The Supreme Court Is a Mess

Summary

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Main Justice – “The Supreme Court Is a Mess”

Host: Andrew Weissmann (w/o Mary McCord)
Date: June 30, 2026

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Episode Overview

This special solo episode of Main Justice responds to several landmark Supreme Court decisions handed down this week, many of which fundamentally reshape the structure of government, the power of the executive, and core civil rights like birthright citizenship. Host Andrew Weissmann, flying solo due to Mary McCord’s family emergency, offers a rapid but incisive breakdown of these seismic legal shifts, their internal logic (or lack thereof), and the existential stakes for American democracy amid the Trump administration’s exercise of power.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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1. Mary’s Absence & Episode Format

• [01:02] Andrew opens solo, noting this is the first-ever episode without Mary McCord due to an emergency, promising a full discussion in coming days.

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2. Recap of Major Supreme Court Decisions ([02:01]–[04:10])

• E. Jean Carroll Case
  • [02:02] SCOTUS declined to hear Trump’s challenge in E. Jean Carroll’s sexual assault and defamation suit:

    “The determination by a jury that she was sexually assaulted and defamed ... is now a final decision.”

• Mississippi Mail-in Voting Law
  • [02:44] Upheld by a tight 5–4 vote. Andrew flags future risk if the bench composition changes.
• Fourth Amendment Win
  • [02:58] Noted as “dear to my heart,” significant for search and seizure doctrine.
• Federal Reserve/FTC Firings – The Heart of the Episode
  • Federal Reserve: Trump admin. must show cause to fire a Fed official (5–4 decision).
  • FTC: Trump admin. can fire officials at will (6–3), embracing “unitary executive” theory.

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3. The “Unitary Executive” – Contradictions Exposed ([04:10]–[07:00])

• Roberts Court’s Reasoning

  “With respect to the FTC, again, the Trump administration can just fire people because of this idea of the unitary executive.” – [04:10]

• Inconsistencies Called Out
  • Chief Justice Roberts authored both decisions: requiring cause for Fed removals (with Kavanaugh joining liberals) vs. ‘fire at will’ for FTC.
  • Amy Coney Barrett (in dissent on the Fed case) accused Roberts of being “completely inconsistent.”
  • Andrew:

    “If you are right with respect to the FTC, then you would think that applies to the Federal Reserve... it sort of shows the paucity of reasoning.” – [06:30]

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4. The Rebecca Slaughter FTC Case – Executive Power in Action ([07:00]–[09:16])

• Big Picture
  • The decision is intertwined with the Trump criminal immunity ruling, both swelling executive authority.
  • Roberts uses language historically reserved for kings:

    “The vision of the Chief Justice, of the power of the executive is larded through both the Trump criminal immunity decision and this decision, talking about the necessity of a strong, vigorous – and a unique word this time – secretive executive.” – [08:30]

• Andrew’s Alarm:

  “You really feel, at least I do, that the Chief Justice is very much the leading henchman for the President, this particular President of the United States...” – [08:48]

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5. History—Used and Abused ([09:13]–[11:19])

• Cherry Picking Founders
  • Roberts appeals to Founders’ intent to justify unchecked executive firings, but Andrew says this omits the key question:

    “Where is it that they said that even just that minimal showing of a reason was something that the Founders said, no, no, no, we don’t want that? Even that.” – [11:00]

• Structural Danger
  • The dissent warns that allowing at-will firing destroys independent agencies and congressional checks.
  • Andrew sees this as particularly dangerous “given what we are living through with the Trump 2.0 presidency...” – [08:30]

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6. Methodology—Hypocrisy on Display ([11:19]–[12:32])

• Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Approach
  • Jackson favors examining legislative history—often derided by conservatives.
• Roberts Court Flip-Flop:
  • In this case, conservatives do dig into legislative and historical context to justify their position:

    “Where it was six to three, where it's all legislative history. It is all about the founders and what they were thinking ... You have these very, very inconsistent takes by the Chief Justice here in ways that are incredibly pernicious...” – [12:04, 12:32]

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7. The Birthright Citizenship Case ([14:50]–[22:00])

• The Stakes ([15:30] Onward)
  • The Court ruled, 5–4, that the 14th Amendment still guarantees birthright citizenship.
  • Andrew highlights the narrowness:

    “We are one justice away from having birthright citizenship snatched from all of us.” – [15:30]

• Misreporting and Kavanaugh’s Position
  • Confusion cleared: Kavanaugh’s statutory argument means he would accept ending birthright citizenship via statute, so only a razor-thin majority protects it.
• Historical Norms Eroded
  • Andrew quotes a Reagan-appointed district judge:

    “I can’t remember another case where the question presented was as clear as this one. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order.”

• Jackson’s Concurrence ([18:47]–[21:56])
  • Emphasizes the racist history underlying challenges to birthright citizenship and the remedial purpose of the 14th Amendment:

    “The ultimate irony is that for all the talk of the detestable Dred Scott decision, the government and the principal dissent propose a return to its core tenet ... The 14th Amendment’s universalist aims should forever be the death knell for this kind of claim, one that seeks to make bloodline the marker of birthright...” — Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, [19:25–21:56]

  • Andrew underscores that basic constitutional rights are “just one vote away” from reversal.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Executive Power:

  "The Chief Justice is very much the leading henchman for the President, this particular President of the United States, but with ramifications for all future presidents except those who are going to self-restrain." – Andrew Weissmann [08:48]

• On Judicial Methodology:

  "You have these very, very inconsistent takes by the Chief Justice here in ways that are incredibly pernicious to our functioning government, taking so much power away from Congress and giving it to the executive at a time in our history where Lord knows we really do not need a stronger executive." [12:32]

• On Birthright Citizenship:

  "We are one justice away from having birthright citizenship snatched from all of us." – [15:30] "Those words were in support of a 5 to 4 Supreme Court decision. If you don’t think that the Supreme Court and the rule of law is at stake in this upcoming election and elections to come, all you need to do is read the majority and dissenting decisions in the birthright citizenship case to understand what is at stake..." [21:56]

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Important Timestamps

• [01:02] – Andrew sets the episode context; first solo Main Justice show.
• [02:02] – Recap of E. Jean Carroll case and other major SCOTUS news.
• [04:10] – Breakdown of the FTC and Federal Reserve firing decisions.
• [08:30] – Discussion on Roberts’s vision of executive power.
• [11:20] – Examination of selective (and inconsistent) use of history by the Court.
• [14:50] – Analysis of the day's three main SCOTUS rulings, with deep dive into the birthright citizenship case.
• [19:25]–[21:56] – Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s moving concurrence on the 14th Amendment.

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Takeaways/Conclusions

• The Supreme Court, through contradictory and at times overtly ideological decisions, is fundamentally rebalancing the American system—bolstering the presidency at Congress’s expense and putting long-settled rights at risk.
• Andrew Weissmann’s tone: urgent, at times incredulous, emphasizing both technical legal flaws and the massive stakes for checks and balances.
• The birthright citizenship case stands as a warning: with just one changed vote, core rights could disappear.

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For Listeners:
This episode is essential for anyone following the rapid transformation of American law under the latest Supreme Court term. It’s a forceful, clear wake-up call about just how close the nation is to losing pillars of constitutional democracy—and why every election, and every judicial appointment, now matters more than ever.

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Transcript

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[Andrew Wiseman]

Welcome back to Main Justice. It is Tuesday morning, June 30th. I am Andrew Wiseman and I am not here with Mary McCord, my co host. And I know for many of our loyal listeners you must be thinking this is the first in three years of doing this podcast that it has not been Mary and me. Mary has a personal emergency so we're going to today just do a quick top line given the Supreme Court news yesterday and today and then we will be back once Mary's in pocket either tomorrow or later this week or for our regular show certainly next week to cover more about the Supreme Court as well as we will cover some other things that Mary and I had been talking about this weekend. But with that, let's start with yesterday's decisions. Then I'll come to what happened today. I think many people listening to this know that yesterday was a big deal

[Co-host or Legal Analyst]

in the Supreme Court.

[Andrew Wiseman]

There was lots of so called good news. There were cases that came out in ways that I think many people certainly Mary and I approved of. First and foremost, the Court decided not to hear the E. Jean Carroll case,

[Co-host or Legal Analyst]

the first of the E. Jean Carroll

[Andrew Wiseman]

cases to seek Supreme Court review and that is the the determination by a jury that she was sexually assaulted and also defamed and awarded her $5 million. And so that is now a final decision. Second, the court ruled that the Mississippi law with respect to mail in voting was valid.

[Co-host or Legal Analyst]

That is a 5 to 4 decision. So very, very close.

[Andrew Wiseman]

And so that is one very much to keep an eye on if the court composition should change. There was an important Fourth Amendment decision

[Co-host or Legal Analyst]

that is dear to my heart since

[Andrew Wiseman]

I teach the Fourth Amendment. And there's a decision that seemingly is good with respect to the Federal Reserve saying that with respect to the Trump administration trying to fire Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve, that it requires the Trump administration to show cause. In other words, it can't be for no reason at all. But that is maybe a really good segue to what is, I think the most important decision in terms of its long lasting consequences in terms of the structure of our government. The mail in voting decision is obviously extremely important in terms of our voting rights. But the Court issued a separate decision with respect to the power of the Trump administration to fire a member of the ftc, the Federal Trade Commission, and said that the executive branch does not need to have cause, that they can just fire away for any and all

[Co-host or Legal Analyst]

reason or no reason.

[Andrew Wiseman]

And what's so interesting about this decision is the language used by the Chief Justice, Chief Justice Roberts, who wrote the case, the case came down 6 to 3. I'm sure many of you are aware of it. And this was saying that with respect to the ftc, that again, the Trump administration can just fire people because of this idea of the unitary executive.

[Co-host or Legal Analyst]

Many people listening to this are going to be saying, wait a second, I thought you just told me that with respect to the Federal Reserve that they do need to show cause. And that decision was 5 to 4, that you needed to show cause. And what happened is, just bear with me on the nerdiness, is that for this 6 to 3 decision with respect to the FTC that was under pure ideological lines, that it was decided with the Chief justice writing for the majority and the three so called liberal justices in the dissent and more on that later, because the Sotomayor dissent was read from the bench and was quite vociferous and apparently reports were very emotional in the courtroom as she was reading it. That was six to three. But the decision with stricter the Federal Reserve was five to four. And what happened there was that the Chief justice switched from writing for the majority of the 6 to 3 to writing for the majority in the Federal Reserve K5 to 4. And he was joined by Brett Kavanaugh. So you have the three liberal justices and the Chief justice and Brett Kavanaugh,

[Andrew Wiseman]

and their reasoning basically is, I mean, they don't quite come out and say this but it's the Federal Reserve and the economy would go to hell at

[Co-host or Legal Analyst]

a hand basket if we actually said that Congress doesn't have the power to have these apolitical bipartisan agencies and so we're going to treat the Federal Reserve differently. To her credit, Amy Coney Barrett, who was in the majority in the FTC case, but then into the dissent in the Federal Reserve case, says you're being

[Andrew Wiseman]

completely inconsistent in terms of your reasoning.

[Co-host or Legal Analyst]

In other words, I disagree with her,

[Andrew Wiseman]

but she is being consistent and says

[Co-host or Legal Analyst]

what on God's green earth? Because this is one where if you are right with respect to the ftc, then you would think that applies to the Federal Reserve. If you're wrong with respect to the ftc, it should apply to all agencies. There's no really good reason and it sort of shows the paucity of reasoning. I wanted to just make three quick points. I know lots of people have been talking about the FTC case, which is named after Rebecca Slaughter, who is the plaintiff who brought the case. By the way, I was on air with her yesterday with Nicole Wallace and for anyone who can get access to that, I really think it's wonderful to listen to. Ms. Slaughter was terrific and also answered so well questions about well, what can we do now? I'm not going to give a spoiler alert, but I highly, highly recommend her answer because she's not giving up and she had very good ideas about how to move forward given this. But here are some quick comments I have about the Slaughter case and maybe I'll start with the big picture. This is a decision that has to be read along with the Chief Justice's decision in the Trump criminal immunity case because the vision of the Chief justice, of the power of the executive is larded through both the Trump criminal immunity decision and this decision, talking about the necessity of a strong, vigorous and a unique word this time secretive executive. I was struck by that word being used and that was the language about vigor. And the executive having this enormous power was also throughout the Trump criminal immunity case and it is replete here. And it's so jarring, given what we are living through with the Trump 2.0 presidency, that you really feel, at least I do, that the Chief justice is very much the leading henchman for the President, this particular President of the United States, but with ramifications for all future presidents except those who are going to self restrain. And it's remarkable the positive reasoning, which is that the founders, having lived through a king, essentially wanted to recreate a king because only somebody with that amount of power can get things done.

[Andrew Wiseman]

I mean, that is the gist of

[Co-host or Legal Analyst]

the Chief Justice's reasoning here. And it is so striking when you compare it to a different Justice Jackson,

[Andrew Wiseman]

not Ketanji Jackson, who I will talk

[Co-host or Legal Analyst]

about in a moment, but Robert Jackson, who Mary and I talk about a lot, because Robert Jackson wrote the famous Youngstown concurrence shortly after he returned from being the lead Nuremberg prosecutor. And he came back to this country having seen what happens with a strong executive using the example of Germany, but to be fair, also other countries seeing the harm of a strong executive. My second point about the use of history by the Chief justice, where he goes back to the Founders, it is, I think, a sleight of hand. There is nothing that I read from the Chief justice that deals with the issue of whether Congress has the power to create an agency where they require for cause removals. In other words, the Chief justice talks a lot about the different Founders and how they viewed the necessity of having

[Andrew Wiseman]

a strong executive, but he doesn't tie

[Co-host or Legal Analyst]

it directly to the issue before him, which is whether the Congress can create a position and create an agency that they think needs to be bipartisan and have expertise and shouldn't change every four years at the whim of the President. And they're not saying that the President has no power. This is not a binary. The President has power, that President has no power.

[Andrew Wiseman]

All that is at issue here is

[Co-host or Legal Analyst]

that before you fire somebody, the President has to have a reason, a cause.

[Andrew Wiseman]

And what is missing from the Chief Justice's analysis of history is that where is it that they said that even that, even just that minimal showing of

[Co-host or Legal Analyst]

a reason was something that the Founders said? No, no, no, we don't want that. Even that.

[Andrew Wiseman]

And I feel like that is such

[Co-host or Legal Analyst]

a deep flaw in at least my initial reading of this case. Finally, and this is very much in the weeds, which is I'm going to turn to Ketanji Brown Jackson, a different Justice Jackson.

[Andrew Wiseman]

It is not that long ago in the tariff decision where Justice Ketanji Brown

[Co-host or Legal Analyst]

Jackson was alone in an opinion saying that the methodology that the Court should

[Andrew Wiseman]

use includes looking at legislative history, looking at what people said at the time. And everyone else is like, who's in

[Co-host or Legal Analyst]

the conservative group of Justices say, no, no, no, we don't do that anymore.

[Andrew Wiseman]

We don't look at legislative history. We look at the words of the

[Co-host or Legal Analyst]

text and that's it. And maybe some context, but we do

[Andrew Wiseman]

not look at legislative history. Well, let's take a look at what happened in this case where it was six to three, where it's all legislative history. It is all about the founders and

[Co-host or Legal Analyst]

what they were thinking.

[Andrew Wiseman]

And many people have said that the

[Co-host or Legal Analyst]

Chief justice just cherry picks that history to find different snippets.

[Andrew Wiseman]

And all of the criticism that the

[Co-host or Legal Analyst]

conservative justices have of looking at legislative history because they say it's very imprecise, by the way, I disagree with that.

[Andrew Wiseman]

You can see here. So it is wrong.

[Co-host or Legal Analyst]

I think both historically it's wrong in terms of what our country needs, but

[Andrew Wiseman]

it's also so wrong in terms of methodology.

[Co-host or Legal Analyst]

So you have these very, very inconsistent takes by the Chief justice here in ways that are incredibly pernicious to our functioning government, taking so much power away from Congress and giving it to the executive at a time in our history where Lord knows we really do not need a stronger executive. And we're seeing that day in and day out that we do not have functioning checks and balances. So there's a lot of reasons why you're hearing in my voice this sense of accredited that there's a real problem here.

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[Andrew Wiseman]

So now to today's decisions. There were three main decisions today. One will take up all of the oxygen in the room. We will discuss all three at a later date. I'm going to spend most of my time giving you a quick take on my view of one of them. So there was a transgender decision, there was a campaign finance decision, and there was the birthright citizenship decision. Let me talk about the last one. The 14th amendment provides all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the

[Co-host or Legal Analyst]

state wherein they reside.

[Andrew Wiseman]

Well, today the Supreme Court said that that Provision in the 14th Amendment meant what it said and said what it meant. But that is not the main news here because the decision was 5 to 4. 5 to 4. We are one justice away from having birthright citizenship snatched from all of us. And there's been some confusion about whether this is a 6 to 3 or 5 to 4 decision. So let me clarify because people are getting this wrong. It is a 5 to 4 decision on the constitutional issue about whether birthright citizenship in the Constitution is there and would not permit the Trump executive order. It's five to four. People are confused because Justice Kavanaugh does have an issue with a statutory issue. He says that Congress passed a statute that is in conflict with the Trump executive order. So what he says is, by the way, Congress could change the statute and it would pass constitutional muster. In other words, he agrees with the dissents here. So there are four justices, including Justice Kavanaugh, who say that what the Trump executive order is trying to do is constitutional. And that is why I say we are one vote away, not two votes away, one vote away. And so I want to make sure people understand that, because you may be reading material where people say it's a 6 to 3 decision. And to give you a sense of how far we have come in terms of thinking about this issue, a year ago, when this issue was first being litigated at the district court level, before it wended its way all the way up to the Supreme Court, the first judge to confront this was a judge appointed by Ronald Reagan. And this is what he had to say Quote, I've been on the bench for over four decades. I can't remember another case where the question presented was as clear as this one. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order. Where were the lawyers when this decision was being made?

[Co-host or Legal Analyst]

Unquote.

[Andrew Wiseman]

That tells you how much norms and how we think about the law and what we are entitled to have changed under Trump 2.0. This decision is one where the Chief justice wrote it. Amy Coney Barrett joined in with the three so called liberal Justices. But the four conservative Justices wrote various dissenting positions on the constitutional issue here. Let me just take a moment though to read from a separate concurrence by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson that I found very moving when she talked about the scope of the 14th Amendment. As you may all remember, the Court was dealing with a variety of issues, but one was the 19th century decision

[Co-host or Legal Analyst]

in Dred Scott where the Court had said that slaves were not citizens.

[Andrew Wiseman]

And that was put to one side by the 14th Amendment finding that that

[Co-host or Legal Analyst]

was an outrageous position and that citizenship

[Andrew Wiseman]

ran through the soil and not through the bloodline. That it comes up repeatedly in the majority opinion. And Ketanji Brown Jackson takes some time to talk about the purpose of the 14th Amendment, how it is not at all race neutral, how the purpose of the 14th Amendment was to be remedial. And to be remedial you had to be able to consider race.

[Co-host or Legal Analyst]

And she concluded the following. The distortion of historical facts, retellings that reimagine and repurpose past events to lend credence to misbegotten aims may be an even greater threat. She's talking about the threat to America. Yet here we are, the government, the principal dissent and a handful of revisionist commentators now vigorously promote an interpretation of the citizenship clause that diverges sharply not only from what the text says, but also from the historical record as interpreted by the keepers of the Call of remembrance. Trained historians, freed blacks fought for the shared humanity of all people. And the Great Emancipator eventually foresaw that the only path forward that could prevent a return in any form to slavery and race based subordination was to link the fates of all. Of course, the ultimate irony I'm continuing quoting from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. The ultimate irony is that for all the talk of the detestable Dred Scott decision, the government and the principal dissent propose a return to its core tenet. Their bottom line is that for certain people being born on American soil will not suffice to confer citizenship. It is that odious conclusion that the citizenship clause plainly rejects. As the Court explains, I add only that the 14th Amendment's universalist aims should forever be the death knell for this kind of claim, one that seeks to make bloodline the marker of birthright. The America that was reborn from the rubble of the Civil War simply does not countenance that inequitable result. Thankfully, a majority of the Court remembered this today and has dutifully preserved the most basic animating principle of our nation's founding that all human beings are created equal once more. Those words were in support of a 5 to 4 Supreme Court decision. If you don't think that the Supreme Court and the rule of law is at stake in this upcoming election and elections to come, all you need to do is read the majority and dissenting decisions in the birthright citizenship case to understand what is at stake. So with that, we will be back with Mary shortly.

[Andrew Wiseman]

Thank you so much for listening.

[Co-host or Legal Analyst]

Please remember that you can subscribe to MSNow Premium on Apple Podcasts to get this show and other MSNow Originals ad free. You'll also get subscriber only bonus content and a reminder, we are available now on YouTube so you can head to Ms. Now. Main justice to listen. This podcast is produced by the wonderful Vicky Virgolina. Nicholas Vanuelo Yodar is our Associate producer and Casti Corey is our intern. The audio engineers for for this episode are Bob Mallory and Hazik Bin Ahmad Fared. Katie Lau is the Senior Manager of Audio production and Aisha Turner is the executive producer for MSNow Audio. Search for Main justice wherever you get your podcasts and follow the series.

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