The Daily Beast Podcast - Nobody Is Buying Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s Excuses

Episode Date: May 21, 2024

Author Adam Serwer joins The New Abnormal this week to discuss the latest in a string of recent Supreme Court scandals. Plus! Mini Timmaraju, the President and CEO of Reproductive Freedom For All joins the program to discuss the downward spiral of reproductive healthcare in the United States. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Kedden, 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 some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. Our goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears. What an excellent show we have today.

Minnie Timurajou, who's the president of Reproductive Freedom for All, joins us to talk about what her organization is doing to help combat recent Supreme Court decisions and to help the Democratic Party in the upcoming election. Then we'll talk to staff writer at the Atlantic and author of The Cruelty is the Point, Adam Surwer. Break down the news about Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito hanging an upside down flag on his house and blaming it on his wife. But first, let's have some fun. Oh, hot damn. I have never experienced something so brilliant and bold. And what could be another B word to have the fucking alliteration skills of Representative Jasmine Crockett? Here's the thing about Marjorie Taylor Green.

She is a fucking dummy. Her idea of trying to sling mud, like that bitch is not ready for a mud slide. The thing that I love about Representative Jasmine Crockett is this, is that, you know, we all loved when Michelle Obama said when they go low, we go high. And I'm like, no, when you go low, I'm a meet you where you are and drag you to hell. Like, that is the kind of energy that I want all Democrats to have. Like, oh, you can both be the adult in the room and bitch-slap somebody at the same time. And that's exactly what Marjorie Taylor-Green got. And she could not handle it.

So for me, oh, my God, I could not wait, Andy, for today so that I could just give more kudos and applause and all the things. Because let me tell you something. When you look like Marjorie Taylor-Green, do not come for Jasmine Crockett. Frankly, don't come for anybody but your mirror. You know what I'm saying? Like, she needed to sit the fuck down. Yeah, this was fantastic. I want to see, like, maybe you reboot Miami Vice and you can have Crockett and Scrubs

and just have the two of them. I mean, this was not a fair fight. It's like watching Mike Tyson beat up in his prime, like beat up on a high school kid. But the high school kid started it. And you're just sitting there like, oh, he's going to get what he deserved. But at the same time, this is going to be. ugly. And it was. It was ugly and beautiful at the same time. On a more serious note here, I know Crockett went on, I guess she was talking to Jake Tapper at CNN, and she said correctly that

there was, you know, racist intent behind her. Absolutely. Behind what Marjorie Taylor Green said. And as Crockett pointed out, you know, women of all colors, ethnicities, et cetera, wear makeup and wear lashes. But this is, you know, I'll just quote from Crockett here. She said, Maga has historically been on social media doing the things where they're saying, oh, she's black with lashes and nails and hair, and so she's ghetto. And she's absolutely right that that's what Marjorie Taylor Green was trying to do there. MTG just shouldn't have gone there in general because it's just a stupid dumb thing to say. There's absolutely no doubt that that was totally racially coded.

And good for Representative Crockett for calling her out on it and for not just sitting there and taking it. And look, I have seen people say Crockett shouldn't have gone down to that level, sort of the, like you were saying, the Michelle Obama argument, and that this just elevates Marjorie Taylor Green. And I'm with you, though. Yeah, in a perfect world, when they go low, you go high or you ignore them. But we are so far from a perfect world right now. And you just can't keep letting them do shit like this without repercussions and without slinging it back at them. Because I don't care if Marjorie Taylor Green, the people are saying, oh, she got what she wanted. She got a fight in the gunner. I don't care because I don't think she really wanted to fight in the gutter.

And you see that and it's always whenever someone comes back at them, they then act like they are the victim. It's absolutely pathetic. I want to give an honorable mention to Representative Jamie Raskin who did his best to hold his shit together, to hold his laughter on the inside as what Jasmine Crockett said hit his eardrums and then he almost lost it. And it was amazing. But on a serious note, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, AOC, when she was on CNN or also on Twitter, brought up the real reason for the chaos that unfolded with Marjorie Taylor Green's racist comment and actually what was happening. And she said this that I want to lift up. Quote, after the Republican chair and GOP members broke official House protocol to allow MTG's horrific opening silo of rhetoric,

They then made another change to dispense with the legislative process. That part is not getting enough attention. She said in a move described as, quote, highly unusual and still unclear to me how legitimate it was, the GOP led committee vacated both the typical amendment process and legislative debate that follows moving directly to vote on their next own text without allowing for amendments or objections to be heard. And so what she called what was happening as they were having a conversation about Merritt Garland not releasing the transcript and the audio between Robert Herr and Joe Biden during his deposition, they have said that the recording is protected and they're not going to release it. And so, of course, the GOP wants whatever evidence to come out, anything that they can get and grasp onto that could make Biden look bad. but this is what was happening when MTG then rolls into her racist attack that then she got bitch left for because what we have to realize is that their chaos isn't just chaos. It is strategic chaos. So it's like look at the shiny thing over here. So you're not paying attention to what we're doing over here. And we have to have all eyes on this fucking grifting, dangerous, like, illegitimate, G.

and what they're doing in the house at all times. I don't know that I buy this. All due respect to AOC, even though she continues to duck me and refuses to come on the pod. I think this is giving Marjorie-Tellegrine way too much credit. I think she said what she said because that's who she is. And I don't think it was any part of some grand strategyry on her part. I agree that what happens is you focus on this and you don't focus on the actual stuff that they're doing. But I don't think I agree with AOC that that's why.

Marjorie Taylor Green did this. That's all. So let's move a little westward from D.C. to the state of Texas, where Governor Greg Abbott, still, like, you know, the Republicans have this competition to see who can be the absolute worst governor in the country. And Abbott, he made a strong case for himself towards the end of last week. What he did was, there's a guy named Daniel Perry. Daniel Perry was found guilty by a jury of murdering a Black Lives Matter protester. He was serving a 25-year sentence. He was serving a 25-year-sent. He had always admitted to doing it. He said it was an accident. But you may recall listeners that they found a bunch of texts from him, basically saying that he was heading over to the march with his rifle looking to kill somebody or looking to shoot somebody. So he was found guilty of murder. Greg Abbott decided to pardon this guy. There is just no better example of the absolute lawlessness of these people who for so long have claimed to be the law and order party. and are constantly talking about migrants coming over here and the lawlessness and blaming the Biden administration. And this is what they do. He literally pardoned a convicted murderer whose text messages showed he clearly intended to head down to this Black Lives Matter protest.

And if not kill somebody, then definitely get his gun in somebody's face and be threatening and whatever. Go ahead, Daniel. Take it. Here's the thing that I think is really lost because our news cycle is just circling the toilet every single week. But the reality is that this kind of falls in line with Trump's pardon of a Navy seal, which many in the military told not to do for his murderous rampage and rape that he was found guilty of. It's like the Republican Party, whether it's Trump, whether it is these governors, they look to find the most racist and egregious acts of violence against peaceful people as a way to lift up this idea that we should have vigilante justice in this country. DeSantis passes legislation that allows for vehicular homicide, that allows for people what happened down in Charlottesville, Virginia with a motorist taking off. into a crowd of people and killing a protester, Ronda Santis passes legislation that says that's okay

if protesters are shutting down a bridge or a street. Greg Abbott is saying that, yeah, if you are going to a Black Lives Matter rally or any rally and you're armed, you can do exactly what Kyle Rittenhouse did and we're going to get you off because these are who their heroes are. And so when we talk about this party being racist, being violent, being filled with domestic terrorists, tell me what they do to contradict us. They don't.

They double and triple down. So I think that stories like this don't get enough conversation in the press about exactly who the GOP is. This is why you had that motherfucker the other day, Matt Gates, retweeting Donald Trump's, oh, we're here, Mr. President. We're going to stand back and stand by using the same language that Donald Trump used ahead of the insurrection. Like, this is who they are. And so we need to continually believe them, but also tell the public over and over again, these people, if given any bit of power,

this is what they're going to do. There will be no First Amendment. There will be no ability to assemble, right? Because they're going to tell their people to stand back and stand by. And then when they do something, quote unquote, illegal, they'll be given a get out of jail free card. Fuck Greg Abbott and all of these governors and they're disgusting decisions because there are people that are in jail right now that are being held that are innocent. But so long as they have white supremacist, that's who's going to get their pardons. Yeah, I just refreshed my memory and I want to refresh the listeners' memories as well. Some of the things that Daniel Perry wrote on Facebook a few weeks before he killed Garrett Foster, he wrote that he, quote, might have to kill a few

people who were protesting outside his apartment complex. He wrote that as a Facebook message to a friend. His friend wrote back, can you catch me a Negro daddy? And Perry responded, that's what I'm hoping. This is all according to the Houston Chronicle. He talked about going to Dallas, quote, to shoot looters, unquote, and sent white power memes. I mean, this is a bad guy. There are people, like you said, there are people who deserve to be pardoned for crimes. This guy is about as far from that as you can possibly get. But Greg Abbott did this. He did this with the recommendation of the Texas Parole Board. And it's interesting because legally, he can't pardon someone unless the Parole Board recommends it. Guess who appoints and can also unappoint every member of the parole board?

If you guessed anyone other than Greg Abbott, you would be wrong. So, you know, when you want to talk about systemic racism and systemic issues with whether it's a federal justice department or state justice departments. This is exactly what we're talking about. It's a disgrace. He is. Oh, God. We are not leaving that Indiana. I want to say this because I literally just saw sometimes on the weekends I like to take a break

so that I don't lose my mind with the inundation of news. But I got to tell you that hearing about just the. Alito and yet another like Maga wife. Like do they have a club? Because I cannot wait for the real housewives of the Supreme Court. The table flipping and bribery will look like make the New Jersey housewives look like toddlers. But so apparently following the election, Justice Alito, Justice Alito, turn the flag upside down in front of his house, which is a sign and a symbol to. pro-insurrectionists and saying, you know, something is upside down about America.

Days later, he was being pressured, you know, asked this question, asked about, you know, the flag. He blames it on his wife because, you know, I guess in Maga world, you know, the women take care of the home only. The men have no idea. They just, they just come home from their hard, cold day in the minds, I mean, at the Supreme Court, overturning justice for the rest of us. And he has no idea what happens inside of his house. Everything, you know, has to do with his wife. And I thought to myself, wow, just like one, what kind of man throws their wife underneath the bus?

But there is like a list of those maga men that do, that just casually throw their wives under the bus in order to, you know, maintain distance from any wrongdoing. But what has been said is that what would have happened if this had been judged Sotomayor? What would have happened if this had been any of the other like Democratic appointed justices? What would the news cycle look like? Because apparently, again, these lifetime appointment folks, you can grift as much as you want. Your wife like Ginny Thomas can fund the insurrection and make calls, right? To Mark Meadows who was in the White House on that day as a chief of staff. You can do all of these things.

but, oh, my wife, she has her own independence and opinion and she does what she wants and, oh, that's all on her. But if this was one of the other justices, Andy, what would happen? Where would we be? Where would the news cycle be? Yeah, look, Alyssa Farah Griffin, well, I'm, you know, not the world's biggest fan of, but she made an excellent point on CNN in basically saying that if Justice Sotomayor had done something like this after the 2016 election when Trump won, and if she had hung a flag upside down,

or a flag was hung upside down by a family member on her property, that Republicans would be calling for her resignation. And that's 100% true. The thing is, like, I haven't even seen any Democrats calling for his resignation. At best, they're saying he should recuse himself from cases involving the 2020 election, the what happened at the Capitol, Donald Trump, et cetera. But Republicans would not even remotely have stopped there. They would have been calling her. a traitor, they would have been calling her disloyal, and that goes for, you know, if it were Justice Kagan, or right now, if it were, you know, Justice Brown. I can't even fathom what the, like you said, like what the news coverage would have been if this had been a one of the more liberal

justices compared to what it is for Alito, because I don't know. I just feel like people have been beaten down and it's like, yeah, of course he did that. Of course he did. It's not even a shock anymore. Nope, it's not. And that's part of the numbing that's been happening over the last several years is that things that used to be rightfully part of an outrage cycle have just become par for the course. And because, again, we have no recourse with these radicalized right wing judges. Like there is nothing for us to do. What we call Chief Justice in to sit before the Senate Judiciary Committee and he's like, nah, I have tennis that day. I'm good. And then what happens? Nothing. You're not holding him in contempt. You're not doing anything that is going to show any type of of punishment whatsoever. And it's just like, so we sit around and we're like, oh, the Supreme Court's poll numbers are in the toilet. Who gives a fuck? It's not like they ran for anything. Right. So there is absolutely no accountability. But what we do know is that when Justice Sotomayor, when it was revealed that, oh, ahead of her book tour, the request was put in that said venues were buying. her book, you know, as you do on a book tour, that became conversation. But fucking Clarence Thomas still not revealing whether or not he paid his quote-unquote friend back $250,000 for a brand-new fucking RV as well as the prep school, as well as his mother's mortgage. But we have to have Sotomayor come out and defend book sales. Miss me with the fucking bullshit. It's just so

ridiculous. Okay, but Danielle, did you see that Vice President Harris was gifted two tickets to a Beyonce concert by Beyonce? Oh, my God. Call in the National Guard. I mean, I'm not even joking. That was like breathlessly reported. We're sitting here in a world where Clarence Thomas is raking in millions of dollars. Mm-hmm.

And I would expect sort of the vice president of United States to get some free concert tickets. Like, you know, I mean, granted with Ticketmaster upcharges being what they are, that might be worth as much as, you know, a trip on a yacht. But still, it's just the double standard is just, is ridiculous. And like you said, it's all because of this numbing effect. We'll be right back. Folks, I am so excited to welcome back to the new abnormal. My friend and friend of the show, Minnie Timurajou, who is the president and CEO of

reproductive freedom for all. I can't imagine Minnie how busy you all are. but let's dive in and kind of give us the landscape of where we've been since, you know, the beginning of this Supreme Court's term. I mean, so many things have been in the headlines, but the most egregious to me was a back and forth about how close a woman has to be to death in order for a doctor to be able to administer health care. It sent me that day into a spiral. So I wanted to get your thoughts on that case first. Thanks so much again for having me. It's great to chat with you.

And I appreciate so much all the analysis, but also your humanity and your passion for this stuff. Because look, that day, I was listening to the oral arguments in my car actually heading down to the office and then to the Supreme Court for a rally. And, you know, I've been doing this work in and around, you know, this movement last years. You know, every time I think I have my, you know, I'm dead inside. Yes. I mean, that was really one of the most horrible oral arguments I've heard. And we've had our fair share of some crazy ones. Like, I started this job just a few weeks before the oral arguments in Dobbs.

So, like, one of my first professional experiences running this org was listening to those oral arguments, which were pretty crazy. The fact that, as you accurately summarized, you know, They were literally debating body parts, you know, the value of a woman's body or a pregnant person's body. How close to death do we have to be to merit emergency care? I mean, it was enraging, but it was also terrifying. It was a little bit worse than just like, this person's an ignorant idiot and they're so offensive. It was like, oh, my God, they really don't give a shit about us.

And, you know, my good friend Alexis McGill Johnson from Planned Parenthood made this. this point to another audience once about, you know, they were always willing to let black and brown bodies suffer and die, right? Now they're willing to do it to white women, too. What does us tell you about the level to which we have lost power and control over our bodies in this country? So it was very chilling. It was intellectually interesting to hear that even Judge Coney Barrett, who, you know, I'm clearly not a fan of herself, was really stumped. Like, is this really where this is going, you know. I also think it's important to take a step back and remember that Imtala as a law came about because of a problem of hospitals declining care to people at

right. So this goes back to our basic humanity as people beyond even abortion, right? Like, EMTALA is a law that was put in place because hospitals and emergency rooms would turn people away for lack of insurance in near-death experiences. And so it was the government saying, no, you can't do that. that's not okay. That's not how we treat our communities, you know, and what designates an emergency and what designates life and death? So first, I mean, kudos to the Biden administration. I get asked a lot, like, what has Joe Biden done? Well, this is something he did. Like, his administration started trying to enforce EMTALA in these cases where you have states of abortion bans to use this as a proof point. Like, we need to enforce EMTALA to protect women who need abortion care in an emergency. And the fact that

This is like my secondary, like the day after I got over when I, I don't, I'll never get over the range. But the day after when I was a little bit more, you know, when I was doing interviews and trying to analyze what happened. You know, Daniel, I, and Tala is like the ultimate medical exception. So when Republicans are right, right, we believe in exceptions. You know, oh, well, you know, there should be abortion exceptions in medical emergencies or in the life of the mother. but they're actively fighting Imtala. It tells you everything you need to know about their movement and what they truly believe. They never intended those exceptions to work.

No, which is why they made them so extraordinarily vague. And while they're now going all the way to the Supreme Court to challenge a perfectly reasonable exception, which is Amtala. Right. You're in plain sight. The hypocrisy. They're not even hiding it. That's the thing, Minnie, that gets me these days is that the hypocrisy is that the hypocrisy is, not being hidden and their cruelty is in a spotlight. Because when you have justices who, by the way,

went to law school and did not go to medical school, have no understanding whatsoever of the oath that doctors take to do no harm and are sitting there and are being tasked with or have tasked themselves with how many leaders of blood does a woman or a pregnant person need to have lost before a doctor can administer medical care is absolutely disgusting and cruel. And if it were a headline that we're in any other country right now, right? What do you think that our press would be saying about how this country hates women? And so I think that where we are, and I was just recently emceeing the Ms. Foundation for Women's Gala. And when I was there, it was the first time that I was speaking since Roe had been overturned. And I said in the 51 years of this organization's founding,

we have had abortion care in this country, national abortion care. And now we've lost it in 20 states. In 20 states and counting. Just last week, Governor Yonkin out of Virginia vetoed a legislation that would mandate making it okay for contraception in the state of Virginia. Virginia to ensure that women and people in Virginia have access to contraception. He vetoed that bill. You know, when you listen to the oral arguments in that case and you see what somebody like a governor Yonkin is doing in Virginia, what happened with IVF in Alabama, how does your organization even make sense of what to tackle and where to go first? And how do you raise an alarm that at this point almost feels like white noise.

Well, you know, when people ask me state or federal, you know, what's the priority? What are you doing? You know, it's like a little bit of all of the above, right? Like, we can't lose opportunities in places like Arizona where we have a very, very, you know, significant chapter. We have members there. We have a former state legislator running our campaign work in the state. We have a ballot initiative.

We can flip the legislature. We have a Senate race. We have multiple house races. We got to be there. We got to be there. And like that's ground zero. in some ways across the country for abortion. And as we saw with the recent successful effort by Democrats to repeal this territorial ban,

total ban on abortion, I mean, thank goodness we're in the states, right? But I'm from Texas, and I say this a lot, we cannot abandon the 20, our number says 21, so we compare notes like 21 states with bans and restrictions. We can't abandon them. I can't abandon my home state of Texas. There's no way for them to get anything on the ballot. It needs to be referred by the legislature and requires a super majority of the legislature. You know, that ship is sailed in Texas.

So the only way to restore rights across all 50 states is federal action. The only way for that is a federal trifecta. So it's all of the above. I think there's good news and bad news about the white noise, you know, and cutting through the noise. I mean, the bad news is, as you said, it's so much that it's hard to keep track of. You know, right now I think we're expecting some crazy stuff out of the Louisiana legislature, like any day now. Virginia just happened. It was just a few weeks before that, Arizona. I mean, every week there's a new terrible case. Every day, there's a new terrible story of somebody almost

dying because of lack of care. And, you know, in some cases, and those are just the cases we know that are making their way through the press, right? Like how many stories, especially women of color and folks of the margins, are we just not hearing about it all? What would have been because of lack of abortion care, but we don't know this whole story because it didn't get right through? You know, But the good news is the longer these bans go on, the more salient the issue is becoming with voters. We all worry as strategists, right? At one point, do you just depress people so much? They feel helpless.

The good news is there's been a lot of opportunity for folks to take action, whether it's through these ballot measures, whether it's through legislative, you know, lobbying, whether it's through upcoming, you know, the ongoing election cycle that we basically have the never-ending election cycle from 2022. Right. gone last year with virginia and kentucky and ohio and you know all the states the good news is every time abortion's on the ballot abortion wins good news is even in the most challenging and problematic polls like the new york times santa poll last week abortion is the number one driver and the motivator and is the number one message that can move voters to our side so it means that while there is so much sound and fury some of it is penetrating to the electorate. People are aware.

People are concerned. The gap is getting them to be, to feel empowered enough and that they're giving them some sense of hope that things can change if they turn out, right? I think it's about us versus Donald Trump. And it's more about like Joe Biden versus Donald Trump. It's more about Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, you know, Rubin Gallego, the ballot initiatives versus the couch, right? That is the narrative that we,

we need to hear from now until election day. Because when we make it, I think, when we make this election a binary between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, we're not actually digging into the full breadth of the danger that this country is facing. And I think that when you look state by state, as folks will remember, Steve Bannon said, we're taking this country apart, state by state,

you know, city by city, village by village. And they have been successful in doing so. But when we don't work to paint the Republican Party as an entire party that is doing this type of egregious damage, not just to our democracy, but to our bodies, and how they're taking our bodies apart state by state, and that there's potential for this to be nationalized. But they're just using states like Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, and others as their labs, their testing labs, right, to see how it plays out. Totally. And they've been doing that for decades as we know. You know, they've been really smart and strategic about that. I think what's interesting is now, you know, we've known for a long time that the majority of Americans were with us on abortion care. It was abortion as health care. Abortion rights as fundamental freedoms that if you ask the question the right way and you get people's attention, they're with us. The big challenge was getting people's attention. That's always been the big challenge for so many of our issues, right?

One of the things that I think has differentiated are caused from some others post jobs is that I hate to say it, but the bad news keeps on coming. So the same thing that could discourage people is the same thing that's keeping it fresh and in the news nonstop, right? You're hearing a terrible story. We did have concerns like gun violence, you know, folks would start to get fatigued. But I think because it's so personal, everybody in this country is either they're connected to someone who was pregnant. It's their. Yes. into the world through a pregnancy.

They're married or they're partnered with someone who's pregnant or they themselves have been pregnant, you know, or they have some that they love who've been pregnant. And it goes from like an intellectual crisis, like, oh, I wonder what I think about abortion versus, you know, life versus choice, quote unquote, the problematic binary that we're moving away from, become really personal. Like, can my kid go to college in the state? Because if they get by accident, what can I do to help them? I have a friend right now who's going through IVF.

So first of all, the IVF thing, the whole other way that we personalize this. And birth control, almost everyone uses birth control, right? Something like 90-something percent of Americans. But I have a friend who's going through IVF right now who is in a corporate, you know, in the corporate world and it's like, I got a map my flights. Like, what if I get pregnant and I have a layover in Atlanta where everybody has a layover or in Houston? You know, and I have a problem.

Where do I go? What do I do? I mean, this has become so much more tactile for people than. it's shifted it. And then, you know, to the election and the binary, you know, the Trump Biden thing, look, I mean, we, you know where we stand. We're with Joe Biden. I understand that for most people, however, and we've been saying this to candidates for two years, the issue comes first, not the candidate. So groups like ours become more critical as validators. You know, we're organizing 24-7 year-round 365 on abortion. So when we say, here's our endorsement and here's why. Here's what Joe Biden and

Kamala Harris have done. Here's what the House, you know, Democrats and the Senate Democrats will do. It has more credibility. And we have the luxury of being able to organize on abortion first, candidates second, which helps, you know, build that sort of, we've been calling it like a permission structure, right? Like, I may be ambivalent about these guys, but I'm not ambivalent about this issue and how it affects me in my daily life. I can have some sort of explanation for why I'm still getting out the vote for this person I may not totally care about. You know, a couple of things that you said that I think are so important. So one, the fact that we need as Democrats to be issue voters because Republicans have always been issue voters, right? They've been single issue voters, right?

So they're either going to vote for the Second Amendment or they're going to vote against abortion. Those are their issues. And they have been successful in not wavering from those positions. I think that Democrats, what we always say is that we want to fall in love with the candidate, whereas Republicans fall in line. And I think that we're going to fall in line. And I think that, what people have to understand and this Dante's seven rings of hell that we're in right now is that where is your issue in those rings? Like how much worse could it get? We expect our candidates to be 100%. Right. We need you to be 100% on every one of our issues. This is one of the issues we're now grappling with the president's challenging numbers around the Middle East. I get asked a lot about

this because, you know, we expect young voters to be, you know, our saviors and much deep respect to young voters for all of their thoughtful and leaders in this country, you know, for all their thoughtful protest and, you know, their activation around, you know, there are concerns about what's happening in the Middle East. But I would say this is where, you know, we're also seeing a lot of leaders, progressive caucus leaders. I mean, I think we even heard AOC like a week ago or something, clarify. And we're working really closely with as many progressive caucus members as we can to also say this. Like, you don't have to agree with the Democrats on every single issue. A hundred percent.

You have to be with them 100%. You need to decide what your bottom line is. And for us, it's, I want to be able to protest my president in a democracy where I still have the ability to fight for my fundamental freedoms. And at the top of that list is my right to bodily autonomy, my right to reproductive freedom. Then there's several other issues for me personally, but for, you know, the average voter, like, pick your top priorities.

And we have to really understand that we're fighting for our ability to have. have a protest in the future to be able to shape public policy through democratic processes. Because the other party and the other guy won't even let us do that if they have their way. I feel optimistic despite all of this that we can move voters of all demographics around this issue and other core issues because the contrast is so stark. And, you know, the person we're running against has been so very much like on the record bragging about a returning row, you know, threatening to punish patients and providers. That it's really about getting people to feel some skin in the game and getting them to

motivate to turn out. Like, they know what to do. They've got to feel like there's going to be some hope when they do it, right? Absolutely. That's the tough part for us. It's always been the tough part for us. Minnie, as always, I just appreciate all of the work that you are doing at reproductive freedom for all and, you know, the time that you take to bring us up to speed, but also to really

ring the alarm of the emergency and the crisis of the moment that we're living in. Really appreciate you and hope that you will come back again soon, probably after the Supreme Court, does its final blow this year. Thank you. I would love to be back. And it's so good to hear your voice and to be here in fellowship. And thanks to your listeners, too. Really appreciate all of you.

By now you've probably seen the reporting originally from the New York Times that back in January 2021, an upside-down American flag flew over a very. the House of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. And you probably know that this was about a week after the events of January 6th, and that the upside-down flag had become a symbol of the insane belief that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump, and that Alito pinned the whole thing on his wife, whom he said was in a dispute with a neighbor. But as my guest points out, Alito never did disavow what the upside-down flag stands for.

Joining me now is staff writer at the Atlantic and coiner of the phrase and author of the book, the cruelty is the point. Adam, sirwer. Adam, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me. So it seems to me there are two crucial points here. One, what, if anything, can we glean from the fact that the Alito's wife, husband, or both, thought it was perfectly reasonable to fly the upside down flag? And then there's obviously the much bigger picture of why this matters. Let's start with the first one first, because I'm a fan of symmetry. Fox News host and proud Liberty University alumna Shannon Bream tweeted that among other things, a neighbor of the Alito's put up a sign personally addressing

Mrs. Alito and blaming her for the January 6th attacks and that that's what this was in response to. As you say, in the excellent piece you wrote about this in the Atlantic, even accepting that this is true and that Alito's behavior was behaving rudely, signaling support for an insurrection is an odd way to respond to someone accusing you of supporting an interruption. Yeah, that's right. I mean, I think Alito has since had two bites at the apple, so to speak, to say this didn't have anything to do with the insurrection. This is not what it meant. We thought that was a terrible incident.

We didn't think it should have happened. Obviously, the 2020 election was completely legitimate. He could have said all those things. He spoke to the media twice, once in New York Times, once to this very sympathetic Fox News host. And in neither of those incidents, did he disavow the implied meaning of the upside-down flag, which was that Joe Biden had stolen the election

through voter fraud, which is obviously either complete falsehood or an ideological statement that Democratic voting constituencies are illegitimate and do not count even when they outvote Republican constituencies. And so, you know, it's very hard to believe at this point that that flag was not intended in the worst possible way, which was to support, you know, what had essentially been a goofy but violent attempt to overturn the 2020 election. And by extension, the constitutional order that Justice Samuel Alito has sworn an oath to us. poll. So one sort of excuse for Alito not addressing this and not clearly denouncing the insurrectionists in any of his statements about the flag being hung upside down is that he wanted

to avoid getting political. Can you please explain why this made me laugh? Well, obviously, justices are not supposed to make part of his remarks. A few years ago, I think in 2016, Ruth Bader Ginsburg says something about negative about Trump and it was a huge deal and she apologized and all that stuff. But Alito is not a justice who really follows these norms. He's always given these speeches where he's basically talking about how liberals are a threat to everything conservatives hold dear.

It's not entirely plausible that he avoided commenting on the insurrection because, after all, the Supreme Court is considering two insurrection-related cases that could have a tremendous impact both on the prosecutions of the people who are involved in the Capitol riot and in the prosecution

of Donald Trump himself. He might argue that he's not supposed to comment on that type of stuff. But generally, he doesn't really refrain from expressing his political opinion. You know, he's one of the worst offenders in that regard as far as sort of disregarding that norm of judging. So it's very hard to believe that if he wanted to disassociate himself from what was essentially, again, a goofy but real attempt at overthrowing the U.S. constitutional order, he could have done that. He's a lawyer. He's an elite attorney at the top of the legal profession in the United States, he could figure out a way to do it without jeopardizing or without imputing his own judgment

in these upcoming cases. And he chose not to do that. He chose not to disassociate himself from the events themselves or from the idea that the flag was raised in support of those events. And let's be clear here, there's absolutely no way that the Alito's didn't know that the upside down flag had come to be a symbol of the election denialists and the insurrectionists. Is there? Well, let's say that there is a possibility. that they didn't know it was meant that way. He could have said that. Right.

That would have stopped everything. It's actually kind of interesting that he did not say, we didn't mean it that way, we didn't know that's what it meant, because that would have been, you know, a fairly easy out. But he did not say that after speaking to the press, not once but twice. So he had ample opportunity to say this is just a misunderstanding, but he did not say that. Yeah, for sure, because we should be clear that the upside down flag has a longer history

then going back to 2021, and it was generally used to indicate the nation in distress, which is why it was adopted by the insurrectionists because they felt that America was in distress because Joe Biden stole the election. It beggars belief to me that the Alitos didn't know that it had become a symbol of the interruption. Well, let me put it this way. I don't think they hung it up because they're big rage against the machine fans. Right. Yeah, for sure. Okay. So let's get to the big picture point of why this all matters. And I'll do this by asking the most obvious question imaginable. What's the big deal about an upside down flag, a symbol of election denialism and interaction, flying at the House of the Supreme Court Justice, Adam?

Well, again, this was an attempt to overthrow the constitutional order that the justices are sworn to uphold. And not only that, but they are considering cases related to the prosecution of those who participated in those events. The judgments in those cases are coming up. And so it's relevant that Alito might be sympathetic to the people who violently tried to overthrow the government in an attempt to keep Donald Trump in power illegally after he lost the 2020 election. Someone like that should absolutely be nowhere near the federal bench, let alone the Supreme Court. That's an alarming possibility. You would have to ask in a story, but I'm not sure that there's anything like that in American history that I can think of. I don't know if there

were any like explicitly pro-confederate justices on the Supreme Court. during the Civil War. I can't answer that question, but this, it seems to be both an alarming development and also an unprecedented one. It's kind of frightening. Yeah, and as you note in your piece, there are a couple of cases that are either before the court or will soon be before the court that touch on this directly. One is a challenge to the federal law used to prosecate the Jan 6 rioters, the other one dealing with Trump's claim of absolute immunity for presidents. And those cases are related because Trump is also accused. He's also being prosecuted under that federal law about obstructing inofficial proceeding.

So, you know, the fact that Justice Alito may have signaled his support of the insurrection prior to dealing with these cases, I mean, you know, you say, well, in that case, he should recuse. But if that's the case, he shouldn't actually be anywhere near the bench at all. I mean, it's sort of a crazy thing that he's there sitting in judgment in these cases. Yeah, recusal seems like the lowest possible bar here. And we already have, you know, in the case of Justice Clarence Thomas, his wife was obviously encouraging the Trump administration to send alternate electors, which is part of this fraudulent scheme to claim the electoral votes of states that they did not win. And Justice Thomas was the only

dissenting judge in a case involving an attempt by Congress to get information related to the JN6 insurrection from, you know, Trump-era presidential records. So it's possible that there's not just one, but two justices on the Supreme Court now who quietly or not so quietly, I mean, I don't think we can know for sure yet, supported what was a violent attempt to overthrow the government. It really is quite something. Something you wrote in your Atlantic piece was that Alito's apparent sympathy for the insurrection issue probably not come as a surprise. Explain why. He has sort of signaled a level of skepticism towards everything related, prosecuting Jan 6 and holding Jan 6 perpetrators accountable when these cases have come before the court. And that's a little

shocking because Alito tends to side with prosecutors more than any other justice on the court. And then all of a sudden, you know, when these Jan 6 cases come up or when the disqualification case came up, when Colorado disqualified Trump from the ballot on the basis of the 14th Amendment's bar on insurrectionist folding federal office, he all of a sudden starts talking like an ACLU. And he never does that. He's not someone who's skeptical of prosecutors unless there is a big conservative issue involved, you know, something to deal with gun rights or as in this case, or any issue that has grown to take on a serious partisan salience, you will always find Alito suddenly reversing himself on longstanding ideological principles that he has exhibited.

And in this case, it is a skepticism towards prosecutorial discretion in the case involving the federal law. I mean, look, I want to emphasize that some of these are legitimate objections. There were legitimate concerns about what it would need if you barred Trump from the ballot in Colorado. So there are legitimate objections to whether or not this law being used to prosecute some of the Jan 6 defendants is a little too broad. Those are reasonable questions to ask and people have asked them. What's weird is that Alito never asked these kinds of questions in other contexts. He always sides with the prosecutors. And all of a sudden, he's offering a kind of skepticism that he never does, in particular related to these cases,

which have a lot to do with whether or not Donald Trump can be held accountable under criminal law for attempting to overthrow the government and keep himself in power. Yeah, no, it's been absolutely wild watching both he and Thomas suddenly raising questions about prosecutorial overreach and prosecutorial misconduct, which, as you say, is not something either one of those men has been known for in their long careers. That's right. I mean, if you look at those two justices are the two least likely justices to sigh with criminal defendants in cases. Yeah, for sure.

And, you know, oftentimes you would look at things they were saying. And I think I was saying this once about, I think it was Thomas not a least. but talking about how there is no level of prosecutorial misconduct that that rises to the level of someone deserving a new trial or something like that, except suddenly when it comes to this. That's right. Like I said, I mean, when these issues of partisan salience get raised, Alito sort of tends to go with what the right-wing consensus on the issue is rather than whatever ideological or interpretive philosophy he claims to hold.

And I think he's actually worse in some regards on this than Thomas, who will sometimes follow his ideology and his philosophy to a fault every once in a while that will come up with, you know, that will result in a ruling that liberals are Democrats like. I mean, this happened with the CFPV last week and Thomas sort of made fun of Alito for basically doing what Alito does, but just sort of go with whatever he perceives the Fox News, Newsmax consensus on an issue to be. But, yeah, I mean, it's really sort of remarkable to watch. these justices who generally think anything goes when it comes to prosecutions and prisons and treatment of criminal defendants, all of a sudden discovering a skepticism of the American criminal justice system, but exclusively when applied to Trump or the Jan 6th defendants. Or, you know, and sometimes in defendants, you know, involving, in cases involving gun rights. Right. And one of the interesting things you wrote in your piece is that you say the justices,

like most partisans, shift with their party's preferences, which is what you've been talking about here, That's a big shift, at least in public perception, from the way things used to be, isn't it? I mean, I think that it's sort of always been this way. I mean, the fact is that we are, you know, just as human being, you know, we are social animals. We tend to sometimes we disagree with the group, but more often than now, we sort of try to find reasons to fit in with the people we want to fit in with. So I think part of this is this, the Republican Party has adopted some ideological precepts that are hostile to democracy. Those precepts have been mainstreamed by Donald Trump and by his followers. And as a result, the situation ends up being, am I going to side with the libs?

Am I going to side with my friends and family and everybody I care about and think is right 90% of the time? And the justices are human beings. They're mortal. And they're going to tend to go with the flow. Now, sometimes they don't. Ideally, they would not. They would go with what the Constitution says or what the law says. But the fact is that their interpretations of the law,

and the Constitution are interpreted through these political shifts that take pace in the respective ideological camps in American politics. So what will be the fallout from all of this? And I swear to God, Adam, if you say LOL nothing, I'm going to lose it. I'm sorry, but LOL nothing is absolutely the most likely outcome. I mean, I don't think we know what, I mean, part of the issue is that the court, it's very hard to know what's going on behind the scenes at the court. It's possible that this could shift the internal deliberation.

about these cases one way or the other. There was all that speculation about the fact that the Dobbs ruling got leaked because they were trying to prevent defections from one of the conservative justices because then it would look like they were acting under public pressure. So I don't think we know really the answer about whether this is another LOL, nothing matters moment or whether it's something that could really affect things behind the scenes. I think we're going to have to wait and see. I mean, the reality is that these positions are lifetime appointments and these people are

not going to give up. These people enjoy having the power that they have and they're not going to simply give it up because they're facing a tremendous amount of social pressure because there's effectively nothing anybody can do about the fact that they're sitting on the court because these are lifetime appointments. The only thing they can do, people can do, is embarrass the court over and over with the contents of revelations that we've seen, you know, about the justice's financial ties to certain wealthy political donors and things like that. But you can't you can exert a certain amount of public pressure on the court, but on the justices themselves, there's no political leverage of any time because it's a lifetime appointment.

We know that there is no way in hell that Alito will recuse himself from any of the cases having to do with January 6th. I mean, I think there's a lot of evidence that Alito in particular views himself as like having a particular right-wing constituency that he wants to keep happy and wants to please and wants to be seen as like the best judge by. And so I think it's very unlikely. that he will ever do anything to disappoint them because he absolutely crazed their approval. And, you know, again, that's just my speculation.

Sure. But I'm just looking at this, you know, through the lines of how he behaves on the court and how his decisions are written. And his general flexibility in reaching whatever decision that conservative consensus happens to be. I am fully confident in agreeing with you on this. Adam, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk about this with me. Thanks so much for having me.

Andy leaving. Oh, we're still doing that, huh? Danielle Moody. Oh, we're... No, we are. We are. Yes, we're still doing it. We're still doing it.

Andy, how are you kicking off this week that finally feels like summer has arrived in New York, so I'm in a much better mood than normal? How are we kicking off this week with your... Fuck that guy. Yeah, this is one of the two weeks of the year that we get nice weather in New York before it becomes 90 degrees in humid. I am going to go with a new sort of group that was launched on Saturday called Gun Owners for Trump. This is a group that has been launched by the Trump campaign in conjunction with the Republican National Committee, but I repeat myself. Ordinarily, I'd be like, whatever. Yeah, that makes political sense.

Launch a Gun Owners for Trump coalition, whatever. I want to read from the press release that was put out to announce this. Here's a couple of sentences. Unfortunately, no American is safe from the violent migrant crime wave that Joe Biden has unleashed on our country. As the radical Democrats continue to sell out the police and let our communities be overrun by violent criminals, including criminal illegals, now more than ever, Americans must have their right to defend themselves protected. This is a murder document. That is a murder statement. That is telling people to go out and kill anyone they even suspect of people.

being an undocumented migrant. And that's not even counting the fact that there is no violent crime wave anywhere in this country right now. Violent crime is way down across the country, but it's pointless to keep repeating that at this point. But the idea that this is a presidential candidate in no uncertain terms giving his supporters carte blanche to kill brown people, because that's exactly what this is. And I don't think it should go overlooked. And I don't think think we talked earlier in this episode about the numbing effect. I don't think we should let this be part of that. This is a big deal. And we've talked a lot on the show about the rhetoric of Republicans and how they're not going to be happy until people are killed. And it's just,

it's absolutely disgusting. And so I just wanted to give a hearty fuck those guys to Donald Trump, the Trump campaign, the RNC, and everyone else involved in this. The entirety of the Republican party. We've said this before and we will continue to say it ad nauseum, which is that what this white nationalist fascist group wants are, you know, white supremacist domestic terrorist militias all over the country. That's what they want with the ability armed to the teeth and taking out any person that is not white, that is not straight, that is not, you know, cis, that they deem to be a problem. And then what do these people know is that, you know, depending on what state they're in, they'll probably get pardoned so they don't even have to worry about serving any type of time.

This is like the bolstering that this party is doing and it is fucking dangerous. And instead of us having conversations, you know, about this and this staying in the press and the way that it does, mainstream media wants to talk to us and give us bullshit on a regular basis. Oh, look at the penis balloons that are outside of the courthouse where Donald Trump is. Like I give a fuck. Fuck those guys. I don't even know about the penis balloons. Oh, yeah. They just let them fly, literally. God. All right, Danielle. So we've established that the weather is really nice. So I'm going to ask you for your segment to do something that will keep you and everyone else in a good mood.

So you want me to stay silent? I do. I want you to lie. I want you to lie, Daniel. I wish that I could. I wish that I could, Andy, but I want people to just stand in the sunshine as I'm saying this. So this week, you know, oldie but a goody, but it is, I guess, what is it? I guess, oh, yeah, I guess it's outdoor vest weather, which means that Glenn Yonkin is out front, modeling his best, casual fucking misogynist look. So this week, Glenn Yonkin, down in Virginia, vetoed, according to USA Today, a series of bills passed by the Democratic-controlled, Assembly on Friday, including those that would protect contraception. And he said this in his series of vetoes, quote, while I look forward to working with the General Assembly to see if we can reach agreement on language in the future, today I must act on the language before me and there are

several bills which are not ready to become law. He goes on. This includes legislation related to contraception. Let me be clear. I support access to contraception. However, we cannot trample on religious freedoms of Virginians. So here's what I have to say to that. What the fuck does a woman going into any type of pharmacy, any type of drugstore, and getting contraception for herself have to do with Virginians religious freedom? It has absolutely nothing to do. So what is the exemption again?

Like because these people, all they want is fucking carve out, right? So, oh, if the clerk at said pharmacy is against contraception, get another job. There are plenty of churches, I'm sure, that would love to have you. But do not continue to work in public settings and press upon everyone else your religious zealotism. But that's the kind of state that Yon wants. That's the kind of country that Republicans want. And for that reason, he is my fuck that guy. because we should be looking to protect contraception, particularly when this is a party that wants to do nothing for you once that child is born.

They are not offering you child free tax credits. They are not offering long-term maternity leave like other industrialized countries. They are not offering to make sure that no child goes hungry. They are not offering any of those things, right? And so, again, if you're not going to help once the child is here and then it becomes a problem of said family, of said woman, of said parents, then shut the fuck up. So I'm tired of the excuse of religious freedoms as the way to suppress and subjugate women and people with uteruses. So I'm over Virginia. Virginia is not for lovers and he can take his sweater vest and shove it. Yeah.

The whole idea that there's some kind of religious carve out for stuff like this is absolutely nuts. And like you said, may I suggest that if you have a religious issue with dispensing health care, that you're not going to a field that is related to health care? I'm curious how quickly this religious freedom exemption mania would last if somebody's religion was that they didn't have to provide service to. white people because I feel like very quickly that would be shot down. It's absolutely hypocritical. These are people who are pretending, you know, that they're doing this for values reasons, but it's absolutely hypocritical. If you're not comfortable dispensing contraceptives, then you should not be a pharmacist. There are plenty of jobs that people don't take because they wouldn't be comfortable doing them. Just add this to the list. Easy peasy. Easy peasy. Uh, fuck those guys.

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