The Daily Beast Podcast - Nancy Pelosi Is Gonna Need to Do Better than a Poem

Episode Date: June 28, 2022

In this episode of The New Abnormal, Leah Litman, an assistant professor at Michigan law school, breaks down one of AOC post-Roe ideas and co-host Andy Levy tears into Nancy Pelosi and her poem. Plus, Robin Marty, director of operations for West Alabama Women’s Center, tells co-host Molly Jong-Fast what she’s already seeing in her state, including reports that hospitals are already refusing to treat women whose lives are in danger, and are bleeding out, because they admitted they had an abortion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Molly Zhang Fast, no relationship to Kim Jong-un. I'm a left-wing pundant and a writer at the Atlantic Invo. And I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy and current cable news conscientious objector. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart, conversations with the wisest and funniest and funniest people in science and media and politics that help make what's happening today clearer. Our world has been turned upside down, and on the new abnormal, we'll talk about the people who got us into this mess and how we'll hopefully get ourselves out of it. Well, I can't say we have a great show today, but it's an important one. First, we're going to talk to Robin Marty, who's of course the author for The New Handbook for a Post-Roe America, and his operations director at the West Alabama Women's Center. And she's going to talk to us about what she's seeing in a post-row America.

Then we're going to talk to Leah Littman, who's an assistant professor at Michigan. Law School, as well as the co-host of the strict scrutiny podcast. And she's going to also talk to us about what she sees in a post-row America. But first, let's have some fun. Andy Levy, I am having what is called Ro rage. That's a very good phrase, Molly Jongfest. Thank you. I have a rage that is incandescent.

I am so angry that people in my life are telling me I have to log off. So I dare you to choose your words carefully with me today. Before we could start, can I ask, are the kids telling you to touch grass? All I can say to you is that fucking Alito and fucking Clarence Thomas and Amy Comey Handmaiden Barrett and Gorsuch and God damn justice Kegst and Kegst and Kavanaugh really did it this weekend after. You know, Thursday, they took away New York's right to regulate guns. And on Friday, they said they don't believe in state's rights anymore. Well, they said they'll kick it back to the states. And then about 10 minutes later, Mike Pence was like, so we can ban it everywhere.

Yeah. I am just in an absolute rage. And all weekend, I saw people who were equally in an absolute rage. And then I turned on the television and read the news and all I found were people telling me not to worry about same-sex marriage. and we were going to be fine. I don't feel like we're going to be fine, Andy. No. First of all, I will never tell you to log off, Molly, just so you know.

Well, that's good, because it's real waste of energy, let me tell you. I will never log off. You will never log off. I know that, and I would not ever tell you to. Yeah, I mean, I would say I'm right there with you on the rage thing, except I'm a, you know, straight white presenting cis male. So probably I'm not right there with you, but I'm still pretty fucking pissed off. The people who are now saying, calm down, this isn't going to have anything to do with Griswold or loving.

They need to log off like forever. Yeah, it's true. Because they were the same people who were saying that this would never happen. And look, I'll be honest, I don't know that I ever said this will never happen. But I guess I always thought that the court would just sort of do what they've been doing, chip away at Roe until it became functionally meaningless. Yeah, that's what I thought. Because they've been doing that for a long time.

That's the Roberts way, right? Right, exactly. But what they did here, which I think is so interesting, is that they said, you know, there are five of us. They're really six of them, but there are five of us, and there are three of you and go fuck yourself. And so it's been a blockbuster week of, you know, the gun case, this Dobbs opinion, and then there's still an opinion

coming down, which they decided not to release today, surprisingly, where they got the EPA. And that's coming. So I think that to say they're impatient does not fully—I mean, this is Amy Comey Barrett's first season on the bench, and she's already overturned row. So it's fair to say that these fuckers were lying about stare decisis. Even Susan Collins knows that now. So the fact that these people are now out there and you had a good old David— Leonhardt on Monday in the New York Times writing about how we shouldn't worry about the other

cases and right to privacy and stuff like that. And it's just like, at what point do you fucking learn that these people have told you who they are? Believe them. I don't get it. They've been telling you for decades who they are and what they want. They've been, to be fair, not so much to the justices who, you know, pretty much lied or legalized at the very released their, you know, with legal weasel words, their way through their confirmation hearings when it came to Roe and stuff like that. But Republicans in general have been very upfront about wanting to get rid of Roe. Yeah. And we're now seeing them, a whole bunch of them, up to and including Clarence Thomas, being very upfront about what they want to get rid of next. And it's Griswold,

it's birth control. You know, it's same-sex marriage. We heard from a couple of people before they were told to be quiet because you don't want to let all the cats out of the bag. Right. The idea that anyone could think at this point that this is where it ends is, is absurd. And they should not have their jobs if their job is to prognosticate what's coming in the future because you can't be awake and think that. And you know what the joke is is that there are a lot of mainstream outlets where people are saying this very thing, where they're saying.

I have comfort in the fact that only Thomas said he wanted to overturn. He wanted to get rid of same-sex marriage. But I think what's more important is like there's been a weekend of women and men on the streets protesting from all the other wealthy countries from many, many, many countries saying that this is absolutely absurd. I mean, you had Boris Johnson, not a Democrat, you know, you had. I mean, just pretty much everybody's, you know, saying that America has. And I think what's important about this decision is not what comes next, but really what it is. Like taking away bodily autonomy for 51% of the country after they've had that right for 49 years is proof that this Supreme Court is emboldened in a way that we don't even really begin to know. And I think you're going to see, I don't think.

I mean, I think what's good about it is they gave up the game. And I think it's going to be, it's really hard to say that these people are, you know, they're nothing but partisans. I think it'll be interesting. This weekend, Biden said that he does not agree was packing the courts, which I thought was like a kind of, in my mind, I think you should meet voters where they are where they are and we are enraged. So what I thought was interesting was Elizabeth Warren had a lot of ideas, including it. There were a lot of people who had a lot of ideas who were elected Democrats and who were not the people singing on the steps. So AOC, you know, had this idea that they should open abortion clinics on federal lands. We want Democrats to meet us where we are and we are enraged.

I want my electeds to be as enraged as my daughter. I want them to give a shit. And if they don't give a shit, I don't know why they're in office. A hundred percent agree. But unfortunately, not only are they. in office, they are the leaders of the Democratic Party. I agree with you about Elizabeth Warren, agree with you about AOC, but the Speaker of the House read a poem. That was her big thing and sent out an email asking for money. A hundred fundraising emails, yeah. Yeah, they are not in the

least bit up for this moment. Biden was sort of elected as sort of a caretaker president, like a return to normalcy. Like, and guess what? It turns out that's not what we need right now because there is no return to normalcy. Because why? Because we're in the new abnormal, Molly, a phrase I just made up. Yeah, exactly. I'm sorry, he's not up to this. And I think he's a decent man, at least at this stage of his life, this is not what he is built for.

He is not built for this fight. Maybe I'm wrong. But nothing he's done certainly since Friday contradicts what I just said. and nothing he's called for and nothing Nancy Pelosi has done and nothing Chuck Schumer has done. There's a reason you had to mention AOC and Elizabeth Warren and people like that. And, you know, the other members of the squad who are out there calling to expand the court or, you know, as you said, AOC brought up the idea of abortion clinics on federal land. I honestly have no idea if that's even feasible. But at this point.

But who cares? Like, try. Exactly. I'm happy that there are people who are not just. shrugging their shoulders, reading a poem and saying, give us more money. Yeah. I mean, they know the Democrats are not going to have a super majority in the Senate come November. I mean, they'll be lucky if they have majorities in either house.

But even if they do, they're not going to have a super majority. They're not going to be filibuster proof. So stop telling us that the solution to this is to vote because we all did that in 2020 and y'all are there now because we did that. So you don't get to say that again. I'm sorry. We did our job. The job that you are telling us to do, we did it.

And it's your turn to do your fucking job. And I would like to see one of them in the leadership position actually recognize that and admit it. Well, and I also feel like it's pretty clear. Like we should not have Diane Feinstein in the Senate. We're the good guys. So we'd fuck up. You know, it's enough. Like, I'm really so sick of it.

And like, I don't want to be entertained. I want to feel like my electeds are fighting for me. And we're really not feeling that. No, not even remotely. And I mean, I'm sorry. Nancy Pelosi also out there saying we need to get rid of every, and she chose her words very carefully. She said, we need to get rid of every pro-life Republican.

Because she had to say Republican because. Right, because they're... How many weeks ago was it when she was out there stumping for Henry Quayar? In Texas, who was a pro-life Democrat against a pro-choice primary opponent. Did he win, by the way? He did. She conceded. You know, you can't get out there and say, we have to get all these pro-life Republicans out

when you were just stumping for a pro-life Democrat. There is zero leadership on this. As you said, it's infuriating. The good news is people are letting them know they're furious, but the bad news is, I don't know what good it does. And I'm all for people going out there and marching and assembling. and having rallies and all that good stuff. But when it comes right down to it,

you've got a Supreme Court majority that doesn't give a shit about that. It's not going to change their votes. And you've got the leadership of the party that's supposed to care about that, not doing anything and not even coming up with any ideas. And I said this the other day. Like, we still don't know who leaked the draft decision

to overturn Roe. But the people who think it's someone on the left, Like if their goal was to give the Democrats time to come up with the strategy, what a waste of fucking time that was. Yeah. Like they had a heads up on this. They can't even say that, well, we have to read the decision and we weren't, you know, we never thought they would do this.

You've known for months that this was going to happen. And the best you can do is read a poem and send out fun telling, send out emails telling us to give you more money to what? To read poems that aren't, that are still copyrighted? Yeah. I think that what's important is what I'd like to say. as doctors continue to perform abortions. They're very safe. The pills are very safe. And obviously, the law is this crazy religious law. So let's go. I hope people continue to perform abortions.

I hope that we as citizens continue to aid and abet them. And there's no reason why we should follow this law because it's an illegitimate law passed by an illegitimate court filled with religious zealots. So in my mind, the only just the only dis the only. patriotic thing is to continue helping women get abortions. And, you know, we're going to need people to run and we're going to have to primary some of these Democrats who don't take it seriously, and the leadership is going to have to change. And we're going to have to do everything we can to make sure that this doesn't happen again and that we're not caught like this again. Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more on every point you made. But that said, it's a big ask

to ask doctors in states that even as we speak, have criminalized or are criminalizing abortion. It's a lot to ask. Kudos to any of them that do it and incredible bravery. But it is asking a lot. Look, it's asking a lot of women who could be risking jail time or whatever to go in and have an abortion. I mean, it's asking what shouldn't be asked. Right.

So another thing that happened today, continuing the Supreme Court streak of, I think we should call them like the religious Supreme Court. The Supreme Court streak of like kind of, I want to say like 18th century Puritan stuff, is that today they basically decided that church and state pretty much the same. Yeah, today we had a decision that just I am utterly baffled by for one reason. Not because the court wants there to be prayer back in schools. That doesn't baffle me. That goes along with the religious zealots thing you brought up. This was a ruling about a coach, about a football coach.

He was having prayers on the 50-yard line after the game. There are pictures of this, of the team gathered around him in prayer. And the idea is you can't do that because the kids feel pressured to join in on this. And you can't force religion on people in that manner. Speak for yourself. In America, that's what we do now. Okay, that would be bad enough. But what we've got is actually Neil Gorsuch, who wrote the opinion, getting the facts,

wrong and misrepresenting the facts. And to the point where he said, the name of the coach is Kennedy, he said, Mr. Kennedy prayed during a period when school employees were free to speak with a friend, call for a reservation at a restaurant, check email, or attend to other personal matters. He offered his prayers quietly while his students were otherwise occupied. That's just not true. That is 100% not true. Really? I'm shocked. And the dissent of to Meyer pointed that out in her dissent. She put a picture in her dissent, I believe, of Kennedy's standing and he's in a, he's got, the entire team is kneeling around him. It is clearly a prayerful moment. So I was good friends with Neil Gorsuch in college. He was a lot of things. He was not a liar. And now he's just lying.

Well, I think he's a liar now. I think we can agree. Yes. Again, it's one thing to have the wrong view on something, but to lie about the facts in a Supreme Court, decision? Like, that's, I don't know. I mean, you know, luckily there's no punishment for that because it's a lifetime appointment. Yeah, luckily, yes. They'll just, I just hope that he has fun with the lying, you know? I guess. Anyone who thinks that a high school coach does not have some kind, a ton of power over his players has not only never played high school sports, they've never seen a movie about high school sports or anything. To think that this is okay and to think that the, the players wouldn't feel coerced is just, it's insanity.

Your brain is broken on this if you think that that's the case. It's just nuts. Speak for yourself, man. As someone who knows a lot about high school sports, no, I'm just kidding. No, listen, this Supreme Court is out of control, and I'm sure we're going to see more of this kind of thing in the coming weeks, months, years, but it has certainly been an insane couple days, and losing your rights really.

feels awful. Robin Marty is the author of the new handbook for a post-row America, as well as operations director at the West Alabama Women's Center. Welcome back to the new abnormal Robin. Thank you so much for having me again, Molly. So you're amazing. You wrote incredible pieces of the New York Times this weekend. You wrote a book, Handbook for Post-Rove America. How did you know you're like a psychic, right? I am not psychic at all. All you have to do is think to yourself, are there men in power and do they feel threatened? And obviously, ever since basically women were able to start working in the workplace and have birth control and have their own credit cards, white men have been threatened. So this was inevitable. Getting to this this fast,

I thought we had another year, maybe two years, but this is inevitable. Yeah. Yeah, that's what. I mean, I think if Roberts had had his way, this would have been. two or three years in the making and not. Oh, for sure. This is Amy Comey-Barrant entirely because had we still had that seat, had Ruth Bader Ginsburg still been there, we would be looking at every state could ban abortion after the first trimester, but we would have still had at least two, three years for a full case to make it up to overturn Roe. Or I shouldn't say overturn Roe to give this back to the states and give them complete control.

because Roe was overturned in Texas stuff. Right. And also the state's rights thing is bullshit because immediately Pence was like states rights except we're going to ban it. Well, not to mention the fact that what was it the day before they had just struck down a state ban in New York on guns. So that's the thing with this court is they're willing to come up with anything that they want to justify because they don't need to follow precedents anymore. They don't need to follow any sort of rules. And that's what terrifies me right now. It's not that abortion is illegal in my state.

It's that there is now a precedent that inherently says that there is no rule of law. So things that I can read a bill and I can say, okay, it looks like it's okay for me to tell somebody, all right, we can't give you an abortion, but you can go to this clinic that's in another state that has legal abortion. But then I'm getting pressure back from people who say, actually, we can't guarantee that the AG won't come after you for that. Explain that a little more. I don't know if it's because of the whole Texas aid and abet thing. None of these laws, these trigger laws that are going to infect right now, have anything in there that has something in the realm that Texas and Oklahoma have

about the idea that you are in trouble for helping somebody get an abortion out of state. But there's apparently criminal conspiracy in a lot of them. I'm not a lawyer, obviously. But as I would understand a criminal conspiracy, a criminal conspiracy is, helping somebody go do something that's illegal. And going to another state to get an abortion, at this point, is not illegal. So clearly I, as a person, can help somebody leave the state to go get an abortion. And you're in what state? Oh, because we're in Alabama and we had a hundred patients that are now displaced that had to be sent to Georgia. Until Georgia overturned.

Until Georgia is gone. They probably have at least a month, if not two months. And that's enough to get my patients through. But what about the next batch? What about the next batch? What about the ones after that. We've already lost nine states just since this ruling came down. We've lost nine states in three days. Yeah, I don't even know time anymore at this point. I just know that they are falling one by one by one and they're almost all right here. So they're all of the states that were already overfilled with appointments because there were so few clinics and then overfilled with even more appointments because we knew that they were about to close. And so So the biggest irony in my opinion right now is the fact that we just lost abortion in probably eventually half of the country over a case called Dobbs v. Jackson.

And the clinic that is in Dobbs v. Jackson is actually, I think, the only clinic that can perform abortions in the South right now. Wow. Because they still have, they had 10 days from their trigger, whereas the rest of us were all immediate. Let's fast forward and say you have a woman who wants to have an abortion. in Alabama in three months. How could she do that? There is no way to have a legal abortion in Alabama in three months. There's no way to have a legal abortion in Alabama tomorrow.

But where can she go? What will be the closest? They could go to Atlanta, Georgia. So that's about three and a half hours from where our clinic is. And when you consider the fact that we had patients coming all the way in from Texas, that's 15 hours that they're going. But there are other options to go to Florida. but Florida is about to lose second trimester abortion on Friday

because that's when their 15-week ban goes into effect and there's a very strong possibility that when that ban goes into effect that during the court process over it, because there has already been a challenge to it, the state of Florida is going to lose its entire right to abortion as well and they're going to lose abortion completely. So when that happens and when Georgia's six-week ban is finally allowed to go into effect,

We're looking at North Carolina. We're looking at Southern Illinois, Colorado. Those are the options. When you talk to these women, what do you say? They're devastated. They're still calling, asking if they can have abortions. We spent today dealing with those who had appointments this week and either did not get the message that their appointment had been canceled because Roe was overturned or simply decided to call or come in anyway because sure. because they already had a first appointment that didn't apply to them or surely there was some way that we can make an exception for it. Right. And I mean, if my doctor does an abortion, that's 99 years in jail. That's a felony. That's the end of her license. That's the end of her career.

That's the end of her freedom. We can't do that. There's nothing that we can do. Our hands are completely tied. And it's the most helpless, awful feeling. It's just inconceivable to me. Now, the thing that a lot of us felt would be the same. grace here is that abortion is a lot safer than it was 49 years ago. Abortion is very, very safe,

especially medication abortion. Right. The more I've been talking to people, the more I realize we're still looking at a health crisis and we're still looking at a huge amount of death. It's just the difference is the people who are going to have abortions honestly will probably be the lucky ones. They can find medication, which they can get at 8access.org if they live in one of these many states that have abortion bans, that's completely safe medicine. And if they can figure out the right ways to both take it and then talk to someone if they do have a complication, which is really rare and probably won't happen, like these are the lucky people. What I am more worried about now are the people who are going to just stay pregnant because in Alabama, almost 50% of all pregnancies are

unplanned. Wow. And that means that once you eliminate abortion, you are forcing people into pregnancies that they are not healthy enough to carry, that they are, it's too close to their last pregnancy. You're talking about people who had nearly died in childbirth the last time. These are going to be unhealthy pregnancies for the fetus and for the person that's carrying it. And so when we start talking about dangerous post-row world, I'm talking about the people who are giving birth because our maternal mortality rate is going to skyrocket. And it's already quite high. And for women of color, it's three times what it is for white women.

We're the only developed nation that has a maternal mortality rate that's going up. Yeah. And it's going to go way up now. I wanted to touch base with you about the abortion pills, which are very, very safe and make up about half of all abortions. The FDA could make those. I mean, what do we want the FDA to do? do with the abortion pills? I mean, what would be the way to make them the most available?

If the FDA first removed the REM's protocol, which is the protocol that says that you can only get it from a certain doctor, that it can only be used in the first nine weeks, because we actually do know that medication abortion can be used later than that. If they got rid of those protocols and if they continued using the rule that says that a person does not have to see a doctor face-to-face in order to get this medication, that would be. be very helpful, but again, that's a thing that's going to be only very helpful for the states that already allow medication abortion access. And most of the states that are banning abortion will not do that. Alabama is not going to allow somebody to mail medication into this state. The only way that I could even conceivably see that the FDA could do anything that would allow medication abortion here in Alabama is maybe if they managed to make it over the counter and that's never going to happen. I just can't see that happening.

And even if they did, like every, every store would refuse to sell it and stock it or let a person actually pay for it. Because, I mean, we saw today, conscious rights of religious people matter more than any other right in the entire United States. So we are, we're at an impasse where I don't know how to fix it or what to do. I think from a federal standpoint, the best thing that we can hope for right now is that we can get some sort of federal rule, maybe an executive, order, Department of Justice order that states that no state is allowed to investigate somebody who has a bad pregnancy outcome. The right keeps swearing, and even in our bill right now in Alabama, that they are not going to criminalize the person who terminates their pregnancy. If they truly believe that, they need to pass a bill that says that they will not investigate

somebody who comes into a hospital with pregnancy bleeding because we're not just talking about people who are managing their own abortion. We're talking about all of the people, especially in the South, where there's no Medicaid expansion, who are going to have unhealthy pregnancies and risk miscarriage. That's really what it is. And I also think this weekend we saw a lot of media coverage that said that these people, they're so emboldened, you know, that they're going to take care of these hundreds of thousands. No one's going to take care of anything. No, I mean, just we were in today at the clinic and we had a person call us because they had called next door at the crisis pregnancy center next door to ask for a free pregnancy test. And the crisis pregnancy center said that they no

longer had appointments. They were too full, they said, which is not true based on their life. Explain to our listeners what a crisis pregnancy just in case they don't know. A crisis pregnancy center is a usually religiously affiliated business that pretends to be a health care center and so often puts itself next door to abortion clinics and offers free pregnancy tests, free ultrasounds. But really, it's a chance to bring people in in order to dissuade them from having abortions. Often when they think that they are actually in an abortion clinic and then hold people longer, we have patients all the time who get stuck over there and get prayed over, quite literally prayed over, and almost miss their appointments with us. But apparently now they are not

going to be seen as many patients. And they actually referred that patient to us to get a free pregnancy test. Amazing. Because I guess now that we can't do abortion, they figure their work is done. Yeah. No, they don't care. And I think that's a really important data point. Do you think that these people, I mean, do you think they understand what they've gotten? No, they don't have the slightest idea. They won't realize until one of their people, their kids, their grandchildren tries to go get an abortion, and they realize how far they have to travel to go get one. When they want an abortion, then they'll realize it because they've always had abortions. We could not exist in a state like Alabama if there were not conservative religious people having abortions every single day. But they think that somehow they're still going to get it and they're just stopping the bad abortions.

and they're not stopping anything. They are just doing people to bad health outcomes, and it scares me every second. There's one last thing I want to talk to you about, which is a scenario I feel like is really very likely. A woman comes into the hospital in Alabama. She's bleeding. She's having a hemorrhagic incident with her placenta. I know people have had this. I actually know a bunch of people have had this.

This is not some uncommon scenario. she needs an abortion to survive, she won't be able to get it, right? We have already seen things like this happen because we see miscarriages and deal with them all the time at our clinic because, for one thing, people are just in general terrified of our local hospital because its service is so very, very bad and has hurt so many people. But also, we know that the doctors don't have the training to be able to handle it. And in a lot of cases, we have already seen that patients will go into the hospital bleeding and the emergency room will question whether they had had an abortion.

And if they think that that person had an abortion or that person admits that they had an abortion, they won't examine them at all. Like, not a physical exam, not a thing. So that person who comes in with a ruptured placenta, I hope she can convince the hospital that she was pregnant and meant to be pregnant and something just happened because if they catch even a whiff of thinking that she had an abortion, we have people bleeding in the hospital who are told to come back to our clinic. Wait, so if they think they've had an abortion, they just send them away to bleed out and die?

I mean, what are they, what's the thinking here? Yes, that's the only thing that it could possibly be. We had a patient, I can't remember. It was about two weeks ago who had traveled in for a medication abortion. and when she did it and got home, she felt like the pain was too much. She thought that it was not normal and she thought she was having a complication.

So she went to her local hospital. And her local hospital asked her if she'd had an abortion and she said, yes. And they said, we won't see you. Literally would not see her. They said, go back to your clinic. So, of course, we took her in immediately. And my doctor did a physical exam,

just a basic physical exam, and quickly realized that she was having appendicitis. Thank God. And so then she would go to the hospital and then they would, but they didn't care. She said abortion, so they wouldn't even examine her. So they're sending women home to die. They are. And they don't care.

And it's 2022. For those of you who think we might, this might be an old episode from 1954. No, unfortunately, this is, this is daily occurrences. Well, maybe not daily, but this is a frequent occurrence in Alabama. I'm so sorry, Robin. I'm so, I'm so sorry for these women. And it's just unbelievably unfair. There's nothing else we can do because we're not going to leave them.

So we'll just be here as long as we can do whatever we can for them. Robin, I hope you'll come back and talk to us again because this is such an important story. And you're such an important person in this world and in our world. I will be here anytime you want me. Anytime. Thank you, Molly. Thank you. Leah Littman is an assistant professor at the University of Michigan Law School,

as well as co-host of the strict scrutiny podcast. Welcome to the new abnormal, Leah Lippman. Thanks so much for having me. I mean, I guess all of us knew in May what was coming, but were you surprised? I knew in May what was coming. I knew in December after they held the oral argument in this case what was coming. And honestly, if being truthful, like I knew what was coming when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away in September 2020. And they replaced her with Justice Barrett, you know, in the heels as the 2020 presidential election was underway.

So it's not surprising for people who were watching the court and watching what Republicans had been doing with the courts for the last several decades. But seeing it actually happen still brings a ton of other emotions like sadness, anger, especially as you're reading reports about what is happening in the clinics as they are informing patients that they can no longer go through with scheduled procedures. Yeah, it seems like Democrats kind of dropped the ball on the judiciary, and then Republicans were also just so ruthless. They kind of sort of pushed in on those two seats and basically stole them. No, I think that's exactly right. And this is happening at the Supreme Court.

Obviously, Senator Mitch McConnell blockaded President Obama from being able to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court and confirm Mary. Garland to the seat that eventually went to Neil Gorsuch. And likewise, you know, they were willing to go back on this idea that presidents can't fill Supreme Court vacancies during an election year. And actually, as an election is already underway when they installed Amy Coney Barrett to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But this is also something that has been happening in the lower federal courts, I think outside of the public eye for decades as well. I mean, Amy Coney Barrett only had a seat. on the Court of Appeals because Mitch McConnell held open that seat and did not allow President Obama to fill the seat with a woman who would have been the first black woman to serve on the Court of Appeals in Indiana. And Mitch McConnell held open that seat through the last two years of President Obama's presidency. And so there was a vacancy for President Trump to fill right at the outset. He fills it with Amy Coney Barrett. You know, we all know her views about abortion. And, you know, then that's would happen. Amy Comey Barrett is also not very qualified. Will you speak to that?

So she has extensive experience as an academic and, you know, obviously a sterling resume as far as, you know, traditional elite credentials having clerked on the Court of Appeals, as well as on the U.S. Supreme Court, then, you know, going to work at a law firm, then going into academia. But it's not like she had been actively litigating cases, you know, throughout her time in academia. or anything like that. I think it's very interesting that there are so many, and I'm curious, I mean, again, we're on this sort of dangerous territory about talking about religion, but it is interesting to May that you have a lot of Catholics on this court. Yes, it is interesting, especially when you look at trends in the courts jurisprudence on religion.

You know, they are extremely sympathetic to religious liberty claims that are brought by, you know, more conservative religions. And they are not as sympathetic to religious liberty or religious discrimination claims that are brought by other religions. Most notably, they rejected a challenge to President Trump's travel ban that had been born of a campaign promise to exclude Muslims from entering the United States. And when the travel ban was challenged on the ground that it reflects animus toward Islam, and Muslims, you know, the court is like, well, nothing to see here. This is just fine. Right. But if you want to pray anywhere, you pretty much can, as long as it's Catholic, right, or Christian. Right, exactly. As we learned today. So I want to get into like what you could do. So what could you do right here?

I mean, it seems like Biden has said he doesn't want to expand the court for whatever reason. I'm not a mind reader. But like what do you think about AOC has this. this idea that she wants to put abortion clinics on federal lands. I mean, does that seem feasible to you? So I think people understandably want there to be a magical fix that the Biden administration can just do. And I understand that. I think, however, it is more complicated by the fact that, you know, you want them to do something creative, but you also want them to do something that will be efficacious, that they can actually promise people will protect them from legal liability. And the reality is, is that when you have this wild buzzsaw of a Supreme Court that sits at the end of every single legal strategy you could pursue, you can't be confident that just because some creative legal

strategy you have that seems to be just fine under existing precedent, they would actually allow you to do. So, you know, on this federal lands idea, would that be possible with a different court? Sure, but I see at least two obstacles with this court. One is, you know, the Hyde Amendment and the ability to use federal funds to actually facilitate. So the Hyde Amendment is a provision of federal law that limits the federal government's ability to spend federal money on abortions, except in limited cases of rape or incest or where necessary to save the life or health of the mother. So one possible thing the Supreme Court might do is say, actually, the federal government can't do any of this because they're spending money in violation of the Hyde Amendment.

But I think the second and more troubling thing to me is, let's say, you know, the federal government opens these clinics on federal lands. Well, people aren't going to go live on federal land after they have their abortion. They will leave and go home and return to their states. And I just am not confident that the Supreme Court would say states couldn't prosecute a resident, right, who obtained an abortion on federal land within the state. And so if you can't promise people that they will actually be safe, then it seems like your legal solutions are not actually going to ensure safe and legal abortion. Right. No, I think that's a really good, at an important point.

Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, nobody's favorite at this podcast, but tried to codify Casey or some machination of it when this Roe opinion was leaked. And they sort of made a case that they could get the 10 senators. And maybe they could, maybe they couldn't. And this is really a theoretical because I don't think it will happen. but in a world where you could codify Casey or you could codify some kind of abortion rights, I don't think it would be as broad as row. Do you think that that would hold up against the Supreme Court? I mean, they sort of say in the opinion that they would kick it back to the states,

but it does seem to me like these people are not good faith actors. Yeah. So there too, I think that that is an action that is worth trying just because a federal law protecting access to abortion fits so comfortably, like within the idea that abortion is being returned to the political process, as well as under existing law about what Congress can or can't do. That being said, nothing is going to prevent, like, this wrecking ball of a Supreme Court from smashing and grabbing that too, right? They're perfectly willing to jettison existing cases and distinguish them in totally ridiculous ways when it's inconvenient for them. I mean,

And, you know, in the public prayer case, you referred to, the Supreme Court literally said the case they were confronting was different than a previous case because in the previous case, prayer was over a loudspeaker. And in this case, it was just on a football field in front of everyone where people were invited to join. I mean, like, these aren't sensible distinctions. And so, right, this court is not really bound by the law, but I'm not sure that that alone should prevent the federal government. trying to do anything, but it does need to be cautious about what it can promise people, you know, that it can do. Right. I mean, so what would you do if you were president right now? No pressure. I think if I was president, I would do a few things. One is I would make clear two voters what exactly I needed from them, right?

Like, I need at least two more demonstrations. more Democratic senators. I need to keep the majority in the House. But in addition to that, I would be more clear about what I would do if I got those things. Right. So instead of just saying go to vote, tell them what their votes would get them, a repeal of the Hyde Amendment, right? A federal statute protecting access to medication abortion and preempting all state laws that limited. A federal law codifying the right to an abortion, a statute that limits a Supreme Court, court's ability to strike down those statutes, either by stripping the court's jurisdiction, expanding the court, or some combination thereof. On top of that, I would nominate to the federal

bench lawyers who actually litigated for reproductive rights and justice to counter the fact that conservatives have now been nominating for decades, lawyers who sought to, you know, limit access to abortion. That's really, I think, very, very smart. What is your hot take on the idea of expanding the court? In a perfect world, the court would have a different role in our democracy than it does now. Like, I am one of the people that thinks the court has too much power. Like, I probably don't think that the court should have the authority to strike down a federal statute as unconstitutional, or at least what it, you know, should do is it can strike it and then send it back to Congress. And if Congress still wants it, then Congress would be able to

keep it. So basically giving Congress like an opportunity to take a second look at a federal statute. But I don't think there are five justices on the current court who would allow Congress to limit the role of the federal courts like that in the judiciary. And so in order to kind of restrain the minority rule that the Supreme Court currently has, you know, you would also need to expand the court with justices who would be willing to permit a more limited role for the Supreme Court in American government. What would that look like? As far as the more limited role for the Supreme Court? Yeah. I mean, how would you even just go down that path? The key limitation that I think is important is I don't think the Supreme Court should be able to tell Congress that, well, our view of the

Constitution is just the better, more correct one. Like if Congress, for example, thinks that the 14th Amendment does, you know, protect the right to abortion because it secures women's equal participation in society, I think Congress should be able to write a federal statute and enforce that, even if a Supreme Court, you know, doesn't agree. I do, however, think that the Supreme Court should have the ability to review unconstitutional state laws. And I think the Supreme Court will inevitably have to interpret the federal laws that Congress writes. And so for that reason, you know, that's part of why I don't believe statutes just limiting the court's authority can be, you know, the entire solution just because this Supreme Court has been quite willing to take a

hack saw to federal regulations and statutes when it interprets them. I mean, that's what it was doing in the vaccine cases. And that's what it did when it, you know, weakened the Voting Rights Act last year. So I think that that's why doing multiple aspects of Supreme Court reform are important. They went after New York's gun laws. They overturned Roe v. Wade. There's this other, this West Virginia EPA case still coming. They're so emboldened. Are you scared? It probably depends what you mean by scared. It's not like I don't have some sense about where they're going. You know, I am also extremely fortunate to be a white, cis woman with privilege. That being said, I am extremely concerned about a few different things. One is the extent to which the Supreme Court is allowing states to suppress religious minorities, racial minorities, sexual minorities, and basically make their lives so miserable and difficult,

they have no choice but to leave their homes. And the other is the extent to which the court's opinions, I think, fold into this trend of increased violence and attacks on women, sexual minorities, racial minorities, and more because there's just an attitude of like suck it libs. You know, we're just going to stick it to you that, frankly, like I see in both, you know, the traditional Maga crowd. as well as, you know, on the opinions from the Supreme Court. And so that's also concerning to me. This was so interesting. I really appreciate you.

And I really appreciate you talking to me, especially today, on this incredibly weird continuous. I myself still kind of like not, you know, just in disbelief that it happened. So thank you. Anytime. Thank you for having me. So, Andy. Yes, Molly. Like shooting fish in a barrel today.

We can get enough fuck that guy people in there, right? I think this whole episode was Fuck That Guy. Andy, tell me who is your Fuck That Guy? All right. My Fuck That Guy is kind of a bunch of people. It is, there was this whole thing over the weekend where people on the right kept saying that there was going to be rioting and looting and all this stuff because of the, Supreme Court decision overturning row. And there was, of course, precisely none of that. But what you had was you had people like Marsha Blackburn, no surprise, she was on Fox News saying, when you look at the Democrats,

if they do not get their way, what do they do? They go out and they riot or they try to change the rules. So of course, none of that happened. And also, of course, this manages to somehow forget that January 6th happened. On Monday, you had Josh Hawley and I'm assuming his lovely, I would like to say his lovely wife, Erin, I have my doubts, but I do not know her. Yeah, lovely seems like pushing it. But yes, continue. Yeah, I mean, she has horrible taste in men. We know that much. Yes, we know that. So they went on Fox News and talked about how since the road decision, there have been riots, chaos, and vandalism, all over the country. Now, again, there has been pretty much precisely none of that.

None of that, yeah. But it doesn't matter. That's the thing, is everything that Democrats worry about Republicans saying is they're going to say it whether it happens or not. If you don't elect someone on the left, you got to elect Joe Biden. Otherwise, they're going to say you're socialists. So what do they do? They call Joe Biden socialists. They say you're going to riot and vandalize stuff after the road decision. And Joe Biden gets up there and tells people, now make sure you're protest peacefully and everyone protests peacefully and what does Josh Hawley do? He gets on the air and says that everyone rioted and committed acts of vandalism. So it just at some point, Democrats will learn that they can really do whatever they want because the Republicans are going to say they

did it anyway. And it's just lying doesn't matter to any of these people. They are fully comfortable with it, no matter how much they talk about what good Christians they are. I, for the Life of me cannot square or cannot figure out how they square being these very religious, upright, moral Christians and just lying 24-7. But somehow they're able to do it in their mind. So fuck all those guys and gals. That's a good one. Do you want to know who my fuck that guy is? I do because I have a feeling it's really fun.

It's the tap heard round the world. One Rudolph Giuliani. Here's what happened. He was in a grocery store in Staten Island. I assume he was helping his fail son with his candidacy from governor. He's never going to win, by the way. I don't think he'll even win the primary. But he does have an enormous head.

Andrew Giuliani has a head like a big piece of wet, chewed, gum. And I say this as someone who myself has an enormous head to. I don't think that my head can even come close in diameter to the head of one Andrew Giuliani. It's like a like a melon that's been sort of rotting. Anyway, so Andrew Giuliani campaigning in the only borough that would ever vote for him, Staten Island. And by the way, I've lived in New York my whole life. I've been to Staten Island twice. We had an activist on this podcast. Crackhead Barney. She's a person who has been to Whitefish Montana, which is the home of the Nazis. She told me the scariest place she had ever been, Staten Island. Not even kidding. Okay, she did say that. Rudy Giuliani,

he's in Staten Island. He's campaigning. He's someone comes, a guy who works in the grocery store. Is he a god? Maybe he's a god. Is he a hero? Certainly he's a fucking hero. He pats Rudy on the back. There is video. The video was posted by the New York fucking post, which is Owen Rupert Murdoch. The video is of the guy patting him on the back.

The guy gets arrested. Rudy says he's been assaulted. Rudy's son, big-headed Andrew Giuliani, like a melon, says that his father has been assaulted by a radical leftist. I implore you, go to the New York Post and watch this video. If you think this is assault, I don't know what to tell you. And he's like doubling down, he keeps, even though the video's out and we can all see that the guy, like you said, he taps him on the back.

Rudy doesn't even move barely. Right, barely. Now he says, it was like a gunshot. And it's like, he said it was like a boulder hitting him. Right. He thought he was going to die. And he said the guy called him a fucking scumbag, which spot the lie. Seems like a very generous phrasing, you know.

No lie there. Scumbag, yeah. But yeah, it is hilarious watching all these self-proclaimed alpha males. And the minute something like this happens, they turn into little tiny toddlers. It's absolutely hilarious. And it goes back to your fuck that guy. people are desperate for violence. Yes.

All they want is violence because they think that if they can get violence, then somehow they will be able to own the lips that way. They'll be able to. And I think that's an important lesson. Like, really, we may be angry, but the last thing any of us should be doing is violence. I think it's very unlikely that people who listen to this podcast do violence. But I think that it's important to know that the right wants you to. The new abnormal, the voice of Antifa. I haven't seen it yet, but if there is, if anyone has set up a GoFundMe for this guy who got arrested and he's being charged by the second degree.

Not only will I contribute to that, I will tweet out a link to it. My guess is if this happens, it could be the biggest GoFundMe fundraiser in the history of the, of the platform. This guy's a political prisoner man. He is. He absolutely is. I'll cut an album for him. On that note, we'll. wrap this episode of the new abnormal from The Daily Beast. In future episodes, we'll be

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