A Court of Drugs and Guns

Summary

Strict Scrutiny: “A Court of Drugs and Guns”
Episode Date: March 9, 2026
Hosts: Melissa Murray, Kate Shaw, Leah Litman
Special Guest: California Attorney General Rob Bonta

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Episode Overview

This live show episode of Strict Scrutiny delivers the hosts’ signature sharp, irreverent Supreme Court analysis centered on recent oral arguments—including a Second Amendment case about drugs and guns, and the Court’s ongoing troubles with its “shadow docket.” The trio dissects the justices’ fixation on “originalism,” the fractured logic of recent precedent, and the cultural absurdities of the Court’s approach to precedent and history. The episode also features an in-depth and hopeful interview with California Attorney General Rob Bonta, discussing state resistance to federal overreach, antitrust enforcement, and keeping hope alive in grim times.

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Main Segments

1. Welcome & Introductions (03:02)

• The live tour kicks off in the Bay Area, jokingly titled "The Bad Decisions Tour."
• Melissa Murray: “You can’t go wrong talking about the Supreme Court and calling something the Bad Decisions Tour because, you know, bad decision season will soon be upon us.” (03:49)
• The hosts preview topics: recent oral arguments, the shadow docket, and a “kiki” with California AG Rob Bonta.

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2. Supreme Court Oral Arguments: Guns, Drugs, and Originalism

United States v. Hamai (06:08)

• Summary:
  The Court heard arguments in United States v. Hamai, a challenge under the Second Amendment to the federal law prohibiting “unlawful users of controlled substances” from possessing firearms. Debate hinged on whether modern restrictions must have “historical analogues” from the Founding Era.

• Discussion Points:

  • Originalist “Hotboxing”:
    Leah Littman: “Remember that in Nyserpa vs. Bruen, the Supreme Court turned the Second Amendment into a vehicle for originalist hotboxing.” (06:08)
    Bruen’s requirement for historical analogues has forced awkward efforts to match modern gun regulation with muskets-era laws.
  • Rahimi & the “Vibe Check” Doctrine:
    Melissa Murray: “So you'll recall that a couple of years ago in United States v. Rahimi, the Court seemed to get cold feet about the Bruen historical analog test… So weird.” (06:51)
    Despite precedent, the Court stretched logic to allow gun bans for domestic abusers due to discomfort with the alternative.
  • Hamai’s Central Question:
    Should the Court follow Bruen’s rigid historical twin standard, or Rahimi’s looser, “vibe-check” approach?
  • Uncertain Outcome:
    Leah Littman: “The Court ended up being more open to this Second Amendment challenge than I thought...” (09:12)
    Chief Justice Roberts and Alito seemed sympathetic to upholding restrictions, but no clear majority emerged.
  • Comparison to Gonzalez v. Raich:
    Kate Shaw: “...the case kind of pitted the desire to limit federal power...against the desire to take a maximally punitive position as to kind of all drugs...” (09:58)

Notable Quotes & Moments

• Melissa Murray, on the convoluted logic:
  “The jokes write themselves. It's unhinged. It's absolutely unhinged.” (06:48)
• Kate Shaw, on hand-waving historical analogues:
  “...the justices light up the Federalist Papers, the Statute of Northampton and some Blackstone, and ask whether a gun control measure has good vibes or bad ones.” (12:53)

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3. “Originalism” Absurdities & Court Humor

Founders as Frat Bros (14:17–17:28)

• Justice Gorsuch in oral argument:
  “...the American Temperance Society back in the day said eight shots of whiskey a day only made you an occasional drunkard. ...John Adams took a tankard of hard cider with his breakfast every day.” (14:17)
• Hosts riff on the justices’ obsession with Founding-era drinking, imagining the founders as “frat bros.”
• Leah Littman, tongue-in-cheek:
  “Maybe we shouldn’t call it originalist hotboxing, but originals. Beer pong or Scotus? Thunderstruck.” (14:52)
• Kate Shaw, on the historical reality:
  “Part of the reason everyone drank so much in ye olde days was that we didn't have real water filtration or purification yet. And so alcohol was a lot safer...” (16:32)

The Justices’ “Drug Olympics” (21:53–29:54)

• Game: Guess which justice brought up which controlled substance during oral argument!
  • Justice Thomas: Anabolic steroids (22:47)
  • Justice Sotomayor then Justice Barrett: Ambien, Ritalin, Adderall, Xanax (23:29–25:28)
  • Justice Alito: Meth, heroin, cocaine, fentanyl (25:39)
  • Justice Kagan: Ayahuasca (26:48)
• Leah Littman, on drug-Laden hypotheticals:
  “Details are really what kind of give it away.” (25:21)
• Melissa Murray, mock-serious:
  “First question, why is there a jar of Ambien in your house?” (24:20)
• Judges’ bizarre specificity is treated as unintentionally hilarious—and revealing of their cultural touchstones.

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4. The “Shadow Docket” on Drugs

Unexplained Rulings and Racial Gerrymandering (30:05–36:46)

• New York Redistricting:
  The Supreme Court paused a NY state court ruling that would redraw a GOP-held seat, purportedly for “racial discrimination.”
  • Melissa Murray: “...the Supreme Court would not let that happen, because racial discrimination.” (31:00)
• Kate Shaw: “...in some ways, the New York case is actually a new low. And that's because the court did not have authority to intervene in this case at all.” (35:30)
• Sam Alito's Concurrence:
  He declared it “unadorned racial discrimination” to create a congressional district so “minority voters" may elect their candidate of choice. (32:54)
• Sotomayor’s Dissent:
  “The court's 101 word unexplained order can be summarized in just seven: rules for thee, but not for me.” (34:19)

Mirabelli v. Banta: Parental Rights & Substantive Due Process (37:27–40:55)

• In contrast to its abortion rulings, the Court grants a “deeply rooted” right for parents to be notified—i.e. to have schools out their trans children.
• Leah Littman: “Substantive due process is bad. One abortion, but good when anti trans parental rights are unnecessary when the right is to support your trans kid, but they're an emergency...to out your trans kid. As Justice Sotomayor said...rules for thee, but not for me.” (40:55)

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5. Interview: CA Attorney General Rob Bonta

Fighting Federal Overreach, Protecting Civil Rights (44:13–66:56)

• Suing the Trump-Vance Administration:
  • 60 lawsuits in less than 60 weeks, winning 80%.
  • Fighting tariffs, defending funding owed to California, and protecting constitutional rights including voting and birthright citizenship. (45:00)
  • “He needs to give all the American businesses and American people who are hurt by his unlawful tariffs...give them refunds with interest and do it immediately.” (47:57)
• State Accountability for Federal Officers:
  • Bonta’s office stands ready to prosecute federal officers who commit crimes in California:
    “They don’t have absolute immunity. They don’t.” (49:58)
  • Joined as amicus in lawsuits, issued bulletins to CA law enforcement, and set up a portal for reports.
• Antitrust & Affordability:
  • Aggressively investigating corporate consolidation (e.g. Live Nation & Ticketmaster), stepping in where federal enforcement is absent.
  • Rob Bonta: “When there's corporate consolidation, you see price going up, you see wages for workers going down, you see lower quality, less choice, less competition. And that is what we look at in these lawsuits.” (53:11)
• Democratic State AG Collaboration:
  • 24 AGs prepared in advance for a second Trump term, shared litigation strategies, and planned to challenge Project 2025 policies. (55:25)
  • “We believe if he says he will do it, we take him at his word. We can’t take the chance that he might not.”
• Personal Motivation:
  • “The most important titles I’ll ever have will be husband to my wife, Mia, and father to my three kids...” (58:41)
  • Shared daughters’ experiences (including his older daughter’s marriage to her wife and related immigrant rights concerns).
  • Melissa Murray: “That just warmed my cold, jaded heart. I think I’m going to go apply for a job at the Cal DOJ.” (66:43)
• Hope in Grim Times:
  Bonta cites hope from his team, other AGs, “judges who do their job,” election results, and civic engagement.
  • Rob Bonta: “You, us, we, the people, give me hope. ... People power is the most potent power there is in a democracy.” (64:05; 65:04)

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6. Legal News: DOJ Humiliation, DHS Fiascos, Government Drama

DOJ Flip-Flops on Law Firm Litigation (71:14–73:09)

• DOJ tried to back out of appeals against the law firms challenging executive orders, then reversed—called “completely humiliating” by hosts.

DHS Personnel Disorder (75:39—79:23)

• Former Secretary Kristi Noem (“Christy no More”) ousted after scandal, replaced as DHS nominee by MMA fighter and Senator Markwayne Mullin.
  • Melissa Murray: “Of course...it is a little on the nose to pick an MMA fighter to be your Secretary of Homeland Security.” (77:35)
  • Anecdotes about Mullin’s violent outbursts and Congressional brawling.

Congressional Sex Scandals & Accountability (80:21–82:14)

• On the Christy No More/Corey Lewandowski affair rumors:
  Leah Littman: “One thing she didn’t say in response to that question was no… But more seriously, inject this into my veins. This is a reminder that accountability is possible...” (81:57; 82:14)

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7. Favorite Things / Uplifting Endnotes (82:55–87:32)

Judicial Candor

• Kate Shaw reads a powerful quote from a federal habeas decision exposing the current era’s lawless state-sanctioned violence. (83:55)
• “...calmly describing the flagrant violations of specific constitutional violations...without sounding unhinged. So I really salute that judge...” (84:24)

Listeners and Personal Shout-outs

• Leah Littman and Melissa Murray share personal gratitude for students and colleagues, celebrate their own and each other’s publications, and find comfort in community.

Bay Area Love

• Melissa Murray: “My absolute favorite thing this week is…my travels have taken me right here to one of my absolute favorite places, the Bay Area.” (86:16)

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “Habitual drunkard. ...John Adams took a tankard of hard cider with his breakfast every day. James Madison reportedly drank a pint of whiskey every day. Thomas Jefferson...three or four glasses of wine a night.” — Justice Neil Gorsuch (14:17)
• “...the justices light up the Federalist Papers...and ask whether a gun control measure has good vibes or bad ones. An approach that is totally unmoored from anything approximating law. And yet they insist on.” — Leah Littman (12:53)
• “Substantive due process is bad. One abortion, but good when anti trans parental rights...” — Leah Littman (40:55)
• “Rules for thee, but not for me.” — Justice Sotomayor’s dissent (34:19; echoed throughout)
• “You, us, we, the people, give me hope....when we stay engaged, when we stay enraged about the abuses of power and when we know that people of power is the most potent power that there is in a democracy.” — Rob Bonta (65:04)

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Segment Timestamps

• Intro, tour banter & show structure: 03:02–05:36
• Oral argument background & originalism: 05:36–13:18
• Justice hypotheticals and “drug Olympics”: 13:56–29:54
• Shadow docket & gerrymandering: 30:05–36:46
• “Parental rights” decision and due process hypocrisy: 37:27–41:49
• Rob Bonta interview: 44:13–66:56
• Legal news & federal agency drama: 71:14–82:14
• Favorite things & audience shout-outs: 82:55–87:32

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Tone & Style

• Witty, sharp, and accessible constitutional law analysis laced with pop culture, humor, and irreverence.
• Hosts are quick with quips, puns, and asides, but ground their commentary in deep legal expertise and genuine civic concern.
• Rob Bonta brings vulnerability, optimism, and earnestness about public service as contrast to the judicial snark.

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Summary Takeaways

This episode masterfully balances laughter and legal lament, exposing the Supreme Court’s contortions on guns, drugs, and rights, while finding hope—and action—in state-level resistance and public engagement. If you’re seeking insight, comic relief, and civic inspiration about the ongoing legal rollercoaster in the U.S., this episode delivers.

Transcript

[Melissa Murray]

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[Melissa Murray]

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[Kate Shaw]

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[Melissa Murray]

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[Leah Littman]

Mr. Chief justice, please report.

[Justice Neil Gorsuch (voice clip)]

It's an old joke, but when I argue, a man argues against two beautiful ladies, they're going to have the last word.

[Rob Bonta]

She spoke not elegantly, but with unmistakable clarity. She said, I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.

[Melissa Murray]

Hello, bay area. We are Strict scrutiny. Your podcast about the Supreme Court and the legal culture that surrounds it. We're your hosts. I'm Melissa Murray.

[Kate Shaw]

I'm Kate Shaw.

[Leah Littman]

And I'm Leah Littman.

[Melissa Murray]

West coast best coast. We are finally here. And I can't tell you how excited we are. We are so excited. I want you to know that I wanted to call this tour the LA Face with an Oakland Booty Tour. I know, it's catchy. It's catchy. I was outvoted. Some people thought it would not be decorous. And I have just three words for those people.

[Leah Littman]

Just the tip.

[Melissa Murray]

I own that.

Anyway, this is the Bad Decisions Tour, and you can't go wrong talking about the Supreme Court and calling something the Bad Decisions Tour because, you know, bad decision season will soon be upon us. Because this court truly cannot help themselves. And because they cannot help themselves, it means we have an absolutely fantastic live show in store for you tonight.

[Kate Shaw]

Sometimes what's bad for the country is good for our podcast, and this is one of those times. So we are going to cover some recent oral arguments, including an epic SCOTUS debate in a case about drugs and guns on the original meaning I shit you not, of the term drunkard, because that is what passes for constitutional law on this Supreme Court. And remarkably, this was not a case about Pete Hegseth.

[Leah Littman]

Alcohol and or controlled substances may end up being a theme for this show because we also have to cover some recent shadow docket orders.

[Melissa Murray]

But that's not all. In addition to covering oral arguments and the shadow docket, we are also going to have a little kiki with an ag. And no, I am not talking about one Pamela Joe Bondi. I mean a real ag, not a real housewife. That's right, California. Your Attorney General Rob Bonta is in the house. And to close out, as always, we will do a little legal news and end with our favorite things. One of them is you.

[Kate Shaw]

All right, so we're gonna start with the big oral argument recap. So after a very long hiatus, the court heard oral arguments in three cases last week. But we're just gonna focus on one of them. United States v. Hamai, a Second Amendment challenge to a law that prohibits, quote, unlawful users of controlled substances from possessing firearms. Here the government is suggesting that this unlawful user language covers someone who is a habitual user of marijuana, which is still under federal law, even if not in many states, a controlled substance.

[Leah Littman]

Remember that in Nyserpa vs. Bruen, the Supreme Court turned the Second Amendment into a vehicle for originalist hotboxing. Brune declared that firearm restrictions are constitutional only if the government can show that the restriction is consistent with the nation's tradition of firearm regulation, which, the court elaborated, requires the government to identify a historical analog to modern day gun regulation. The Court requires those seeking to promote gun safety to show that restrictions on modern firearms are the same as the kind of restrictions that our founding Fathers would have used to restrict Muskets.

[Melissa Murray]

Right.

The jokes write themselves. It's unhinged. It's absolutely unhinged. But the thing is, it's so unhinged that sometimes even the Court agrees that it's unhinged, at least sometimes. So you'll recall that a couple of years ago in United States v. Rahimi, the Court seemed to get cold feet about the Bruin historical analog test. So Rahimi was a challenge to a federal law that prohibited individuals who were subject to domestic violence restraining orders from possessing firearms. And as it happened, our forefathers were not especially stringent about policing gender violence. So weird. Accordingly, there were not a ton of laws about disarming domestic abusers at the founding, and there weren't any at the time of the ratification of the Second Amendment, which meant that under Bruin, the challenge law about disarming domestic abusers should have been invalidated.

[Rob Bonta]

But.

[Kate Shaw]

But the Court got cold feet. So because Brett Kavanaugh is the father of daughters and also the first justice to have a chambers composed entirely of women clerks, that is actually true, though irrelevant, like the father of daughters bit, he and some of his fellow Republican appointees got so squeamish about putting firearms in the hands of individuals credibly accused of domestic violence, even if that's where their own logic should have led them.

[Leah Littman]

So the Court leaned further into the hotboxing aspect of the originalist hotboxing and said, we're just gonna do a vibe check on this gun control measure. And as it turned out, the vibes were immaculate. Rahimi suggested that the restriction on domestic abusers was basically like the founding era surety laws that requ Certain people to post bonds before riding armed. Sure.

[Melissa Murray]

Fast forward to the Hamani argument. So the Justices and the advocates were trying to figure out if they were supposed to be applying the Bruin version of the Bruin test, which requires a pretty similar historical analog, a historical twin, if you will. Or if they were supposed to be applying the Rahimi version of the Bruin test, which just requires some hand waving and vibe checking.

[Rob Bonta]

Right.

[Melissa Murray]

So which one?

[Leah Littman]

Well, so the Court ended up being more open to this Second Amendment challenge than I thought they might be, perhaps because they think another statute that prohibits possession by addicts will suffice to disarm people they think should be disarmed. And so this case gave the amosexuals on the Supreme Court the opportunity to really indulge in their amosexual fantasies and ensure themselves that they are so committed to the Second Amendment they will invalidate firearm restrictions that are applicable even to people they don't like. Now, the two biggest narcs on the supreme court, the chief justice and Sam Alito, were friendly to the government, But I didn't hear a clear majority to uphold this law.

[Kate Shaw]

I thought since we're just sort of starting with high level impressions, this felt a lot to me like the 2005 case Gonzalez vs. Reich, which maybe the law students in the crowd will remember. But that's a case where the conservatives were very cross pressured between various items on the kind of conservative jurisprudence wish list. So the case dates back to much earlier in the country's marijuana legalization journey. It was a California case in which the feds were trying to go after cancer patients who were allowed to grow marijuana for personal use under the state's compassionate use law. So the case kind of pitted the desire to limit federal power specifically under the commerce clause against the desire to take a maximally punitive position as to kind of all drugs, even medical marijuana. So the anti drug sentiment carried the day with enough conservative justices back in 2005 that they upheld the federal law here. I think I agree with Leah that the second amendment enthusiasm may win out.

[Melissa Murray]

I just want to say someone who has never done any kind of drug and I see. I'm dead serious. I've never done anything. The only ingestion I have done has been passively walking through Sproul plaza in Berkeley. Never done anything. I'm as straight laced as they come. But I, as someone who's never done any of these things, was a little taken aback by the justice's apparently very deep knowledge of certain controlled substances. Just gonna say that some of the hypotheticals were incredibly specific. I also want to shout out justice Jackson, who stays on her hustle. Yes. In every second amendment case, she continually points out how backwards and manipulable the bruin test is. And in this particular oral argument, she repeatedly pointed out the inconsistency in the federal government's approach to this case, Hamani, and another second amendment case that was heard, this term, wolford. So wolford involved a Hawaii law that prohibited concealed carry on private property unless the property owner specifically authorized it. And in Wolford, the federal government said that all of the historical laws prohibiting poaching and hunting on private property were just too different from the challenged Hawaii law to count as historical analogs under bruin. Weird. But here in Hamani, the federal government is now arguing that laws prohibiting vagrancy, which to my knowledge has absolutely nothing to do with the possession of A gun. These are historical analogues to the law prohibiting firearm possession by those who unlawfully use controlled substances. So historical twin here, no historical twin there. Right, I've got it. That sounds exactly right.

[Leah Littman]

This is why we call it originalist hotboxing. The justices light up the Federalist Papers, the Statute of Northampton and some Blackstone, and ask whether a gun control measure has good vibes or bad ones. An approach that is totally unmoored from anything approximating law. And yet they insist on.

[Melissa Murray]

So my take on this case is that I actually, I don't agree that they're necessarily going to. This is going to be a win for the Second Amendment. I think there's a good chance that they will invalidate the statute, but I think they may do so on due process grounds. The view that the statute is unduly vague and doesn't give enough notice about what is actually prohibited and who is targeted. So maybe I don't. Anyway, we should highlight some of the notable quotables from this argument. And I'm just going to say from jump the New dei, by which I mean Dick's ex husbands and imbeciles.

[Kate Shaw]

It's a great line. You can clap.

[Melissa Murray]

Someone tell Harmeet Dhillon.

All right,

the new DEI had a moment straight out of the gate. So there was an exchange between the Deputy Solicitor General, who was arguing in favor of the law, and Justice Gorsuch. So let's roll that tape.

[Justice Neil Gorsuch (voice clip)]

Habitual drunkard. The American Temperance Society back in the day said eight shots of whiskey a day only made you an occasional drunkard. We have to remember the founding era. If you want to invoke the founding era to be a habitual drunkard, you had to do double that. Okay, John Adams took a tankard of hard cider with his breakfast every day. James Madison reportedly drank a pint of wine. Whiskey every day. Thomas Jefferson said he wasn't much of a user of alcohol. He only had three or four glasses of wine a night.

[Leah Littman]

Okay, now we know why the Georgetown prep squad really wants to be originalists. But basically Neil Gorsuch wants to know what's the original meaning of hammered? Would James Madison have concluded that you were totally shit faced when you threw back a few and included a journalist in your signal group chat? And Neil, if you're listening, I want to know am I doing the originalism right? Maybe we shouldn't call it originalist hotboxing, but originals. Beer pong or Scotus? Thunderstruck.

[Kate Shaw]

We're still workshopping those, but they really were luxuriating in the idea that the founders were frat rows, sort of like since we do think they may be listening, maybe some of them heard Leah on a recent episode describe the current administration as. Which is a great line which I will repeat as government by the manosphere of the manosphere and for the manosphere. And the justices thought, yes, yes, this

[Melissa Murray]

is the way basically Animal House, but make it constitutional.

[Leah Littman]

Yeah. Toga. Toga.

[Melissa Murray]

No, no gun.

[Kate Shaw]

Really hear Brett saying that. Can you?

[Rob Bonta]

I know.

[Melissa Murray]

I do not want to see any of them in a toga.

[Kate Shaw]

To strike a serious note for one minute though, like, part of the reason everyone drank so much in ye olde days was that we didn't have real water filtration or purification yet. And so alcohol was a lot safer to drink than water a lot of the time. And because this seems to be the reality that Secretary Bill Debear slash raw Milk is to bring in, another cabinet secretary is earnestly trying to cultivate. Maybe it is time or soon will be time for all of us to hit the casks. Although for the record, we haven't tonight just sugar, which is our drug of choice.

[Leah Littman]

There was a real frat bro undercurrent to the argument, and the Georgetown Prep alums brought their usual C game to the occasion. Take a listen to Neil's fellow Georgetown Prep alumni, Brett Kavanaugh.

[Justice Neil Gorsuch (voice clip)]

In response to Justice Alito, I think you said that drugs are distinct from alcohol for second amendment purposes, although there's some similarities. Is that accurate?

[Senator Mark Wayne Mullen (voice clip)]

Yes.

[Kate Shaw]

And I would say that, yes, I can elaborate.

[Justice Neil Gorsuch (voice clip)]

Please elaborate.

[Melissa Murray]

Okay.

[Leah Littman]

Yes, that is Brett. I like beer. Kavanaugh begging the federal government to make a case for why there's a difference between people using drugs and people using alcohol.

[Melissa Murray]

It's almost like he's personally invested.

Almost.

[Leah Littman]

Almost.

[Melissa Murray]

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[Leah Littman]

Things only devolved from there. In fact, it got so weird. We're going to play a little game where we invite you, our listeners and audience, to try to guess which justice brought up which drug during the argument. We'll pose the question, you think of the answer, and then we'll tell you which justices actually had which drugs on their minds. Okay. First, which justice invoked anabolic steroids? If you guessed Coach Kavanaugh. And I heard a few, Sorry, you're wrong.

[Kate Shaw]

That was a good guess.

[Leah Littman]

It was a good guess.

[Melissa Murray]

Justice for Brett Kavanaugh. Okay.

[Leah Littman]

It was Clarence Thomas who brought up the roids.

[Melissa Murray]

So, real talk. I thought this was so helpful for contextualizing his concurrence rant in SFFA versus Harvard. I just thought he was an older black man mad that he couldn't get the younger black woman on the court to sign onto his program of completely dismantling affirmative action. But in fact, he may just have been raging.

[Leah Littman]

I mean, why not? They do have that effect.

[Melissa Murray]

Or both.

[Kate Shaw]

Right? All right, next question. Which justice brought up Ambien?

[Leah Littman]

Barrett.

[Melissa Murray]

Barrett.

[Leah Littman]

Okay, I, I heard. Okay, I heard some in the audience say Barrett. Now, Justice Sotomayor was actually the first to bring up Ambien. But, but, but it was Justice Barrett who really dug into it. In fact, in fact, she offered the following hypothetical. Justice Sotomayor asked you about someone who takes Ambien to sleep. So let's assume that someone takes their spouse's Ambien prescription. The spouse takes it too lawfully with the prescription, but then, you know, you take it Unlawfully. Because you break into your spouse's Ambien jar.

[Melissa Murray]

First question, why is there a jar of Ambien in your house?

[Kate Shaw]

It doesn't come in a jar.

[Melissa Murray]

Right. Like cookies come in a jar. Ambien does not come in a jar. So, girl, what is happening in your home?

[Leah Littman]

She brought up Ambien four separate times after Justice Sotomayor did.

[Kate Shaw]

She also referenced both Adderall and Ritalin repeatedly.

[Melissa Murray]

Well, so that was actually, again, very revealing to me. So she offered a hypothetical that involved a college student who takes his roommate's Ritalin twice a week because he thinks it will help with exams. That is a quote. To which I say, ma', am, that is a very specific hypothetical.

[Leah Littman]

The details are really what kind of give it away.

[Melissa Murray]

You could have been very general about that.

[Leah Littman]

You could. And yet Amy was also the first justice to bring up Xany or Xanax.

[Melissa Murray]

Okay.

[Leah Littman]

One other drug or drugs cocktail, as the case may be, which justice decided to invoke the prospect of a combination of meth, heroin, cocaine, and fentanyl. Sam Alito is the answer.

[Melissa Murray]

All right, why did everyone know that?

[Kate Shaw]

Whoa, whoa.

[Melissa Murray]

I'm low key offended that Sam Alito got more applause than any of us.

Okay.

[Leah Littman]

They were clapping because they knew the answer because they listened to this podcast. And I just want to say that all of his opinions make much more sense now.

[Kate Shaw]

Okay, Leah said that would be the last one, but I actually want to add one more, which is sort of a compound question. So who brought up ayahuasca? And then who seemed to protest a little too much in disclaiming any specific knowledge of that drug? Two part question.

[Rob Bonta]

Wait, wait, wait.

[Leah Littman]

They know, they know, they know.

[Melissa Murray]

So Justice Kagan did bring up the ayahuasca first. And I actually think this is one of the most unintentionally hilarious moments of the argument. So Justice Kagan described ayahuasca as a, quote, very, very, very intense hallucinogen.

[Leah Littman]

And I just want to say, if I worked with Sam Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh, I would also be interested in very, very, very intense hallucinogens.

[Kate Shaw]

You can sort of hear the longing interval. Very, very, very intense.

[Leah Littman]

Like, am I hallucinating now?

[Melissa Murray]

Please.

If I worked with them, I would be living in Sproul Plaza. Like, just. So Justice Kagan first brought up the ayahuasca, and she also, I think, went to great pains to explain that quote. I don't know a lot about this drug. I'm assuming you don't know a lot about this drug. So what I'm gonna tell you about this drug, let's just assume it's the truth about this drug.

[Leah Littman]

Oh, okay, you say so, Elena. That was pretty funny. But it was even more hilarious that after going all in on Ambien, Xanax, Ritalin, and Adderall and Robitussin 2, Justice Barrett was like, ayahuasca. I have never heard of the drug. Is that real? Girl, be real. If we are allowed to add one more drug to the list, I have to to say, Neil Gorsuch threw out the word gummy with surprising familiarity.

[Kate Shaw]

Fluency, Right? Like, yeah, it just tripped from.

[Leah Littman]

And then he immediately hastened to add the word bear as if to dispel any suggestion that he is familiar with dispensary lingo. Now, it might not be doing coke off the toilet, but I did bring us some gummy bears to do on the podcast stage.

[Melissa Murray]

Like I said, I've never done this. These are real gummy bears.

[Kate Shaw]

Big for Melissa. Just.

[Melissa Murray]

These are real gummy bears.

All right.

[Kate Shaw]

Because we are nothing if not fair and balanced. I do want to say, though, as to some of the drugs that we were just mentioning, the lawyer for the Solicitor General brought up the drug in the first instance. So they didn't necessarily just conjure out of thin air all of the hypos that we just walked through. Still their fixation on certain drugs, but was curious.

[Melissa Murray]

You're being way too generous. Like, she opened the door, they ran through.

[Leah Littman]

The Solicitor General did not bring up a jar of Ambien or Ayahuasca.

[Melissa Murray]

No one was talking about ayahuasca.

[Rob Bonta]

No. Nope.

[Leah Littman]

Anyways, okay. So the drug fueled flavor of the Hamani argument seemed to bleed into some of the courts shadow docket shenanigans, by which we mean the court released two shadow docket orders that were clearly written under the influence. You all know the shadow docket. This is your shadow docket on drugs.

[Kate Shaw]

So the first possibly drug influenced order came in a redistricting case out of New York, where the US Supreme Court paused a state court ruling that had invalidated the sole Republican held congressional seat in New York City. So in Staten island, because of course. And also part of Brooklyn. So the state court concluded that the district lines violated the state constitution because they diluted the voting power of black and Hispanic voters. The court then ordered the state to redraw the district, which would have turned a safe Republican seat into a more competitive one.

[Melissa Murray]

And of course, the Supreme Court would not let that happen, because racial discrimination. All right, this Court may actually have identified, finally, an illegal racial gerrymander. Remember, racial gerrymandering is when districts are drawn in ways that consolidate political power in ways that disadvantage minority groups. And what is the impermissible racial gerrymander that the court may have identified in this particular circumstance? It's the fact that the New York trial court decision ordering the state to draw a different set of maps that didn't dilute the voting power of minority voters. That's the racial discrimination that the court finds impermissible. Now, to be very clear, this court did not conclude that it was racial discrimination when the Trump Department of Injustice begged the state of Texas to redraw new districts mid cycle and gerrymander away majority minority districts where minorities voters could elect the voters of their choice. Instead, they chose to save their powder for this particular instance.

[Leah Littman]

Yeah. Now, the court's order in the New York case is unexplained. Hence our caveats about possible racial gerrymander and whatnot. We don't know why these goblins paused the state court ruling, but when you consider the redistricting cases from California, Texas and New York together, the punchline seems to be that partisan gerrymanders are fine, but. But once you start trying to remedy racial gerrymanders where minority groups are underrepresented, that is a bridge too far. There was one writing from one justice who voted for the stay, and it was from friend of the pod, Sam Alito.

[Kate Shaw]

He was definitely hopped up on something in this concurrence. So he declared that it is, quote, unadorned racial discrimination to create a new congressional district for the express purpose of ensuring that, quote, minority voters, which was in scare quotes, are able to elect the candidate of their choice. Ah, yes. We cannot have minority voters getting to cast meaningful votes to elect candidates who will represent their interests.

[Melissa Murray]

Now, if that logic sounds ominous to you, then you, you know Sam Alito and you've probably been listening to this podcast so effectively, Sam Alito is suggesting that any race conscious redistricting, including efforts to remedy the opportunity to lock minority voters out of power, that's the real racial discrimination that we have to address. And if you follow, yes, hiss, because it's terrible. If you follow that logic, then that will likely doom whatever shards remain of the Voting Rights act, which is still up for grabs in a pending case before this court, Louisiana versus Calais. And at this point, I can just imagine Clarence Thomas sitting in his land yacht in a Walmart parking lot reading Justice Alito's statement and chortling to himself. Yes, Padawan I have taught you well.

[Leah Littman]

Justice Sotomayora's dissent for the three Democratic appointees wrote, quote, the court's 101 word unexplained order can be summarized in just seven rules for thee, but not for me.

[Melissa Murray]

Yeah.

[Leah Littman]

As Justice Sotomayor noted in words Other other cases, the Supreme Court has paused federal court orders that had invalidated voting restrictions on the ground that federal courts should not interfere with election rules too close to an election. That's the so called Purcell Principle.

[Melissa Murray]

But that's exactly what the Court did. They did exactly what they tell federal courts that they shouldn't do, which is to change election rules when the election is looming or very close. So from what I can get from this, the true meaning of the Purcell Principle is that it's always too close to an election to do something that would result in a multiracial democracy or wins for the Democratic Party. But it's never too close to an election to do something that would benefit the Republican Party. Am I getting this right?

[Kate Shaw]

I think, yeah.

[Melissa Murray]

Am I doing the gerrymandering right?

Yeah.

Great. Okay.

Yeah.

[Kate Shaw]

And that is the kind of emerging, I think, lesson from the Court's cases in this area. And as bad as previous cases have been, in some ways, the New York case is actually a new low. And that's because the court did not have authority to intervene in this case at all. So by law, the Supreme Court only has jurisdiction, Right. The power to hear cases from a state court, which this case arose from once the state's highest court that could have ruled on the issue has done so. And that did not happen here.

[Melissa Murray]

Here.

[Kate Shaw]

Which means the court didn't have authority to issue this order, and yet they did it anyway. In the concurrence that Justice Alito wrote that we were just talking about, I think he arguably really misrepresents the background suggesting that New York's highest court had refused to intervene, even though they hadn't been asked to rule after the intermediate appellate court ruled here. But he basically, I think, in a somewhat misleading way, described the procedural background and then said the court's intervention here was just fine. Because it's just like other cases, including one in which the court intervened to protect Nazis, Right. To march in Skokie, Illinois, like, that's the best case that he could find. But whatever you make of that decision, the state courts in that case had denied relief. That wasn't what happened here.

[Melissa Murray]

Yeah.

[Leah Littman]

So I have a controversial take I would like to offer, and it's. This is Sam Alito, the real Pete Hegseth of the Supreme Court. People might think it's Brett Kavanaugh. I'm not sure, because Sam's opinion here honestly had echoes of Pete Hegseth standing in front of the lectern firing off. There are no rules of engagement. We are not going to abide by those woke rules. And basically admitting to war crimes in front of the entire world. It just coded sand to me. I don't know.

[Melissa Murray]

Princeton.

Yeah.

[Leah Littman]

Yeah.

[Melissa Murray]

All right. We haven't even scratched the surface of the shadow docket. The shadow docket is the gift that keeps on giving. It takes a lot more than a little hypocrisy from this Court to really kick off that decision season. So the Court's Republican justices decided that get things started this year by making substantive due process great again. And they did that in a case called Mirabelli versus Banta. Yes, that Banta. So this is a shadow docket decision arising from a case here in California. And let me give you just a quick refresher. Substantive due process refers to the idea that the Constitution protects rights that aren't specifically and explicitly listed in the Constitution. So these include unenumerated rights, like the right to an abortion.

[Kate Shaw]

Remember that one?

[Leah Littman]

It was a good one.

[Melissa Murray]

It was a good one. Also, the right to contraception. Don't get attached. Anyway, in Dobbs, the court overruled Roe vs. Wade, ending the constitutional right to choose an abortion and making clear that going forward, any unenumerated right that would be understood to be entitled to constitutional protection had to be one that was, quote, unquote, deeply rooted in the history and tradition of this country.

[Leah Littman]

And this past week, the guys in the Dobbs majority decided that one right that is deeply rooted in our history and tradition is parents right to be notified if their child identifies as transgender at school, effectively to have the school out their children as trans. And they did so in a gratuitously nasty opinion. So these ghouls could have avoided using pronouns. Instead, they chose to use she and daughter over the child's objection.

[Kate Shaw]

And in addition to the Court's hypocrisy on substantive due process, which Melissa was just talking about, Justice Kagan, who penned a lengthy dissent, called out the Court's hypocrisy on the issue of parental rights between this case and the Scrometti case. So recall that in last year's decision in Scremetti, the Court upheld Tennessee's ban on gender affirming care for minors there. Although it was asked to do so, the Court opted not even to weigh in on whether the Constitution protects parents right to ensure that their child can obtain gender affirming care without undue interference from the state, so refused to even consider the parental rights question in Scremetti and here on the shadow docket decided to sashay in and declare that the Constitution does afford parents the right to have their child outed to them as transgender.

[Melissa Murray]

The other thing that makes this really egregious is that this is obviously a major question of substantive importance. And they decided to issue this decision on the shadow docket rather than taking the opportunity to resolve it on the merits docket. And there are plenty of opportunities to do so on the merits docket. There are a number of petitions that are pending before the court that would have raised this issue. They could have waited for the 9th Circuit to finish its consideration of this question, but they were so impatient that they couldn't do any of these things and they disagreed with every single court of appeals that has so far considered this matter.

[Leah Littman]

Yeah, so if the punchline of the Purcell Principle is that it's always too close to an election to do anything that benefits multiracial democracy, but never too close to an election to do things that benefit the Republican Party, this is now the punchline of substantive due process. Substantive due process is bad. One abortion, but good when anti trans Parental rights are unnecessary when the right is to support your trans kid, but they're an emergency requiring immediate action when the asserted parental right is to out your trans kid. As Justice Sotomayor said in the New York case, rules for thee, but not for me. And that that. That is our update on 1 1st street still sucks.

[Melissa Murray]

Strict scrutiny is brought to you by Mint Mobile. I don't know about you, but I like keeping my money where I can see it. Emotional support Billionaires probably like that too. And Mint Mobile offers you a way to save money from the traditional big wireless carriers who make you overpay. So maybe you can aspire to be an emotional support billionaire one day. Stop overpaying for wireless just because that's how it's always been. Mint exists purely to fix that. Mint Mobile is here to rescue you with premium wireless plans starting at $15 a month. All plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. So you can chatter with everyone about what's going on at 1 First Street. You can bring your own phone and number and activate with ESIM in minutes and start saving immediately. No long term contracts, no hassle. Ditch overpriced wireless and get three months of premium wireless service from Mint Mobile for $15 a month. If I was in the market for a new wireless plan, Mint Mobile is where I would go. If you like your money, Mint Mobile is for you. Shop [e-mail] strict. That's mintmobile.com strict. Upfront payment of $45 for three month five gigabyte plan required equivalent to $15 a month. New customer offer for first three months only. Then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. Now I'd like to tell you about a new podcast, the Briefing with Michael Waldman. Michael is a former White House speechwriter, lawyer, and constitutional scholar. He leads the Brennan center for justice, which works to repair and strengthen American democracy across a range of issues, from gerrymandering to abuse of presidential power, from Supreme Court reform to corruption and more. We've all worked with Michael and his team of experts, and we can tell you that no one understands these challenges better than they do. What makes the Brendan center unique is that it's more than a think tank. It's focused on turning ideas into policy. And that's what we like about the Briefing podcast. You're going to hear new ideas, but you're also going to learn about the strategies, the political fights, and the deal making that will shape the next phase of American democracy. If you care about American democracy, this is a podcast for you. You can listen and subscribe to the Briefing with Michael Waldman wherever you get your podcasts.

[Leah Littman]

For a change of pace and breath of fresh air, we'd like to talk to a lawyer who believes in the rule of law generally, not just selectively,

[Melissa Murray]

which is why we are delighted to bring onto the stage our very special guest for this show, your Attorney General, California, Rob Bata.

[Rob Bonta]

Good evening, everyone.

[Melissa Murray]

Welcome to the show.

[Rob Bonta]

Honored to be here.

[Kate Shaw]

We're thrilled to have you. And we do want to cover a lot of ground. We thought we would jump right in by asking you to tell us so we're recording on Friday. And yesterday you filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration.

[Rob Bonta]

Yes,

[Kate Shaw]

it sounds like the people of the city know that. But for the listeners who don't, can you tell us about that lawsuit?

[Rob Bonta]

Absolutely. And let me first say, this was our 60th lawsuit that we brought in less than 60 weeks. We're bringing more than one lawsuit a week. We're winning repeatedly. We're winning 80% of the time. We're securing restraining orders and final judgments. And sometimes when we sue, Trump just backs down and says, I give up. We've protected 200 billion of funding that California is owed. It's our funding that Congress appropriated the branch with the power of the purse. We're protecting constitutional rights like voting rights and birthright citizenship. And this was our second case challenging Trump's unlawful tariffs. We had just won a prior case, our AG Coalition, striking down his unlawful tariffs under the international IEPA and International Emergency Economic Powers Act. And he is dead set on his commitment to unaffordability and to raising prices. He is working overtime. He is stretching and reaching, even doing unlawful things to make. To create tariffs that raise prices from. Yeah, yes. I mean, it's shocking. He promised he was going to lower costs on day one.

[Leah Littman]

And look, because he chickens out on everything else and he refuses to chicken out on attack attacking affordability or tariffs.

[Rob Bonta]

He's fully committed. He's all in. He's going to finish the job. The job's not done yet. And so he brought another lawsuit on the day the Supreme Court issued their decision under Section 122 of the Trade act of 1974. And he has no basis to bring these tariffs. This statute has never been invoked before in 52 years of existence.

[Melissa Murray]

Never.

[Rob Bonta]

And it's based on an archaic system based on a balance of payments deficit analysis and at a time when we had fixed exchange rates instead of the floating exchange rate. So the bottom line is he's acted unlawfully. Again, he has no basis for this lawsuit. Congress has the power to tax. Tariffs are taxes. Trump can't issue these tariffs. So we went to court again to strike them down and fight for affordability for American.

[Kate Shaw]

And, and we should say so obviously, he lost big in the AIPA case in the Supreme Court. And, you know, one additional piece of legal news we haven't had a chance to cover is that the Court of International Trade, right after the Supreme Court ruled, issued a pretty sweeping ruling last week on the issue of refunds, basically finding that refunds are owed. And the court's decision last year in the CASA case about universal injunctions actually doesn't apply in the Court of International Trade. So according to that court, everybody, not just the particular plaintiffs who came to that court, is entitled to their refunds. And so I think that is probably because the Trump administration is already saying it can't possibly comply. That is likely headed back to scotus. And I wouldn't be surprised if this Trade act section 122 case is on a fast track as well. But, you know, so far he's striking out, and I think there's every reason to Believe that he's going to keep striking out.

[Rob Bonta]

I think he's going to continue to lose here. And look, he needs to give all the American businesses and American people who are hurt by his unlawful tariffs, who he victimized, give them refunds with interest and do it immediately and stop waiting, stop dragging your feet. Give them the money that they're owed. You took it from them. And I do want to point out that this was in front of the U.S. supreme Court. This was his centerpiece economic policy. There was a belief among some that we might win at the lower courts, we might even win at the intermediate appellate court. But if you get to the US Supreme Court, he's got three appointees there, they're gonna rubber stamp him, and they didn't on this.

[Melissa Murray]

There was also the 401ks of the justices.

[Rob Bonta]

I'm not gonna get to the reasoning and the rationale, but I like the outcome. It's a good outcome. It's the right outcome. We also won on national guard in California, Prop 50. We won on that. All in front of the U.S. supreme Court. And my. My staff will get nervous as I say this, because they don't never want me to predict what the court will do. But I think we're going to get a positive ruling on Lisa Cook and the Federal Reserve Board. I think we're going to get a positive ruling on birthright citizenship. So we'll see how that goes. But we can, and we do win in front of the US Supreme Court sometimes.

[Leah Littman]

So you've already kind of begun to talk about how you as a state are stepping up to the plate when the federal government is not only declining to protect people, but actively harming them. And we've talked about on the show the possibility of state prosecutions of federal immigration officers. Recently, it was reported that Mary Moriarty's office in Minnesota is investigating Colonel Lockjaw. I mean, Greg Pavino, after news that a whistleblower alleged that FBI forensic experts were ordered to stand down from processing the scene where Renee Goodwin was killed because Kash Patel didn't want Good referenced as a victim. And I know, you know, your office has been doing a lot of this work. So could you tell us about some of what your office is doing to address federal law enforcement overreach and what states can do more generally on that front?

[Rob Bonta]

Absolutely. You know, we've been standing up for accountability of federal officers, make sure that they don't act with impunity, make sure that they know, even though J.D. vance says otherwise wrongly, that they don't have absolute immunity. They don't. I mean, that's a fact.

[Melissa Murray]

That's what we're saying.

[Leah Littman]

He went to Yale, so.

[Justice Neil Gorsuch (voice clip)]

Ouch.

[Rob Bonta]

Ouch.

[Leah Littman]

Yeah, I said that to your face, Melissa.

[Melissa Murray]

You said it to his face, too.

[Rob Bonta]

You said it to my face, too.

[Melissa Murray]

We're both Yalees.

[Rob Bonta]

We don't claim him. We don't claim him.

[Melissa Murray]

Fair.

[Rob Bonta]

So we've been making it clear that there is accountability and that we're reasserting the rights that we have and affirming the rights that we have as states, as law enforcement officers, as prosecutors, to tackle crime that occurs in our states, even if a federal officer is the one committing it. We actually also joined them as an amicus, the Minnesota lawsuit challenging the militarized occupation of their state based on equal sovereignty and state sovereignty grounds. And the governor and I issued a bulletin to all of our law enforcement community members here in California saying that if a federal officer commits a state crime on California soil and there is a victim here in California, California law enforcement and prosecutors have the right to investigate, to prosecute, to secure a crime scene, to gather evidence, to do what we do, investigate and prosecute crime. And the fact that we have to say that is unfortunate, but we had to say that. And we even opened up a portal inviting members of the public to share with us information if they think a crime has been committed by a federal officer. OAG.ca.gov report misconduct. If you want to share anything that you may know or someone you know knows. So. And then. And then we also believe that civil liability pathways are important, just like section 1983 for local and state officers. What Bivens was supposed to be or used to be before it was weakened. There needs to be a civil pathway, and California is stepping up to put a lot into place this year in that regard.

[Leah Littman]

I love it. Cheering for Bivens and state Bivens. This is my kind of crowd.

[Melissa Murray]

You mentioned affordability briefly. One of the things that's contributing to the in affordability that's plaguing so many Americans is the federal government's refusal to enforce laws that would protect consumers, including antitrust laws and laws that prohibit corporate consolidation. We've talked a lot about this on the podcast. For example, last week, Leah alluded to the consolidation of the manosphere media in the hands of Larry Ellison and one of his large adult sons. Yeah, he's a very tall man. It's like purely descriptive. This is the Paramount Warner Brothers merger. But you also have some pending litigation against Live Nation and Ticketmaster. So I know, there's a lot going on in the state and we know you have pending cases. So if you could sort of speak generally, why is it so important for the state to address these questions of oligarchism and corporate consolidation when for most people they seem like really big picture issues? How do they sort of get to everyone's bottom line and how are they really kitchen table issues?

[Rob Bonta]

Yeah, no, thank you. And when you talk about things like antitrust law and monopolies, sometimes people don't know how that affects them. But it goes to exactly what you said, it goes to affordability. Corporate consolidation has proven objectively, historically that it raises costs. So we have a role as a state to independently investigate and bring lawsuits when we believe that antitrust law is broken, when there's anti competitive conduct. The federal government has long and traditionally been engaged in that role. The ftc, the US doj, what they will do going forward, you know, TBD and some already determined that, you know, I think they've really withdrawn from that role. And so into that gap and into that void we must step to continue to protect consumers. And when there's corporate consolidation, you see price going up, you see wages for workers going down, you see lower quality, less choice, less competition. And that is what we look at in these lawsuits. And so we're looking at that. It's public that we are, with respect to Paramount, Warner Brothers, we have, we're in court right now in the Southern District of New York on the Live Nation, Ticketmaster case. We're looking at other corporate consolidation possibilities and their impact on consumers. But this is about a fourth. And so it's not just Trump's tariffs that are raising costs. It's also his lack of enforcement of antitrust law allowing for corporate consolidation that raises prices for Americans. And that's wrong. Someone needs to do it in California. And the states are stepping into that void.

[Kate Shaw]

Can I ask you to talk kind of generally about sort of corporate coordination and collaboration? So you've now referenced a few times working with other states and other state AGs, whether it's national Guard, birthright citizenship, some of this anti corporate consolidation work. So can you just talk a little bit about those collaborations and sort of how, you know, as I tell my kids, teamwork makes the dream work. But like, how does that work? And then can you also tell us like, how My, my understanding is that this, some coordination has been happening even back, you know, as far back as 2024. So like when did you start deciding you were going to work together? And what does that look like.

[Rob Bonta]

Absolutely. And There are now 24 Democratic attorneys general across the country. There were 23 when we started. We had a pickup in Virginia last year. And we are all sort of independent sovereign officers in our state, representing sovereign states. And we've banded together because we think that we can be more impactful and deliver more to those who need it as a whole than we can as a sum of our parts. And we do it voluntarily. There's no leader. We're all equals who've come together. And we started preparing and thinking about what might come before the election, knowing that we couldn't guarantee it wouldn't be Trump and that we owed our constituents preparedness and readiness and a plan, a plan of action if he took over. So we planned, we charted, we looked at all the campaign promises. We read Project 2025. You know, he put in writing what he was going to do if he took office. And so that, horrible as the contents of Project 2025 are, it gave us an ability to prepare and respond and plan. And so we have, like, briefs and actions that are prepped and ready. We just have to dot the I's, cross the T's, press, print and file it if it happens. And we believe if he says he will do it, we take him at his word. We can't take the chance that he might not. We have to be ready. So I'm grateful that the 24 AGs have been working and preparing to get there. And, you know, one example, we were the first state in the nation where the National Guard was deployed and federalized. And we went to court, we got restraining orders that were successful in preventing the deployment, also preventing violations of the Posse Comitatus Act. And then Trump announced a plan to do this in D.C. and do it in Portland and do it in Chicago. And so our ability to share information, you know, we basically handed over our briefs and our best thinking and our strategy and gave it to our colleagues, and they used it as it could be helpful when they were fighting the same battle. And then the California, California National Guard was deployed from California to Oregon, you know, the day after the judge there had struck down the deployment of the Oregon National Guard. And so I was on the phone with Oregon AG Rayfield, and we were talking. I was at my mom's birthday brunch when she turned 88. And, you know, I stepped away to talk to Ag Rayfield. But we really value, and I so value my colleagues who are in this fight together, who are helping each other, who are sharing information, who are bringing Passion and commitment and talent and knowledge to the table. And we believe that we're really accomplishing some important things for the people of this country.

[Leah Littman]

So we also wanted to ask some more kind of personal questions. We've talked a lot about.

[Melissa Murray]

Really personal questions.

[Leah Littman]

Not that personal. We've talked a lot about, on the show how Brett Kavanaugh is really into being a father of daughters. So can you talk a little bit about what it's like being a dad or father in these times?

[Rob Bonta]

Yeah. You know, I love and I'm so honored and privileged to be the Attorney General of the state, a state that's given me so much. It's. It's a title I'll always cherish. But far from being the most important title that I have, most important titles I'll ever have will be husband to my wife, Mia, and father to my three kids, Andres and Raina and Ileana. And often as a public elected official, I have thought deeply about a decision I'm about to make. Wondered if I'm doing the right thing. And I've often gone back to, can you explain what you did to your kids? And they'll understand it and believe dad did the right thing, and they'd be proud. So I think about a lot of what I do through that lens, and I worry about them. And so I look at a lot of my official work through the lens of a dad. I look at the safety work that we do when we're trying to make online platforms and social media and AI safe for children. I think about them when we're doing our affordability work and. And making sure that there's more housing production in the state of California so that more people can pursue and realize the dream of home ownership. Some yimbys in the house. And I think about their rights and freedoms, and I think about a. I just want them to have a world that's fair and just and good, and if I can help create that, then that really drives me. I think about the rights and freedoms, and I think about my old daughter Raina, when I think about that. She's a professional soccer player and a filmmaker. She met her wife playing professional soccer in Brazil. They got married intentionally and deliberately before the inauguration of Donald Trump because they weren't sure they could after the inauguration of Donald Trump. And they eventually want to come to America. Her wife's Brazilian. I want to make sure there's a fair immigration policy and process, and they want to have a family someday. So I don't want their choices of who to love where to live, if, when and how to have a family to be taken away from them. And so that gives me motivation, it gives me passion, it gives me more energy when we're in these fights.

[Kate Shaw]

Can I, can I just say really candidly, like, it is so grim in Washington D.C. right now and an elected official who sounds like that is just such an incredible breath of fresh air. So thank you for reminding us that

[Leah Littman]

public official, public servants should sound like this.

[Kate Shaw]

So, okay, maybe this is, you know, some of the last couple of answers you gave sort of stepped into this, but I'm going to maybe just ask explicitly. Things are grim, as I just referenced at the federal level. I don't think we can downplay just how bad, how much damage that is going to be very hard to undo how much damage has already been done at the federal level in just a year and change of this administration. But you know, we try all the time to find things to put our energy into and places to sort of seize onto to find hope. And it sounds like there are lots of things that do that for you, but can you just talk a little bit for people who are finding it difficult right now, like that practice, like how you find sort of hope and places to put the rage that and the kind of energy that a lot of us have right now?

[Rob Bonta]

Yeah, for sure. You know, I am hardwired, hopefully. I'm just hopeful and I'm a glass half full guy and why so many things give me hope right now? My team at the California DOJ gives me hope and they are here in the house, by the way. So those particularly loud cheers I think are from them. And they're some of the most committed, passionate, talented attorneys that I, I know. They do this for the work. They don't want the recognition. I want to recognize them. I want to thank them. I'm honored to be able to lead this office. I'm grateful that you're here. And shameless plug we're hiring in our office. So if you want to be like them and join our team, we have our job postings online. My Democratic attorneys general gave me hope. The fight that they show, the commitment. You know, like in Minnesota, AG Ellison in the middle of the toughest fight, standing strong, holding his ground, speaking truth. That gives me hope. Law firms that fight and don't cave give me hope. My prior law firm, Kecker and Van Ness, is one of the ones who fought. So shout out to Kecker and Van Nest judges who do their job and follow the law, follow the facts and while fending off, you know, criticisms at their activist judges and their so called judges and calls for their impeachment. But just do it and let the chips fall where they may. That gives me hope. All the elections since Trump was elected give me hope. The midterms, upcoming midterms give me hope. The Trump polling in the tank gives me hope. He's earned it, he deserves it. It's appropriate reflection of where he should be. The blue wave that's coming gives me hope.

[Melissa Murray]

Say more about that.

[Rob Bonta]

I mean, I got my crystal ball out today and on the Supreme Court rulings, on what's going to happen. But you know, folks with good values and who care about the people are going to be taken over. And the folks are, they are not happy with where we are and that shows up empirically in all the polls. And I think that's what's going to happen in the upper upcoming election. So that's my hard wired, hopeful part. But finally, I'll just say this. You, us, we, the people, give me hope. When we show up, when we are engaged, when we know we have power, when we are not hopeless because we know we're not helpless because we can do something about this moment and make tomorrow more fair than today. When we stay engaged, when we stay enraged about the abuses of power and when we know that people of power is the most potent power that there is in a democracy. The bosses of Donald Trump are not his billionaire buddies. They are not greedy corporations. They are you and me and us. And we. And there are many chapters yet to be written in the story of the state and the story of this country. And we are going to write them. We will choose what happens next. We will choose what happens tomorrow. And so that gives me hope. And when people show up in crowds, when they show courage, when they show up for no kings rallies and hands off rallies to demand something from their government and to refuse to accept the unacceptable, that all gives me hope. So I know that we're gonna get through this. To me, it's inevitable. The one thing that is required is that we fight, is that we stay engaged. But if we do, I know we're going to be, we'll have a tomorrow that's more fair, more just where the rule of law is intact, where we have separation of powers and rights and freedoms and checks and balances and all the things that our country is founded on because we fought for them. And every leader and every person is called to step up. Sometimes the moment picks you, you don't pick the moment. And it is what you do in response. So a room full of dedicated, committed folks ready to fight, knowing that we can have a better tomorrow, that gives me hope. And I'm grateful to be here with all of.

[Melissa Murray]

That. Just warmed my cold, jaded heart. I think I'm going to. I'm going to go apply for a job at the Cal State of Georgia.

[Rob Bonta]

We're ready.

[Kate Shaw]

No, no, no. Sorry, General. Can't have her audience.

[Melissa Murray]

Please give it up to Rob Bonta, your ag.

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[Melissa Murray]

Dare I say, I feel hopeful

he

[Leah Littman]

is making the police power great again.

[Melissa Murray]

That part where he said he. When he did things, he was like, you know, how could I explain this to my children? Like, does DJT think about that? How would I explain this to John Jr.

[Kate Shaw]

This is just like. It is just. It feels like government service at the federal level has been so debased.

[Leah Littman]

I know that. To be reminded about what it is,

[Kate Shaw]

what it should look like. Yeah.

[Melissa Murray]

Yes.

I feel like Kate. Wow.

[Leah Littman]

That's not bad.

[Melissa Murray]

Melissa. It's okay.

It just feels so weird. It just feels so weird.

[Leah Littman]

Let's bring you back.

[Rob Bonta]

Okay.

[Leah Littman]

And let's touch on some legal news.

[Melissa Murray]

Oh, good. This will be bracing and sobering.

[Podcast Narrator / Production Announcer]

Excellent.

[Melissa Murray]

Okay.

[Leah Littman]

Okay.

[Melissa Murray]

All right, folks. We have talked a lot on this podcast about the executive orders targeting the law firms. And as the Attorney General noted, rather than settling with the administration, a few intrepid firms decided to challenge the orders, and the courts invalidated those orders in every single case in which they were challenged.

[Kate Shaw]

You know, as the Attorney General reminded us, you can't win if you don't fight. So those that fought actually all won anyway.

[Melissa Murray]

Well, friends, early last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration decided that it wasn't going to appeal those lower court rulings. The government even filed motions to dismiss the appeals and then. Wait for it.

[Leah Littman]

JK the New York Times reported that DOJ said backsies, and they filed a motion to withdraw the motion to voluntarily dismiss their appeals. The law firms unsurprisingly, objected to DOJ's about face.

[Kate Shaw]

So we actually don't know and maybe we'll just talk through now, like, what do we think happened? Like, one possibility is the President just changed his mind after seeing kind of favorable coverage by places like the New York Times praising the law firms that had challenged the orders targeting them. Another possibility is that the Solicitor General, who has to approve decisions about whether to appeal initially made the decision to stand down and then and informed the court of that decision. And then the Attorney General or the White House counsel overruled him. Like those are possible. Regardless of the reason, this is all completely humiliating for the Department of Justice. Like they should be humiliated.

[Melissa Murray]

Add it to the list.

[Leah Littman]

Yeah, this is just the tip, as they say.

[Kate Shaw]

But you know, honestly, kind of just another average workday at the Department of Justice of sort of debasing and humiliating yourself, but actually a little bit worse than your average day. This was bad.

[Melissa Murray]

Yeah. Agreed.

Speaking of another humiliating workday at a different federal agency, we are delighted to announce we have a new nickname. The new nickname is Christy no More. Yes, beloved krispy noem is out at dhs after trump. After trump. Old yellow her. So easy. What can I say, folks, Karma is a bishpu. Anyway, the President announced on Truth Social, where else that Nome will become a quote, unquote, special envoy to the Shield of the Americas. And I was very surprised to learn that this is definitely a real thing and not part of the Marvel universe. Of course, to be very clear, the Shield of the Americas, predictably, is very villain forward. This is the regime's plan to occupy the entire Western hemisphere and summarily execute people so very, very normal. Yeah, you can be alarmed by it. It is alarming. But again, this is a story of failing up. And the best part of this failing up story was that when the Truth Social post announcing her ouster hit the interwebs, Christy no More was speaking at a press conference. And it was semi unclear if she even knew at the Time she was speaking that she had been fired. Awkward. But maybe this is exactly what a puppy murderer deserves.

Oh, yeah.

Justice for cricket. Justice for Cricket.

[Leah Littman]

Cricket is like tell Christy. I want you to know. I want her to know it was me.

[Melissa Murray]

Always you.

[Leah Littman]

Cricket. Yeah.

[Kate Shaw]

Just to talk about that presser for a minute at the press conference. Christine, no more misquoted, quoted, but actually misquoted Orwell.

[Melissa Murray]

Because reading.

[Kate Shaw]

We have to give her credit. I mean, ending attention at DHS that was marked by vicious lies and carnage by misrepresenting Orwell is incredible. Top tier, legendary. You have to hand it to her.

[Melissa Murray]

Yeah, it gets better.

[Leah Littman]

Oh, yeah. Because Trump announced that he intends to nominate Senator Mark Wayne Mullen of Oklahoma to replace.

[Melissa Murray]

No. Yep.

[Leah Littman]

No less evil. Probably dumber. Which is saying something. This is, after all, someone. That is Christina Moore, who was diplomatized by Corey Lewandowski. Glad you appreciated that one. Anyways, we thought we would take this opportunity to introduce. Introduce you to the new nominee for Secretary of Homeland Security. Sir, this is a time.

[Justice Neil Gorsuch (voice clip)]

This is a place.

[Kate Shaw]

You want to run your mouth.

[Justice Neil Gorsuch (voice clip)]

We can be two consenting adults. We can finish it here.

[Rob Bonta]

Okay, that's fine.

[Justice Neil Gorsuch (voice clip)]

Perfect. You want to do it now? I'd love to do it right now. Well, stand your butt up then. You stand your butt up. Oh, hold it.

[Rob Bonta]

Stop it. Is that your solution every problem?

[Justice Neil Gorsuch (voice clip)]

No, no.

[Rob Bonta]

Sit down.

[Advertisement Voice]

Sit down.

[Justice Neil Gorsuch (voice clip)]

You know, you're a United States senator.

[Melissa Murray]

Act.

[Leah Littman]

Let them fight. Let them fight. This is a time.

[Melissa Murray]

This is a place. Of course. This is a man who has no space between his first and middle names. Like, of course. Of course. I will say it is a little on the nose to pick an MMA fighter to be your Secretary of Homeland Security.

[Kate Shaw]

He actually was right.

[Melissa Murray]

Yeah, Well, I mean, the record is debated. Some say he's. He has a 5 to 0 undefeated record. Some say he's a 3 to 0 undefeated record. I want to know where the other two places, like just two are missing. Like where what happened.

[Kate Shaw]

But he definitely fought. Yeah. And he won some. He won some matches. Yeah. So that clip for folks who hadn't seen it before for, is the witness testifying as Teamsters President Sean o' Brien and then of course, Senator Bernie Sanders at the end, shutting it down.

[Melissa Murray]

And you want to know what happened to Jimmy Hoffa?

[Kate Shaw]

I mean, that guy was not backing down. But I also. This was not. I don't think. I mean, the, you know, MMA matches suggest as much as, well, that this was not necessarily like a one off. So last week, Mullen had this to say About a time that Senator Rand Paul was assaulted by a neighbor of his. People might remember this from a few years back. So Secretary Designate Mullen said, quote, I understand completely why his neighbor did what he did. I told him, him being Paul, I told him that to his face. Okay, Bad enough. But guess who the chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee is? It's Rand Paul. But I mean, obviously it's funny. But also, this is, like, incredibly dark and disturbing because between that and Senator Tim Sheehy evidently breaking a Marine Veterans veteran protester's arm last week, it does feel very Field of Blood.

[Melissa Murray]

Right?

[Kate Shaw]

The wonderful Joanne Freeman book about, you know, actual physical. A moment in which, like the shedding of blood was commonplace in the United States Congress. It feels like we are inching back toward that very dark place rather, rather quickly.

[Melissa Murray]

All right, let's go back to Christy no More. Yeah, that was a great history lesson. Thank you. All right, in more Tales of Christy no More, I just want to note that in what I am sure is a total coincidence, community Peen Chlori Lewandowski is also reportedly out at dhs. According to a statement, the two of them are going to, quote, spend more time with their families. Wink, wink. Monogamy for thee, but not for me.

[Leah Littman]

I'm just gonna call him Corey Lewandowski, future assistant to the Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas. In order to commemorate the departure of these two legends from dhs, we wanted to play this from now soon to be former Secretary no More's recent appearance before Congress.

[Senator Mark Wayne Mullen (voice clip)]

So, Secretary Noem, at any time during your tenure as Director of Department, Department of Homeland Security, have you had sexual relations with Corey Lewandowski? Mr. Chairman, I am shocked that we're going down and peddling tabloid garbage in this committee today. Reclaiming. And ma', am, one thing that I would tell you is that he is a special government employee who works for the White House. There are thousands of them in the federal government. You should be able to answer what we do at the department, Department of Homeland, nearly every single and without any hesitation, every single day is to protect. If someone is asked to make decisions, you or any federal official is sleeping with their subordinate. That should be the easiest you should be wanting to answer that question.

[Kate Shaw]

I love, I love that someone in the audience shares my, like, discomfort with that. We played it as we were, like, getting ready for the show tonight, and I was, like, hiding my face. I could not watch it. And I was, like, thinking, there is a reason I don't watch reality television. Like, I cannot handle it her husband was behind her. That's part of the reason.

[Leah Littman]

I just in case you missed it, one thing she didn't say in response to that question was no, like, she did not deny the allegations. And she was repeated, repeatedly asked.

[Melissa Murray]

She's never beating these charges. Never.

[Leah Littman]

She's repeatedly asked to do so. But more seriously, inject this into my veins. This is a reminder that accountability is possible, that the Trump regime is weaker than they pretend they are, and that good things can happen when people and Democratic leaders decide to hold alleged perfidious adulterers to account.

[Melissa Murray]

Yeah,

I feel hopeful.

[Leah Littman]

Yeah. And this seems about as good a time as any to get to our favorite things.

[Kate Shaw]

All right, so we've got a couple to share with you. One is something I'm going to just read a couple of lines from. It's a judicial order, actually, in a habeas case from West Virginia late last month that we haven't had a chance to mention on the show. And I just wanted to read a couple of sentences from it because I think it kind of crystallizes this moment maybe better than any judicial opinion that I've read so far. So here is what this district court judge wrote. Quote, across the interior of the United States, agents of the federal government, masked, anonymous, armed with military weapons, operating from unmarked vehicles, acting without warrants of any kind, are seizing persons and imprisoning them without any semblance of due process. The systematic character of this practice and its deliberate elimination of every structural feature that distinguishes constitutional authority from raw force place it beyond the reach of ordinary legal description. So there's more. But I just think that so beautifully crystallizes why it is so hard, as we've said many times, to kind of talk accurately about what's happening right now and not sound like a crazy person because the assault is is so profound and unremitting on the very idea of law and the constitutional order that, yeah, you sound unhinged if you just calmly describe it. And I think that this judge did a beautiful job of not sounding unhinged, calmly describing the flagrant violations of specific constitutional violations and the idea of a constitution without sounding unhinged. So I really salute that judge, and I wanted to share it with you. And then briefly, a handful of listeners that I've met recently. I was at Harvard Law School a couple of weeks ago, and I wanted to say hello to Jenna, Fi, Lucia, Taylor, Hannah, Jennifer, and the rest of the wonderful group I talked to at the Harvard Law Review. Thanks so much for listening.

[Leah Littman]

So on my favorite things is the recent announcement of the continuation of the mosque. So Sarah Moss announced new books in the Court of Thorns and Roses series and I am so excited. So excited. Not as excited as I am about another forthcoming book. We are about two months away from the release of Melissa Murray's book. The US Constitution, a comprehensive and annotated guide for the modern reader. I also have some personal shout outs. Wanted to shout out some guests in the audience. So AG Banta mentioned that there are lawyers here from California DOJ wanted to give a special shout out to California DOJ's Reproductive Justice Unit. And to at least one aspiring lawyer in the audience. Maya, I know this shout out isn't as exciting as getting one from Justice Sotomayor, but this one's for you and you can thank your dad Jonathan for the heads up.

[Melissa Murray]

So I am also very excited that the book is coming out in two months. I'm excited. Me and my co author James Madison are just really, really excited. No one is more surprised than James Madison that I'm his co author. Never saw it coming, truly. This week I was on the road. I was in Iowa at the beginning of the week and I hung out with some really fantastic stricties at Drake Law School. Melissa, Anu and Andrea, thank you so much for the warm welcome to Iowa. It was fantastic. But I would be remiss if I didn't say that my absolute favorite thing this week is that my travels have taken me right here to one of my absolute favorite places, the Bay Area. And this amazing Bay Area weather because it sucks in New York right now. Absolutely sucks. There are some other real highlights of this trip that I want to highlight first. This morning one of my favorite things was when Kate reported that she saw her first penis pump in the tenderloin.

[Kate Shaw]

It was like 11 o' clock in the morning. I think it was always at 11

[Melissa Murray]

o' clock in the morning. Kate never changed San Francisco. Seriously folks, it's so great to be home in the bay. I was in Oakland this morning. Love you Oakland. I want to shout out out my Berkeley law former colleagues, always colleagues who are in the audience tonight and my homies from our dance floor in Albany, California who are here tonight as well. We're Strict Scrutiny and we love you West Coast.

[Podcast Narrator / Production Announcer]

Strict Scrutiny is a crooked media production hosted and executive produced by Leah Lippman, Melissa Murray and me, Kate Shaw. Our senior producer and editor is Melody Rowell. Michael Goldsmith is our producer. Jordan Thomas is our intern. Music by Eddie Cooper. Production support from Katie Long and Adrian Hill. Matt de Groat is our head of production. Thanks to our video team, Ben Hethcote and Johanna Case, our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe to Strict Scrutiny in your favorite podcast app and on YouTube Rick Scrutiny podcast so you never miss an episode. And if you want to help other people find the show, please rate and review us. It really helps.

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