if they're evangelical about it in these ideas of Christianity and good, that they don't, other than Tucker Carlson calling him the Antichrist. But they don't actually say, no, no, no, we don't live in this space. Because I think the evangelical, you know I talked about this before, Leah, the evangelicals gave him a pass when they thought that he was going to get rid of. reproductive rights. And then when they

delivered Roe being overturned, I was like, aren't you done? Like, what else do you need from this man? Do you really? Do you, oh, I guess you want the infidels now. Like you want the total eradication of the Middle East, I guess. I don't understand why they're not in a Christian nationalist country and army. You know, that's part of why

Hegseth is firing all the senior military officials, right, who were black or female or trans, right? I just think it's terrifying because it all seems in service of making the federal government, including the military, a Christian nationalist force. But because you introduced it, because the administration basically manages to turn everything upside down, civil rights and more, of course, they're doing this

with religion too. Because all of this religious fervor is happening in the midst of reporting about this ghoulish warmongering, the administration has directed at the Pope and the Vatican. Okay, so for listeners who might have missed this, the free press and other outlets reported that back in January, the undersecretary of defense policy summoned the Pope's then ambassador to the United States and delivered some kind of threat-laden lecture to him about how the United States has the military power to do whatever it wants and that the Catholic Church had to take aside. And then during the meeting, one of the U.S. officials invoked the so-called Avignon Papacy, which for those of you who might not know is when the French crown

used military force to coerce the bishop of Rome to do France's bidding. They literally force the Pope, the popes, multiple, to reside in France rather than Rome. And it entailed using military force against the Holy See. So part of what was striking to me about this, Katie, is that these guys actually seem to have read some history, at least selectively. Like, they don't know shit about reconstruction, but they're all boned up on the Avignon Papacy. Like, what other history might they have or not have in their back pocket? Or what did you make of this reporting? Well, they initially pulled out mine conf and they were like, oh, shit.

Wrong one. Wrong one. Let me put that back into my pocket. What's in my... You're going to make me recite the succession. So you read Mine Kampf multiple times. For what? For what? Yeah. And what's the name of your dog? It's a German shepherd? What's the name of your dog? And then I pull out, oh, yeah, the Avignon Pappacy. Let me rely on this one, right? I mean, somebody just like Melania yesterday, somebody has... has given them talking points. And that is the reason why they feel comfortable using that. But it is remarkable because you know what they didn't bone up on? How about sovereignty? How about the Vatican fucking having its own sovereignty? How about it's the Pope people? Like it's like I didn't have to

tell you about Easter Sunday and not putting out an expletive late in truth social post. But it's the Pope. And it's our first American Pope. I mean, you got to show some respect to the guy from Chicago. And guess what the bad guys in the Avignon Pappacy were? The governments attacking the Pope. But it's very much, it's very much, they look for the convenient historical precedent to bolster what they want. So when they look at, you know, France and you had, you know, the Sun King, right? And he literally lived under this premise that he was the closest thing to God on this earth. I mean, that was the the justification, among others, for his royal presence. I mean, there is a reason why, you know, whenever all of these kingdoms and these empires,

they were literally so kissing cousin adjacent to religion. And that is what we have here in the 21st century with Trump. The problem is he is such a charlatan, and it is so obvious that he doesn't believe in what it is, that that actually reduces any credibility on any of these claims that they may. under the guise of Christianity. They do seem to have a weird fetishization for like the French monarchy for being America first, you know, given this. And then also the fact that like Donald Trump is partially inspired by the palace of Versailles

and like making some aspects of like his home or whatever resorts like gold. Like anyways. Well, he's dissatisfied with America in general, right? Because he loves Victor Orban. He loves Vladimir Putin. He loves the autocracies as they live in international countries. And that's why he wants to bring them here. He's like, there's no tariff sonatocracy.

Let's bring them on in, right? Bring them on an American soil. Yeah, but this meeting was apparently so alarming that it is a reason why the Pope did not go through with plans to visit the United States last year after being personally invited to attend, you know, America's 250th anniversary. Strict scrutiny is brought to you by bookshop.org. Folks, we're big readers at strict scrutiny, and we know that where you shop for books matters. When you purchase from bookshop.org, you're supporting more than 2,500 local independent bookstores all across the country. And independent bookstores do so much more than sell books. They take care of and pour back into their communities. They create safe spaces that foster culture, curiosity,

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Note, I'm just not sure these guys need to pickle or marinate their brains even more in the right-wing ecosystem. But then that truth continued, and in a rare moment of clarity, the president closed it with, quote, the country can only withstand so many bad decisions from a court that just doesn't seem to care, end quote. Stop clocks, et cetera. So I mentioned at the top that I kind of wanted to get our list. up to speed about a bad decision that you probably haven't heard about. And so I'm going to ask you

for your take on this, Katie. And that's the Supreme Court's decision to deny certiorari that is not to hear the case of Skinner versus Louisiana. So bear with me for a bit. The summary is going to take a little. The case stems from several convictions for the murder of a Mr. Walbur. No physical evidence tied the two defendants, Mr. Weary and Mr. Skinner to the murder. Instead, their convictions relied on the testimony of two people, Sam Scott and Eric Brown. Scott had been incarcerated and he came forward. He claimed to be an eyewitness to the crime, although his statement messed up the year of the crime, how the victim was killed, and where the body was found. Statement also didn't identify either defendant until later. And the other eyewitness, Eric Brown, gave an initial

statement that also didn't mention Mr. Skinner. Okay. So at the trial, the prosecution describes Scott as a, quote, hero whose fit of conscience broke open a cold case. And they said that Brown was getting, quote, nothing in exchange for his testimony. Slight problem. State withheld the fact that Scott was able to obtain a manslaughter plea that gave him credit for time served such that he would be let out of prison after testifying. And the state didn't disclose that Brown had attempted to get a deal for his testimony and that police promised to talk to the district attorney about a sentence he was facing

and additional charges. The state withheld other evidence too, but you get the picture. Yeah. Kitty, how bad of a. Brady violation is even just that. It's like open the dictionary to Brady and C. Skinner versus Louisiana, no? I mean, it's, you know, you don't even have to, this is the miracle of this. You don't even have to be a lawyer to appreciate it, Leah, right? Just on its face, you don't even have to know the intricacies about the fourth, the fifth, the eighth, right? You don't, you don't have to worry, you don't even have to mind yourself on those amendments. You don't have to worry about the law.

black letter law, it just in your gut doesn't sit right, you know? It's information that you would think would be necessary for a jury to make a decision as to the criminal culpability of a person. And the fact that this was intentionally withheld on its face should be enough procedurally to say, this is not right. We can't move forward with this. And part of what is so appalling is that indeed it was bad enough for the Supreme Court to intervene about a decade ago. So back in 2016, in Weary v. Kane, the court summarily reversed a Louisiana decision and vacated Mr. Weary's murder conviction on the ground that the state withheld evidence that would have seriously impeached the state star witnesses. And the court said the conviction rested on the House of Cards.

But here's the thing. Mr. Skinner was convicted of the same crime as Mr. Weary, the same murder, on the basis of the same star witness's testimony. State withheld the same evidence. And in Mr. Skinner's case, the Supreme Court just says cert denied. And this is the kind of stuff the Supreme Court could have put on its docket

rather than the birthright citizenship matter. I mean, just this last week, the Washington Post ran a story saying that this court is the first since the 1950s to reject most civil rights claims involving women and minorities. And I just think people need to understand that the Supreme Court is bad, not just because of the things they do, but because of

the things they decline to do as well, like how they choose to spend their time. Yeah, and this is a great example of why elections have consequences. People often think of it more in the narrow lane of who's my senator, right, or who's my representative. I mean, and I always like to remind people that it is almost the tentacles. of this are so far reaching that with a Senate win in a man like Mitch McConnell, who ends up being the architect of the stacking of the federal bench, admittedly with the assistance and at the behest of Leonard Leo and the whole federal society energy, but you create a stacked federal bench and then you create almost like a nuclear arms race when it comes to presidential

administrations, right? Because it ends up being a race to see who can make the most appointments during their presidential term on these federal appointments, right? Because these are lifetime, and this is the other thing, these are lifetime appointments even on the district court level, the trial court level. And then, of course, you end up with like Emil Boving on the third, on the appellate court level, et cetera. But the fact of the matter that this 10 years ago,

that the countenance of the Supreme Court of the United States, 10 years ago in 2016, was materially different than what you have looked at now post-Trump term 1.0 so that you end up with identical claims, identical facts, identical issues, identical evidence that was suppressed for one man but not for another, creates such an egregious inconsistent result that, as you said, sometimes it's not what we know. It's the stuff that we don't know about. It's the stuff that's happening behind the scenes. And I'm not talking shadow docket. I'm talking these types of decisions that are being rendered that are in three words, not even, or one sentences, you know, whatever. And that has far-reaching implications as well.

And listen, I get it. It's Louisiana, which in and of itself, you know, is troubling. But I mean, how do you have them on all fours be the exact same facts, the exact same issues, and you screw over Skinner in that way? Well, you know, there you go. Yeah. I'm so glad you brought up the distinction between 2016 and 2026 because another thing our listeners might not know is that it takes four votes on the Supreme Court to hear a case. And what that means is the three Democratic appointees couldn't force. the issue today in a way they could have in 2016 before Justice Ginsburg passed away. And to think that this differential treatment might come down to that is just gutting. You know, it just defies the idea of equal justice under the law. Which is why when we find out weeks after the fact that Alito ends up going to the hospital and stuff, right? And we don't know about it in real time, I think is a sign of the fact that they're fully cognizant with Alito and Thomas being the literal elders on the court, right? The oldest people on the court. And they are two of the most conservative, if not the most conservative justice in the Supreme Court we've had.

Like the fact that Alito goes to the hospital and it's kept silent for as long as it was, I think is a tell on their part that they know that there is something going on here, which is why we should be paying attention. to these things. And it kind of gets us back to that big debate of should she or should she not have stayed, right? I mean, I hear that all the time. Should people stay? And there was a recent kind of debate of Rsonia Sotomayor. Should she, should she go? Whatever. So I mean, it's kind of interesting how we all are now. It's almost like, you know, it reminds me of like when the emperor of China, somebody looked at his poop every day to see whether I'm healthy. Well, I mean, are we going to Are they at that point now or the Supreme Court Justice? These guys, at least Alito, already make us look at his shit almost any time he writes an opinion.

So, yeah, no, you set me up for that one. But speaking of deciding whether to stay or whether to go, I wanted to note a notable retirement announcement that came out of the Court of Appeals for the A circuit. And it was this. Judge Erickson on the A circuit announced that he's taking senior status. Not notable, although choosing to give the madman threatening. nuclear war, the option to name your replacement as a choice. But the interesting thing is that Erickson was actually appointed to the A circuit by Donald Trump during his first term. So the guy's been on the A circuit bench for less than eight years. What did you make of that or think when you kind of saw this guy was like quickly, you know, stepping down? Well, he is one of several that are actually kind of running to

the exits, but not in a way that we should find reassuring. Erickson's vacancy, on the eighth will create the opportunity for Trump to appoint his sixth nominee judge to this bench. And his four prior that have been the white men that the ABA deemed to be not qualified to serve. And by the way, we should still go by the ABA qualifications, even though the DOJ and the United States Senate have decided on the Republican side not to do it. They've all been white male. There have been no women. There have no been women of color that have come from Trump. And so there have been other circuit appellate court judges that have also said, I think I'm going

to take retirement now or I'm going to go to senior status because they know that this creates another opportunity for Trump to put someone on the bench, which again, elections have consequences. If you have people that are elected to either the Oval Office and where you get a Katanji Brown Jackson courtesy of former President Joe Biden, or if you end up with a Donald Trump, were you going up with a Brett Kavanaugh, right? I mean, these are material things that impact your life. And, you know, if there's any silver lining to all this, Leah, and I think you of all people would agree, especially on this pod, if anything, the Trump terms, as horrific as they have been, have actually brought, I think, more knowledge and interest in the Supreme Court of the United States that we've ever had in the history of that court, so much so that people are understanding that, These Supreme Court justices of nine have so much power over us as Americans that we should be paying attention to our elections and who gets in positions to vote these unqualified people through in the United States Senate. Yeah. So since you mentioned unqualified, I wanted to note one other development in the Court of Appeals and that's out of the Ninth Circuit.

So a two-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit, both judges Trump appointees, including one, rated unqualified, struck down a California law that sought to. limit the amount of profits that dialysis providers could get from patients who receive assistance from non-profit charities in paying their health insurance. So the law essentially imposed, like, a rate cap, had a disclosure requirement, and whatnot. And the thinking was, like, this package of requirements would remove financial incentives to steer patients to specific health care coverage and, you know, by reimbursing dialysis clinics at Medicare rates. Katie, want to guess why these two geniuses said this statute attempting to rate cap dialysis provision was unconstitutional. I'm going to guess that it's the flavor de jour lately, which is the First Amendment.

It's so sad because that amendment has become like a punchline, like the aristocrats. I feel like we need a First Amendment for Freaks segment because this is what they're doing. They've weaponized and bastardized the first. I mean, You don't have to look very far from what? Was it a week ago that we had the conversion therapy decision from SCOTUS, right? I mean, and that was under the guise of the First Amendment as well, right? I mean, the First Amendment has now been weaponized and bastardized in a way that I find to be remarkable, especially for the Republicans to be deploying in this way.

Yeah. No points for guessing one member of the panel who, of course, was Judge Lawrence Van Dyke, the creator of the Amosexual Porn video, and the author of the opinion, that contained swinging dicks, who also managed to be the speaker at the National Federalist Society Convention about, you guessed it, the proper role for the judiciary. The jokes right themselves. So Katie, do you want to share with our listeners your favorite things over the last week? I would say that, as always, atop a poll position is always going to be my dog lucky. And the reason why is the following. It has been an incredibly trying week.

And I will say if there's one thing that always comes from spending time with my dog, it is a reminder that unconditional love does exist and two, that we should aspire to be as amazing people as our dogs think we are, which I think anybody could believe in and understand. I think the other kind of favorite thing that I had from this week is I felt like I went to this conference, Leah, in Boston. And it was around a whole much of very smart, like-minded pro-democracy people. And I left that conference understanding that we are not limited in geography in terms of our desires to make our country a better place. Like sometimes we feel like I, for example, feel like a blue dot and a red sea. But it has been kind of like a one-two punch in a good way of leaving No Kings Day 3.0 in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and going to this event in Boston. Like it reminds me that there there are these pockets that are growing of sane, very, very motivated people that understand what's at stake.

And so no snark, just genuine love, affection, and appreciation for the idea that we are here to sustain each other in all the right ways. And that is exactly how I managed to get through the insanity of this week. Well, I love that. Thank you so much for joining. As always, we truly love having you here. I'm always speechless at the end of spending time with you. I feel like I live in the minutia.

And then I spend time with you and I'm like, I really don't live in this level of money. My personality is basically in the footnotes. In the footnotes. No, listen, Caroline Products, right? Footnote 14. That's fair. If there's anything I remember, a discrete insular minority. Yeah, listen, all kidding aside, like I know it's a win when I leave feeling smarter.

and I've also got to spend time with one of my favorite people who's a fellow dog lover and a fellow Taylor Swift fan. And so I'm always grateful. Well, thank you so much again, Katie. Listeners again, please check out and subscribe to Katie's YouTube channel as well as her substack. She manages to kind of thread that needle between keeping you informed without making you insane a true gift. So coming up next, Emily Amick will join to talk the 25th Amendment and what's shouting into the voice is, does. Thanks to HomeServe for sponsoring this episode. Back in the day when I lived in California, I was a homeowner, and I have to say there are a lot of great things about California, but all

of the maintenance of home ownership was not one of them. One minute, you're sitting in your beautiful kitchen, sipping some tea, and then all of a sudden a pipe is burst, and you've got to go figure out how to fix it. You buy a whole bunch of food, you put it in your refrigerator only to find out the next morning the refrigerator doesn't work, and you've got to replace it. Folks, home repairs do not care about timing. They don't care that you have to go teach class, and they definitely don't care about your budget. Regular homeowners insurance usually doesn't cover a lot of the day-to-day wear and tear that happens in your home. Those policies don't cover plumbing failures, H-FAC breakdowns, electrical issues. Those things are paid for by you.

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Plan start at just $4.99 a month. You can go to homeserve.com to find the plan that work. for you. That's homeserv.com to find the right plan for your home. Home serve is not available everywhere. Most plans range from $4.99 a month to $11.99 a month for your first year. Terms apply on covered repairs. Before we get to my interview with Emily Amick, a point of personal privilege where I get to talk about a state race here in Michigan with pretty big national implications. So right now, there is a competitive primary in Michigan to be the Democratic candidate for Attorney General of Michigan. And at the end of last week, the Trump administration sued one of the people running

to be the Democratic candidate for Attorney General of Michigan. And that's Ellie Savitt, the current Washington County prosecutor. You scared Donald? Seriously, we know Trump targets the fighters. People challenge him, like Representative LaMonica McIver, Jim Comey, New York Attorney General, Lettisha James. Now he's targeting Ellie Savitt, who is running to be Michigan's next Attorney General. Our listeners know we've had Ellie on the show before when he talked about how he would protect LGBT rights as Michigan's next attorney general. Disclosure, he's also a law school classmate of mine. And the lawsuit against Ellie is unhinged. It's about immigration policies.

And it faults Ellie as Washinac County prosecutor, forget this, enforcing the Fourth Amendment, saying it's a problem that Washington, County requires judicial warrants for some immigration enforcement. When did it become unconstitutional to enforce the Constitution? Inquiring minds would like to know. The lawsuit also complains that Ellie isn't handing over information to ICE to help them in their Dragnet Immigration Enforcement when we have all seen what federal immigration enforcement looks like, hauling people out of cars, pepper-spraying children, zip-tine children, and shooting and killing civilians. So basically, they are also saying it is illegal to stand up for public safety. Again, we've had Ellie on the show. He's talked about protecting rights from the lingering specter of fascism. And seriously, now it makes me wonder,

Donald, you scared? And now I am delighted to be joined by Emily Amick, the Emily behind Emily in your phone, former counsel to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and the co-author of the recent New York Times bestseller, Democracy and Retrograde, the paperback version of which is coming out this month. Welcome back to the show, Emily. Hi, Lee. I'm so excited to be here. I am very excited to have you because this past week, there's been a lot of talk about the 25th Amendment, and you wrote a great piece on it. So I was hoping we could walk through what the 25th Amendment is, why it's come up, and why we should be talking about it. So I guess let's just start with the basic. So what is the 25th Amendment?

Yeah, so after JFK was assassinated, everyone was like, wait, whoopsie-doodle, what's going to happen? What's going to happen if the president is incapacitated and we don't have anyone leading the country? Maybe there should be some procedures that we should have. And the wild thing is that there were actually like assassinations and whatnot before that point. And it's like they didn't realize it then, right? Like, you know, Garfield, Grover Cleveland, and no, no, no, no, no. But it was JFK. NBD, no big deal.

We're just, it's fine. Someone, there's a man there. Someone will do it. And so they were like, let's do a thing. Let's do an amendment and set up a procedure. And the procedure is the vice president has to start this. And he has to get a group of buddies together. So he has to get either part of the cabinet or as Jamie Raskillan is now circulating

a congressionally designated group of people all get together. They send a letter to Congress being like, hey, guys, the president's in a bad way. It's not going well over here. And then the president could be like, actually I'm fine and stop it. And then the group can once again be like, no, Congress, we think our buddy is doing poorly. We really need you to do a vote on this. See the truth posts.

Right. Have you gone to? www. I don't even know what the website is. And then Congress has to vote on it and it's two-third majority. And then the vice president is the president. And so, you know, invoking the 25th Amendment

has never actually happened when Reagan had the attempted assassination. There was discussions about it. But it is, you know, my posture on this is that talking about the 25th, I'll like cut to the chance. Jace, which is my posture is that like talking about the 25th Amendment isn't really about invoking the 25th Amendment. It's about talking about it. Okay. So, so then I think you've

begun to answer the question that I wanted to ask, which is, you know, as you kind of laid out, of course, invoking the 25th Amendment requires the actions of J.D. Vance and the cabinet, which is a cabinet of loyalists and hacks. Yeah. Jay's not like going against Trump, I don't think. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Right. Neither is like Pete Kegseth. Right. Neither is, right, like all of the other weirdos in the cabinet. I mean, Todd Blanche is acting attorney general now, right? Like, that's not happening. So then, like, if the actual 25th amendment, section four of the 25th amendment, the process you laid out, is not going to materialize, like, why is talking about the 25th amendment still important? Well, and, you know, the other thing

to point out is the other available option is impeachment, right, which you have discussed. probably for hours and hours and hours of your life at this point, which again requires majority of the House, two-thirds of the Senate, a number that is unattainable, even if it could be started, which functionally it can't be, because Republicans control both chambers.

And so because a lot of people are saying, like, don't talk about the 25th, talk about impeachment. And it's like, guys, same, same. You know what I mean? Right. Yeah. Same, yeah, yeah, yeah. And to a significant degree,

Democrats have not been talking. about impeachment or 25th because they want to focus on the issues and affordability and sort of Trump's actual actions. But what the 25th allows you to talk about, impeachment requires like specific actions that are bad. And what we saw from the first two impeachments was none of that really pierced the public consciousness in a really significant way. But 25th is just like, this dude's incompetent. The dude's nutter butters. And that does pierce the public consciousness and gets to a general feeling of the zeitgeist, which is like, I don't like having this guy have a nuclear codes.

Yeah. Right. Like, he is literally threatening nuclear war. Right. And he vacillates back and forth between, oh, the straight is open, the straight is not open, charging rates, not charging rates. And that sort of erratic behavior, you would think, might cause people some concern. I mean, we spent months and endless news cycles and media cycles talking about Joe Biden's

mental acuity. So we know this is a potential topic of interest. And that's interesting that the 25th Amendment opens that door in a way that impeachment might not. Yeah. I mean, one of the things Republicans can do really well is make something like Sleepy Joe happen. Right. Whereas like the Democratic base is like, no, we want something policy. We want procedure. We want actionable things. Like we want to see reality. They won't just participate in the sort of narrative building that is the foundation for any action and any political change, right, which is one of our problems. Yeah, no. And also, like, these things are just inextricably related, right? The fact that we have a mad king, right, just starting baseless wars and causing problems is part of why the economy is going to

shit, right? And gas prices are up and all of these things are more difficult. So I guess, like, another part of me was thinking about the 25th Amendment as an almost stocking horse for the underlying issues. Like talking about the 25th Amendment is in some ways an opening to discussing all of the ways that Donald Trump just makes things in our lives worse by being a mad king. Yeah. And, you know, the other thing about 25th Amendment is it's sort of algorithmically optimized. There are certain types of conversations that work really well on social media. and it's hard to articulate what those things are. If, you know, I spend an egregious amount of time on the internet,

and I sort of have this feel for it at this point. And it is something that has legs. And there's sort of a reticence to participate in these campaigns, I think, amongst people, because they can feel that that's what it is. But it works, and which is why I sort of am like, let's lean in, let's do it, let's do it. This is a good idea. Yeah, no, that's so interesting. And I don't know if it's because it's, you know, partially a legalistic culture, if it's partially

the promise of a solution, if it's partially, as you were saying, a way of talking about Trump's unfitness. But you're right. Like, it does seem to garner a kind of attention that just saying, right, like Trump is threatening nuclear war somehow doesn't. Yeah. People love like zingers. You know what I mean? Yeah. They love terms that, I mean, again, that's why they like Sleepy Joe. You know what I mean? It somehow really gets. at the heart of the emotional resonance of an issue, less so the, like, precise nature of it. And I think for a lot of people, 25th Amendment feels, it feels validating to their preexisting belief that he's a mad king. And then it feels hopeful that there is a solution to a problem.

Yeah. And I should say, I feel like we have been trapped in this, I don't know, 18 months of news stories about how Democrats are looking for people who can help with messaging and influencers and whatnot. And I just want to point out I'm talking to one right here and that like her ideas are spelled out in democracy and retrograde. So maybe like send it to your congressional representatives and tell them, right? It's right here. Anyway, I in fact have been writing about this almost every day for eight years. Yes. And begging Democrats to invest in the influencer infrastructure for eight years. And they say, you're a middle-aged woman. Who knows? Exactly. Therefore, irrelevant. You're irrelevant. You're just going to be. You're just going to be a middle-aged woman. You're

You're just going to be the most important voting block in 2028, but who gives a fuck? Yeah. You know, the 25th Amendment kind of keeping it in the conversation also reminded me of something that happened this past week, which was Justice Sotomayor continuing to drag Brett Kavanaugh for Kavanaugh stops. So she said at a recent appearance. Yeah, I know. Quote, I had a colleague in that case who wrote, you know, these are only temporary stops.

This is from a man whose parents were professionals and probably doesn't really know any person who works by the hour, end quote. Like, it's a way of keeping something in the conversation. And, one, I love that. But then a part of me was also terrified. Like, why is she making these statements now? What did Brett Kavanaugh do this time? Did that cross your mind? What did he say to her at last week's dinner party? Supreme Court's just different party. Exactly. What did he say at conference? What crazy vote did he cast? I don't know. But I think that, you know, the other thing that this is doing, that she is doing and the 25th Amendment is doing is setting a foundation, right? So future clerks drafting a decision on that matter will see her comment and think about it, right?

Like, it affects the Overton window I like to talk about a lot. Public conversations do directly relate to policy and law. We see that in judicial decision making, right? Like, in a very literal sense and in a figurative sense, figuratively, things change. I mean, Obergefell is like the greatest example, I think, of a decision that says, like, actually, society has changed. And we are going to decide the law differently. Of course, we have now a Supreme Court conservative majority that doesn't agree that life should change. And they say, actually, let's go back to the time when most of you people had nothing, no rights.

But putting that aside. You know, I think that that is one of the things that Justice Sotomayor is doing there is saying, like, I want to make sure next time this comes up, people take note of this one very specific thing and maybe feel a little bit guilty. But I understand the absurdity of it. Right. Not that Kavanaugh would ever take a moment to think about hourly wage workers in his life. No, no.

But maybe someone else would. That would also require Kavanaugh taking a moment to think. Yeah. Also might be beyond capacity. Hard for him. Right. Speaking of scary things, though, Emily, when you joined us at a live show, we played a game with you. And I wanted to close this episode with the little game of helping us say goodbye to Rebecca Bradley.

Becky with the bad takes, soon to be the former justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Because Chris Taylor won the election, meaning there's now a five to two progressive majority on that Wisconsin Supreme Court. And I don't know. Are you up for this? I'm so excited. And I'm like so excited for Wisco. And every time, every time I hear the nihilism of the Democratic base, nothing can change. Everything is broken.

No one will ever do anything. I'm like, false. Incorrect. Like, look at what we've been doing with the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Elon has had invested millions, tens of millions of dollars. And we're still winning. You know, like you, and we're dwinding on good issues running good people. it's very, very possible if you run good races with good people.

Yeah. And on that note, I mean, the Wisconsin Supreme Court was the only court in the country that actually cast any vote in support of Donald Trump's theories in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election to try to throw out votes. They actually came within one vote, one single vote of doing so. And now that court has Wipsod, right, shifted so dramatically in favor of this progressive direction. And that is over a period of six years. So we can do hard things. And the optimistic note, Emily sounded, again, you can find a democracy and retrograde.

Yeah, you know, and democracy and retrograde, it's so in talking about these Wisconsin Supreme Court elections, I wrote that book. And one of the people who I've, you know, seen develop her investment in her community over these years, her name's Kate Duffy. And she started supporting Mandela Barnes, Senate race, doing moms. for Mandela in Wisconsin and has now gotten involved in all of these Supreme Court races, making political content on Instagram and working on the ground, organizing. And like, I have seen democracy and retrograde in action with everything that Kate is doing.

She got involved in her community on issues she cared about. She spoke out. She found community. One of my big, like, premises of the book is, like, there's actually a lot of joy to find in this work. And Kate and I are, like, really good friends now and we have a lot of joy. in everything we do together. And so I think it's the perfect example.

And she's now working, like, they're winning. And what a pleasure that is. Right. And so speaking of finding joy and finding joy and winning, let's shift to dancing on the judicial, I don't know, office grave of one Rebecca Bradley. Okay. So Emily, true or false.

In a 1992 column, Rebecca Bradley argued that under a Clinton presidency, one would be better off contracting AIDS than developing cancer, because those afflicted with the politically correct disease will get all of the funding. True or false? True. Oh, yeah, true. Although when she ran for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, she indicated that since that column,

she began a process of change in her life. She's like, I can't say these thoughts out loud. I have to keep them inside. Exactly. That was the process of change. Yeah. Okay. Next one, true or false. Rebecca Bradley once called the progressive members of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, quote, handmaidens of the Democratic Party. False. True. She did that. She did that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a work. Oh, yeah. Okay. Next one. True or false. In an opinion, Rebecca Bradley wrote, quote, D-E-I-A is a disguise for dangerous identity politics. I mean, the thing is, I wouldn't put anything past this woman, so I'll go with True. True. She did.

Yep, she did that one. Sure. Okay. Sure. What a... It's not even funny. You know what I mean? Make a good joke, girl.

Okay, well, maybe this one will be a joke, but true or false. Rebecca Bradley edited her own Wikipedia page. Ugh. True. True. She did that one too. She's a busy, busy lady. Okay. So pathetic. I know. I hate, I'm like always so happy to win, especially when it's against these freaking losers. I'm also so happy to be reminded that they truly can't handle criticism, right? Like, she edited her own Wikipedia page. She decided not to run for re-election rather than be in the minority. on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. So it has that going for it.

I mean, she's barely, she was mostly appointed. She only ran one time, right? Right, exactly. She was appointed by Scott Walker. Yep. Okay. Next one, true or false. In a single opinion, Rebecca Bradley cited Charles Love, race crazy, BLM 1619 in the

progressive racism movement, said, we live in a quote, increasingly race-obsessed society. And, and cited Ben. Shapiro, how to debate leftists and destroy them. Ugh, true. True. Single opinion. All of that and more. Think about that fact as you listen to her takes in a recent-ish interview here. As a justice, I do not share my personal beliefs about anything that is political. I'm dismayed that issues are being talked about under the guise.

of values. Did that hit for you? So hard. Every accusation is a confession. And now our own little montage to say goodbye to Becky with the bad takes. I also think the way Judge Crawford ran her race was disgusting. She slandered a good man, Judge Schimel. We saw this last time against Justice Kelly. It's really sickening. How are you feeling about working with Susan Crawford on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. I'm not looking forward to working with her. Could the court- It's okay to usurp the legislature's constitutional mandate to redistrict, but it's not okay for the court to, I'm not following your argument.

Oh, it doesn't make any set. I'd like an answer to my question, Justice, first. I think it's because the legislature was a party. Are you arguing the case? And here she is, the very beginning of the oral argument concerning Wisconsin state legislative gerrymander. Good morning and may it please the court. The Wisconsin Constitution's redistricting requirements are not optional. Council? Counsel, where were you? Where were your clients two years ago? Because we've already been through this. Redistricting happens once every 10 years.

Just frothing at the mouth to get in there. Emily, final words on Wisconsin, 25th Amendment, democracy in retrograde or anything else? I guess the thing that I have to say and the reason I wrote democracy in retrograde, which is all about the fact that like unfortunately has continued to become more true as the book has been out over the last couple years is that like it doesn't, we don't have to stay in retrograde. We can change things. And it is very, very possible.

And it just requires everyone to do something. Everyone doesn't have to do everything. It just we need to. everyone to do something. And those things can be things that bring you joy and make you happy and add, like, incredible value to your life and enrich our communities. And I very much have hope and faith that we will get there, which is a weird thing to say for someone who's been a practicing lawyer for 20 years. We are the most negative. It's like us and dentists. We're like the most negative people. But, you know, I'm friends with my dentist and my trucks.

But, but, you know, I feel confident that we are on the right side of history and we will prevail. And I just, the question is how quickly that will happen. Well, that is a terrific place to end. And actually a perfect segue to ending the episode with our favorite things. So I'll go first and share my favorite things over the last week. So one, of course, is Emily's co-written book, which is co-written, which is co-written, me sage, democracy and retrograde. Again, get the paperback version. I feel like it's the perfect thing in the lead up to the midterms to really like light the fire under your butt and whatnot.

And now that it's a paperback, there's like a personality quiz and lots of worksheet. So it's going to be really easy to fill out. And if you have someone in your life who has been struggling politically, it's the perfect gift. I like that struggling politically. It's a nice way of putting it. Also wanted to recommend a post from a friend of the show, Professor Steve Vladick over at one first. Monks' Lampost and the birthright citizenship case, which kind of talks about the role of academics and normalizing the administration's unhinged theories about birthright citizenship. Some other favorites would be the news chirons. As Melania said, she never had a relationship or friendship with Epstein or Maxwell.

Some of them were truly next level. Also, Levain Bakery, I don't even know if you, that's how you say it, but they released a seasonal carrot cake cookie. What? Yeah, I know. Public service announcement. Public service. Get on that. And last but not least,

please vote for us in the Webby Awards. Just a few days left to vote and we will include a link in the show notes. Vote for them. So Emily, how about your favorite? Okay, I have four things.

Okay. I wrote on a post-it note in preparation for this event. I love it. Number one, the book that I have called Book Club Final Boss, have you read Strangers by Bell Burden?

Yes. Yeah. I mean, everyone I know, they pick it up. They said they read it in one sitting. Yes. And then the book takes seven hours to read and then you spend seven hours talking about it with your friends. And there's so much to discuss and that makes it all the more delicious. So that is thing number one. Thing number two is it's spring, which means I get to have my favorite recipe, which is the smitten kitchen zucchini butter spaghetti. Are you a smitten kitchen fan? I love smitten kitchen and I also love zucchini squash. and making recipes with that. My partner doesn't like it, and it's so frustrating.

So your partner may like this because it doesn't taste like zucchini. I put in extra zucchini. You like caramelize the zucchini. I do recommend using a fresh pasta, like a fresh linguine. I think it really makes it taste better to have that bite. Highly recommend everyone try out that recipe. Third thing is I probably said this last time I was here because it's always on my list. I'm picking my needle point back up.

And I'm always putting it down and then being like, you know what would bring me joy? Continuing to work on this project that I've been working on for seven years. Whatever sparks joy. You know what I mean? I need a little meditative time. And the fourth and final thing is I have started to do meetups with my community, my EYP community. And we're doing one in San Francisco in a couple days. And like over 80 people have RSVPed.

And the point is, there's no point. We're just like hang out and meet and everyone's going to make new friends. But it's energizing. It's, and I think that people are really, they want IRL, you know, I am so terminally online, but we want third places. You want time to be with other people and have fun and talk about your interests. You know, I'm going to force 17 different people to talk about my needle point. That's fine.

And, and your dog or whatever. it is, you know what I mean? And I think people are really yearning for that. And that is part of the social fabric that makes us like politically potent and viable. And there's a real value to it. And there's a real value into finding like joy and happiness points in our lives, especially when the world is so hard right now. So I'm super excited. I'm going to do one in New York. I'm going to do one in Boston to get to do these things, which I haven't been doing the last couple years. And so it's bringing me incredible joy that I get to do them now. That's great. Emily, thank you so much for joining again. We always love having you. Happy to be here.

And finally, some housekeeping before we go. One, why does it seem like the Supreme Court always saves its worst decisions for June? Maybe the first gentle breezes of summer fill them with inexplicable rage. We can't say for sure. In any case, this June, the three of us of strict scrutiny are headed to New York City to break down all the cases in question and whatever horrors, the Robert court has in store for us with judicial expertise and those petty jokes at Samuel Alito's expense in equal measure. Honestly, maybe more of the second. But you can catch strict scrutiny live at the historic Gramercy Theater on June 20th as part of the Bad Decisions Tour. Tickets are on sale now. Grab them at crooked.com slash events. Also, if you've been following the latest headlines

around policing, ICE and Immigration Enforcement, the Empire City Podcast Club from Crooked Ideas is a place to fully unpack it. Each week, host Chenjerai, Kumanika, and special guests dig into the systems behind those stories, how this power was built, who it serves, and what it means for public safety right now. Every session focuses on a new theme, with space to connect the dots and ask bigger questions.

Whether you've been tracking every headline or just starting to tune in, you can be part of the conversation. We'll send a reminder before we kick things off. The next session is tomorrow. The club will send a reminder before they kick things off. The next session is tomorrow, April 14th, at 5 p.m. Pacific, 8 p.m. Eastern. Sign up at crooked ideas.org slash empire city.

Strict scrutiny is a crooked media production, hosted and executive produced by me, Leah Littman, Melissa Marie, and Kate Shaw. Our senior producer and editor is Melody Raoul. Michael Goldsmith is our producer. Jordan Thomas is our intern. Music by Eddie Cooper, production support from Katie Long and Adrian Hill. Matt DeGroote is our head of production. And thanks to our digital team, Ben Hathcote, Johanna Case, Kenny Moffitt, and Eric Schute. Our production staff, is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe to strict scrutiny in your favorite podcast app and on YouTube at Strict Scrutiny Podcast.

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