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- [00:00]
Tyler Redick
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- [00:31]
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- [01:02]
Yasmin Dasugin
Welcome to here's the scoop from NBC News. I'm Yasmin Vesugin. We are now in the first full Supreme Court term of the second Trump presidency and a number of high profile cases are before the justices. This year's cases are once again testing the willingness for the bench to overturn long standing precedents and deliver surprising victories to the Trump White House. Decisions related to President Trump are dominating the docket, including several cases testing the limits of his presidential powers. The high court is also also expected to issue rulings over other consequential issues like LGBTQ policies and campaign finance limits, just to name a few. I want to bring in NBC News senior legal correspondent Laura Jarrett and NBC News senior Supreme Court reporter Lawrence Hurley. Hi, guys.
- [01:45]
Lawrence Hurley
Nice to be here.
- [01:46]
Laura Jarrett
It's a lot of Supremes.
- [01:47]
Yasmin Dasugin
I know. I felt like I was introducing a band, but here we go, the Supreme Court band. I mentioned there's a lot of cases with regards to presidential powers. We're talking about the tariffs, right? We are talking about the independence of federal agencies, the firing of a member of the Federal Reserve, Lisa Cook, who we have talked about previously as well on this pod. Walk us through what is before us when it comes to presidential powers. Laura.
- [02:10]
Laura Jarrett
Donald Trump puts the Supreme Court in a trick box because he has so pushed the envelope on presidential power and how other presidents have tried to flex their muscle in, in various ways. He has taken that to the nth degree. And so the Supreme Court has a big test for, for itself this term and going into this next year. Does it set up some guardrails or does it say nope we're gonna pretend, we're gonna put blinders on, pretend Donald Trump is just any other president and make rules for things that might happen in 10 years from now and not look at the fact that it's Donald Trump. That's sort of the fundamental test for the Supreme Court. Do they wanna put some guardrails on him or not?
- [02:54]
Yasmin Dasugin
Is there precedent for any of these cases to point us in a direction?
- [02:58]
Laura Jarrett
Few and far between, mostly because the things that he is doing are things that other people either haven't tried or had never contemplated or maybe had tried and lost. Right. So like the firing of heads of independent agencies, like Roosevelt tried that, and the Supreme Court said, no, you can't do that. He's testing boundaries constantly in almost every case that has come before them. So far, he's one.
- [03:26]
Yasmin Dasugin
You've heard some. We've all heard, I should say, some legal arguments when it comes to the tariffs case, Lawrence, and also the firing cases of the Federal Trade Commission. If we're reading the tea leaves here and predicting which way the Supreme Court is going to land on some of these presidential power cases, what are we thinking?
- [03:44]
Lawrence Hurley
Well, one thing to think about is that we have this conservative Supreme Court, and then we have a Trump administration that isn't always aligned with the kind of conservative legal movement. And so where it is aligned with the conservative legal movement is where the Supreme Court's probably going to rule in favor of the administration. And that's what's happening probably with the firing of independent agency heads. Right. As Laura mentioned in that argument, it seemed like the court's probably going to rule in favor of the President because that's a long standing goal of the conservative legal movement.
- [04:14]
Yasmin Dasugin
So allowing him to move forward with those firings.
- [04:17]
Lawrence Hurley
Exactly. Yeah. But the tariffs is a different ballgame because that's an issue where, you know, people in the conservative legal movement don't really like tariffs. Right. They're more in favor of free trade policies. And there the conservative justices seemed a lot more skeptical when they heard arguments. So that might be one that goes the other way. But of course, we don't know yet.
- [04:36]
Yasmin Dasugin
How much is the Supreme Court, Lawrence, taking into account how difficult it would be to unwind some of these tariff policies if, in fact they decide against the president.
- [04:48]
Lawrence Hurley
Well, that's a tricky one, because the longer the tariffs remain in effect, which they are at the moment, the more money the administration is collecting from businesses that are importing goods from overseas, and the more money there will be that people will ask to get back if the Tariffs are struck down. And that's an issue that came up with the argument. There's a question as to whether the court could sort of make its ruling only forward looking, instead of including all the tariffs that have already been paid. But all the companies that pay the tariffs will certainly be interested in getting.
- [05:20]
Yasmin Dasugin
Their money back if, in fact, the President does win on many of these cases and he's able to expand his presidential power even further. Right. And we saw a trend with this in Supreme Court cases literally starting, I think, probably with the immunity. Yes, with the presidential immunity. What was that a year ago or so at this point?
- [05:37]
Laura Jarrett
Yeah, more. Right, yeah.
- [05:39]
Yasmin Dasugin
What does that say about the President's authority in the executive branch, in the White House and for presidents following him? Because it's not just going to apply to him.
- [05:46]
Laura Jarrett
Well, that. And that's the thing that's always been so curious for the Supreme Court. And Gorsuch said this one time at oral argument, Lawrence was probably sitting there right in the front row and he said, we are making a rule that has to stand the test of time. He said that in the immunity case. And what he meant by that is this is not supposed to just apply to Donald Trump's presidency. We're trying to come up with a rule for when presidents can be held criminally accountable for their actions that happen, even if not in office, but having to do with things that happen in office. And I think it's something that the court has wrestled with, but I continue to think that he poses a trickiness for them that is so hard to get around that for the justices. Yeah. And so even if it's something like, okay, Donald Trump's not gonna be in office forever. Right. And so the next president could take the reins and run with it, it's not clear that they would want to, because politically, Donald Trump has pushed the envelope in ways that other presidents haven't.
- [06:44]
Yasmin Dasugin
Right.
- [06:46]
Laura Jarrett
And so, yeah. So even if a president could potentially have immunity for criminal acts, does that mean, like, presidents going forward are just going to commit crimes because they know they now the Supreme Court has done that? I don't think so.
- [06:58]
Yasmin Dasugin
Right.
- [06:58]
Laura Jarrett
But for something like tariffs, that's more interesting. For something like, can you fire the heads of federal agencies that had been viewed as quasi independent? That's something president might want to do going forward. And I think as members of the media covering the Supreme Court, sometimes it's tricky to explain to people that when these things come up on an emergency basis. Right. When he wants to fire Lisa Cook right now, and then works its way through the trial court and then the appeals court, and it comes up to the Supreme Court. In a lot of these instances, it comes up on what's known as the shadow docket, which Lawrence has covered extensively, which means they're doing it without the benefit of full briefing, they're doing it without oral argument. This is all happening behind closed doors. It's sort of mysterious. That's why it gets this name, the shadow document.
- [07:44]
Yasmin Dasugin
But they're also able to say, move forward with the actions that you're putting in place for now while we decide what do.
- [07:50]
Laura Jarrett
And while we may send it back to the lower court for them to have some more machinations over it before it comes back to us. But when they do that shadow docket maneuvering, there are some real consequences in the meantime. So when they say you can fire Rebecca Slaughter, that means she's out of a job in the meantime, in between time. But for Lisa Cook, it might be a different result for sending the National Guard troops in, that might be a different result. And so it's hard because these decisions come down and there are, like, some real world implications. But you have to go for now, right? Like, the sentence doesn't end when these decisions come down, because it often means there's gonna be some more action from the lower courts and eventually the Supreme Court.
- [08:33]
Lawrence Hurley
This is why we're at a sort of pivotal moment, right? Because so far in 2025, most of the Supreme Court actions that people were hearing about in the media were these interim rulings that mostly went the administration's way, and that's the way it's being covered. Right. The court is constantly ruling in favor of the administration. It's blocking these lower court rulings. But as we head into 2026, we're going to see these rulings on the merits, right? That's rulings where the court has heard arguments, where they've heard full briefing on the tariffs, on the independent agency firings, on the attempt to fire a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, on the birthright citizenship plan or the plan to sort of end birthright citizenship. And these are very different cases. And there's some suggestion, I've been talking to some legal experts in the last few days about maybe the court was deliberately trying to avoid those direct confrontations in the first year of Trump's term, when he was at the peak of his political powers. And now he's a year in, There's a few cracks in his support. There's a few things that haven't gone his way. The. The court, you know, doesn't like to get out ahead of public opinion. Its rulings only rest on its legitimacy and the support that comes from the public. And so there's maybe some suggestion that they were kind of holding fire until a bit later in Trump's term. And so maybe the story in 2026 might be a little different.
- [10:02]
Yasmin Dasugin
You've mentioned numerous times birthright citizenship. Can we read the tea leaves on this? Right? The president asking essentially that one can only gain citizenship if one of the parents actually are a citizen of the United States. Right. Do we know where they're gonna land on this? I mean, obviously we don't know, but can we. Can we guess?
- [10:20]
Laura Jarrett
I mean, I don't know what that opinion looks like to say. The Constitution doesn't say what it says, and I'm being facetious, but honestly.
- [10:28]
Yasmin Dasugin
Right.
- [10:28]
Laura Jarrett
Like, that's gonna put them in prejudice.
- [10:31]
Yasmin Dasugin
Are textualists. They, like, base their arguments, their opinions on the Constitution, verbate, word for word.
- [10:38]
Laura Jarrett
I love that you know, the term textualism. Like, look at you, Supreme Court nerd. Aw.
- [10:46]
Lawrence Hurley
And there's also not a single court has ruled against the, you know, the understanding of the 14th Amendment that we've had for the last 150 years.
- [10:56]
Laura Jarrett
This was a fringe theory that took off and he has embraced as part of the centerpiece of his immigration crackdown. But, like, this, it's important for people to understand, like, this was not, like, a. A close call for a long time that people have hotly debated, like, no, this was seen as, like, bonkers.
- [11:12]
Yasmin Dasugin
No way this is gonna happen.
- [11:13]
Laura Jarrett
That, like, no way this would, like, ever come this far. And that's why, in some ways, it's extraordinary that it has gotten to the point where the Supreme Court's now gonna have to weigh in on the merits.
- [11:24]
Yasmin Dasugin
We're gonna take a very quick break, and when we come back, we're gonna go deeper into the docket. From redistricting battles to transgender athletes in women's sports.
- [11:35]
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- [12:03]
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Lawrence Hurley
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- [13:07]
Yasmin Dasugin
And we are back with. Here's the scoop from NBC News. I'm talking with Lawrence Hurley and Laura Jarrett about the Supreme Court. I want to talk elections. We are entering an election year, right? And the theme of the year, it seems, is going to come down to congressional maps. Take us through the potential decision here and what it means for future. Laura. Redistricting battles.
- [13:27]
Laura Jarrett
Yeah. So the Supreme Court's basically said, Texas, if you want to engage in a power grab like that on behalf of Republicans, that's fine. The question is, does California get to do that on behalf of Democrats? Do other blue states get to have the same rules of the road? Typically, we see the Supreme Court kind of come up with this judicially created rule about not doing anything too close to elections. And so they sort of come up with this idea that you don't wanna do anything that could sort of disrupt the political process. The judges shouldn't really have a role here. So at a certain point there will be like a kind of a cutoff for like, how much action they're willing to entertain or how much action they think lower courts should be entertaining on this. But I think it could get really interesting if, for whatever reason, blue states like California are not allowed to engage in the same type of partisan gamesmanship.
- [14:18]
Yasmin Dasugin
Right. Well, that will certainly seem political, Lawrence, from. From the Supreme Court if, in fact, that happens.
- [14:23]
Lawrence Hurley
Yeah, I mean, if, if they're going to rule differently over California than they did over Texas, then that would clearly look a little odd to a lot of people. But the other thing, of course, is that they've got this other case about Louisiana redistricting under the Voting Rights Act, Right. Which is also a kind of ticking time bomb where if the court were to rule soonish, it could open the door for even more Republican states to do another round of redistricting that would be targeting majority minority districts that were drawn to comply with the Voting Rights Act. And depending on what happened, that could lead to Republicans picking up quite a few seats potentially and eliminating a lot of minority members of Congress.
- [15:06]
Yasmin Dasugin
Aside from presidential power, executive power, elections, gerrymandering, redistricting, there is also kind of non Trump related cases that are in the Supreme Court docket, LGBTQ specifically related issues policies, transgender athletes in women's sports, conversion therapy, conversion therapy as well. Can you walk us through those two cases, Laura?
- [15:27]
Laura Jarrett
The LGBT issue in sports is really interesting because the question is always, can states take these types of actions? Can you ban transgender women from playing in sports on a state level? Right. So not to say that states have to do this, but states can they do this without violating the 14th amendment. There's some interesting like lines of cases that would make you think the Supreme Court is going to say that states can, especially given some of their recent jurisprudence. But there's also some language from a Gorsuch opinion in a completely different context on sex discrimination in the workplace that makes you think like, no, treating transgender women differently could raise a sex discrimination claim that even the conservatives on this court might have a problem with. Seeing how they treat this at oral argument is going to be key on this issue.
- [16:12]
Yasmin Dasugin
What was the emphasis, Lawrence, for the conversion therapy case?
- [16:14]
Lawrence Hurley
LAWRENCE well, I think this is an interesting issue because it's not really fully like an LGBTQ rights case in the sense, because the legal question is actually a free speech question of whether states can regulate the kind of therapists who provide this type of service, whether they can ban them from doing that kind of service. And this therapists say that's actually a restriction on their free speech. The theory goes that if the Supreme Court was to say states can't regulate this type of conduct, it would restrict conservative states from trying to restrict conduct they don't like. Right. Such as people who are canceling gender affirming care and things like that. So you can see it cutting both ways in a way that doesn't always come up in these cases. And we've seen the court, this court is very in favor of these kind of free speech cases that are brought by conservatives as a kind of a way of bringing a kind of conservative, Christian usually kind of issue to the Court, but it's kind of packaged as a free speech case, and the Court often rules in their favor. And it kind of seemed from oral argument, that's how this one would go as well.
- [17:21]
Yasmin Dasugin
We'd been talking, and the question of ethics has come up many times as we've been talking, the question of whether or not a decision is seen as partisan. As you're looking at this kind of slate of decisions, what do you think the legacy of the Court will be, and how much does these justices take into account the view of their decisions possibly being seen as partisan?
- [17:47]
Lawrence Hurley
Well, I think as we discussed earlier, the Court is very aware, or at least especially the Chief Justice, John Roberts, that the Court's legitimacy only goes as far as the public's perception of it. Right. That's how their rulings get enforced. If they have concerns, for example, about the Trump administration not complying with a court decision or something like that, they know they don't want to get into that fight because the Supreme Court, as people always say, has no troops to enforce its rulings. Right. It's the president and the states that have that kind of enforcement power. So I think they're very conscious of that. I think it's way too early to know, you know, how this is going to play out. A lot of it depends, I think, on the interplay with the political sphere as well.
- [18:31]
Yasmin Dasugin
You know, I do, though, think as I think about this, Laura, sometimes I think this is certainly not a court, and these are not justices who would want to see their legacy be that they contributed to the degradation of the Supreme Court and Americans loss of trust in the judicial system. And we have seen Americans trust in the judicial system slide over the last many years.
- [18:52]
Laura Jarrett
And that's why it's interesting to see when and in what context they try to slide some of that language into their opinions.
- [18:58]
Yasmin Dasugin
Right.
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Laura Jarrett
Especially when they have like, you know, some sort of biting dissent with one of their colleagues. And they basically try to say, don't air our dirty laundry out in the public in these opinions. Like, we all like each other. We're just, you know, trying to reach the right results. I'm thinking of, like, the Justice Jackson and Amy Coney Barrett. Barrett, in particular, it seems like, has sort of had, like, some passages in opinions in the last couple years where she tries to say, you know, we have these differences and we're resolving them in congenial ways. The public may not fully understand it, but it's interesting that she feels the need to assert that, even though I'm not sure, like if you were to poll like the average person, do they even like, one, know what the Supreme Court like hot button divisive issues are? And two, are they like, are they worried about whether the Supreme Court justices like each other?
- [19:48]
Yasmin Dasugin
No.
- [19:48]
Laura Jarrett
But she feels the need to uphold that sort of tradition of there being a certain level of congeniality around the court, which is just interesting to watch the extent to which some members of the Supreme Court still want to uphold sort of this image of the court as different.
- [20:05]
Lawrence Hurley
You know, the court is not sitting in isolation. It's also at the top of the federal judiciary. Right. So there's a question of like, is the court going to have the back of lower court judges, the judges who are in trenches, who are dealing with these kind of cases from on a daily basis. And that was an issue that came up this year, as I mentioned in my reporting, where I interviewed various judges who are quite critical of how the Supreme Court has handled this situation because they do feel like they've been thrown under the bus. And so it's going to be interesting to see going forward whether there's more of a united front, not just on the court, but also in the judiciary as a whole. Because at the moment, it's kind of a house divided.
- [20:41]
Yasmin Dasugin
To many more conversations like this one in the New York ice. Thank you, Lauren Turley and Lauren Jarrett.
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Laura Jarrett
Supremes signing off.
- [20:47]
Yasmin Dasugin
The Supremes. And that's gonna do it for us at here's the scoop from NBC News. I'm Yasmin Dasugin. We'll be back tomorrow to continue our special holiday series. We're gonna have a look ahead to politics in 2026 with midterms and more with two of our pod regulars, Chief Data correspondent Steve Kornacki and chief Capitol Hill correspondent Ryan Nobles. It is gonna be wonky fun. So join us for that. And if you like what you heard, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you tomorrow.
- [21:22]
Tyler Redick
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