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Home to the Rachel Maddow Show, Morning Joe, the briefing with Jen Psaki and more Voices you know and trust. Ms. NOW is your source for news, opinion and the world. Learn more at Ms. Now.
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I'm not under any pressure whatsoever. We've never had so much ammunition. Our ships are loaded. I call them locked and loaded. They're locked and loaded. They're ready to go. We have much higher quality equipment than we did when we first started the war.
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C
Hi again everybody. It's five o' clock in New York. Well, Donald Trump and his administration tie themselves into knots trying to diminish the impact of the war in Iran on the American people, on our military, on our relationship with our allies. An alarming picture is coming into focus. Contrary to Trump's claim there that America stands, quote, unquote, locked and loaded, new reporting finds that the war in Iran has placed enormous strains on the United States munitions supply, a depletion which experts warn could take years to reverse, leaving America and our allies vulnerable to threats from abroad. The New York Times reports this, quote, since the Iran war began in late February, the US has burned through around 1,100 of its long range stealth cruise missiles built for war with China, close to the total number remaining in the US stockpile. The military has fired off more than 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles, roughly 10 times the number it currently buys each year. The Pentagon used more than 1200 Patriot interceptor missiles in the war at more than $4 million a pop and more than 1000 precision strike and ATACMS ground based missiles, leaving inventories worrisomely low, according to internal Defense Department estimates and congressional officials. The Iran war has significantly drained much of the US Military's global supply of munitions and forced the Pentagon to rush bombs, missiles and other hardware to the Mideast from commands in Asia and Europe. The drawdowns have left these regional commands less ready to confront potential adversaries like Russia and China, a drawdown that has left some of our closest allies vulnerable. The New York Times adds this reporting, quote, in Europe, the war has led to deplete and weapons systems critical for defending the eastern flank of NATO from Russian aggression. That's according to Pentagon information reviewed by the New York Times. The Wall Street Journal adds this reporting, quote, the U.S. has burned through so many munitions in Iran that some administration officials increasingly assess that America could not fully execute contingency plans to defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion if it occurred in the near term, US Officials said. Wholly replacing those stockpiles could take up to six, officials said this threat to our military readiness from a conflict no one has been able to explain to the American people, why we are fighting is where we begin the hour. Retired Army Major General Randy Manor is back with us. He served as deputy commanding general in Kuwait and acting vice chief of the National Guard Bureau. Also joining a staff writer at the Atlantic and a contributor to the Atlantic daily newsletter. Tom Nichols, he is a professor emeritus of National Security affairs at the U.S. naval War College. And back with us, retired U.S. marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Amy McGrath is here. She is a candidate for the open Senate seat in Kentucky. General Manor, I start with you. This is something that I think people don't think would get to this point. I think this is the sort of thing that people like to leave to their government, like to trust their government with keeping in a range that is safe. And it seems that these stories suggest that people inside the military do not think we're in a safe range on these issues anymore.
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I completely agree with the assessments by the New York Times and the other investigations have been ongoing. This is something where we are probably in the lowest state of readiness, quite frankly, probably since 2010, 2012. In that time period, we have been these stocks will take, I was saying, perhaps two years if they accelerate the funding and accelerate the assembly lines and so on and make huge investments in our in through our defense contractors. But the reality is we are dangerously low on these ammunitions. No matter what the president says. It is complete propaganda. And it also bothers me when he says our ships are fully stocked, locked and loaded whenever the US mail is being rejected by the military since April 7th. And our men and women in uniform in the Middle east are not even getting mail for the past three weeks.
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C
Why is that? Explain that.
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D
The quote from that I have been able to find is logistic necessities are prohibiting mail from being delivered. Well, that's, that's crap. Quite frankly, in wartime, the most important thing you can get is a package from home, whether it is cookies, whether it is toiletries that you can't get on board ship or you can't get locally. It's just that idea that it's a touch of home. My dad was in Vietnam, wrote to my mom every day and my mom wrote to him as well. It kept him going. Even though we have email and the Internet. The reality is getting a package from home is very important. And here the administration does not take into account the morale of our men and women there in combat and has suspended all mail deliveries since April 7th. And it's even on the USPS website that they're all suspended.
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Tom Nichols. Let me come back to the reporting
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on
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our readiness and on the depletion and the draining of our supplies. Times adds this. The Pentagon has also moved sophisticated air defenses from Asia to bolster protection against Iran's drones and rockets. The redirected weapons include Patriot missiles and interceptors from South Korea, the only Asian ally hosting the advanced Missile defense system deployed by the Pentagon to counter North Korea's growing missile threat. Now, for the first time, the system's interceptors are being moved away, according to American officials. I guess I'm old enough to remember the little rocket man chapter of Trump 1.0. And I know he went on to fall madly in love with Kim Jong Un and to write love letters and share those love letters, but that doesn't change the nature of the North Korean regime. And I wonder if you can just speak to our exposure and the fact that it is very public how exposed the United States is in Korea, in Taiwan, and around the world.
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I wish I could say something comforting, but I'm going to now say that it's worse than you think, because the danger here is not just that we're drawing down stocks of weapons for a war that we didn't need to be fighting. You know, I think one thing that Americans should ask themselves is when they hear these reports is to say, and for what, because this was completely unnecessary. But more to the point, not only do our opponents know that we're draining our stocks, but they've had a good look at our wartime leadership, and they have seen us, our civilian leadership. They've seen the operational excellence of the US Military. But that only takes you so far when the civilian leadership is so utterly incompetent. And I. And that worries me almost more than the drawdown in stocks, because I'm concerned that our allies think that they are facing the weakest and most disorganized and most incompetent American leadership in decades, maybe ever. We have an unstable president. You know, I just want to emphasize something General Manor just said about propaganda. It's worse than propaganda. When Donald Trump says, we have all the weapons we need and they're the best. It's. It's worse than that. He doesn't know. Donald Trump has no idea how many weapons we have, whether there are any good. He just says stuff like that when he's asked questions because he needs to say that everything's fine. The President of the United States does not know what he's doing. He's an unstable person. And the people he's relying on below him, starting with the Secretary of Defense, are incredibly incompetent. His negotiating team is his son in law and a real estate developer. The Secretary of State is somewhere, but apparently not deeply involved here in trying to resolve this situation. The Director of National Intelligence is virtually invisible at this point. No one seems to know what she's doing. And if I were a foreign opponent, I'd be looking at this and saying, this is singularly the most incompetent American regime we've ever faced and they're burning through their stocks. I suppose the only good thing to note here is that the Chinese and the Russians are probably intelligent enough not to interrupt Trump while he's doing this much damage to our national security and to our national defense. But when you take those, those numbers that you've been reading, Nicole, and you add to that that this war is being directed by people who are making a complete hash of it, we are putting ourselves in an incredibly dangerous situation.
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C
Well, let me ask you, I mean, we are in, or we would like to be in a negotiation with Iran. Why would Iran negotiate with us if the current path is depleting and weakening us more than any negotiation could?
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Well, the Iranians are clearly showing that they have a higher pain tolerance right now than we do. And I suspect that they have every incentive to drag their feet out, to drag their feet, to drag this out, because that increases the economic damage that's going to reverberate throughout the American and Western economies. I mean, in a sense, Donald Trump is, while he's done an immense amount of damage militarily to the Iranians, he has not destroyed the regime, he has not destroyed all of their military capacity, and he's handed them the ability to choke off the strait and to affect our economy. So, you know, the question is, why would the Iranians negotiate? Great question. I suppose the answer is they don't really have much of an incentive to. Especially because all of Trump's body language seems to indicate that he doesn't want to restart this war, that he doesn't want to start major combat operations again, even though, you know, again, he says it, he says that if they don't negotiate, he'll do terrible things. But I think you can only say that so many times before. You're the boy who cried wolf. So, you know, all in all, this war has left us far worse off than if we had never started it in the first place.
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C
Amy, for all the conversations you and I have had over all the years, We've been covering Donald Trump. I don't know that there's been a more frightening moment for the country or dangerous moment for the military. How do you see this moment?
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F
Well, this Iran war has made us less safe. It has made us more vulnerable to the real adversaries that we have in the world, like China and Russia. As was just discussed, the depletion of our munitions is just one example of that, but there are many others. The expense of this war, the cost of this war is felt by the American people now not only in gas prices and grocery prices going up, but also because we are going to have to replenish these stockpiles. We have people that can't afford health care right now and rent. And three weeks of this war, we could have funded things like universal pre k in this country. And so many people are saying, what are we doing? What are we doing over there? How is it helping us? And this administration talks a lot about, well, we rebuilt the military. Give me a break. Right now we're gutting our stockpiles for no real geopolitical gain here. And that, I think, is what General Manor, what Tom has been talking about. We're not getting anything out of this.
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C
Let me read you a little bit more from the Times, Amy. The Pentagon, for example, has committed most of its inventory of stealthy long range cruise missiles to the fight against Iran. So since the war started, the military has used 1100 of them, which cost 1.1 million apiece, leaving 1500 in the military's inventories, according to internal Pentagon estimates. A U.S. military official and a congressional official who spoke anonymously to discuss confidential combat assessments. Tomahawks, which cost 3.6 million each, are long range cruise missiles which have been widely used for US War fighting. Quote, while sufficient munitions exist to wage this war, high expenditure of Tomahawks and other missiles in Operation Epic Fury creates risk for the United States and other theaters, particularly the western Pacific. What is your sense of what, if anything, a line might be for Congress, for people who understand how dire? I mean, there are no Bob Corkers left. There are no people who seem to care about US national security more than they care about loyalty to Trump. But do you think that in this line of revelations, these stories found their way into the New York Times and Wall Street Journal? Do you think there is any line, any level of lack of readiness that will wake up anybody in Congress?
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Sadly, I don't have a whole lot of faith in this Congress. I think Republican leadership has shown over and over again that they will bow down to this president. And they know. They know that this doesn't help America. They know this makes our military less ready. We have three carriers in the Middle east right now. We've had to p. Assets, ships, weapons, as you said, from the Pacific, a theater that we really care about. We've had to move air defenses from South Korea. I'm sure this is alarming our allies in the region who are saying, number one, would the United States defend us if. If there was a conflict with China or North Korea? And could they? Could they defend us? You know, when you talk about bringing all these interceptors out of that region and over to the Middle East, I
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mean, Tom Nichols, I know that we've now got Megan and Tucker, Marjorie Taylor Greene telling all of us that they knew that all the Trump stuff was BS the whole time, but I'm still shocked that they don't care that Trump has left us totally vulnerable to China. I thought that was a thing that MAGA pretended to care about.
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E
MAGA World only cares about whatever Donald Trump is saying at any given moment. There is no real consistent through line here. I've always pointed out that the. The only two things that MAGA World would not accept being lied to about were the Epstein files and going to war. And Trump has broken both of those, and it hasn't really dented his support as deeply as it should. It's definitely hurt him. But in the end, MAGA World, much like Trump, thinks about the here and now and today and filters everything through the lens of domestic politics. So this is all about, you know, is it. Is it good for the Republicans or is it bad for the Republicans? Does it help or hurt the midterms? It's just not a movement that really thinks. It's a cult of personality. It's not a party. It's not. It's not a political movement. And so they look to Donald Trump for their cues. And when Donald Trump says things like I rebuilt the military, which he didn't, they believe him when he says, we have plenty of weapons and we'll, you know, everything's fine, which is not true. They believe him because they have to, because the cognitive dissonance involved with climbing down and admitting how wrong they've been about this man all these years is just too high. And I think what you're seeing with Tucker and Marjorie Taylor Greene and all these other folks is that they figured out this is bad for their brand. I think there is some sincerity there, I think. You know, I never thought I'd say I'M defending the sincerity of Marjorie Taylor Greene, but I think people like Tucker Carlson, they're just basically repositioning themselves to kind of, you know, get out of the blast pattern around Donald Trump's failures and thinking about what they're gonna, how they're gonna make money and talk to their audience for another day. And because if they really cared about this, they would, they would take the next step and start talking about what Congress ought to be doing. I think Amy's absolutely right. The Republicans in Congress, they know this is terrible and they're just not going to do anything about it because they'd rather be members of Congress than defend the country or the Constitution or our national security.
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Well, I guess I'm not the business person that Tucker Carlson is or wants to be, but I think it would be pretty good for business to be for the men and women of the military to be able to receive mail from home at a time of war. So I don't even understand the business interests of going along with this insanity. No one's going anywhere. When we come back, the arrest of an Army Special Forces soldier who prosecutors say made $400,000 betting before the raid that removed Nicolas Maduro from power in Venezuela, an operation that that soldier took part in. No surprise, but it should still be shocking that Donald Trump didn't seem bothered by this story. He compared the soldier to Pete Rose, the baseball player who infamously bet on baseball games he was involved in. Bringing you that shocking story next. Also ahead for us, how the United States Supreme Court rewrote its own rule book, upending decades of procedure to fast track decisions on major game changing decisions and in doing so, eroded the public's trust in the institution and widened the partisan divide among the justices themselves. We'll get to that reporting later in the hour. Deadline White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.
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Ms. Now presents the chart topping original podcast, the Best People with Nicole Wallace. This week, law professor and former NAACP Legal Defense Fund president Sherrilyn Ifill.
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What we have to do is to re examine our definition of what it means to be a responsible citizen in this country. It is not just to vote, it is to be fully engaged.
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The best people with Nicole Wallace listen now for early access ad free listening and bonus content, subscribe to MSNow Premium on Apple Podcasts.
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The story is not unrelated to the last one. When we talk about why leaders matter. A U.S. army Special Forces soldier has been indicted for insider trading with prosecutors alleging that a soldier used information about the operation to oust Nicolas Maduro from power in Venezuela did it to make a profit of more than $400,000. He was indicted. And that indictment filed in Manhattan federal court says this, that Master Sergeant Gannon Van Dyke was involved in the, quote, planning and execution of the seizure of Mr. Maduro and was making bets up to January 2, the day before the seizure of the Venezuelan leader and his wife, Celia Flores, from a Caracas compound. According to the New York Times, the sergeant bet on events related to Maduro and Venezuela 13 times in all, including bets on the timing and outcome of the operation to remove Maduro, according to the indictment. And Jay Clayton, who is the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. The prediction market industry has experienced a major boom in recent months. So much so that the White House last month felt it was necessary to remind staff via an email to not place bets on prediction markets related to the war with Iran. The President of the United States. The Commander in Chief, was asked about the indictment of a soldier, and it's not clear that he had any moral clarity about why it was wrong. Watch.
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Mr. President, apparently there was a Special Forces soldier who was involved in the capture of Venezuelan President Maduro who was arrested by federal authorities today on suspicion of insider trading and embedding on polymarket.
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Are you concerned.
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Are you concerned that federal employees are betting on these prediction markets and potentially getting rich?
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Well, I don't know about it, but was he betting that they would get him or they wouldn't get him?
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F
It sounds like he was betting on his removal from office, that Maduro would
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be removed from office.
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It sounds like he was involved in the operation.
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That's like Pete Rose betting on his own team. It's a little like Pete Rose. Pete Rose, he kept him out of the hall of Fame because he bet on his own team. Now, if he bet against his team, that would be no good, but he bettered his own team. I'll look into it.
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We're back with General Manor. Tom and Amy. Now, what's disgusting and appalling is it the Commander in Chief has no issue with a soldier betting on a military operation. He just wanted to know which side he placed the bet on. General Manor.
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D
So this is yet one solid example of where this administration, not only does it not exactly reflect American values of the average person, but yet I'm not sure there is even a moral compass whatsoever. It's also something where I will be direct and blunt. We were talking a few minutes ago about the reduced readiness of the United States and the fact that perhaps people are betting on that as well. And the White House actually is putting out something to say, don't bet on these things. And it's actually, it's extremely abhorrent. It appears, for example, that the Chinese and the Russians, why they're not doing anything is because the Secretary of Defense is literally taking out our best generals and admirals. I mean, he's not shooting them, but he's removing them. Our most experienced people. I mean, this Secretary of Defense is a clear and present danger to the security of the United States. He is causing more harm to us because of his incompetence than any adversary has done yet while I have been serving this nation. It is just abysmal and it is, it's beyond shocking. It is absolutely criminal.
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C
The last person who jolted me with that description of clear and present danger was Judge Ludig, who described Donald Trump as a clear and present danger. Do you believe that it is a clear and present danger to be indifferent as America's Commander in Chief to betting in a public setting like that? Donald Trump didn't condemn the practice of betting in a prediction market on the part of a soldier. He simply wanted to inquire as to which side the bet was placed.
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D
I'm very concerned. I was always concerned about the President's competence. But I will tell you, over the past few months, I'm actually worried about his cognitive abilities, his cognitive skills. He meanders, he talks all over the map. He says things in literally one sentence and contradicts himself in the next sentence. This does not provide confidence and inspiration to any level headed American. And I'm setting MAGA aside, but for everyone else, we wouldn't tolerate our fifth grader giving a speech like that in their classroom, let alone the President of the United States States. This is very unacceptable and it's very sad that we are in this situation.
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C
Amy, your thoughts on a Special Forces soldier betting on the Maduro operation?
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Yeah. I think you have to take a step back and recognize that this, Donald Trump's foreign policy by tweet, has consequences. And he has turned war, which is a very serious business, into a game that people are making money off of, like sports betting. And he seems to be okay with it. And he's actually, if you take a step back, he encouraged this type of behavior by having the White House tweet out videos of strikes, airstrikes with music set to them as if this is some sort of entertainment. It's sick. You know, information on classified military operations should never be something that should be sold or gambled on Whether you're in the military or in the intelligence community or within the administration at all. But there is a massive double standard here because here we have a soldier who's not super powerful, not super well connected and tried to make a profit and he should be prosecuted. But what happens to the powerful and well connected when they've been doing insider trading on information on Wall Street? The President's own family is making money on insider trading. They're making millions on knowing about these, what the President's going to do before he does it on the oil trades. And so if you're connected to the President and you're powerful, you're fine. And everybody else gets prosecuted. And it's just like what we're seeing in the rest of this country today.
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Tom Nichols,
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one thing I want to add to all this. Do the people doing this betting and the President not think our enemies are watching these prediction markets and wondering who has inside information and what's going to happen next? Amy's right. They treat it all as a big joke. They treat it like a game. But you can bet that foreign intelligence services, foreign defense organizations, they're watching these markets. This guy got caught by our people. But there were people that could see these bets being made. It's deeply irresponsible. As a former Defense Department employee, it's unethical and it's dangerous. And Donald Trump seems to think it's all just funny because he says he doesn't know about it. He did. He says he's going to look into it.
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He won't.
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But for more responsible people, the message should be stop giving this kind of information to America's enemies just because you think you're gonna make a quick buck.
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C
Well, and importantly, the Pete Rose comparison, he was aligning himself with the Pete Rose side of the Pete Rose comparison. Right. Pete Rose has run out of baseball. Trump isn't aligned with that decision. Trump's aligning himself and lobbying not so privately to have Pete Rose in Cooper's in the hall of Fame. So even the example he gave, which is a baseball example in the world of baseball, Trump is aligned with the guy who bet on the game, not the people who held him accountable. Major Randy. General Randy Manor, Tom Nichols, Amy McGrath, thank you so much for covering these stories with us. Thank you. When we come back, the inside story of how the United States Supreme Court short circuited the way it decides cases and in the process did grave damage to its own credibility in the eyes of the American people. That's not to going.
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Ms. Now presents the chart topping original podcast the Best People with Nicole Wallace. This week, law professor and former NAACP Legal Defense Fund president Sherilyn Ifill.
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F
What we have to do is to re examine our definition of what it means to be a responsible citizen in this country. It is not just to vote, it is to be fully engaged.
- [28:21]
G
The best people with Nicole Wallace listen now. For early access and free listening and bonus content, subscribe to Ms. Now premium on Apple Podcasts.
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C
It has changed the paradigm on the court. I think the newspapers are filled with reports about how many emergency motions we are receiving. It's unprecedented in the court's history. We've done it to ourselves. That was Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor's recent warning about the court's unprecedented rulings on presidential power. Hasty emergency decisions without much explanation, but with long lasting implications and more than 20 key victories for Donald Trump. But the origin story of the Supreme Court's so called shadow docket has really been a mystery to normal people like us until now. Until the New York Times recently published bombshell confidential correspondence between the justices during a pivotal 2016 ruling that transformed the court. From that reporting, quote in public, Chief Justice John Roberts has cultivated a reputation for care and caution. The papers reveal a different side of him at a critical moment for the country and the court. The papers show he acted as a bulldozer in pushing to stop Mr. Obama's plan to address the global climate crisis. When colleagues warned the chief justice that he was proposing an unprecedented move, he was dismissive. Quote, Justice Breyer skipped over the question of whether the plan was lawful, asking only why the rush. The circuit court had already set a date to hear the case in June. The chief justice wrote right back the next day, sounding irritated and blunt. Speed was vital, he said, because environmental regulation was going to be very expensive for states and the power industry. More from the Times reporting, quote, in the Trump era, Roberts and the other conservative justices have repeatedly empowered the president through their shadow docket rulings. By contrast, the papers reveal a court wielding those same powers to block Obama. Justice Samuel Alito warned that if the court failed to stop the president, its own, quote, institutional legitimacy would be threatened. I want to bring in New York Times investigative reporter Jodi Kantor. That is her reporting. We just read on, really our first look, our first real look at the shadow docket, how it came to be. Her new book, how to Discovering youg Life's Work is out now. It is must read for everybody. We'll talk about it in a minute. But also joining this part of the conversation. My friend and colleague, NYU law Professor legal analyst Melissa Murray is here as well. First of all, this reporting on sort of one of the enduring mysteries of why things are so messed up, to use a non scotus kind of word, is amazing. Just tell us what you were able to report.
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H
Oh, well, thank you. Adam Lipnak and I did it together. And the way I would explain it is like this. When we think of a Supreme Court case, we think of a slow, deliberate, careful process where they're like, nice to
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C
each other behind the scenes.
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H
Well, where they're looking very carefully at the issues. They take their time. These cases can unfold over a year. There are oral arguments in person. The justices are sitting in conference meetings really discussing and voting on the cases. These shadow docket cases are very abbreviated. They happen. This is five days worth of memos that we published. They're also very secretive. If you look at the order that the court issued, it is terse. It's about 142 words. It's little more than one paragraph. And there's legal boilerplate and there is instruction, but there's no explanation. And the reason that is surprising is that courts get their authority from explaining themselves. Most of the time a judge has to write an opinion. Right. And because our judges, especially our federal judges, are appointed for life, they're not really accountable in other ways. The act of writing an opinion for a judge is saying, this is why you should trust me, not blind trust. But even if you disagree with the decision, even if it's something that affects you in a negative way, I want to show you that I've done my work. These shadow docket opinions, many of them have little to no explanation. So Adam and I started by asking, how did this start? We Knew that about 10 years ago was when things changed. How did the court disregard time tested procedures and get to this fast track way of doing business? And these memos allow us to listen to the Justices as they're deciding to do that.
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C
Well, they sound like partisan jerks.
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H
You know that Adam and I wondered how people were going to react when.
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C
Well, let me just be more specific. Worrying about the power company's costs sounds like a less than patriotic duty for a person who's on an institution where there are only nine of them. Where you think in private, they're worried about the country, they're worried about the law. To hear Robert's concerned about the expense for the power companies was disturbing.
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H
Well, what's interesting is that in the set of papers we published, nobody mentions climate change, not the Democratic appointed justices nor the Republican appointed justices. The main thing that occurred to us honestly is that they sound like they're in a rush. This is an incredibly consequential decision. Like in retrospect, the court halting this plan was the beginning of the end of federal efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. It's also a change in the way the court did business because the D.C. circuit was set to work on the case and the Supreme Court leapt in front of it. And they don't like the Chief justice was very dismissive in these papers when confronted with his colleagues procedural objections. So you just get the feeling, you get the feeling that this wasn't done with maximum Supreme Court care.
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C
But why go so fast on a case like that and not on the cases that would have allowed the country to hear the evidence against Donald Trump? I mean, speed obviously is a subjective choice. How do they wield it?
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H
You know, I can't exactly answer what the rush was here. I think to do that would be to enter the mind of the justices. But that is the question that Justice Breyer asked. What is the rush here? And there is a clue, which is that we see that there was a power struggle between President Obama and his EPA on the one hand and Chief Justice Roberts on the other. There was a previous case in which the Chief justice felt that the EPA had managed not only to sidestep the court, but had publicly almost bragged about it. And he essentially says, I am not going to let us be sidelined again.
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C
Melissa There's a thing with covering Trump for nine years where when McConnell speaks on tape to reporters and it's leaked, it's never a more flattering portrait of Donald Trump. McConnell's comments are always more scathing. The Supreme Court now falls. The conservatives fall into that category too, that when there's a revelation, it never is more flattering than the public image, which I think the public, according to Gallup, has the lowest view of the Supreme Court. Since Gallup has been asking the public what it thinks of the Supreme Court, it's dropped farther than any other institution. This story falls in that category where their correspondence between themselves makes them look worse than even I thought they did today.
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A
I'm not actually surprised to hear Nicole, by what I saw and what Jodi and Adam reported on. Again, I think you have to just sort of start with the fact that the New York Times and the most venerable papers in the country has decided to put a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter on the Supreme Court beat. I think that by itself is really important to acknowledge. The public is tired of the lack of transparency around the Court. The shadow docket is just part of it. I mean, when you add this revelation on top of the revelations about the justices cozy relationships with certain donors, individuals who have business before the Court, the fact and Jodi reported on this a couple of years ago, that regulated industry and conservative causes have gone to great lengths, including buying a building across from the Supreme Court, in order to be able to casually run into the Justices and curry favor with them. At different moments, you get a much more startling picture of an institution that is insulated from the public, but not insulated from these special interests. And this particular episode that Jody and Adam have reported on, where they're talking about the Chief justice, who, as Jodi says in her comments, has bulldozed through ordinary procedure because he is so deeply concerned about the impact of the Clean Power Plan on regulated industry, on the domestic power sector. I think all of that brought together presents something that for much of the public, seems really out of bounds. A court that is not necessarily doing the work of the law, not necessarily doing work in the public interest, but perhaps in the interests of other interests.
- [38:12]
C
I will associate myself with Melissa's comment that it is a really good thing that you are on this beat. We are so glad.
- [38:19]
H
Thank you.
- [38:20]
C
But we're also excited to talk to you about the book. We're gonna sneak in a break and we'll have that conversation on the other side. Don't go anywhere.
- [38:30]
H
I've been a journalist for a quarter century now. Not a day has passed when my field has not been in existential and business crisis. And I'm happy.
- [38:52]
C
I don't know if I have chills from you talking about this business being an existential crisis or that it's so happy to be in it. Anyway, just talk about this. This is like a movement. I mean, your beat is so groundbreaking. But this book, this little book and that wonderful speech is a movement in and of itself.
- [39:10]
H
Oh, well, thank you for seeing that. So I was invited to give that commencement speech at Columbia last year. And it, of course, is a deep honor, but it was also, let's be honest, a bad offer. Right? Because we remember what was going on at Columbia at the time.
- [39:25]
C
My friends, you killed it.
- [39:27]
H
Well, thank you, but. Well, this. It was because of the students and because they. As journalists, we love hard questions. Before I gave this speech. Cause my friends were like, don't do it, Colin. Sick. I was like, no, give me those kids for 15 minutes. I'm so upset about the negativity here. So the students asked me an incredible question before the speech. They said, we chose you because of your career. They said, our entire class, despite our political differences, united in one anxiety. How do we find and start our life's work in this crazy environment? And I knew it was an incredible question, Nicole, because I've been traveling to college campuses across the country and I've covered employment like the Harvey Weinstein story was a story about work and those were entry level workers. And I've seen the rising dread and cynicism and fear among young people about the workplace, which is a rational response in many ways. However, we can't give up on work. We can't give up on it individually and also we can't give it up collectively because work is our engine of progress, right? Despite everything, if we want new cancer drugs or great TV shows, they are produced through the workplace. So this is my letter to young people to try to help them get through truly a tough environment. I mean, I don't know if you know this, Nicole, but I'm talking to kids who are getting interviewed by AI instead of by.
- [40:58]
C
So what do you tell them to say? How do you keep them optimistic?
- [41:00]
H
Well, the first thing and the most important thing is don't give up before you start. We don't know what the world will offer you. Don't become so cynical about the workplace that you fail, right, to try to listen. This is a buck for people who want to fight for their dreams to have a chance. And so the question is, how do we give them a path and a process? Because, you know, institutions of higher learning are often actually not that great at career exploration. And there are a lot of people out there feeling like they killed themselves to get into college. They killed themselves to cover the costs, whether through paying tuition or securing financial aid. And now they've applied for 150 jobs and they can't even get a bite. So how are we going to get this generation through that? This is my answer, and I hope that it is the start of a conversation about how we can take better care of them through this process.
- [42:07]
C
Melissa, I know this is near and dear to you. What are you thinking right now?
- [42:11]
A
Well, I know I have a book coming out on May 5, the US Constitution and comprehensive and annotated guide. But it seems churlish to give that as a graduation gift to my kids and my it's my friend's kids. So I purchased so many copies of Jody's book and I'm just so excited for her to sign these. For all of the graduates in my life, I think it's an absolutely marvelous letter to young people at a time when so many people are really wondering what the future looks like and what their place in it will be. And Jody really gives them the tools to carve out their own place despite the uncertainty, despite the unsettledness, I don't
- [42:49]
C
think it's an accident that the two of you gave me my first chills in forever. Thank you so much for being here for this conversation. Melissa, thank you for being here on your reporting and on your marvelous book. It's called how to Discovering your Life's Work. Jodi, thank you. Thank you so much. And congratulations. Melissa, thank you. Quick break for us. We'll be right back. This is huge and super exciting. We've got a big town hall tonight. Our friend and colleague Chris Hayes joined by New York Mayor Mamdani. That comes up tonight at 8pm Eastern. Don't miss that. Thank you for letting us into your homes for another week of shows. We're so grateful. Simone Sanders Townsend and I have known each other for more than a decade,
- [43:33]
G
tussling over politics and policy when she
- [43:35]
C
worked in the White House and I reported on it. And now we're friends and colleagues. And on our podcast, Clock it, we are positioning ourselves at the intersection of culture and politics. Clock it is where we talk about
- [43:47]
E
what we see and hear in the news.
- [43:49]
C
So you can start to clock it, too.
- [43:52]
G
Clock it with Simone and Eugene. All episodes available now.