The Daily Beast Podcast - SCOTUS Silently Grinds Democracy Into Powder as Trump Distracts America

Episode Date: May 17, 2024

This week on The New Abnormal, author Dahlia Lithwick talks us through the recent developments at the Supreme Court. Plus! Journalist Judd Legum joins the show to discuss the right-wing’s weaponization of cancel culture and its implications. 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.

Dahlia Lithwick, author of Lady Justice, Women in the Law and the Battle to Save America, and a senior editor at Slate, is here to talk us through the recent developments at the Supreme Court. Then we'll talk to popular information's Jud Legum about the rights weaponization of cancel culture and its implications. But first, let's have some fun. So great news. We have debates that are scheduled for June 27th, the presidential debates. The Biden campaign offered up a date in June, a date in September with no audience. The first will be at CNN with Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, two of my least fucking favorite people on CNN who will no doubt offer softball bullshit questions to Donald Trump. Trump if in fact he fucking shows up because he has a tendency to, you know, what's that word,

lie and say that he's going to show up for debates or maybe he'll try and contract another kind of virus to spread around a studio like he did in 2020 when he showed up sweating with COVID. So Andy, I think that debates are bullshit. I know that there was a time when debates actually mattered. But what can we possibly learn? about Donald Trump and Joe Biden in a debate with Jake Tapper and fucking Dana Bash that we don't already know. Okay, so here's my take on this. I agree.

I have long hated these presidential debates, and I've generally, I find them to be useless. And they tell you nothing other than how good or bad a candidate is at debating, which I don't think is a skill that has anything to do. with being president of the United States or really any other job other than, you know, professional debater. Having said that, I do think these could possibly be important. And that is assuming that they actually happened because my immediate reaction was, you know, well, we'll see if Trump doesn't weasel out of these somehow. And my other reaction was, you know, how is he going to find the time to debate when he

has to be in a courtroom. But Donald Trump is at this point, I don't think he is capable of controlling himself even the slightest bit for an hour or 90 minutes or two hours, however long the debates are. And I think it is going to be important for these, again, these undecideds, which we've talked about this before. how the hell they even exist is beyond me at this point. You know, some years I get it, but not this one. But I do think it could be important in terms of, again, not anything they say that has to do with policy. Both these guys are such known quantities that I don't think any of that matters. But I think in terms of just who they are as people, I think maybe this could be important. And it feels weird to say that because it's not like Donald Trump ain't been in public for the last,

you know, bunch of decades and particularly in the last, I mean, the guy was president and he's out there in public in a courtroom and elsewhere. So it feels like, well, you know what? Everything about, everything we know about these guys is already baked in. But by the same token, I really do think that, A, as I keep saying, Trump is really sundowning. I'm still calling him sundown. Oh, that's good. I like that. Yeah, he's sundowning. I think it'll be good for people who see to see, to see. that people who will watch a debate but that don't necessarily watch cable news all day or see clips of his rallies or whatever. I think that'll be good to see. And also, again, I think he has gotten to a point where whatever tiny little modicum of self-control he may have had four

years ago, I think that is completely gone. And I think, unless they pump him up with a whole bunch of Xanax or something or Klonopin, I think he is going to be unhinged and deranged on a debate stage. In that sense, I think maybe these debates could actually be meaningful. We all know who don't like Donald Trump for a whole host of legitimate reasons. It's not like, oh, I just don't like the man, but you know, he could be a good leader. He's a fucking lunatic, right? And dangerous. But I, a part of me is just like, we have already seen this. We've seen the clips at the rally where he says that he's going to be a dictator on day one. We've seen the jabbering off on a whole range of things about Hannibal Lecter and we're like, what are you talking about? So I don't

know what more evidence people need, but what I will say about Biden here with the debates is that if the Biden that showed up at the state of the union is the Biden that shows up at these two debates, then the Biden campaign is in great shape. If he just stands by and allows Trump to melt down and stammer and walk all over the moderators, which he will do and fill up the whole conversation with a bunch of lies and outrage its claims, which he will do. I think that Biden can show himself to look like a statesman, a serious politician, and someone who is level-headed that you want in the White House, regardless of what other issues people may have with Biden. I think that the split screen of of a Trump potential stammering meltdown versus Biden just standing there and, you know,

doing his little smirk and shaking his head with the fresh face of Botox, I think it could go well for him. I agree with that. And I honestly think Biden will be fine. I think Biden's main problem is that he looks old and he moves like an elderly person, like a person of his age. I don't mean that derogatorily. He just he looks his age. You know, and we've seen this at the state of the Union. And I've seen this at other speeches and whatever that he's done. I think he will be just fine at the debate. And I agree with you. I do think that will help.

Now, obviously, if I'm wrong, it's going to be a big, oh boy moment. I'm fairly confident that Biden will come across okay at these debates. I also think there's, I'm going to put it at like a 15% chance he drops an F bomb at Donnie. That Biden drops an F bomb? Yeah. Yeah. In a good way. No, I mean in a good way.

I think Joe Biden, as much as he sort of has this kindly grandfather exterior, I think he's a really combative, fiery guy inside. And I think there's a slight chance that he is going to have just have had it with Trump's shenanigans to use a word that our producer Seamus enjoys. I could just see him casually dropping an F bomb. Look, I don't really think he'll do that. I don't think it would be a bad idea if he did, to be honest with you. And I don't mean that in the sense that I don't think he's going to be rattled. I don't think Trump can rattle him. I think Trump, as you say, will try to walk all over the moderators, and he will undoubtedly succeed in doing that.

Yep. But I don't think that he will rattle Biden at all. And so when I say, you know, somewhat exaggeratedly that I think Biden will drop an F-bomb. And I think it would be fine and even good for him to do this. I think it would be fine for Biden to vent some frustration at Trump and to do it in a smart, even calculated way, as if to say, you know, look at this book. It's one thing for you and I to say stuff like that. And again, we're preaching to the converted here. We're talking to people who, like you said, like us, don't really need to watch this debate. We all know, everyone listening to this, our smart, attractive listeners. They all know what Donald

Trump is. They all know that he's a hideous human being who shouldn't be anywhere near the levers of power. Again, I don't understand it, but there are those people out there who are like, well, I can't really decide between these two guys. They're both old men, so they're really the same person. I think it would be fine for Joe Biden, again, in sort of a calculated way, almost the way he did at the State of the Union like you brought up when he sort of went back at the Republicans. I think it would be great for him to do that. I do as well. And we'll see because I think that, too, what will not be in Donald Trump's favor is also the fact that there's going to be no audience. And we know that Donald Trump loves to pander to an audience. and loves to be hyped up with the booze and the jeers and tell his stupid fucking quips.

And so not having an audience, having those two bland milk toast, terrible fucking moderators, I think you'll see him as a toddler. I honestly, I mean, but also he just put out on his busted social media, oh, I'll be willing to do a debate with Crooked Joe Biden on Fox News on whatever random day that he selected, which nobody agreed to, which actually is not happening. And so you're like, oh, so you're already backpedaling from what you just agreed to yesterday. What a fucking shock. If this actually happens, I think that it is in the best instance it will work out for Joe Biden.

Also, did you see Nate Silver's post on there? I just have to like point this out. Oh, that's right, because you don't see yourself on the sewer anymore that we... formally called Twitter. Yeah. But Nate Silver posted and went on some fucking tirade about how Joe Biden is bucking tradition and political norms by trying to move up the debates and like painted this as a bad decision for Joe Biden and isn't he supposed to be the one holding down political norms?

All I have to say to Nate, sit the fuck down. I don't know who still goes to that man for his thoughts. Too many fucking people. but anybody pushing back on the campaign about this decision is fucking dumb. And don't talk to me about political norms when you say nothing about Donald Trump, blowing up our fucking democracy and constitution. That was just a side though. No, but I've seen that in other places too.

I mean, the New York Times said something similar about, you know, going against the norms. And it's like, first of all, the norms sucked. The commission on presidential debates sucked. They've been around. I'm older than the commission on presidential debates. So stop calling them the norm. as if the founding fathers talked about them. And yes, it is important.

I like that if you're going to have a debate, yeah, move it up to June. The thing is, and this also gets back to why this debate might be important, I think a lot of people are not paying attention to this election yet. And again, I know that sometimes feels hard for us to believe and for our insanely intelligent and attractive listeners to believe. But I think the majority of people in this country are like, that's happening in November, I'm, you know, I'm getting my kids off to school and I'm working six days a week or whatever. And they're not really thinking about the election yet. And I think

by forcing a debate earlier, I think it also forces people to start paying attention a little earlier and to really wrap their heads around what Donald Trump is. So fuck the norms. I agree with you completely. And Nate Silver, I have absolutely no patience. for the guy was right about one thing and he's made a career out of that somehow, despite how many times he's been wrong. The last thing I'll say about Nate Silver is he should just go back to ruining sports. He's a clown. And speaking of clowns, we are seeing a virtual parade of them showing up at the Trump trial here

in New York. In recent days, we've had Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House and Christian Nationalists show up. We've had Tommy Tuberville. We've had Lauren Bobert, Matt Gates, Anna Paulina Luna, Andy Biggs, an incredible wave of Republican betas showing up to kiss the ass of their alpha dog and giving little speeches outside the courtroom. And it's just, it is such a pathetic spectacle that is inadvertently because they don't realize it. It's just absolutely hilarious to watch them all debase themselves before this guy. I will just say this. Like, first of all, the fucking outfits.

Can we talk about the minion fucking outfits that these fools have on? They all are wearing the same cheap red tie, cheap black suit and white shirt with their little fucking flag buttons, which should just be a picture of Donald Trump's ass because that's what they're there to do. It's just be glued to Donald Trump's ass. How do you say that you're not in a cult, but you all grab the same outfit. and standing in formation at a little podium to do your best Donald Trump impersonation. All they are doing, like, as we're sitting here right now recording,

Michael Cohen is on the stand being cross-examined by the Trump defense, and they're trying to say, oh, he's a liar, he's this, that, and the other thing, you shouldn't believe him as he's talking about having been inside of a cult. And then the jury gets to see all of these fucking people walk in the same outfits sitting down behind us. Donald Trump. Like, thank you for giving us a visual representation of what Michael Cohen has been talking about, like inside of this weird alternative universe that he's created and then in walk

these fucking idiots. It's beyond. But I want to point out a tweet that Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, who's been on the show, posted about Matt Gates giving a speech with all of these members behind them. And she says, cool, you're paid to be here in Washington. legislating, it's the middle of a work week, I guess we'll hold down the fort for you while you're tap dancing on Broadway. That's excellent. And I was just like, oh, that's right. Like, Congress is actually in fucking session.

Did you all get a hall pass to go to New York? Like, and not do shit for your constituents or the country? And instead, like, do this cosplay bullshit in front of the courthouse? It's absolutely wild to me. But maybe this will be also the only way that Fox News will alert their viewers to the fact that Donald Trump is in the middle of a criminal trial. No, that's an excellent point. And it is transparent that they are there simply to kiss the ring because they know that for most of them, their own political futures hangs on Donald Trump's political future. I mean, you've got Lauren Bobbard, who will be lucky to win her race regardless.

You've got J.D. Vance, who is salivating at the thought of being vice president. all these other guys. Then you've got Tommy Tuberville, who, as I've said before in the show, I think might be the dumbest member of the Senate. And he actually goes on, I think it was Fox News, and said that one of the reasons that he appeared was to overcome the gag order that has been imposed on Trump, which people have been saying, these people are there to serve as surrogates for Trump and to say things that he is no longer allowed to say, like going after Judge Merchant's daughter and stuff like that, something that all of these people have been doing. And I don't know that the judge can do anything about this, but it is so clearly

and so obviously a way for Trump to try to sidestep the gag order. And to have these these hapless little shills show up and say all the things that he wants to say, but no longer can, because, you know, as Judge Marcheon has said, it might be jail time for Donnie if he does it again. And Tuberville is just so stupid that he says the quiet part out loud. And, and admits that that was, you know, the reason he was there. I just can't get past how pathetic all these people are. And I think that what's important, because I really don't know, honestly, if having these surrogates, as you call them, as they are acting like for Donald Trump to say all of the nasty, vicious things, attack the jurors, attack the judge, attack the judge's family,

call this a witch hunt, if in fact he can do something about the gag order applying to people in Trump's orbit because it is so transparent to your point. And also just a reminder, fucking dangerous. Because what they're doing is egging on any act of violent or torrent towards these people. It also makes me feel a type of way that these fucking Trump sycophants are in the courtroom and know exactly what the jurors look like. I know that it's not open to the cameras, but like these people are just as dangerous. I don't put it past any of them to do something that puts these people in danger.

So I think that the judge needs to take that into consideration. I doubt that Judge Merchant can, he has no authority over Lauren Bolbert and Tommy Tuberville and stuff like that. And, you know, they're free to say whatever they want. But it would be interesting, you know, and I'm obviously not a lawyer. It would be interesting if they could find that Trump was directing them to do this. If there's something Judge Merchant can do about that. Yeah, we'll see, because something is going to go awry.

Folks, I am so excited to welcome back to the new abnormal. It's been too long since the New York Times bestselling author of Lady Justice, Women, the Law, and the Battle to Save America, Dahlia Lithwick, has joined us on the show. Dahlia, I would ask you how you are. I will. I'll ask you, how are you, given the state of our crumbling democracy and justice system? Danielle, am I allowed to just tell listeners that right before we went live, you told me I'm allowed to curse and then just spew out a stream of things that my mother would never pardon me for? That is how I am. I am all the curses.

Every bad word. Every bad word. Every bad word rolled up into one big word. I want to jump in and just start talking about the Supreme Court. And I'll say this, that with all of the camera and focus and attention being on Donald Trump's election interference trial. I feel like not enough attention is actually being focused on the Supreme Court and what is happening there as their term winds down. So that's why I wanted to talk to you today because I was just like, you know what? I'm tired actually

of hearing about Donald Trump and all of the minions that are coming in to sit in his court case. So tell us what is happening right now at the Supreme Court, what you're paying attention to and what the rest of us should be paying attention to. Yeah, sure. And I would just I would just say, Danielle, that like, that's my theme song that I think we get really caught up in, you know, the bread and circus of whatever. You know, we're watching at the moment. But meanwhile, underneath it all, silently without cameras in the room, while taking RVs and yacht trips, the court is just silently. grinding democracy into powder. And so it's very true that this is a thing. We shouldn't take our eyes off. I guess I would just say I've never seen a term like the term we're having now. And I've been covering the court for 25 years. And it's just in part because there are so many bananas cases that we are waiting for. The court is kind of way behind on its work product this year.

And so there are cases that, you know, we're argued in October and November that's still haven't dropped. Just yesterday, we had a big, big case about the CFPB that we can talk about in a minute. But I think the big story about the court is, if you had told me in my lifetime that there would be a term that had not one but two abortion cases on the docket, not one but two Donald Trump election interference cases on the docket, plus just this whole long spool of cases that are kind of trying to disassemble the administrative state, you know, government as we know it. All that's on the docket. There's nothing that's not on the docket, voting rights cases. And so we're in this very weird world where it used to be, you know, you'd get one or two big honking cases at the end of June and you'd spend, you know, July kind of licking your wounds. This has just been nonstop. And I think the other big, big theme is that we had all gone into this term thinking the court was kind of going to modulate some of the worst of its behavior, because

the ethics scandals, because, you know, after Dobbs, we know how it galvanized the electorate, particularly women. We know how angry people are about guns and about last year's cases on affirmative action and, you know, the president's loan forgiveness case. I mean, everything has gone wrong for the court plus the scandals, right? Plus the endless, endless stories about misbehavior. No evidence, really, that the court is modulating its bad behavior. And maybe the court, the best example of that is, you know, the pair of cases that have to do with January 6 and Donald Trump. One's already been decided. That's Anderson, the Colorado case. And that, you know, Donald Trump gets put back on the Colorado ballot. And then the other one is the immunity, the blanket

immunity case that was argued on the last day of the term in which the court overwhelmingly seemed inclined to give him a win on this question of immunity. And so I think there's no reason to believe the court is going to sort of tack towards. something that looks reasonable. And the very last thing I would say is that in cases like the CFPB case that just came down, the court looks reasonable, but it's only because it's trying to keep the even more insane Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals under control. So when you see something that looks like a decent decision, it's a case that probably shouldn't have been at the court in the first place, but the Fifth Circuit was acting like a little kid throwing toys out of the playpen.

I want to dig into, you know, real quickly before you run through CFB and then the other cases that you're watching, which is the immunity case, the Trump immunity case. What really concerns me about this court is their inability to modulate themselves, as you said, their inability to actually function like a legal body that is following the rule of law. because Dahlia, they shouldn't have taken this case up to begin with, right? 100%. Jack Smith, back in December of 2023, had asked the court to decide on whether or not presidents have immunity so that he could move forward and stop the shenanigans that were happening in Florida, in the Florida, in the documents case in the, in Judge Cannon's court, which is now just off the rails indefinitely.

And they refused. then they decide, oh no, no, no, just kidding. We're going to pick this up and open up oral arguments in the spring, which would almost ensure that we're not going to hear this case before November 2024. When I'm listening to these judges argue around immunity, which is basically the Trump lawyer getting up and saying that the president of the United States would have the right to kill a political rival, I'm thinking to myself, where the fuck am I?

There's the F-bomb. Yeah. Where are we where our Supreme Court is willing to even hear such foolishness when the 44 presidents that preceded Donald Trump seem to be able to do their job without committing a crime? Minus Nixon. Minus Nixon. But not even like, you know, Nixon is child's play compared to ordering SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a rival. And as you said, they make that argument in open court. and they're like stroking their chins.

You know, Trump's lawyer like, yeah, well, if you were impeached for that, then he wouldn't be. I mean, it's crazy. And I guess the two things that I would just say are one, there's this time element, right, that the D.C. Circuit hands down this bulletproof, you know, across partisan lines, phenomenal opinion in the immunity case that says there's just no way that immunity is conferred under the theory that it's just unending. And that should have been the end of the day. The court could have summarily affirmed that. And Judge Chutkin could have gone to trial the next day. And as you said, the court not only said, yeah, we think we need to hear this, but then they slow walked it.

And let's just be really clear. The court knows how to hear cases quickly. They did that in Anderson in the Colorado case. They heard it within a couple of days, decided it within a couple days. So they know how to do this quickly, if need be. And they just slow walked it so that, as you said, we probably won't have an opinion in this immunity issue until June. which means, you know, the case really doesn't get started until September earliest. Okay, so the court does that.

The other piece of this that is so important, and we've just done this huge series on this at Slate, and I just want to flack it for a second, is this purports to be an originalist court, right? This is the court that through its great, you know, theory of restraint is going to send us all back in a time machine and tell us what the framers wanted is what we think about everything, right? That's how we get Dobbs. That's how we get Bruin, the new gun test, right?

That's why we have a case on the docket this term about a guy who massively abuses his domestic partner, is adjudicated an abuser, loses the right to his gun and is in the Supreme Court and may win. This is the Rojimi case because there was no such thing as domestic violence at the framing, right? This is the way they think about the world that we're stuck back in time in the Paleozoic era. If you are an originalist, both Anderson, right, that case, the Colorado case that not. him off the ballot and the immunity case are huge losses for Donald Trump. There is no question. No historian who will tell you that the framers wanted to confer blanket immunity on the president and somehow did it by magic, you know, without writing it down.

And there's no historian who would tell you that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment does not disqualify exactly the kind of thing that Donald Trump did. And so this is a court that pretends to be and purports to be an originalist court. right? Except for when they hand down Anderson and they say, oh, we don't care about history and tradition. We don't care about original public meaning, original intent. We just care about this thing called democracy. And democracy can't work if Donald Trump is knocked off the ballot. So screw history. And so the level of not just nihilism, but sort of fasted leuicism of we're originalists if it means taking away abortion. We're not originalists when it comes to these Trump cases.

That's utterly, utterly crazy making. I mean, and to think that the framers of the Constitution who fled a country that was being run by a king with absolute immunity, with the ability to subjugate his constituents, with all of that and said, we're going to go and start a new country where it's going to be ruled by the people and for the people, would then all of a sudden be like, have this carve out seems absolutely insane to me. It's insane. And I guess I would just note that the best evidence that Donald Trump's lawyer could provide that this was what the framers wanted, even though they failed to put it anywhere in the Constitution, was Benjamin Franklin. A speech that Benjamin Franklin gave that got apparently a standing O, it's, I call it standing O originalism. There's actually nowhere anywhere other than this claim that, you know, oh, the framers really loved it when he said this. So it must be true. And it's just. it puts the lie to the idea that they really value text in history, or as you say, the intent or the animating theory. All it does is say, this is just the outcome we want and we're going to call it rooted in history. And the very final thing about this is, you know, as you were talking, Danielle, one thing that occurred to me is that you have a court that has been behaving, and you and I've talked about this

for years, as though it is a monarchic court, right? It's subject to no checks, no balances, no ethics rules. you can't stop it. This is a monarchic court now contemplating constructing a monarchic presidency. Think about that for a minute and then ask yourself whether that is an originalist view of how separation of powers or how checks and balances work. No, and I think that, you know, what I continue to say with regard to how Democrats kind of face off against the Supreme Court is with, again, a very hands-off approach,

this idea that somehow they're going to course correct themselves. I think is absurd at this point. And it was laughable to me that Thomas wrote the opinion in the consumer finance case talking about, you know, the rights of Congress, overfinanced, this, that, and the other thing. And I'm thinking to myself, is this a joke? This is a man who has still not told us whether or not he's repaid a $260,000 loan that he got from his friend. Because I don't know what kind of fucking friends give you $260,000. and don't ask for a back, you know, so that he could buy an RV that has a kid put through

prep school, has mortgages paid and all of these things, talking to us about rules and responsibilities of Congress. But talk to us with a couple of minutes that we have left about that case that was just decided and then also abortion still, still being on the docket after the decimation that we've already lived through with the reversal of Roe v. Wade. Just very quickly, the case, that came down on Thursday has to do with an effort to essentially end the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that the entity that was set up after, you know, the big, the big crash by Elizabeth Warren. And it is an entity that's supposed to be a watchdog agency that protects consumers. And this was just an utterly bananas decision that came out of the Fifth Circuit that essentially said,

you know, without rooting it in anything really, the way that the CFPB gets its money is unconstitutional because it's different from other entities. And essentially what Clarence Thomas, in a seven to two opinion for the court, was like, look, I've looked at every single banana's argument they've made in this banana's Fifth Circuit opinion. None of them are unconstitutional. Like, sorry, it's just do better next time. And so when you've lost Clarence Thomas, like, think about what you have to be as the Fifth Circuit, right? And then again, this is a case that in no way should have been in front of the court, except we have an appellate court, you know, that is just trying to end the government as we know it. And they thought they'd take a crack at getting rid of the CFPB. Does this mean that all federal agencies are protected?

No, there's a whole bunch of cases on the docket, including one that's going after, you know, Chevron deference. There's a whole bunch of cases on the docket that are also going to try to hobble agency. But in this particular case, you take the win and you live to fight another day. On the abortion cases, this is really where I think if people were paying attention, Danielle, they'd be on fire. One of the cases was the Mitha Pristone case that was an attempt again out of the Fifth Circuit, out of a Texas court, to do away with Mifapristone because of claims that the FDA licensing was not valid and that doctors who have to participate in taking care of emergency. patients might accidentally help a miscarrying patient who took Mifapristone. That case is still pending. The other one is almost a bigger deal that didn't get attention.

And that just has to do with EMTALA, which is a regulation about how emergency room doctors anywhere in the country, if you take Medicare money, which is every emergency room, you have to provide what's called stabilizing care to someone who shows up in your ER. And that was a case, again, in which some states were like, no. we're going to let them bleed out. You know, we're going to wait until they're dying. And in both those cases, the reason I say people would be horrified, the lack of modicum of concern by some of the conservative justices.

It was crazy. For these women, for their fates, for the idea that they're having to be helicoptered out of Idaho and sent to some other state at the risk of going septic and bleeding out, just the notion that the real harm here is to the state of Idaho, that we're going. wants to make sure that more women can almost die before getting emergency treatment, the callousness was gobsmacking. It was honestly breathtaking, Dahlia, and I think that what it showed to me, and I think people that have been paying attention, is just the astonishing amount of undereducation about women's bodies and how babies are actually born. Like, I honestly believe that these

conservative men that sit on the Supreme Court believe that babies are dropped off by a stork. Like, and that that's what happens. You just open the door and you beautifully unwrap a healthy baby. That there is no blood, no moving of organs, no threat to life. Like, even in modern times and with modern medicine, women are never closer to death than when they are giving birth. And I think that the fact that we don't understand what a person's body goes through and all of the ways that a birth can go wrong in moments. And doctors having to take those precious moments that could be to save the life of a mother to call their attorney to see whether or not they're going to end up in jail is insane. It's insane. And I would also just point to two things. Please note that the two

cases we've just talked about have to do with the rights of doctors. They're not even about the rights of women. They're about the rights of, you know, the complaints of doctors in one case that, oh, oh, oh, I don't want to accidentally have to treat some other doctor's patient who shows up in my ER as a result of taking MIFI, and then I have to be sort of part of an abortion process, even though hospitals all have conscience clauses that allow me to opt out. So this one doctor, this handful of patients, they get to set aside the rights and freedoms and dignity of every single woman in America under this theory, right? And then the other case, the same thing.

We've got, you know, the state of Idaho saying we want to protect our precious doctors from having to afford emergency abortion care that would save orders. save your reproductive future because our feelings about the doctors. And I just want to say, you know, Roe v. Wade famously was decided, you know, in 1973, Justice Blackman did his level best. But it was a case about doctors and their rates. The word physician appears more times than women. And the fact that here we are in 2024 and we're still unbelievably fussed and hepped up about doctor's feelings while women are, you know, having ectopic pregnant. And women are, as you say, you know, going septic on the table, told to stand in the parking

lot until their fever is high enough or they've lost enough blood that they can come back. Just tells you how secondary women's interests are. The only other thing I just want to say, because you've said this a couple times and it's so very important, while we're sleeping through this term, Donald Trump's team who thinks that he did not act quickly enough, right? when he took office last time in 2016, have produced this nightmarish hellscape, right? Project 2025, we're going to reinstantiate the Comstock Act, right? This anti-vice law, and we're going to use it to make sure that no medication abortion can be shipped.

No tools that are used in abortion can be shipped across state lines. You know, this is so serious what they are threatening to do on day one by executive order. if we're not on fire about that, Danielle. They're not joking. They're telling us what they're going to do to our bodies. They're telling us what happens to IVF. They're telling us what's going to happen to surrogacy. They're telling us what's going to happen to LGBTQ rights.

They're telling us what is going to happen. And we're just sitting here being like, you know, that Joe Biden's a little sleepy. So I don't know what to tell you. I think we're the sleepy ones. And I feel like I don't know how to get us to. focus on the fact that we don't even have to wait for the court to do away with what's left of reproductive freedom because Donald Trump and his team of crazy conservative flying monkeys can do it without the court's help.

Dalia, we will have to leave it there today. But how we wake people up is that we continue to have these conversations and we continue to bring them to the public on a regular basis as we make the countdown to the election because everything, everything is at stake in 2024. My friend Dalia Lithwick, appreciate you so much for making the time for the new abnormal. It's so good to be with you, Danielle. Sorry, again, for being so unbelievably grumpy and also failing to curse as promised. If there's one thing you can count on from conservatives, circa 2024, it's railing against cancel culture and woke university is indoctrinating the kids.

Okay, maybe that's two things, but still. Joining me now to explain why all of this is nonsense is journalist and former Think Progress Editor-in-Chief, Jud Legham. He is the founder and author of Popular Information, an independent newsletter dedicated to accountability journalism, which you can find and subscribe to at popular. Dot, Info. Jud, thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having me, Andy. You wrote two pieces this week, in addition to the others that you wrote, but one was focused on what you call the real cancel culture, and another one was about the myth of this indoctured.

nation by woke universities. And I feel like they're not dissimilar. But let's talk about cancel culture first. Nellie Bowles, who at one point wrote for publications like the New York Times advice, has a new book out in which she describes her past as part of the canceling, indoctrinating lefty mob. And my first reaction was, thank God finally someone is writing about how they used to be a liberal, but were forced to move to the right. Exactly. That I think is going to be by press and in case of emergency retirement plan is to, is to find, late in life, define the light, become a conservative, and cash my own checks. No, absolutely. It really is. And as you point out in the piece, this sort of faux anti-cancel culture thing is a very lucrative

gig. And Bowles, of course, is married to Barry Weiss, the former New York Times writer, who is one of our foremost practitioners of the art of reinvention as an anti-cancel culture warrior. and she now has this publication called The Free Press, which you say is basically part of a, I'll quote from your piece, a central part of a sophisticated right-wing ecosystem that seeks to tear down anything and anyone who diverges too far from their ideology. So talk about this in general and then I want to get into the whole NPR thing that just happened recently. Yeah, this is definitely something I've been paying close attention to and observing is the increased

aggressiveness on the right, not just to criticize people that they don't like, but to seek to, in their own terms, cancel them, get them fired. You saw a lot of this with the testimony of various college presidents who were asked kind of hypothetical questions about, well, what if one of your students was saying this or that, and were not in the view of some Republican officials question them definitive enough about their stance on anti-Semitism. That gained a lot of momentum, but it was really publications like the free press. And as part of a larger ecosystem, they play a role. They're certainly not the only ones in it who elevated that from just a moment in a congressional hearing that didn't go well for some of these college presidents to the president of Harvard,

UPenn, others being forced to resign based on this very aggressive coordinated orchestras. campaign to get rid of them. Yeah, it really is, as you point out, it's fully bizarre that this whole movement that was supposed to be anti-cancel culture has become one of the most foremost practitioners of it. So let's talk about the free press, Barry Weiss's publication and NPR. A guy named Yuri Berliner, who was an editor at NPR, he wrote a piece for the free press that basically slammed NPR for being too focused on catering to the left, right? Yeah. He ran it in the the free press. I don't think he really checked in with anyone in NPR before doing it, but it essentially accused NPR of losing its way. Again, he's talked about how he personally was liberal,

but things have just gone too far for him at NPR and didn't have enough Republicans on staff, had fallen victim to different left-wing figures like Congressman Adam Schiff and others. But overall, you know, had lost the trust of its audience by going too far left. That was the thrust of the column. He talked about in the column things that have, as you point out and others like Eric Wemple at the Washington Post have pointed out, he's a little slippery with statistics and stuff like that. I think the thing that stuck out for me, you know, one of the key.

that was kind of the takeaway was of 87 people who worked at NPR, none of them were registered as Republican. And there were a couple of things interesting about that. One, there's over 650 people at NPR producing content. So how that got reduced to 87 isn't explained. Secondly, he didn't mention that while none of them were registered Republican, many people, such as himself, were registered independent in D.C., which makes some sense because, you know, D.C. doesn't really have a very large Republican Party. Right. Even if you are conservative, there's not much going in being registered a Republican. Also, if you look at other states like Virginia, which is next door, which I assume there are many NPR staff who are live in Virginia, they don't even have party

registration. So he would know if those folks were registered as a Republican or Democrat. Okay, so Berliner publishes this piece, and at the time he is employed by NPR, and as you say, it's very clear that he did not run this by anyone at his employer. And he ends his piece calling for Catherine Marr, who is the CEO of NPR, to change the direction of NPR. And a little surprisingly, I thought, given what we usually say with people caving to, you know, the sort of the right-wing media ecosystem, she did not. Yeah, I thought that that was what interested me in this is because they're on a role, Barry Weiss and the rest of them and usually are kind of getting what they want. A lot of the people running major newspapers in New York Times, others have kind of bought into this critique.

NPR is in a very delicate place because although they don't rely that much on federal funding, they do have some government funding as well, so they have to be cognizant about, you know, angering certain folks. And it's important to note that she really wasn't around during any of this criticism that Berlin was making because she only got hired in January. But she defended NPR's journalism and really pretty harshly criticized the piece saying that he was essentially impugning the integrity of his colleagues without a much basis. She particularly took him to task because part of it wasn't a huge part of his piece, but part of his piece, was criticizing diversity efforts at NPR to get, you know, diverse voices and stories and sort of their efforts to figure out, you know, who are they quoting in their pieces?

And she found that his criticism of that offensive because he was sort of implying that certain people at NPR might have only been there because, you know, of their race or their gender and not because of their talents. So NPR actually suspends Berliner about a month ago. And he is, as you write, he is then cast as a martyr by the free press and others. And then Chris Rufo rears his ugly head. And Chris Rufo, of course, is well known for being someone who absolutely tries to cancel people. And also, for some bizarre reason, he seems to set much of the agenda for the New York Times. And he starts going. after Catherine Marr, right? Yeah. And it's interesting, everyone plays their role here. I think the free press is really the more considered role of this.

They have kind of an academic, journalistic sheen to their work, whereas Chris Rufo is more of a street brawler. And he takes it upon himself to go through, you know, the 24,000 plus tweets that Mayor had tweeted in her prior life where she really wasn't a journalist. She was working on behalf of a nonprofit, NDI, and had some other roles. And he finds a few tweets out of that group where she does express some liberal viewpoints, including that Donald Trump is racist and some other things along those lines. And so Rufo considers this completely disqualifying and basically in the New York Times,

which as you noted, wrote up pretty much verbatim his findings in this process as if it was news. And, you know, in the New York Times was quoted calling for her to be fired, pretty much an explicit call for her cancellation. Presumably under the theory that anyone who at any point in their lives has expressed a liberal point of view shouldn't have any role in news. He didn't really explain it, but that's like that's what you could, you have to put to it to it. together, that's what you come up with. Yeah, absolutely. And then, you know, Yuri Berliner resigns from NPR and says he can't work in a newsroom where he's disparaged by the CEO after he wrote an entire piece disparaging the newsroom where he works. This struck me because he wrote the original piece in the free press. And that's Barry Weiss's playbook, isn't it?

Yeah, I think that's what she said, which he left The New York Times. And what I thought was interesting was he then in that resignation note cites Rufo's research, talking about her divisive views, I guess referring to her comments about Donald Trump as the reason why he can no longer work at NPR. Barry Weiss then, of course, retweets his resignation along with that. So she's promoting Rufo and, of course, is published Rufo and hosted him on her podcast a couple of times as well. So you can sort of see all of the pieces coming together. You have to believe that in writing that piece, this was Berliner's plan all along, that this was going to be his exit. Yeah, of course.

Again, following the Barry White strategy, which, as you note, has been very, very lucrative for her. The weirdest thing about this, the whole Marr incident was Rufo citing a tweet saying that Mar was probably a CIA agent. This is where you really get insight as to just how unhinged this has become. And despite kind of the New York Times bona bona fides of Weiss and her position among a certain set as a real intellectual in this space, just how unhinged it all is, I think Rufo is upset that he doesn't get what he wants. He thought he had the goods. And NPR basically just said, no, you know, we're. we're not going to get rid of our new CEO. And in fact, we think that she had the right to say whatever she wanted to say as a private

citizen before she was in journalism. And now she's doing a good job running to the newsroom. So that is not what Rufo wants to hear. And he just goes down this rabbit hole where he's, you know, taking a random tweet from someone who said, oh, well, mayor's probably a CIA agent because she visited Tunisia. Or she was associated with NDI, which is a nonprofit that. that has election observers and does other things like that, tries to support democracy around the world. She's a regime change agent as a result of that. And it shows just how they'll say and do

anything to try to get their way. And although this is really embarrassing, writing something like this would be essentially accusing someone of being a CIA agent without any evidence or even theory as to what she's doing. I guess the CIA is now taking it over at PLO. are and that's the idea. But this won't have any impact in Rufo's standing within this ecosystem, meaning he'll be continued to be highlighted by the free press. He'll continue to be published by the New York Times and quoted by the New York Times as some sort of authoritative source on something or other, even though he's willing to say things that are just patently absurd in order to achieve, you know, his ideological agenda.

Yeah, and it all makes sense when you realize that, as you say in the conclusion of your piece, that this is basically, this is a relentless right-wing operation seeking to inflict pain on their ideological adversaries. I mean, that is bottom line what it's all about. And along those lines, I want to talk about this, what you also wrote about, the myth of woke indoctrination at American universities. You go through a long laundry list. of people, David Sacks, Joe Rogan, Peter Thiel, Charlie Kirk, David Brooks. It goes on and on and on of people who have, you know, talked about that universities are just hotbeds of ideological activism and that the professors are just trying to indoctrinate

these students with their woke values. And then, as you say, these claims are never backed by data. Yeah. And this is something that really has been accepted pretty much as gospel among a lot of people and not just on the right. I mean, this is one of the things where it started on the right, but now it has become so prevalent that if you are a reasonable centrist or even on the left, you will say, yes, things have gone too far at these colleges. They're getting too liberal, too focused on these social justice issues and not focused enough on teaching people real knowledge. You know, that's just a very common thing. You could pretty much open up the op-ed page of New York Times or another publication any day, and probably 50% of the time you'll

find a cotl of that's making a related point. No, it really is. It's become like a little cottage industry of its own, but you do a really great thing, actually, and you talk to a group called Open Syllabus, which is a non-profit group that, as its name might suggest, collect syllabi from colleges and universities. Tell me what you found or what they found. and in what you learned when you talk to them because they talk about how infrequently terms like critical race theory or transgender appear in these various syllabi.

Yeah, this is really an amazing group. I mean, they've collected millions of syllabi. This isn't every single syllabus that's been produced at American colleges, but they do the best job to get as many as possible. And they have syllabi from thousands of colleges, millions of syllabi. And you can, they have a tool

that you can use and you can put in a keyword and you can see what percentage of the syllabi include this word. So what's interesting about this is if you put in really any of these terms, whether it's critical race theory or structural racism or transgender. And there are a lot of others I was sort of playing around with that. I didn't put into the piece because I didn't want to just have it be a thousand different graphs for people to look at. But these are terms that are included on such a tiny percentage of these syllabi. 0.8% or 0.1%, you know, depending on how you're breaking it down, even in the most liberal places. You know, if you look at just Berkeley or an elite institution like Harvard, sort of the prototypical elite institution, it's still in a

tiny fraction of 1% of courses, even mention these terms anywhere in the syllabi. So the idea, we're being told again and again and again that these subjects are dominating the curricula at these colleges and universities. We've been told that based really on nothing, based on vibes for the most part. And if you actually look at this data, this incredible set of data that Open syllabus has put together, it just doesn't back it up at all. Now, is it possible that the people at Open syllabus are actually CIA agents? That we're going to be. going to have to have Chris Rufo look into. And I look forward to his, I look forward to his next exos a. The other thing that I thought was interesting actually was, you know, you could say, okay, well,

maybe they're not using these terms. Maybe they're not using critical race theory. But when you bring that up that it's not something that's taught, people say, oh, yeah, well, it's sort of infused into everything. You know, the kind of the concepts are infused into everything. But if you look at things just like race, which, by the way, is a very legitimate topic of, of academic inquiry. And I don't think it's a problem that whatever percentage of courses cover that, I think would be fine. But even if you look at something like that, you're talking about 5% or less of course syllabi that even mentioned race or gender. So it depends, I guess, on what you are, you know, what your major is. Certainly if you look at like, if you're a sociology major,

you're probably going to, you know, talk about gender and race because that's really part of the whole subject. But you can very easily go to any of these places, even the most liberal places. You can go to Berkeley, you can go to Brown or whatever, and go your whole four years and not run across a single course that's going to touch on these sort of woke concepts in any significant way. And that's the reality of it, at least according to this data, which is the best we have, colleges have not going to undergone some sort of radical transformation over the last few years. We've just been told that again and again again. Yeah, I found that so fascinating because as you say, it's not just a trope on the right, but there are a lot of people who are moderates or even liberals who sort of

feel the same way and think, oh, those colleges, they're just, you know, woke indoctrination machines. Judd, thank you so much for being here. It's always a pleasure to talk to you, and you're doing yeoman's work over at popular. Dot Info. Thanks so much for me. Danielle Moody. Andy Levy.

Could listeners tweet at Jesse and tell him if they like the fact that we say each other's name before the fuck that guy's segment? Because I don't like it. Yeah. My Twitter handle is now at Andy Levy. Oh, shit. Now the Indy's left Twitter. It's actually at Jesse Cannon.

Anyway, Daniel, who's your fuck that guy? To close out this vaguely glorious week. Right. The stupid of the Republican Party knows no bounds. And let's just take a look at what happened in North Carolina this week inside of the state Senate. And folks, I'm going to read you something and you're going to think to yourself, no, that can't be. That sounds like something out of the onion. No, it actually can be and is true.

North Carolina Senate voted along party lines this past Wednesday to ban anyone from wearing masks in public for health reasons. Yeah, they voted to stop people who. could be wearing masks, A, because they have COVID and don't want to spread it, B, because they're recovering from an illness that has decreased the strength of their immune system. So they need to wear a mask so that they don't catch anything while they're in public. Regardless of what the reason is, guess what? It's your fucking face. So not only, I just, I have to make this connection because not only do Republicans want to control, people's uteruses, right? Not only do they want to control like who you sleep with, when you sleep with,

if you get pregnant, how you get pregnant. Now they want to control what you put on your face. And I got to say, what is next? We're going to ban the color blue because that shows your support for Democrats. So now the sky is just going to be red. Don't look up. It's insane. And their insanity isn't just stupid, it's dangerous. So a bunch of Democratic lawmakers, community activists, and advocates for people with health issues all came out against this proposal to talk about the actual real life consequences of these actions. And like, it falls on non-listening ears because they just don't care. They will do anything to quote unquote stick it to the lips, even if it means killing you. And for people to be aligned with this party in any which way just shows that you have literally

given yourself a lobotomy, that you just like could give a fuck less about so many things. Because they're the most unserious and yet dangerous group of people. So for that reason, the fucking North Carolina state Senate Republicans are my fuck that guy. Yeah, this is truly unreal. And I just, like, when I saw this story the other day, I did yesterday, whenever it was, my jaw just dropped. And there's a quote from one of the Republican senators saying that, oh, no, it's overblown. And, you know, law enforcement will be able to prosecute at their own discretion. So they won't do it for people who are doing it for health reasons.

And I mean, I feel like a cursory look at the history of the country and the history of law enforcement shows. that that probably won't be the case. Also, you shouldn't be writing laws that depend on the discretion of police to enforce them. You should be writing laws that are clear and particularly tell the police when they cannot act. For example, if you're wearing a mask for health reasons. But this is just, it's absolutely insane. And this is supposedly aimed at protesters. And of course, by protesters, I mean left-wing protesters, because I don't think they care about right-wing protesters being masked. But it's also, let's face it, it's really aimed at the increasing attempts by Republicans across the country to absolutely rabbit hole COVID and pretend like the pandemic never

happened and that COVID isn't still a bit of an issue, shall we say, particularly for people who are immunosuppressed. And they just, they want so badly to pretend that 2020 didn't happen and that Donald Trump didn't fuck it up royally and that their governors didn't fuck it up royally and lead to a bunch of unnecessary deaths that could have been or preventable deaths, however you want to put it. This is subhuman. To pass a law saying that you cannot wear a mask in public

for health reasons? Yeah, fuck those guys. I bet you can still wear a white hood though. So there's that. Yeah. Oh, my God. Andy, how are you closing out this mediocre week in this mediocre fucking country with your fuck that guy? Well, I'm excited because I get to talk about something that's tangentially sports.

Danielle, I know you're not a huge sports fan. First of all, I'm a huge WNBA fan. Okay. Okay. I'm a huge soccer fan. Fair enough. But football? All right.

But my point is that I'm okay with that. It's really, to me, this is a shot at producer Jesse. Canon. And I'm going to talk about Kansas City Chief's place kicker Harrison Butker, who gave a commencement address at Benedictine College in Kansas the other day, as you might surmise from the name, it is a conservative Catholic college. And in this speech, he talked about, I don't know, let's see. First of all, he talked about how women should mainly get their gratification from being mothers and homemakers. And he said, quote, abortion, IVF, surrogacy, euthanasia, and a support for degenerate cultural values and media comes from the pervasiveness of disorder in

the United States. He also took a swipe at Pride Month. He said, quote, the deadly sin sort of the pride that has an entire month dedicated to it. And he just went on and on and on forever with just the most batshit right-wing political and cultural beliefs that you can think of. And I don't know. I know there's a change.org petition that I think has 100,000 signatures, possibly more at this point, calling for the chiefs to let him go. I'm not sure how I feel about that. He also quoted or paraphrased Taylor Swift in this speech. And Taylor Swift, of course, famously is dating Butker's teammate tied in Travis Kelsey.

And so I am very curious to see. if Kelsey will have a response to this, he's sort of in a difficult position because Butker is a teammate, but Taylor Swift is his girlfriend, and there ain't no way she liked the things he said. And I'm sure Travis didn't either. The one thing I can say for sure is that Harrison Butker, you are no longer welcome on my fantasy team. I make it a habit of not drafting or picking up off waivers, players that I don't like. And Harrison Butker, you are now on this list. And as someone who won my fantasy League last season. This is a big deal for Harrison Butker because there's a decent chance he has lost out on a chance to be on a fantasy football winning team. So that is my personal fuck that guy to

Harrison Butker. I got to say, the NFL is so fucking hypocritical. It's wild to me. So quietly kneeling on the sidelines to protest the killing of unarmed black people and police brutality in this country, problematic. That is a fireable offense and a blacklisting offense. But debasing women with your misogynistic claims, taunting the LGBTQ community with homophobic, like slants, totally okay. And so I disagree with you, with you, Andy, with regard to the letting somebody go. What he said was disgusting to me. And I'm like, and if you can fire someone else, and blacklist them from a league for doing nothing else than kneeling on the sidelines peacefully. But this motherfucker is calling out LGBTQ people, trans people as being sinful and disgusting

and telling women that just graduated from college that they need to go back into the kitchen. And then you just want to come out with a statement saying, this is his personal opinion. Where was the statement then for Kaepernick? So fuck him, whatever his name is, the little kicker, and the NFL for their, bullshit responses to shit like this? I think the NFL response was inane. I mean, yes, we all know

this was him speaking in his private capacity. We don't need you, the league, to tell us that. Like, issue no statement instead of just saying that. The only difference I'll point out is that what Colin Kaepernick and others did was on the field and this was not. So I can see there being a difference, even though, obviously, I support Colin Kaepernick

and I think Harrison Butker is a absolutely horrid human being. but I can see from a league standpoint, you can't really ban a guy for, I don't know, maybe you can. Fuck that guy, though. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of the new abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday.

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