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Even though the Supreme Court took a break from hearing oral arguments, there was still plenty of legal news breaking every day. Katie Phang joins Leah to recap that news, including Trump’s threats against Iran, the overt Christian nationalist rhetoric coming from the Secretary of Defense, and a disturbing case that SCOTUS decided not to hear. Then, Emily Amick, joins Leah to talk all things 25th Amendment– where it came from, why we probably won’t see it invoked here and now, and why we should keep talking about it anyways.

Favorite things:

• Leah: Democracy in Retrograde by Sami Sage and Emily Amick; “Drunks, Lampposts, and the Birthright Citizenship Case” by Steve Vladeck; Levain Bakery’s carrot cake cookie

• Katie: her dog Lucky

• Emily: Strangers by Belle Burden; Smitten Kitchen’s zucchini butter spaghetti; meet-ups with the EYP community 

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TRANSCRIPT

Melissa Murray [AD]

Show Intro Mr. Chief Justice, may it please the court. It’s an old joke, but when a man argues against two beautiful ladies like this, they’re going to have the last word. She spoke, not elegantly, but with unmistakable clarity. She said, I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.

Leah Litman Hello and welcome back to Strict Scrutiny, your podcast about the Supreme Court and the legal culture that surrounds it. I’m your lone regular host for today, Leah Litman. Here to announce that I, too, have never been friends with Jeffrey Epstein. Indeed, I have also never had a relationship with Epstein or his accomplice Maxwell. Of course, my I’m not friends with Epstein or Maxwell shirt has a lot of people asking questions answered by my I am not buddy buddy with sex traffickers shirt. Anyways, the Supreme court did not hear oral arguments last week, which means this is just going to be a legal news episode. And with Kate and Melissa out, I am delighted to be joined by two repeat guests to help me break down WTF happened last week. First, Katie Phang is going to talk with me about this week in the unitary executive, which as far as I can tell meant a lot of war crimes and Christian nationalism. We’ll also talk about a bad decision out of the Supreme Court you probably haven’t heard about and some goings on in the courts of appeal. Then Emily Amick will explain what all the 25th Amendment talk is about and help me say goodbye to Justice Rebecca Bradley. A.k.a. Becky with the bad takes of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. But first up, joining me in the co-host chair is the wonderful Katie Phang, independent journalist and trial lawyer who hosts a YouTube channel, the Katie Phang channel, that is part of the Midas Touch Network where she delivers must-hear daily news analysis. Welcome back to the show, Katie.

Katie Phang Oh, I’m happy to be back. I do think this would have been a good week for some Taylor news, but other than her planning her wedding right now, we don’t have any updates. But I feel like it would have- Did you get to save the date? I mean, are we on like an NDA? Like we’re not supposed to talk about it, right? We are like, why are you outing us like this? I mean hello. But I kind of feel like they would have taken the edge off of all, you know, the Christian nationalism genocide this week. BUT Yes, I am thrilled to be here no matter what.

Leah Litman I should also say you can find Katie on Substack, Katie Phang, over at that platform as well. Okay. Katie, as you were kind of suggesting, this last week felt, at least to me, like one of the more unsettling, disorienting, unreal weeks that I can remember in a year and a half that has always felt that way. Like with the president threatening war crimes, genocide, maybe using a nuclear weapon and giving us a weird deadline slash timeline for him. Making a decision about whether to unleash all of this, it just felt surreal. How did you experience?

Katie Phang This past week. We didn’t even have to make it through an entire week to be able to have that experience, right? I felt like, you know, Tuesday, well, we started it on Sunday, did we not? Easter Sunday with expletive, laden posts threatening the continuation, I will say, of war crimes, because that is my opinion. I feel like the war crimes it’s not like they haven’t started. They’ve been kind of ongoing. And then it kind of merged and kind of like evolved into, will we have an act of genocide? By either by way of a nuclear warhead or maybe some huge ordinance, right, on Tuesday. But that became Taco Tuesday, which then made me wonder, are we gonna have a war crime Wednesday? I mean, I don’t say this tongue in, I mean you kind of say it tongue in cheek and I’m not trying to make light of it, but my biggest, and it’s so funny, I just had a conversation with our good friend Elie Mystal about it not even an hour ago. I was like, were we gonna wake up Wednesday morning and think like everything is back as business as usual, even in the legal. Perspective, right, because I felt like we were so close to the edge of that precipice. We didn’t have to go over it, Leah, for us to have really crossed the Rubicon. I firmly believe in every way we have now crossed this line that we cannot go back to as a society and as a world. And now we sit in this midst of a ceasefire, non-ceasefire and wonder what’s next, sadly.

Leah Litman And so since you mentioned the posts, I just want to kind of recite them for our listeners who might have missed them because only the actual words can convey the nuttiness. So the Sunday one, I think, is what read, quote, Tuesday will be power plant day and bridge day all wrapped up in one in Iran. There will be nothing like it, multiple exclamation points. Open the fucking straight, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in hell. Just watch. Praise be to Allah. President Donald J. Trump. That was Easter Sunday, Easter Sunday.

Katie Phang I’m like, you know, sometimes when you have to laugh uncomfortable, like I’m laughing uncomfortably because I was in church, right? Like I was church and you don’t even have to be a Christian on Easter Sunday to be appalled by what it is. But it’s just even the taunting at the end with the praise be Allah stuff just really was so beyond the pale. Right? Oh yeah, completely. See you next week.

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

Katie Phang Yes, and yes, I think this was the quintessential moment of and it should have been appreciated as an inflection point for all people that participate in media, whether it’s legacy mainstream or independent, to have that gut check on how you cover Trump and this regime. And it doesn’t have to be a partisan coverage. It has to be the truth, which is why I’m grateful that you took the time to walk through those truth social posts, because… As we know in the law, an admission by a party opponent is the most damning way to impeach someone, right? I mean, and I would love impeachment and every sense of the legal idea of impeachment, conviction, removal of a president. But you know, to do so, using someone’s own words against them is oftentimes the most powerful way in front of a judge or jury to be able to show that person’s intent.

Leah Litman This had big he-admit-it energy, like Stringer Bell, are you truthing a motherfucking criminal conspiracy? Because as you know, like, for war crimes, you have to establish the actor’s intent, and they’re usually not just posting-

Katie Phang No, in writing, so then you don’t even have to question it. Was it a he said, she said moment? Oh no, it was in writing. And you know, you don’t even have to wonder if there’s a mistake in attribution. This was not a, even if the idea sprung from the brain of Stephen Miller in this very perverse Greek mythological way, you didn’t have to wonder because at the end of the day, the way it was presented and rolled out on Truth Social was epically. Epically Trump, right, and all of the weird caps and syntax and lack of punctuation and run-out shit. But it was the criminal intent that was so brazenly obvious. And you know, there was nothing strategic about it either, right? I mean, some people are like, oh, he’s just posturing. Yeah, posturing by the threat of the commission of a war crime is not posturing, it’s the threat- It’s the war crime. So, you know, knowing all of that. It really gave a lot of us, including myself, a very sobering cause for pause, which is, do you just shrug your shoulders and enjoy the breeze from the Overton window being moved so far into another country at this point that you would need a passport to live in it? Or do you actually say, we can’t go back now? Like, this is where we are. And the fact that it wasn’t enough for some members of Congress to immediately put their britches on and haul ass back to DC. Was, I think, another galling takeaway from this week. One of the worst.

Leah Litman Responses was, I don’t agree with genocide, but like that was a sentence that some people actually uttered. And it’s like, no, no. No, there’s no but after that. There’s no, just full stop. But you know, I know in Arrested Development, the father says I have the worst fucking attorneys, every lawyer for the federal government and Donald Trump personally has to be saying I have worst fucking client with those posts, but a bit on those lawyers, because… Last week, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch assumed the role of Acting slash Interim Attorney General. Katie, how did his premiere go in your eyes?

Katie Phang Thank you, Shermé, I have another. Thank you Shermée, I had another. I was waiting for Todd to, in the theme of religion, I was for him to whip out something and be like the self-flagellation of, I’m so sorry, sir, I am here in piety to be able to do what you will. Anytime, I’ve never, and I’ve been on this earth for 51 years this year, Leah. I have never heard any iteration of an attorney general, either an assistant United States attorney, an attorney, general, a deputy AG, whatever the hell you want to call them. I have ever heard any of them say, I love you, sir. I’ve never heard them say I love. You know what, since you introduced it, let’s.

Leah Litman Play that clip because here is Todd Blanch on the guy upstairs by which he means Donald Trump himself.

Katie Phang Not God.

Clip I love working for President Trump, it’s the greatest honor of a lifetime, and if President Trump chooses to keep me as acting, that’s an honor. If he chooses to nominate me, that is an honor, if he chooses nominate somebody else and I go back to being the dag, that an honor and if he nominate someone else and asks me to go do something else, I will say thank you very much, I love you sir. So I don’t have any goals or aspirations beyond that.

Katie Phang That he said that literally it’s funny because I actually covered that presser in one of the episodes on my youtube channel The thrust of that was to talk about the hypocrisy of them announcing this new fraud enforcement division When trump himself has pardoned or given clemency to more than 70 of his allies donors Friends and people that have paid to play to get access and they’ve all been convicted of fraud and that more than $700 million in restitution and fines has now gone by the wayside, courtesy of Trump’s clemency by way of pardons and commutations. That was the thrust of that episode I did. But of course, I played several clips from. Blanche, because it was a 24-minute press conference. And to give him credit, he took questions. And yet, the level of just obsequious, disgusting, kind of like, let me grovel. To say that I would love whatever you do to me was a little personal, Leah. I felt a little uncomfortable. It was a a little like, I’m up for it.

Leah Litman A little like I’m watching something I’m not in a cult of personality shirt, you know, asking questions answered by that shirt. I also did want to highlight one other clip that came up in Todd Blanch’s media kind of bonanza this past week, which we will play here and this is his take on.

Clip I mean, look, if you were a prosecutor and you were trying to prosecute your boss, you have ethical duties as a lawyer that I think prevent you from continuing to work in that environment.

Leah Litman Katie, is that a-

Katie Phang uh, not the kind that I learned or that I got tested on to become a member of a bar. And you know what’s crazy is, and it dovetails with that clip, is that he actually… It’s so funny, if you only heard some portions of what the man had to say, it sounded noble and with integrity, right? He’s like, if your gonna work here, then you need to believe in things. But then, and then if you were to cut it there, you’d be like, oh, that sounds so great. But then he keeps on going and saying, because the only agenda here is the president’s agenda. And I was like, bro, whatever happened to the rule of law and your oath to the constitution? But that just goes to show anybody, Leah, who piped up and said, ooh, maybe Todd Blanche is a better Pam Bondi. You are full of shit because there is no way Blanche is going to sit there and allow Bondi to outdo him when it comes to the ass kissing. Blanche’s like, I get the gold medal, even though I am the guy responsible with Emil Bove for my client to get 34 convictions on felonies in the only jury trial that Trump ever had. I have that claim to fame, but I will not allow Pammy Jo with the bad hair to out do me when it

Melissa Murray [AD].

Leah Litman So another character in this clown show who had some things to say about the guy upstairs was Secretary of Defense slash Secretary of War Crimes, Pete Hegseth. Hegseth. I’m going to play you a kind of series of clips that he delivered at one of his pressers and then ask you to kind of react to the insanity. So here he is at one them.

Clip Our troops, our American warriors, deserve the credit for this day. But God deserves all the glory. Tens of thousands of sorties, refuelings, and strikes carried out under the protection of divine providence, a massive. Miraculous protection.

Leah Litman It’s been reported that Hegseth has held Christian worship services at the Pentagon. And in one of the recent ones that post-stated the administration’s war on Iran, here is some of what he said.

Clip First a reading from the book of Psalms, chapter 18, verses 37 to 42. King David writes, I pursued my enemies and overtook them, and did not turn back till they were consumed.

Leah Litman He also recited a prayer given by a military chaplain to troops who participated in the capture and kidnapping of Nicholas Maduro.

Clip Almighty God who trains our hands for war and our fingers for battle, you who stirred the nations from the north against Babylon of old, making her land a desolation where none dwell, behold now the wicked who rise against your justice and the peace of the righteous. Snap the rod of the oppressor, frustrate the wicked plans and break the teeth of the ungodly. By the blast of your anger, let the evil perish. Let their bulls go down to slaughter, for their day has come. The time of their punishment. Pour out your wrath upon those who plot vain things and blow them away like chaff before the wind. Grant this task force clear and righteous targets for violence, surround them as a shield, protect the innocent and blameless in their midst, make their arrows like those of a skilled warrior who returned not empty handed. Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation. Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.

Leah Litman So Katie, I realize I am asking you some version of this question a lot, but how do you talk about or convey the enormity and gravity of this misuse of the military?

Katie Phang You always have to start with the strong emphasis on the separation of church and state, because that has gone out the window. Trump term 1.0, by the way, let’s be clear. It’s not just a novelty act that has jumped up right now in Trump term 2.0. But the separation of church of state is just the baseline where we start whenever we talk about this. But then the thing about Hegseth is that… You know, I was waiting for him to order everyone in that presser to bow their head in prayer. I mean, I waiting for Trump to stand there with the collection plate at the end of the row. And then he pockets the money from the collection plate, from the offerings. I mean that’s the type of thing I felt like was gonna take place. But when you blur these lines, it’s intentional. It is not, number one, it is not sincere because there is nothing. About Pete Keg’s breath that ever smacks of sincerity.

Leah Litman That’s good. Kegs breath. That’s better than Keg, Seth. I love it. I’m going to credit you for it.

Katie Phang You can totally do it. I’m sure I cribbed it from somebody else. But number two, the nefarious and very insidious part about all of this is the allowance, if not the overt pushing of this violation of church and state, right? It ends up working towards their advantage toward the narrative of this is a holy war. And when you reduce it into very basic precepts of good versus evil, and when you couch it in a way where we are leading a crusade against infidels, which by the way, he does have a tattoo that says infidel.

Leah Litman He also has the book American Crusade in which he basically argued the Crusades were justified.

Katie Phang He’s also argued for war crimes, that there’s no such thing as a war crime. He’s never been a war crimes he didn’t love, right, and that he didn t think people should be prosecuted as soldiers for war crime because there are no rules of engagement, right? I mean, these are walking textbook examples of illegal conduct. And then you just have him in an enabling role like Trump has all around him so that Trump can continue to post the insanity he posts on Truth Social, which is I’m gonna commit a war crime. Why? Because my Secretary of Defense commits war crimes on the daily based upon the fact that God has now told him, and by the way, the Pope has told both of them.

Leah Litman The Pope said NO to all of this.

Katie Phang He’s like, yeah, peace out, brothers, that is not how God works here. But it is amazing that the entire, the base of MAGA, which likes to cloak itself, even if they’re evangelical about it, in these ideas of Christianity and good, that they don’t, other than Tucker Carlson calling him the Antichrist, but they don’t actually say, no, no we don’t live in this space. Because I think the evangelical, you and I talked about this before, Leah, the evangelicals gave him a pass. When they thought that he was going to get rid of a reproductive rights. And then when they, when they delivered Roe being overturned, I was like, aren’t you done? Like, what else do you need from this man? Do you really, do you? Oh, I guess you want the infidels now. Like you want to total eradication of the middle East. I get, I don’t understand why they’re not.

Leah Litman They want a Christian Nationalist Country, and army. That’s part of why Hegseth is firing all the senior military officials who are Black or female or trans. I just think it is terrifying because it all seems in service of making the federal government, including the military, a Christian nationalist force. But because you introduced it, because the administration basically manages to turn everything upside down, civil rights and more, of course, they’re doing this with religion, too. Because all of this religious fervor is happening in the midst of reporting. About this ghoulish warmongering the administration has directed at the pope and the Vatican. Okay, so for listeners who might’ve missed this, the Free Press and other outlets reported that back in January, the undersecretary of defense policy summoned the pope’s then ambassador to the United States and delivered some kind of threat-laden lecture to him about how the United State has the military power to do whatever it wants and that the Catholic church had to take a side. And then during the meeting, One of the US officials invoked the so-called Avignon Papacy, which for those of you who might not know, it’s when the French crown used military force to coerce the Bishop of Rome to do France’s bidding. They literally forced the Pope, the Pope’s multiple, to reside in France rather than Rome. And it entailed using military force against the Holy See. So part of what was striking to me about this, Katie, is that these guys actually seem to have read some history, at least selectively. Like they don’t know shit about reconstruction. In. But they’re all boned up on the Avignon papacy? Like what other history might they have or not have in their back pocket? Or what did you make of this reporting?

Katie Phang Well, they initially pulled out Mein Kampf and they were like, oh shit, wrong one, wrong, wrong. Let me put that back into my pocket. What’s in my pocket? You’re gonna make me.

Leah Litman You’re going to make me recite the succession. So you read Mein Kampf multiple times. For what? For what, yeah.

Katie Phang With your dog? The name. It’s a German Shepherd? What’s the name of your judge? And then I pull out, oh yeah, the Avignon Papacy. Let me rely on this one, right? I mean, somebody just like Melania yesterday, somebody has given them talking points. And that is the reason why they feel comfortable using that. But it is remarkable because you know what they didn’t bone up on? How about sovereignty? How bout the Vatican fucking having its own sovereignty? How about, it’s the pope, people! Like, it’s like, I didn’t have to tell you about Easter Sunday and not putting out an exposit of late and truth social post, but it’s the pope. And it’s our first American pope! I mean, you gotta show some respect to the-

Leah Litman And guess who the bad guys in the Avenue on Papacy were? The governments! Attachments!

Katie Phang Attacking the Pope. But it’s very much, it’s very much they look for the convenient historical precedent to bolster what they want. So when they look at, you know, France and you had, you know, the Sun King, right? And he literally lived under this premise that he was the closest thing to God on this earth. I mean, that was the justification among others for his royal presence. I mean, there is a reason why, you know, whenever all of these kingdoms in these empires, they were literally so kissing cousin adjacent to religion. And that is what we have here in the 21st century with Trump. The problem is he is such a charlatan and it is so obvious that he doesn’t believe in what it is that that actually reduces any credibility on any of these claims that make under the guise of Christianity.

Leah Litman They do seem to have a weird fetishization for the French monarchy for being America first, given this, and then also the fact that Donald Trump is partially inspired by the Palace of Versailles and making some aspects of his home or whatever resorts like gold. Anyways.

Katie Phang He’s dissatisfied with America in general, right, because he loves Viktor Orban. He loves Vladimir Putin. He loves the autocracies as they live in international countries, and that’s why he wants to bring them here. He’s like, there’s no tariffs on autocracy. Let’s bring them on in, right? Bring them on American soil.

Leah Litman Yeah, but this meeting was apparently so alarming that it is a reason why the pope did not go through with plans to visit the United States last year after being personally invited to attend, you know, America’s 250th anniversary.

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Leah Litman So we started off this conversation with truce and unfortunately that is how it’s going to continue. So the president had some thoughts on the birthright citizenship argument saying, quote, it’s too bad that the Supreme Court can’t watch and study the Mark Levin show on the Birthright Citizenship Scam. Note, I’m just not sure these guys need to pickle or marinate their brains even more in the right-wing ecosystem. But then that truth continued, and in a rare moment of clarity, the president closed it with, quote, the country can only withstand so many bad decisions from a court that just doesn’t seem to care, end quote. Stop clocks, et cetera. So I mentioned at the top that I kind of wanted to get our listeners up to speed about a bad decision that you probably haven’t heard about. And so I’m going to ask you for your take on this, Katie. And that’s the Supreme Court’s decision to deny Serserari that is not to hear. The case of Skinner versus Louisiana. So bear with me for a bit, the summary is gonna take a little. The case stems from several convictions for the murder of a Mr. Walbur. No physical evidence tied the two defendants, Mr. Weary and Mr. Skinner to the murder. Instead, their convictions relied on the testimony of two people, Sam Scott and Eric Brown. Scott had been incarcerated and he came forward. He claimed to be an eyewitness to the crime, although his statement messed up the year of the crime how the victim was killed and where the body was found. Statement also didn’t identify either defendant until later. And the other eyewitness, Eric Brown, gave an initial statement that also didn’t mention Mr. Skinner. Okay, so at the trial, the prosecution describes Scott as a quote hero whose fit of conscience broke open a cold case. And they said that Brown was getting quote nothing in exchange for his testimony. Slight problem. State withheld the fact that Scott was able to obtain a manslaughter plea that gave him credit for time served such that he would be let out of prison after testifying. And the state didn’t disclose that Brown had attempted to get a deal for his testimony and that police promised to talk to the district attorney about a sentence he was facing and additional charges. The state withheld other evidence too, but you get the picture. Katie, how bad of a Brady violation is even just that.

Katie Phang It’s it’s like open the dictionary to Brady and see Skinner versus Louisiana, no? I mean it’s you know you don’t even have to this is the miracle of this. You don’t have to be a lawyer to appreciate it, Leah, right? Just right on its face you don’t even have know the intricacies about the fourth, the fifth, the eighth, right. You know you, don’t you don’t have to worry you don’t ever have to mind yourself on those amendments. You don’t to worry about the black-letter law. It just in your gut doesn’t sit right, you know? It’s information that you would think would be necessary for a jury to make a decision as to the criminal culpability of a person. And the fact that this was intentionally withheld on its face should be enough procedurally to say, eh, this is not right. We can’t move forward with it.

Leah Litman And part of what is so appalling is that indeed, it was bad enough for the Supreme Court to intervene about a decade ago. So back in 2016, in Weary versus Cain, the court summarily reversed a Louisiana decision and vacated Mr. Weary’s murder conviction on the ground that the state withheld evidence that would have seriously impeached the state star witnesses. And the court said the conviction rested on the house of cards. But here’s the thing. Mr. Skinner was convicted of the same crime as Mr. Weary, the same murder. On the basis of the same star witnesses’ testimony. State withheld the same evidence, and in Mr. Skinner’s case, the Supreme Court just says, And this is the kind of stuff the Supreme Court could have put on its docket rather than the birthright citizenship matter. I mean, just this last week, the Washington Post ran a story saying that this court is the first since the 1950s to reject most civil rights claims involving women and minorities. And I just think people need to understand that the Supreme court is bad, not just because of the things they do, but because of things they decline to do as well, like how they choose to spend their time.

Katie Phang Yeah, and this is a great example of why elections have consequences. People often think of it more in the narrow lane of who’s my senator, right, or who’s my representative. I mean, and I always like to remind people that it is almost the tentacles of this are so far reaching that with a Senate win in a man like Mitch McConnell, who ends up being the architect. Of the stacking of the federal bench, admittedly with the assistance and at the behest of Leonard Leo and the whole federal society energy, but you create a stacked federal bench and then you create almost like a nuclear arms race when it comes to presidential administrations, right? Because it ends up being a race to see who can make the most appointments during their presidential term on these federal appointments, right? Because these are lifetimes, and this is the other thing, these are lifetime appointments even on the district court level, the trial court level. And then, of course, you end up with, like, Emil Bove on the third, on the appellate court level, et cetera. But the fact of the matter that this 10 years ago, that the countenance of the Supreme Court of the United States 10 years in 2016 was materially different than what you have looked at now post-Trump term 1.0, so that you end with identical claims, identical facts, identical issues, identical evidence that was suppressed for one man but not for another creates such an egregious, inconsistent result. That as you said, sometimes it’s not what we know, it’s the stuff that we don’t know about, it’s stuff that’s happening behind the scenes and I’m not talking shadow docket, I’m talking these types of decisions that are being rendered that are in three words, not even, or one sentences, you know, whatever, and that has far reaching implications as well. And listen, I get it, it’s Louisiana, which in and of itself is troubling, but I mean, how do you have them on all fours? Be the exact same facts, exact same issues, and you screw over Skinner in that way. Well, you know.

Leah Litman There you go. Yeah, I’m so glad you brought up the distinction between 2016 and 2026, because another thing our listeners might not know is that it takes four votes on the Supreme Court to hear a case. And what that means is the three Democratic appointees couldn’t force the issue today in a way they could have in 2016 before Justice Ginsburg passed away. And to think that this differential treatment might come down to that is just… Gutting, you know, it just defies the idea of equal justice under the law.

Katie Phang Which is why when we find out weeks after the fact that Alito ends up going to the hospital and stuff, right? And we don’t know about it in real time, I think is a sign of the fact that they’re fully cognizant with Alito and Thomas being the literal elders on the court, right, the oldest people on the Court. And they are two of the most conservative, if not the most conservative justice on the Supreme Court we’ve had. Like the fact that Alito goes to the hospital and it’s kept silent for as long as it was, I think is a tell on their part that they know that there is something going on here, which is why we should be paying attention to these things. And it kind of gets us back to that big debate of should she or should she not have stayed, right? I mean, I hear that all the time. Should people stay? There was a recent kind of debate over Sonia Sotomayor. Should she, should she go, whatever. So, I mean, it’s kind of interesting how we all are now, it’s almost like, you know. Reminds me of like when the Emperor of China somebody looked at his poop every day to see what I mean Are we gonna get to that point now?

Leah Litman These guys, at least Alito, already make us look at his shit almost anytime he writes an opinion. So yeah, no, you set me up for that one. But speaking of, you know, deciding whether to stay or whether to go, I wanted to note a notable retirement announcement that came out of the Court of Appeals for the A circuit. And it was this Judge Erickson on the A Circuit announced that he’s taking senior status. Not notable, although choosing to give the madman threatening nuclear war the option to name your replacement is a choice. But the interesting thing is that Erickson was actually appointed to the A circuit by Donald Trump during his first term. So the guy’s been on the A Circuit bench for less than eight years. What did you make of that or think when you kind of saw this guy was like quickly you know, stepping down.

Katie Phang Well, he is one of several that are actually kind of running to the exits, but not in a way that we should find reassuring. Erickson’s vacancy on the 8th will create the opportunity for Trump to appoint his sixth nominee judge to this bench. And his four prior that have been the white men that the ABA deemed to be NOT QUALIFIED TO SERVE! And by the way, we should still go by the ABA qualifications, even though the DOJ and the United States Senate have decided on the Republican side not to do it. They’ve all been white male. There have been no women. There have no been women of color that have come from Trump. And so there have been other circuit appellate court judges that have also said, I think I’m going to take retirement now or I’m gonna go to senior status because they know that this creates another opportunity for Trump to put someone on the bench, which again, elections have consequences. If you have people that are elected to either the Oval Office and where you get a Ketanji Brown Jackson, courtesy of former president Joe Biden. Or if you end up with a Donald Trump where you end with a Brett Kavanaugh, right? I mean, these are material things that impact your life. And if there’s any silver lining to all of this, Leah, and I think you of all people would agree, especially on this pod, if anything, the Trump terms, as horrific as they have been. Have actually brought, I think, more knowledge and interest in the Supreme Court of the United States that we’ve ever had in the history of that court, so much so that people are understanding that these Supreme Court justices of nine have so much power over us as Americans that we should be paying attention to our elections and who gets in positions to vote these unqualified people through in the United State Senate.

Leah Litman So since you mentioned unqualified, wanted to note one other development in the Court of Appeals, and that’s out of the Ninth Circuit. So a two-judge panel of the Nine Circuit, both judges Trump appointees, including one rated unqualified struck down a California law that sought to limit the amount of profits that dialysis providers could get from patients who receive assistance from nonprofit charities in paying their health insurance. So the law essentially imposed a rate cap, had a disclosure requirement. And whatnot. And the thinking was this package of requirements would remove financial incentives to steer patients to specific health care coverage by reimbursing dialysis clinics at Medicare rates. Katie, want to guess why these two geniuses said this statute attempting to rate cap dialysis provision was unconstitutional?

Katie Phang I’m gonna guess that it’s the flavor du jour lately, which is the First Amendment.

Leah Litman It’s so sad because that amendment has become like a punchline, like the aristocrats. I feel like we need a First Amendment for Freaks segment.

Katie Phang Because this is what they’re doing. They’ve weaponized and bastardized the First Amendment. I mean, you don’t have to look very far from what, was it a week ago that we had the conversion therapy decision from SCOTUS, right? I mean and that was under the guise of the First amendment as well, right. I mean the First amendments has now been weaponized and bastardize in a way that I find to be remarkable, especially for the Republicans to be deploying it in this way.

Leah Litman No points for guessing one member of the panel, who of course was Judge Lawrence Van Dyke, the creator of the Amosexual Porn video and the author of the opinion that contained Swinging Dicks, who also managed to be the speaker at the National Federalist Society Convention about, you guessed it, the proper role for the judiciary. The jokes write themselves. So Katie, do you want to share with our listeners your favorite things over the last week?

Katie Phang I would say that as always a top a pole position is always going to be my dog Lucky and the reason why is the following. It has been an incredibly trying week and I will say if there’s one thing that always comes from spending time with my dog it is a reminder that unconditional love does exist and two that we should aspire to be as amazing people as our dogs think we are which I think anybody could believe in. And understand. I think the other kind of favorite thing that I had from this week is I felt like I went to this conference, Leah, in Boston, and it was around a whole bunch of very smart, like-minded, pro-democracy people. And I left that conference understanding that we are not limited in geography. In terms of our desires to make our country a better place. Like sometimes we feel like, I, for example, feel like a blue dot and a red C, but it has been kind of like a one-two punch in a good way of leaving no Kings Day 3.0 in Minneapolis, St. Paul and going to this event in Boston. Like it reminds me that there are these pockets that are growing of sane, very, very motivated people that understand what’s at stake. And so no snark. Just genuine love, affection and appreciation for the idea that we are here to sustain each other in all the right ways. And that is exactly how I managed to get through the insanity of this week.

Leah Litman I love that. Thank you so much for joining. As always, we truly love having you here. I’m always.

Katie Phang Speechless at the end of spending time with you. I feel like I live in the minutia, and then I spend time with and I’m like, I really don’t live in this level of. My personality is basically in the footnotes, in the footnote. No, listen. Caroline products, right? Footnote.

Leah Litman That’s fair.

Katie Phang If there’s anything I remember, discrete insular minority. Um, yeah, listen, all kidding aside, like I, I know it’s a win when I leave feeling smarter and I’ve also got to spend time with one of my favorite people who’s a fellow dog lover and a fellow Taylor Swift fan. And so I’m always grateful.

Leah Litman Well, thank you so much again, Katie. Listeners, again, please check out and subscribe to Katie’s YouTube channel, as well as her sub stack. She manages to kind of thread that needle between keeping you informed without making you insane, a true gift. So coming up next, Emily Amick will join to talk the 25th Amendment and what shouting into the void does.

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Leah Litman Before we get to my interview with Emily Amick, a point of personal privilege, where I get to talk about a state race here in Michigan with pretty big national implications. So right now there is a competitive primary in Michigan to be the Democratic candidate for Attorney General of Michigan. And at the end of last week, the Trump administration sued one of the people running to be the Democratic Candidate for Attorney general of Michigan, and that’s Ellie Savitt, the current Washtenaw County prosecutor. You scared, Donald? Seriously, we know Trump targets the fighters. People challenge him, like Representative LaMonica McIver, Jim Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James. Now he’s targeting Ellie Savitt, who is running to be Michigan’s next attorney general. Our listeners know we’ve had Ellie on the show before when he talked about how he would protect LGBT rights as Michigan’s Next Attorney General. Disclosure, he’s also a law school classmate of mine. And the lawsuit against Ellie is unhinged. It’s about immigration policies, and it faults Ellie as Washtenaw County Prosecutor enforcing the Fourth Amendment, saying it’s a problem that Washtena County requires judicial warrants for some immigration enforcement. When did it become unconstitutional to enforce the Constitution? Inquiring minds would like to know. The lawsuit also complains that Ellie isn’t handing over information to ICE to help them in their dragnet immigration enforcement when we have all seen. What federal immigration enforcement looks like, hauling people out of cars, pepper-spraying children, zip-tying children, and shooting and killing civilians. So basically, they are also saying it is illegal to stand up for public safety. Again, we’ve had Ellie on the show. He’s talked about protecting rights from the lingering specter of fascism. And seriously, now it makes me wonder, Donald, you scared? And now I am delighted to be joined by Emily Amick, the Emily behind Emily in Your Phone, former counsel to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and the co-author of the recent New York Times bestseller Democracy in Retrograde, the paperback version of which is coming out this month. Welcome back to the show, Emily.

Emily Amick Hi, Leah. I’m so excited to be here.

Leah Litman I am very excited to have you because this past week there’s been a lot of talk about the 25th Amendment and you wrote a great piece on it. So I was hoping we could walk through what the 25th Amendment is, why it’s come up, and why we should be talking about it. So I guess let’s just start with the basics. So what is the 25th Amendment?

Katie Phang Yeah, so after JFK was assassinated, everyone was like, wait, whoopsie doodle, what’s going to happen? What’s going happen if the president is incapacitated and we don’t have anyone leading the country? Maybe there should be some procedures that we should have.

Leah Litman And the one thing is that there were actually like assassinations and whatnot before that point, and it’s like they didn’t realize it then, right? Like, you know, Garfield, Grover Cleveland, and no, no, but it was JFK.

Emily Amick NBD ain’t a big deal. It’s fine. There’s a man there. Someone will do it. And so they were like, let’s do a thing. Let’s do an amendment and set up a procedure. And the procedure is the vice president has to start this. And he has to get a group of buddies together. So he has get either part of the cabinet or, as Jamie Raskolin is now circulating, a congressionally designated group of people. All get together, they send a letter to Congress being like, hey guys, the president’s in a bad way. It’s not going well over here. And then the president could be like, actually I’m fine, and stop it. And then, the group can once again be like no Congress, we think our buddy is doing poorly. We really need you to do a vote on this. See the truth post. See the true truth post, right? Have you gone to www.truth.com? I don’t even know what the website is. And then Congress has to vote on it, and it’s two-thirds majority. And then the vice president is the president. And so invoking the 25th Amendment has never actually happened. When Reagan had the attempted assassination, there was discussions about it. But. It is, you know, my posture on this is that talking about the 25th, I’ll like cut to the chase, which is my posture is that like talking about the twenty-fifth amendment isn’t really about invoking the twenty fifth amendment. It’s about talking about it.

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

Emily Amick Well, and the other thing to point out is the other available option is impeachment, which you have discussed probably for hours and hours and hours of your life at this point, which again requires majority of the House, two-thirds of the Senate, a number that is unattainable, even if it could be started, which functionally it can’t be because Republicans control both chambers. And so, because a lot of people are saying like, don’t talk about the 25th, talk about impeachment, and it’s like, guys, same, same. You know what I mean? Right, yeah. Same, same? And to a significant degree, Democrats have not been talking about impeachment or 25th because they want to focus on the issues and affordability and sort of Trump’s actual actions. But what the 25 allows you to talk about, impeachment requires specific actions that are bad. And what we saw from the first two impeachments was none of that really pierced the public consciousness. In a really significant way. But 25th is just like, this dude’s incompetent. This dude’s nutter-butters. And that does pierce the public consciousness and gets to a general feeling of the zeitgeist, which is like, I don’t like having this guy have the nuclear codes. Yeah, right. Right.

Leah Litman Is literally threatening nuclear war. And he vacillates back and forth between, oh, the straight is open, the strait is not open, charging rates, not charging rates. And that sort of erratic behavior, you would think, might cause people some concern. I mean, we spent months and endless news cycles and media cycles talking about Joe Biden’s mental acuity. So we know this is a potential topic of interest. And that’s interesting that the 25th Amendment opens. That door in a way, that impeachment.

Emily Amick Might not. Yeah, I mean, one of the things Republicans can do really well is make something like Sleepy Joe happen, right? Whereas, like, the Democratic base is like, no, we want something policy. We want procedure. We want actionable things. Like, we want to see reality. They won’t just participate in the sort of narrative building that is the foundation for any action and any political change, right, which is one of our problems. Yeah, no.

Leah Litman And also, like, these things are just inextricably related, right? The fact that we have a mad king, right, just starting baseless wars and causing problems is part of why the economy is going to shit, right. And gas prices are up and all of these things are more difficult. So I guess, like another part of me was thinking about the 25th Amendment as a almost stocking horse for the underlying issues. Like talking about the twenty fifth amendment is in some ways an opening to discussing all of the ways that Donald Trump just makes things in our lives. Worse by being a mad king.

Emily Amick And the other thing about 25th Amendment is it’s sort of algorithmically optimized. There are certain types of conversations that work really well on social media. And it’s hard to articulate what those things are. If I spend an egregious amount of time on the internet and I sort of have this feel for it at this point, and it is something that has legs. Yeah. And… There’s sort of a reticence to participate in these campaigns I think amongst people because they can feel that that’s what it is But it works and which is why I sort of like let’s lean in let’s do it. Let’s do. It. This is a good idea Yeah, no that

Leah Litman That’s so interesting. And I don’t know if it’s because it’s partially a legalistic culture, if it is partially the promise of a solution, if its partially, as you were saying, a way of talking about Trump’s unfitness. But you’re right. It does seem to garner a kind of attention that just saying Trump is threatening nuclear war somehow doesn’t. Yeah.

Emily Amick People love like zingers, you know what I mean? They love terms that, I mean, again, that’s why they like sleepy Joe, you what I’m mean? It’s somehow really gets at the heart of the emotional resonance of an issue, less so the like precise nature of it. And I think for a lot of people, 25th Amendment feels, it feels validating to their preexisting belief that he’s a mad king. And then it feels hopeful that there is a solution to a problem.

Leah Litman And I should say, I feel like we have been trapped in this, I don’t know, 18 months of news stories about how Democrats are looking for people who can help with messaging And influencers and whatnot. And I just want to point out, I’m talking to one right here and that like her ideas are spelled out in democracy and retrograde. So maybe like send it to your congressional representatives and tell them, right? It’s right here.

Emily Amick I, in fact, have been writing about this almost every day for eight years and begging Democrats to invest in the influencer infrastructure for eight years. And they say, you’re a middle-aged woman, who knows? Exactly. Therefore irrelevant. You’re irrelevant. You’re just going to be the most important voting block in 2028, but who gives a fuck?

Leah Litman The 25th Amendment kind of keeping it in the conversation also reminded me of something that happened this past week, which was Justice Sotomayor continuing to drag Brett Kavanaugh for Kavanaagh stops. So she said in a recent appearance, yeah, I know, quote, I had a colleague in that case who wrote, you know, these are only temporary stops. This is from a man whose parents were professionals and probably doesn’t really know any person who works by the hour, end quote. Like, it’s a way of keeping something in the conversation. And I won, I love that. But then a part of me was also terrified, like, why is she making these statements now? What did Brett Kavanaugh do this time? Did that cross your mind?

Emily Amick And what did he say to her at last week’s dinner party? Exactly. What did he said at conference? What crazy vote did he cast? I don’t know. But I think that the other thing that this is doing, that she is doing and the 25th Amendment is doing is setting a foundation. So future clerks drafting a decision on that matter will see her comment and think about it. Like it affects the Overton window I like to talk about a lot. Public conversations do directly relate to policy and law, we see that in judicial decision making, right? Like in a very literal sense and in a figurative sense, figuratively things change. I mean, Obergefell is like the greatest example, I think of a decision that says like, actually society has changed. And we are going to decide the law differently. Of course we have now a Supreme Court conservative majority that doesn’t agree that life should change. And they say, actually let’s go back to the time when Most of you people had nothing, no rights. But putting that aside, I think that that is one of the things that Justice Sotomayor is doing there, is saying, I want to make sure next time this comes up, people take note of this one very specific thing and maybe feel a little bit guilty. But not understand the absurdity of it. Right, not that Kavanaugh would ever take a moment to think about hourly wage workers in his life. No, no. But maybe someone else would.

Leah Litman That would also require Kavanaugh taking a moment to think. Also my baby on capacity. Hard for him. Right. Speaking of scary things though, Emily when you joined us at a live show we played a game with you and I wanted to close this episode with a little game of helping us say goodbye to Rebecca Bradley, Becky with the bad takes, soon to be the former justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court because Chris Taylor won the election meaning there’s now a five to two progressive majority on that Wisconsin Supreme Court and.

Emily Amick I don’t know. Are you up for this? I’m so excited. And I’m like so excited for Wisco. And every time I hear the nihilism of the Democratic base, nothing can change. Everything is broken. No one will ever do anything. I’m, like, false, incorrect. Like, look at what we’ve been doing with the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Elon had invested millions, tens of millions of dollars, and we’re still winning. And we’re winning on good issues, running good people. It’s very very possible if you run good races with good people

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

Emily Amick In retrograde. And democracy and retrograde, it’s so in talking about these Wisconsin Supreme Court elections, I wrote that book. And one of the people who I’ve seen develop her investment in her community over these years, her name’s Kate Duffy. And she started supporting Mandela Barnes’ Senate race, doing Moms for Mandela in Wisconsin, and has now gotten involved in all of these Supreme Court races, making political content on Instagram, and working on the ground, organizing, and like. I have seen democracy and retrograde in action with everything that Kate is doing. She got involved in her community, an issue she cared about, she spoke out, she found community. One of my big like premises of the book is like there’s actually a lot of joy to find in this work. And Kate and I are like really good friends now and we have a lot joy in everything we do together. And so I think it’s the perfect example and she’s now working, like they’re winning. What a pleasure that is.

Leah Litman And so, speaking of finding joy and finding joy in winning, let’s shift to dancing on the judicial, I don’t know, office grave of one Rebecca Bradley. Okay, so Emily, true or false? In a 1992 column, Rebecca Bradley argued that under a Clinton presidency, one would be better off contracting AIDS than developing cancer, because those afflicted with the politically correct disease will get all of the funding. True or false. Oh, yeah, true. Although when she ran for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, she indicated that since that column, she began a process of change in her life. She’s like, I can’t say these thoughts out loud. I have to keep them inside. That was the process of Change. OK, next one, true or false. Rebecca Bradley once called the progressive members of the Wisconsin supreme court, quote, handmaidens of the Democratic Party. Ugh. She did that. She did. That. Yeah. It doesn’t work. Oh, yeah. Okay. Next one. True or false? In an opinion, Rebecca Bradley wrote, quote, DEIA is a disguise for dangerous identity politics.

Emily Amick I mean, the thing is I wouldn’t put anything past this woman. So I’ll go with true true. She did. Yep. She did that one. Sure. Okay. Sure would it. It’s not even funny. You know what I mean? Make a good joke, girl.

Leah Litman Well, maybe this one will be a joke, but true or false. Rebecca Bradley edited her own Wikipedia page. True, she did that one too. She’s a busy, busy lady. Okay.

Emily Amick It’s so pathetic. I hate, I’m like always so happy to win, especially when it’s against these freaking losers. I’m also so happy.

Leah Litman To be reminded that they truly can’t handle criticism, right? Like she edited her own Wikipedia page. She decided not to run for reelection rather than be in the minority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. So it has that going for her.

Emily Amick I mean, she’s barely, she was mostly appointed. She only ran one time, right? Right, exactly. She was appointed by Scott Walker.

Leah Litman Next one, true or false. In a single opinion, Rebecca Bradley cited Charles Love, race crazy, BLM 1619 and the progressive racism movement said we live in a quote, increasingly race obsessed society and, and cited Ben Shapiro, how to debate leftists and destroy them. True. True, single opinion. All of that and more. Think about that fact. As you listen to her take. In a recent-ish interview here. As a justice, I do not share my personal beliefs about anything that is political. I’m dismayed that issues are being talked about under the guise of values. Did that hit for you? So hard. Every accusation is a confession. And now our own little montage to say goodbye to Becky with the bad takes. I also think the way Judge Crawford ran her race was disgusting. She slandered a good man, Judge Schimel. We saw this last time against Justice Kelly. It’s really sickening. How are you feeling about working with Susan Crawford on the Wisconsin Supreme Court? I’m not looking forward to working with her. It’s okay to usurp the legislature’s constitutional mandate to redistrict. But it’s not OK for the court to… I’m not following your argument at all. It doesn’t make any sense. Isn’t the fact that the legislature… I’d like an answer to my question, Justice, first. I think it’s because the legislature was a party. Are you arguing the case? And here she is, the very beginning of the oral argument concerning Wisconsin state legislative gerrymander.

Clip Good morning, and may it please the court. The Wisconsin Constitution’s redistricting requirements are not optional.

Leah Litman Council, where were you? Where were your clients two years ago? Because we’ve already been through this. Redistricting happens once every 10 years. At the mouth to get in there. Um, Emily, final words on Wisconsin, 25th amendment, democracy in retrograde or anything else?

Emily Amick The thing that I have to say, and the reason I wrote Democracy in Retrograde, which is all about the fact that, unfortunately, it has continued to become more true, as the book has been out over the last couple of years, is that we don’t have to stay in retrograde. We can change things. And it is very, very possible. And it just requires everyone to do something. Everyone doesn’t have do everything. It just we need everyone to something. Those things can be things that bring you joy, and make you happy, and add incredible value to your life, and enrich our communities. And I very much have hope and faith that we will get there, which is a weird thing to say for someone who’s been a practicing lawyer for 20 years. We are the most negative people. It’s like us in dentists. We’re the most-negative people. But you know. I’m friends with my dentist, so that tracks. But, but it, you know, I feel confident that we are on the right side of history and we will prevail and, and I just the question is how quickly that will happen.

Leah Litman Well, that is a terrific place to end, and actually a perfect segue to ending the episode with our favorite things. So I’ll go first and share my favorite things over the last week. So one, of course, is Emily’s co-written book, which is co-written with Sammy Sage, Democracy in Retrograde. Again, get the paperback version. I feel like it’s the perfect thing in the lead-up to the midterms to really light the fire under your butt and whatnot.

Emily Amick And now that it’s a paperback, there’s a personality quiz and lots of worksheets. So it’s gonna be really easy to fill out. And if you have someone in your life who has been struggling politically, it’s the perfect gift.

Leah Litman Struggling politically. It’s a nice way of putting it. Also, I wanted to recommend a post from a friend of the show, Professor Steve Vladeck over at One First, Drunk’s Lampost and the Birthright Citizenship case, which talks about the role of academics in normalizing the administration’s unhinged theories about birthright citizenship. Some other favorites would be the news chyrons. As Melania said, she never had a relationship or friendship with Epstein or Maxwell. Some of them were truly next level. Also, Levain Bakery, I don’t even know if you, that’s how you say it, but they released a seasonal carrot cake cookie. What? Yeah, I know. Public service announcement. Public service. Get on that. And last but not least, please vote for us in the Webby Awards. Just a few days left to vote and we will include a link in the show notes. Vote for them. So, Emily, how about your favorite thing from last week? Okay, I have four things.

Emily Amick I wrote on a post-it note in preparation for this event. I love it. Number one, the book that I have called Book Club Final Boss, have you read Strangers by Bel Burden? Yes. Yeah, I mean, everyone I know, they pick it up. They said they read it in one sitting. Yes. And then the book takes seven hours to read and then you spend seven hours talking about it with your friends. And there’s so much to discuss and that makes it all the more delicious. So that is thing number one. Thing number two… Is it’s spring, which means I get to have my favorite recipe, which is the Smitten Kitchen Zucchini Butter Spaghetti. Are you a Smitten kitchen fan?

Leah Litman I love Smitten Kitchen and I also love zucchini squash and making recipes with that.

Emily Amick My partner doesn’t like it and your partner may like this because it doesn’t taste like zucchini. I put in extra zucchini you like caramelize the zucchini. I do recommend using a fresh pasta like a fresh linguine. I think it really makes it taste better to have that bite. Highly recommend everyone try out that recipe. Third thing is i probably said this last time i was here because it’s always on my list i’m picking my needle point back up and i’m always i’m always putting it down and then being like you know what would bring me joy. Continuing to work on this project that I’ve been working on for seven years. Whatever sparks joy. You know what I mean? I need a little, I need a little meditative time. And the fourth and final thing is I have started to do meetups with my community, my UIP community. Okay. And we’re doing one in San Francisco in a couple days and like over 80 people have RSVP’d. And the point is, is there’s no point. We’re just like hang out and meet and everyone’s gonna make new friends. But it’s And I think that people are really, they want IRL, you know, I am so terminally online, but we want third places, you want time to be with other people and have fun and talk about your interests. You know, I’m gonna force 17 different people to talk about my needle point, that’s fine. And your dog or whatever it is, you know what I mean? And I thing people are rearing for that and that is part of the social fabric that makes us like politically. Potent and viable and there’s a real value to it and there is a real value into finding like joy and happiness points in our lives, especially when the world is so hard right now. So I’m super excited. I’m going to do one in New York. I’m gonna do one Boston, um, to get to do these things, which I haven’t been doing the last couple of years. And so it’s bringing me incredible joy that I get to them now.

Leah Litman That’s great. Emily, thank you so much for joining again. We always love having you happy to be here. And finally, some housekeeping before we go. One, why does it seem like the Supreme Court always saves its worst decisions for June? Maybe the first gentle breezes of summer fill them with inexplicable rage. We can’t say for sure. In any case, this June, the three of us with Strict Scrutiny are headed to New York City to break down all the cases in question and whatever horrors the Roberts Court has in store for us. With judicial expertise… And those petty jokes at Samuel Alito’s expense in equal measure. Honestly, maybe more of the second. But you can catch Strict Scrutiny Live at the historic Gramercy Theater on June 20th as part of the Bad Decisions Tour. Tickets are on sale now. Grab them at crooked.com slash events. Also, if you’ve been following the latest headlines around policing, ICE, and immigration enforcement, the Empire City Podcast Club from Crooked Ideas is the place to fully unpack it. Host Chenjurei Kumanyuka and special guests dig into the systems behind those stories, how this power was built, who it serves, and what it means for public safety right now. Every session focuses on a new theme, with space to connect the dots and ask bigger questions. Whether you’ve been tracking every headline or just starting to tune in, you can be part of the conversation. We’ll send a reminder before we kick things off. The next session is tomorrow. The club will send a remind before they kick things, the next session tomorrow, April 14th at 5 p.m. Pacific, 8 p. M. Eastern. Sign up at crookedideas.org slash Empire City. Strict Scrutiny is a Crooked Media production, hosted and executive produced by me, Leah Litman, Melissa Murray, and Kate Shaw. Our senior producer and editor is Melody Rowell. Michael Goldsmith is our producer. Jordan Thomas is our intern. Music by Eddie Cooper. Production support from Katie Long and Adrienne Hill. Matt DeGroot is our head of production. And thanks to our digital team, Ben Hethcoat, Johanna Case, Kenny Moffett, and Eric Schutt. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. If you haven’t already. Be sure to subscribe to Strict Scrutiny in your favorite podcast app and on YouTube at Strict Scrutiny Podcast so you never miss an episode. And if you want to help other people find the show, please rate and review us. It really helps.