The Supreme Court's Trump Dilemma

Summary

Consider This from NPR: The Supreme Court's Trump Dilemma – Detailed Summary

Release Date: May 24, 2025

In the episode titled "The Supreme Court's Trump Dilemma" from NPR’s Consider This series, host Scott Detrow engages in an in-depth conversation with renowned Supreme Court reporter Nina Totenberg. The episode delves into the intricate dynamics between the U.S. Supreme Court and former President Donald Trump, exploring the court's role in shaping executive authority and presidential power during Trump's administration. This summary encapsulates the key discussions, insights, and conclusions drawn from their dialogue.

---

1. Introduction to Supreme Court Intensity

The episode opens with Scott Detrow recalling a live Facebook session with Nina Totenberg at the Supreme Court in June 2016, highlighting the court's traditionally busy period. Totenberg reflects on the stress and excitement associated with covering an influx of Supreme Court decisions, setting the stage for discussing the unprecedented busyness observed in the current term.

Notable Quote:

"I've never lived through a period like this. The government is filing motions almost daily." — Nina Totenberg [01:37]

---

2. The Supreme Court as a Focal Point in Trump’s Legal Battles

Detrow outlines how the Supreme Court has become central to the legal controversies surrounding President Trump’s executive actions. The recurring cycle involves Trump signing executive orders, lower courts blocking them, and the administration appealing these blocks up to the Supreme Court. This pattern has intensified due to Trump's significant influence on the composition of the court—nominating a third of the justices and half of its conservative majority.

Notable Quote:

"The Supreme Court has become the focal point of the legal battle over President Donald Trump's executive authority and presidential power more broadly." — Scott Detrow [02:02]

---

3. Nina Totenberg’s Storied Career and Expertise

Nina Totenberg shares reflections on her five-decade-long career covering the Supreme Court, emphasizing her role in uncovering pivotal stories such as allegations of sexual harassment against Justice Clarence Thomas during his 1991 confirmation hearings. Her extensive experience positions her as a key voice in understanding the court's current challenges.

Notable Quote:

"Over the next 50 years, Nina established herself as the preeminent Supreme Court reporter in the country." — Scott Detrow [03:13]

---

4. The Complex Relationship Between the Court and Trump

Totenberg discusses the evolving relationship between the Supreme Court and Trump’s administration. She notes an increasing skepticism within the court regarding the administration's legal assertions, despite the conservative majority. This skepticism marks a shift from the court's previous blanket support for executive actions.

Notable Quotes:

"It has seemed in the last few months since President Trump has been in office that the court is increasingly dubious about some of the assertions that the solicitor general and the president are making." — Nina Totenberg [04:44]

"The expression on the chief's face was priceless. It was sort of frozen, like with a frozen smile." — Nina Totenberg [05:28]

---

5. Reporting on the Supreme Court: Challenges and Techniques

Detrow and Totenberg explore the unique challenges of covering the Supreme Court compared to other governmental institutions. The court's limited accessibility, lack of televised proceedings, and the justices' guarded interactions with the press contribute to a veil of mystery. Totenberg emphasizes the importance of building personal relationships with justices to gain deeper insights.

Notable Quote:

"There is still this mystery to the Supreme Court that there's certainly not to Congress, increasingly not to the White House." — Nina Totenberg [09:12]

---

6. Historical Impact of Landmark Cases

Totenberg highlights several landmark Supreme Court cases that have significantly influenced both the judiciary and the nation's perception of the court. Cases such as Roe v. Wade, Dobbs, Bush v. Gore, and the Pentagon Papers are discussed for their lasting impacts on legal precedents and public trust.

Notable Quote:

"Bush versus Gore essentially decided the outcome of an election." — Nina Totenberg [12:09]

---

7. Personal Anecdotes and Experiences

Adding a personal touch, Totenberg recounts her experiences covering pivotal moments, including the 2000 Bush v. Gore decision during her honeymoon. She shares a harrowing story of being run over by a powerboat, underscoring the unpredictable nature of journalistic life.

Notable Quote:

"I'm very lucky to be alive and I'm very lucky to be married to a trauma surgeon." — Nina Totenberg [13:07]

---

8. Conclusion: Navigating a Transformative Era

As the episode concludes, both Totenberg and Detrow reflect on the transformative period the Supreme Court is undergoing under Trump's influence. The court's increasing skepticism toward executive actions and its pivotal role in shaping presidential power mark a significant chapter in American jurisprudence.

Notable Quote:

"They do what they think is right. Some people may say, well, they're influenced by their own personal views, but they don't think that." — Nina Totenberg [06:37]

---

Production Credits:

• Producer: Noah Caldwell
• Editors: Adam Raney and Krishnadev Kalamar
• Executive Producer: Sammy Yanagan

---

This episode of Consider This offers an insightful exploration of the Supreme Court's interaction with the Trump administration, enriched by Nina Totenberg's unparalleled expertise and personal experiences. It provides listeners with a comprehensive understanding of the court's pivotal role in contemporary American politics and the nuanced challenges faced by its reporters.

Transcript

[Scott Detrow]

This time of the year is always busy at the US Supreme Court, and nobody knows that better than Nina Totenberg.

[Nina Totenberg]

Hey, Nina.

Hey. It's, I would say, fun to be here, but it's a little stressful, too.

So June's usually pretty stressful for you, I imagine.

[Scott Detrow]

This is Nina and me about a decade ago on Facebook, live in front of the supreme court. It was June 2016. We were ticking through a flood of decisions, coming out at the end of the term and vying for space on the plaza with tourists and court watchers.

[Nina Totenberg]

Again, we've got a lot of stuff going on behind us, so just don't just ignore it.

[Scott Detrow]

We talked about an immigration case, an abortion case, and an affirmative action case out of Texas.

[Nina Totenberg]

In a Texas school, you get admitted, but 25%. Hey, guys. Quiet. Sorry, folks. This is real life and real deadlocks.

[Scott Detrow]

Nina had to file for All Things Considered. So once we wrapped, we got in her car and drove back to npr. And it isn't that far of a drive, but Nina had stuff to do, so she booked it, weaving through traffic, honking, yelling at other drivers, gunning it through yellow lights, all while classical music played in her car. This was my professional initiation into the world of Nina Totenberg, juggling multiple Supreme Court decisions, commanding a crowd to ensure good audio quality, and careening back to headquarters to make it on the air on time. Nina's been doing some version of this for five decades, but even she has never seen the court as busy as it is right now.

[Nina Totenberg]

I've never lived through a period like this. The government is filing motions almost daily.

[Scott Detrow]

Consider this. The Supreme Court has become the focal point of the legal battle over President Donald Trump's executive authority and presidential power more broadly. So today for our weekly Reporter's Notebook series, a living legend of Supreme Court reporting will break down this crucial moment in the court's history. From npr, I'm Scott Detrow.

[NPR Sponsor]

This message comes from Saatva. Spring cleaning can be good for your home and your mind. It can boost your mood, sharpen your focus, and fuel productivity. Another way to do all that sleeping well. Voted best luxury mattress by sleepfoundation.org Every Saatva is handcrafted for a great night's sleep, and they cost far less than retail. This Memorial Day, save $600 on $1,000 or more at saatva.com NPR this message.

[Scott Detrow]

Comes from Capital One. With the Capital One Saver card, earn unlimited 3% cash back on dining and entertainment. Capital One. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. [e-mail] Support for this podcast and the.

[NPR Sponsor]

Following message come from Made in Cookware president and co founder Jake Kalik shares a tool that's useful for both master and newbie griller.

[Jake Kalik]

The craftsmanship of the carbon steel griddle enhances your grilling experience because it allows you a totally different type of grill surface that opens up the amounts of food you're able to cook. So the griddle is the perfect accessory to add to your grill and kind of widen your grilling game.

[NPR Sponsor]

Learn more about Made in Cookware at M a d e I-n cookware.com it's.

[Scott Detrow]

Consider this from NPR. It's hard to fathom how many Supreme Court cases Nina Totenberg has reported on.

[Nina Totenberg]

Nina Totenberg covered this morning's action at the court. She's with us now.

[Scott Detrow]

This is her first story in the NPR archives from February 1975 about the legality of photocopying copyrighted scientific journals.

[Nina Totenberg]

Well, this case is really the first round in what could be called the battle of the Xerox machines. The battle is just beginning.

[Scott Detrow]

Over the next 50 years, Nina established herself as the preeminent Supreme Court reporter in the country. She has broken countless stories, including allegations of sexual harassment by Clarence Thomas during the justice's 1991 confirmation hearings, as dramatized.

[Nina Totenberg]

On the 2016 movie Confirmation.

[Jake Kalik]

Hello, Professor Hill, this is Nina Totenberg.

[Nina Totenberg]

From National Public Radio. I've received a copy of the affidavit.

[Jake Kalik]

That you faxed to the Judiciary Committee stating that Clarence Thomas sexually harassed.

[Scott Detrow]

So we wanted to mine her decades of experience to try to understand this current moment on the court, which is fielding a flurry of emergency applications from the Trump administration. The cycle goes something like Trump signs executive orders and actions. Lower courts block them. The government asks the Supreme Court to unblock the blocks, rinse, repeat. To add to the equation, Trump nominated a third of the current justices and half of its conservative majority. So I started our conversation by asking Nina how she would describe the dynamic right now between the court and President Trump.

[Nina Totenberg]

I think the word would be very awkward.

Yeah.

I mean, so at the end of last term, the chief justice wrote this decision for mainly the six conservative members of the court, giving President Trump enormous immunity, more than his lawyers had actually asked for. It was an incredibly broad ruling. But now it has seemed in the last few months since President Trump has been in office that the court is increasingly dubious about some of the assertions that the solicitor general and the president are making. That doesn't mean that it's not a conservative court and it doesn't mean that it hasn't sided with the administration plenty of times, but it is increasingly skeptical, I would say.

And as we talk about the tension between these two institutions, there was a really interesting moment after President Trump addressed Congress earlier this year, an interaction between him and Chief Justice Roberts where he goes up and he shakes the Chief justice's hand, and I forget exactly what he said, but thank you, thank you. I won't forget it. And that was by and large interpreted as Trump thanking him for the immunity ruling.

And the expression on the chief's face was priceless. It was sort of frozen, like with a frozen smile. And, you know, none of these justices want to be the handmaiden of any administration. They don't see themselves that way. There are six conservative members of the court who are very devoted to a conservative ideology that they have spent their lives promoting. And they don't think that what they do is just because Trump asks them to. They do what they think is right. Some people may say, well, they're influenced by their own personal views, but they don't think that. So this is really an affront to them in a way. And it's very hard for them, I think, all to deal with it.

I want to talk about the way that you have covered the Supreme Court. And I think let's just use Chief Justice Roberts as an example, because I know you're very thoughtful and deliberate about how you approach covering the justices, how you view this with a long term view, how you try to get to know and understand the people who are going to be shaping the courts. When did you first meet John Roberts? When did you first start talking to John Roberts?

You know, he used to be somebody that I used often in my stories when he was a lawyer, because he had a lot of cases in front of the Supreme Court when he was a private lawyer. And I remember one day when I got caught in traffic and I was like 20 minutes and I came in thinking, oh, my God, I have, you know, he's left by now and there he is sitting there patiently waiting for me. There was no remonstrating, you know, there was no saying, how dare you come late. None of that. We did a very nice interview. He was very clear. He was always terrific. But he is not one of these people that you can sort of get to know easily. And I don't know him well. Let's just put that really. I don't think anybody who covers the court does. And, you know, he has a few really close friends, but he's not one of these people who you see all over social Washington a lot. That's not his style, whether it's Roberts.

Or the other justices. Can you tell us about how you try to understand the justices that you cover better, how you try to engage with them, given that the very formal roles that they have and the way that they carry out their power in rulings that it's your job to try to understand and bring to our audience?

Well, I want to make clear this is not like covering Congress or the White House. You don't just bop into a justice's chambers and say, hey, how about lunch today? It doesn't happen. They keep a fairly good distance from most reporters. Although there will be social occasions where you could chat occasionally, which is why I try to break bread with any of them who will break bread with me. And it's easier to do when you've known somebody in the past. So there are are a couple of members of the Court who I knew well before they were on the court. And it's a lot easier to invite them to dinner than it is to invite somebody who doesn't really know you. It seems a little strange. I'm not gonna ask them anything at dinner about the court's business. I just wanna sort of get to know them and have them know me as well.

This is something that is a big part of beat reporting. But people with opinions on the Internet.

[Scott Detrow]

Chime in on a lot.

[Nina Totenberg]

And can you explain what the as a reporter, what you're getting as a journalist by trying to understand somebody better who you're covering?

You get a real sense of what motivates them, how they came to the ideas that they came to, what were the influences, how they think. It's incredibly helpful. And I actually think it's good for the justices. I don't think that coming to dinner with a few interesting people is gonna compromise them.

I think you cover this institution that due to the fact that probably partially due to the fact that people wear robes, but also to the fact that this isn't televised, there's still this mystery to the Supreme Court that there's certainly not to Congress, increasingly not to the White House. Can you just help listeners understand what it's like day to day? What is it like when you're walking into the Supreme Court, sitting down in the back and covering oral arguments? And how has that changed over the years? I mean, I know one big way it's changed is you don't get to reenact people's questions like you did for so long.

It was like your signature style forever when we didn't have audio. Chief Justice Roberts? Well, if you think that there was a prior Democratic gerrymander in 1990, can't the new party in power redress that? They should not be able to. After a court drawn plan is in place, they should have. You would go running downstairs after an argument. We would stand around, you know, sort of supplementing each other's notes, the, the group that covers the court regularly and then we would run to file. So now we do have the audio. And I think even though it's in some ways easier and in some ways harder to put together a piece quickly when you have two hours of audio, for example, and a lot of it is very legal mumbo jumbo, I think it's really valuable for the public because they can listen to the whole thing if they want. But I mean, it is a little bit like covering the Kremlin.

Yeah. How so?

Well, you have no idea what's going on behind those closed doors. The court always says the most important thing it does is issue opinions of the court and that you're supposed to read those and then rely on the likes of me and my colleagues to report on them. But you don't have the kind of access that you do when you cover other institutions in Washington. You just don't.

When I covered Congress, you could physically run down lawmakers. When I covered the White House, you'd be in the same room and you could yell questions. And neither of those are options of the Supreme Court. You can't yell a question in the middle of oral argument. I guess you could. Then you wouldn't be in the courtroom much longer.

You wouldn't be ever invited back. What do you think?

I'm thinking about how this institution and this beat has changed over the years. What do you think the biggest cases that fundamentally change the way that the country sees the courts, fundamentally changed the way that the court operates are over that period of time?

Well, obviously Roe v. Wade and the Dobbs opinion, Bush versus Gore essentially decided the outcome of an election. The Pentagon Papers was a hugely important case in its time and it established pretty clearly that it's going to be extremely hard to get a temporary restraining order to prevent publication of information that the press has gotten its hands on, whether it's done so in a nice way or not.

You mentioned Bush v. Gore. This is the 2000 decision to stop the partial recount in Florida in election that George W. Bush ends up winning by about 500 votes. Can you tell us about your personal experience covering that story.

Well, my honeymoon had been when the first argument in Bush versus Gore and I, we had picked the day to get married in November, figuring that all of Washington would be gone then.

Right. Because you put life on hold until after election. If you're a political reporter, you put.

Life on hold until after an election. And this was after the election. Well, so we go off on our honeymoon, and I was run over by a powerboat on my honeymoon, and I'm very lucky to be alive and I'm very lucky to be married to a trauma surgeon.

Yes.

So we come back and I'm on the steps of the Supreme Court on the morning of the penultimate argument, and I'm doing a standup interview with the Today show. And Matt Lauer says to me, nina, we read all about you having this terrible accident on your honeymoon, but you look really great. And I said, well, Matt, it's a triumph of makeup and drugs. And that was exactly accurate. One of the reasons I think I don't have a clear memory of all the things that happened back then is that the drugs.

[Scott Detrow]

That was NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg. This episode was produced by Noah Caldwell. It was edited by Adam Raney and Krishnadev Kalamar. Our executive producer is Sammy Yanagan. It's considered this from npr.

[Nina Totenberg]

Scott.

[Scott Detrow]

I'm Scott Detrow.

[NPR Sponsor]

This message comes from NPR sponsor Shopify. Start selling with Shopify today. Whether you're a garage entrepreneur or IPO ready, Shopify is the only tool you need to start, run and grow your business without the struggle. Go to shopify.com NPR this is FRESH.

[Jake Kalik]

AIR contributor Ann Marie Baldonado. I talked with actor Cole Escola about their hit Broadway play, oh Mary. Cole plays an unhinged alcoholic Mary Todd Lincoln, who's an aspiring cabaret performer. If that makes no sense, that's part of the point. You can find my interview on the FRESH AIR podcast.

[NPR Sponsor]

Want to hear this podcast without sponsor breaks? Amazon prime members can listen to Consider this sponsor free through Amazon Music. Or you can also support NPR's vital journalism and get consider this [e-mail] that's plus.NPR.org.