Tangle - The new report on the Supreme Court.

Starting point is 00:00:00 Oh, that coffee smells good. Can you pass me the sugar when you're finished? Whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you doing? That's salt, not sugar. Let's get you another coffee. Feeling distracted? You're not alone. Many Canadians are finding it hard to focus

Starting point is 00:00:13 with mortgage payments on their minds. If you're struggling with your payments, speak to your bank. The earlier they understand your situation, the more options and relief measures could be available to you. Learn more at canada.ca slash it pays to know. A message from the Government of Canada.

Starting point is 00:00:29 From Searchlight Pictures comes A Real Pain, one of the most moving and funny films of the year. Written and directed by Oscar-nominated Jesse Eisenberg and starring Eisenberg and Emmy Award winner Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain is a comedy about mismatched cousins who reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the pair's old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history. A Real Pain was one of the

Starting point is 00:00:54 buzziest titles at Sundance Film Festival this year, garnering rave reviews and acclaim from both critics and audiences alike. See A Real Pain only in theaters November 15th. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural

Starting point is 00:01:11 who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history,

Starting point is 00:01:21 and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, a place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Sahl, and on today's episode, we're going to be talking about the John Roberts expose that came out in the New York Times. Pretty interesting

Starting point is 00:02:07 piece sort of diving into how some of the blockbuster decisions were made during the last Supreme Court term. We're going to break down exactly what happened and what was reported and then share some opinions from the left and the right about it. Before we jump in, though, I do want to give a quick heads up that at the request of our readers this Friday, we are going to be doing a deep dive on the candidates, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, comparing them explicitly and exclusively on the issues, the economy, immigration, abortion, health, crime, the environment, guns, and foreign policy. We're going to put those positions, what they've done, and a little bit of their records side by side and let you guys just see it in plain light of day. And I guess take away whatever you want to take away from it. We're doing that this Friday as part of our Friday edition for newsletter subscribers only.

Starting point is 00:03:08 As a point about that, I also want to give you an update and let you know that we made some very good progress finally on this subscribers only podcast, which part of the deal is going to be that we're going to offer a discounted podcast subscription to anyone who is already a Tangle subscriber. So if you want something like this Friday edition and you subscribe to get those Friday newsletters, down the road, we're going to send a specific discount for the podcast subscription to people who are subscribed to the newsletter. So if all you ever do is listen to the podcast, then you don't need to worry about it. If you listen to the podcast sometimes and you read the newsletter sometimes and you're not yet subscribed to either, if you subscribe to the

Starting point is 00:03:48 newsletter, you can unlock those Friday editions and then also you'll get a discount offer on the podcast subscription down the road. So just want to give you a heads up about that. I hope to have some firm good news for you on the podcast subscriptions in the coming weeks to get rid of ads. I know a lot of people want that, and we think we finally found a platform who can provide it. So I'm excited. All right, with that out of the way, I'm going to pass it over to John for today's pod, and I'll be back for my take. Thanks, Isaac, and welcome, everybody. Here are your quick hits for today. First up, 11 people were killed and thousands were injured by simultaneous detonation of

Starting point is 00:04:31 hundreds of pagers used by Hezbollah members in Lebanon. Hezbollah claimed the incident was a coordinated Israeli attack on the group's members. On Wednesday, a second series of explosions, thought to be by walkie-talkies, occurred across Lebanon. Number two, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said on Monday that all of the reported bomb threats against residents in Springfield were hoaxes, with 33 threats investigated and many coming from overseas. Number three, House Speaker Mike Johnson is holding a vote on a stopgap funding bill today, which includes a provision requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote. Without a new funding bill, the government will shut down on October 1st.

Starting point is 00:05:11 Number four, the Democrat-led bill to establish a national right to in vitro fertilization was blocked in the Senate by Republicans. And number five, in an effort to address concerns about social media's impact on youth mental health, Instagram began introducing restricted accounts for users under the age of 18. Some of the accounts will be set to private automatically, while also encouraging more breaks from using the app. Recent Supreme Court leaks targeted Chief Justice John Roberts, prompting public criticism of his efforts to find consensus on cases involving former President Donald Trump. Roberts reportedly sent his eight colleagues a confidential memo critiquing a lower appeals

Starting point is 00:06:00 court for their handling of Trump's bid to claim presidential immunity in the 2020 election subversion indictment. The reason the Supreme Court threw out his lawsuit is because they said it implicated the president's official acts, of course, which the president has immunity in conducting those official acts. The leak reportedly showed Roberts taking great lengths to try and secure unanimity on three cases involving Trump. The courts would go on to side with the conservative opinion in all three cases, with the Trump immunity case split on ideological lines. Roberts wrote the majority opinion for all three cases. On Sunday, the New York Times released a behind-the-scenes report on Chief Justice John Roberts' role in crafting three Supreme Court decisions relating to January 6th.

Starting point is 00:06:44 In the piece, authors Jody Cantor and Adam Liptech reported on leaks from inside the court describing Roberts' actions on the blockbuster cases, which all carried significant legal and political ramifications. Trump v. Anderson, Fisher v. United States, and Trump v. United States. Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the majority opinion in each instance, took uncommon steps to guide the cases, according to Cantor and Liptec. The Times article renewed discussions about the court's neutrality and political leanings as its summer recess draws to a close. The Supreme Court's new term will begin on October 7th. In March, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Colorado cannot remove former President Trump from the ballot for his role in the events of January 6th, 2021. The ruling overturned the

Starting point is 00:07:30 Colorado Supreme Court's decision disqualifying Trump and applied to all states. The court did not take up the question of whether Trump is immune from criminal prosecution at that time. Roberts reportedly told the justices he wanted the decision to be unanimous and unsigned, consulting with each justice individually on their decision, which Cantor and Liptech called a rare step. In June, the court ruled in favor of former Pennsylvania police officer Joseph Fisher, who was charged with obstruction of an official proceeding when he entered the Capitol on January 6th. In a 6-3 ruling, the court found that the obstruction charge was misapplied to Fisher, along with about 300 other January 6th defendants, because the accused were not found to have

Starting point is 00:08:09 tampered with or destroyed evidence. Cantor and Liptech reported that Roberts changed the assigned author of the majority opinion from Justice Samuel Alito to himself, despite already being responsible for authoring several key opinions. The authors implied Roberts did so to avoid the appearance of impropriety in the court, as Alito was under scrutiny for the controversy over an upside-down flag outside of his home. Experts say there are no known precedents for a chief justice changing a majority opinion's authorship in a case without the opinion itself changing. In July, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that former President Donald Trump is entitled to immunity from federal prosecution

Starting point is 00:08:44 for his actions while in office, marking the first time the court has decided that former presidents have immunity for actions within their constitutional authority. The case sent the question of whether Trump's actions on January 6th fell under his official duties back to the lower courts, all but assuring the case would not be decided until after the election. In February, Roberts reportedly sent a memo to justices saying that lower courts poorly decided the question of Trump's immunity on January 6th, signaling that he wanted the Supreme Court to take up the immunity question and to view the separation of powers analysis differently.

Starting point is 00:09:17 According to leaked reports, conservative justices worried that they would have insufficient time to analyze the case, while liberal justices were concerned that hearing the case before the election, instead of allowing Trump to appeal, would drag the court into politics by delaying a trial. However, Roberts reportedly insisted on taking the case and drafting the opinion. Many legal experts, including one of Roberts' most prominent former clerks, would later describe Roberts' opinion in the case as disjointed and difficult to interpret. Today, we'll cover how the left and the right are reacting to the Cantor and Liptek piece, as well as Chief Justice John Roberts, and then Isaac's take. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. cousins who reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the pair's old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history.

Starting point is 00:10:29 A Real Pain was one of the buzziest titles at Sundance Film Festival this year, garnering rave reviews and acclaim from both critics and audiences alike. See A Real Pain only in theaters November 15th. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight.

Starting point is 00:11:00 Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. All right, first up, let's start with what the left is saying. The left argues Roberts' efforts to bolster the court's legitimacy have been misguided. Some say the leaks reveal Roberts is far more partisan than he seems. Others note that Roberts seems sensitive to public perception of the court's partisanship. In the New York Times, Jesse Wegman said, in the Trump era, the Supreme Court can't soar above politics. Roberts orchestrated multiple high-profile rulings last term in ways that benefited Donald Trump, at least partly by acting as though the American people would not interpret them as political, Wegman wrote. The aptitude was dangerously naive. Combined with the rulings in Trump's favor in the other two January 6th cases, it is no surprise that the Supreme Court's public approval level is hovering around its all-time low. You don't need

Starting point is 00:11:55 a law degree to understand that in a post-Bush-Vigor era, the court treads on extremely thin ice when it inserts itself into presidential politics. At the same time, Roberts gives indications of being aware of the fragility of the court's legitimacy. In one of the article's most telling details, the chief justice took charge of writing an opinion case involving January 6th rioters, one which had initially been assigned to Justice Samuel Alito, Wegman said. Still, masking the radical partisanship of the court's rightmost flank doesn't fool anyone. If Roberts wants to rebuild public confidence in the court, he could start by acknowledging the real world outside one first street. In a world as polarized as ours, you can't issue a

Starting point is 00:12:35 hugely consequential ruling that's about Trump and pretend it has nothing to do with Trump. In Slate, Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern wrote, We helped John Roberts construct his image as a centrist. We were so wrong. The biggest revelation here is that the character John Roberts plays as an affable centrist steward of the court's reputational interests, created largely in the press and played to the help by him, is a total fiction. It was Roberts who decided that Trump and Trumpism would prevail in all three insurrection cases, and he did not, in this instance, follow in the wake of the court's aggressive conservative maximalists.

Starting point is 00:13:10 He was the aggressive conservative maximalist, Lithwick and Stern said. Anyone who believed that John Roberts was a principled movement conservative, but also a never-Trumper, was wrong. Roberts moved mountains to allow Trump to evade accountability for attempting to unlawfully overturn the results of the 2020 election. The two of us bear some blame for the construction of the Chief Justice's false image as a moderate. We have long said that Roberts had a keen eye for the public mood, a sense of the fragility of the court's legitimacy, and a profound belief that his obligation to history would be to steer a course away from everything Trumpism represents, including vigilante violence and contempt for the rule of law, Lithwick and Stern wrote. The Times piece doesn't ask or answer the question of where that John Roberts has disappeared to.

Starting point is 00:13:54 Whether he was faking it then or he's faking it now is almost irrelevant anyhow. In The New Republic, Hafiz Rashid suggested the leak shows Roberts knows exactly how bad Alito is. The Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts knows that Justice Samuel Alito's antics and ideology are getting out of hand, and that's why he's taking care to protect him from the public eye, Rashid said. Roberts had initially assigned Alito to write the majority opinion in a case ruling that prosecutors overreached by charging some of the January 6th rioters with obstruction of justice in April. But in May, Roberts took over the opinion himself, only four days after revelations that an upside-down U.S. flag, a symbol of the Stop the Steal movement,

Starting point is 00:14:34 was displayed outside of Alito's home soon after the January 6th attack. It's unclear whether Roberts' decision was related to the flag incident, and none of the nine Supreme Court justices responded to the newspaper for comment. Such an unusual occurrence on the court will raise suspicions, though, Rashid wrote. Roberts' move could indicate that there are cracks in the solidarity among the Supreme Court's six conservative justices. Or it could just be the chief justice scrambling to protect the court's public image, which has taken massive hits, thanks to various ethics scandals as well as unpopular rulings. All right, that is it for what the left is saying, which brings us to what the right is saying. The right views the story as a brazen attempt to undermine confidence in the court.

Starting point is 00:15:24 Some criticize the Times for construing Roberts' actions as malicious. Others say the leaks offer surprising insight into the inner workings of the court. The Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote, John Roberts gets his turn in the progressive dock. The political attacks on the Supreme Court are escalating, and the latest is aimed squarely at Chief Justice John Roberts. It comes in a Sunday story in the New York Times fueled by leaks about internal court deliberations, the board said. It is slanted in the way that readers have come to expect from

Starting point is 00:15:52 the Times, minimizing the constitutional arguments in the cases and highlighting the political benefit to Mr. Trump. The intent is clearly to tarnish the court as political and hit the chief in particular. This is strange on its face since John Roberts is hardly some Trumpian partisan. He's openly criticized Mr. Trump for assailing judges whose rulings the former president didn't like. Everything we know about the chief suggests he would have hated to be drawn into what we have called the Trump docket, the board said. The story in the Times is part of a larger progressive political campaign to damage the credibility of the court to justify democratic legislation

Starting point is 00:16:26 that will destroy its independence. That this campaign may have picked up allies inside the court is all the more worrying. In the Washington Examiner, David Harsanyi argued, the report depicts completely innocuous behavior as corrupt. The fact that any decision might benefit Trump tells us nothing useful about the quality of

Starting point is 00:16:45 Roberts' arguments. Yet other than the couple of vague quotes from experts, the New York Times doesn't even bother exploring the legal dimensions of a single case. These days, it's virtually impossible for anyone in politics to process an event without tethering it to fortunes of Donald Trump. Thus, the notion that the former president's underlying legal arguments might be worthwhile is unfathomable at the New York Times, Harsanyi wrote. The New York Times insinuates that Roberts sought these cases out specifically to help Trump, but Roberts rejected the conservative justice's efforts to delay the decision until after the presidential election.

Starting point is 00:17:18 And he then, brace yourself for this, beseeched colleagues to avoid looking merely at the transient result of the presidential election and consider the broader and profound consequences for the separation of powers for the future of our republic, Harsanyi said. What one really takes away from this latest hit piece is that the chief justice's greatest transgression is disagreeing with Sonia Sotomayor, which typically puts one firmly on the side of the Constitution. In reason, Josh Blackman suggested, the Trump leaks are far worse than the Dobbs leak. In Dobbs, one or more people exfiltrated a draft opinion

Starting point is 00:17:52 from inside the court, and somehow that opinion made its way to Politico. It was devastating for the draft decision to become public, and it nearly led to the assassination of Justice Kavanaugh. But the aftermath of the leak was swift and overwhelming, Blackmun said. But the Trump leaks are systematic and thorough. We have insights of confidential memoranda, detailed conversations at conferences, KBJ's changed vote, Justice Alito losing the Fisher majority, and information about how many Roberts clerks were working on the case. This tapestry would require insights from so many different people. Justice Elena Kagan is absent from the reporting. There's absolutely nothing about what she thought or did during these deliberations. There are insights into all the other eight justices, but nothing on Kagan. I think it's

Starting point is 00:18:34 likely that Kagan, or at least Kagan surrogates, are behind these leaks. If Kagan is willing to publicly undermine her colleagues in a speech in the Ninth Circuit, why would she do any less off the record, Blackman wrote. I'm still flummoxed about how Fisher was simply taken away from Justice Alito. Barely two years ago, he was on top of the world, holding together a five-member bloc in Dobbs. Now, he had only four majority opinions and lost three. All right, let's head over to Isaac for his take. All right, that is it for what the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. So I want to start with just a little bit of media commentary here because, you know, I have this knowledge.

Starting point is 00:19:24 I might as well use it. I've followed Adam Liptak's reporting for years, and throughout his career, I found him to offer up some really sharp insights on court rulings, thoroughly report out investigative pieces, and generally speaking, just keep his head about him. When I think of a few dozen of the most prominent reporters in the media, which Adam is one of them, I can usually think of at least one big mistake or controversy they have been enmeshed in. For Liptack, though, it's zero. He co-wrote this piece with Jody Cantor, whose work I know less well, but Liptack's record is as good as it gets, and he has owned this beat for years. Therefore, I'm inclined to believe that this piece, despite coming from a decidedly liberal institution like the New York Times, is well-reported and careful, which makes the main story pretty stunning.

Starting point is 00:20:10 A lot of people panicked when the Dobbs decision was leaked to the press, but the breadth of this reporting seems far more serious to me. It includes insights into the most sensitive and specific parts of the court's decision-making process, which means Liptack and Cantor have completely penetrated what is supposed to be an impenetrable space. While I certainly appreciate these leaks as a journalist regularly trying to understand the court, it is not a good sign for the court itself. Still, while I find this reporting trustworthy, I also believe two things about this piece. One, most of it feels like making a mountain out of a molehill, and two, one specific part of the reporting seems far more significant and frightening to me than anything else. To the first point, I think much of this piece covers what could be perfectly

Starting point is 00:20:55 innocuous happenings with a rather grave tone. Take Trump v. Anderson, the case where Trump was kept on the Colorado ballot. I don't have a law degree, but I predicted the outcome of the case where Trump was kept on the Colorado ballot. I don't have a law degree, but I predicted the outcome of the case before it was heard, because the outcome was rather obvious. All this story does is inform us that Roberts consulted each justice individually on the case, which seems like him doing his job, even if he doesn't do it for every case. And then he pushed for an unsigned opinion, which doesn't seem like a big deal when the ruling was unanimous. In Fisher v. United States, Liptack and Cantor reveal that the author of the majority opinion was changed from Alito to Roberts four days after the flag controversy broke. We don't know why it changed, but the authors link it to that controversy. Yes, this is unusual. Yes, it raises questions,

Starting point is 00:21:40 but I don't really see the problem. It was still a 6-3 ruling with Justice Jackson joining the conservatives and Justice Barrett joining the liberals, and the case going back to the lower courts. Roberts gave the complicated and unprecedented case a complicated and nuanced ruling, and one that I agreed with, by the way, though it's the only case here we didn't cover. As with the Colorado case, Roberts essentially just did something uncommon but innocuous. What did worry me, though, grievously, was the reporting on how Roberts handled Trump's immunity case. What we learned from this reporting is that the conservative justices on the court, including Gorsuch and Thomas, wanted more time to properly analyze the case, while the liberal justices persuasively argued that they could hold off until the fall,

Starting point is 00:22:24 be properly prepared, and let the case play out on its own before stepping in. After all, it could have fallen apart, Trump could have been found innocent, or he could have been convicted and appealed the verdict. Instead, Roberts expedited the case, insisting it be heard in the spring term. He took the lead, despite being overextended on a blockbuster term already. He believed he could write a grand opinion for the ages that would exist above the political fray, which, you know, how naive can you get? And then he fumbled the ball.

Starting point is 00:22:52 He wrote a poorly written, disjointed, hard-to-interpret opinion on arguably the most important case before the court last spring, and as I've argued previously many times, the court got it completely wrong. It unnecessarily expanded a presidential power that is already too far-reaching. This part of the story reeks of someone more worried about their own legacy than the law, more interested in the court inserting itself than playing passive referee, which is its job. And crucially, it's the strongest evidence we have that Roberts thumbed the scale in a way that helped Trump,

Starting point is 00:23:28 even above the objections from the court's most conservative and liberal justices, who pushed back for different reasons that all had merit on their own. However, I don't think Roberts was motivated explicitly by wanting to help Trump. Instead, that outcome seemed like a consequence of Roberts' motivations. Quotes from the court's conservatives show they seemed determined not to weigh in on the details concerning Trump. I'm not discussing the particular facts of this case, Justice Alito said, and we're writing a rule for the ages, Justice Gortzik said. But when you consider that Roberts pushed the court's conservatives by taking up this case and then insisted on penning an inscrutable opinion to represent their position, you get a worrisome picture of the chief justice. To me, that picture, of a Chief Justice unwilling to listen to his colleagues,

Starting point is 00:24:09 singularly concerned with the court's legacy, and so overwhelmed he penned an opinion even his most well-known clerk would then criticize as poorly written, that picture worries me a great deal. All of this will further harm the court's already tattered reputation and raise even more suspicion among liberals that the court has been corrupted by the very politics Robert says he is trying to avoid. It will, in a very real sense, further erode whatever trust is left in an institution that survives only on the people's belief in it. We'll be right back after this quick break. Emmy Award winner Kieran Culkin. A Real Pain is a comedy about mismatched cousins who reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother.

Starting point is 00:25:08 The adventure takes a turn when the pair's old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history. A Real Pain was one of the buzziest titles at Sundance Film Festival this year, garnering rave reviews and acclaim from both critics and audiences alike. See A Real Pain only in theaters November 15th. Whether renting,

Starting point is 00:25:26 renewing a mortgage, or considering buying a home, everybody has housing costs on their minds. For free tools and resources to help you manage your home finances, visit Canada.ca slash It Pays to Know. A message from the Government of Canada. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. All right, that is it for my take,

Starting point is 00:26:13 which brings us to today's reader question. This one is from Steve in Walton, Massachusetts. Steve said, I'm wondering, now that colleges are back in session, are you going to cover what students are doing and saying on American campuses about the war in Gaza? Do you think any of the student protests on both sides will affect the presidential election? Okay, so I can answer the first question pretty quickly, I think. We'll cover the protests again this fall if they become a major story. That being said, current protests are much more

Starting point is 00:26:39 constrained than they had been in the spring, and you can probably expect that to continue. That's just part of the rhythm of campus life. However, if the war changes meaningfully and the campus protests become a significant story again, then our answer might change. Any ceasefire or long-term peace or, God forbid, escalation in violence or spillover of ground forces into the West Bank will be a story in the United States, and campuses will likely be at the center of the response. will be a story in the United States, and campuses will likely be at the center of the response. Will protests affect the presidential election? Maybe. As we wrote recently in our Friday piece about polling and election frameworks, both campaigns are going to be fighting to make their preferred one or two big issues the story for the election. I think those stories are going

Starting point is 00:27:19 to be either abortion or the economy or immigration or January 6th. And in that way, I don't think student protests or even Israel-Gaza are going to be big deciding factors. However, I can definitely see a world where one of the candidates makes a statement about protests that moves the needle just enough to motivate young voters in swing states like Pennsylvania or North Carolina to tip the scales. I don't think that's the most likely scenario, but it's definitely possible, and I cannot rule it out. All right, that is it for today's reader question. I'm going to send it back to John for the rest of the pod, and I'll see you guys tomorrow. Thanks, Isaac. Here's your Under the Radar story for today, folks. Rupert Murdoch, the media mogul who owns The Wall Street Journal, The Times of London,

Starting point is 00:28:04 and Fox News, is embroiled in a family drama with huge implications for the future of U.S. news. This month, a probate commissioner in Nevada will hear arguments in a case about whether Murdoch, 93, can change the terms of a trust that evenly splits the voting shares he holds in his companies among his five children after his death. holds in his companies among his five children after his death. Murdoch is seeking to amend the trust to consolidate power with his son Loughlin, who broadly shares his father's conservative views. If Rupert Murdoch succeeds, Loughlin would likely maintain Fox News as a firmly conservative outlet. A ruling against the elder Murdoch, however, would grant his other children power to pool their voting shares to force a change in direction. Vox has an explainer on this case, and there's a change in direction. Vox has an explainer on this case, and there's a link in today's episode description.

Starting point is 00:28:52 All right, next up is our numbers section. The year John Roberts was confirmed to the Supreme Court is 2005. Roberts' age when he was confirmed was 50, making him the youngest chief justice since John Marshall in 1801. The percentage of Americans who supported Roberts' confirmation to the Supreme Court in September 2005 was 60%, according to Gallup. Roberts' net approval rating in 2010 was 21%. Roberts' net approval rating in 2023 is 2%. The Supreme Court's net approval rating in September 2005 was 20%.

Starting point is 00:29:25 The Supreme Court's net disapproval rating in July 2024 was minus 9 percent. The percentage of Americans who said they had trust and confidence in the Supreme Court in September 2005 was 68 percent. And the percentage of Americans who said they had trust and confidence in the Supreme Court in September 2023 is 49%. All right, and last but not least, our have a nice day story. An estimated 28.8 million adults in the US could benefit from using hearing aids, while only 30% of adults over 70 have ever used a hearing aid,

Starting point is 00:30:00 according to data from the National Health Interview Survey. However, they could be getting an unlikely assist from Apple's AirPods Pro 2. According to Apple, the new AirPods will use the product's in-ear seal and noise cancellation technology to conduct a clinical-grade hearing test. Furthermore, users will be able to use an enhanced audio feature to set up the AirPods 2 as hearing aids. The Hill has this story, and there's a link in today's episode description. All right, everybody, that's it for today's episode.

Starting point is 00:30:33 As always, if you'd like to support our work, please go to retangle.com and sign up for a membership. We'll be right back here tomorrow. For Isaac and the rest of the crew, this is John Maul signing off. Have a great day, y'all. Peace. For Isaac and the rest of the crew, this is John Wall signing off. Have a great day, y'all. Peace.

Starting point is 00:30:55 Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited and engineered by John Wall. The script is edited by our managing editor, Ari Weitzman, Will Kedak, Bailey Saul, and Sean Brady. The logo for our podcast was designed by Magdalena Bokova, who is also our social media manager. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. And if you're looking for more from Tangle, please go to readtangle.com and check out our website.

Tangle - The new report on the Supreme Court.

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