2485 - Trump's Tariff Blowback & Battles In The Courts w/ Elie Mystal

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Majority Report with Sam Seder Episode 2485 - "Trump's Tariff Blowback & Battles In The Courts w/ Elie Mystal" Release Date: April 28, 2025

Hosted by Sam Seder

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Introduction

In Episode 2485 of The Majority Report with Sam Seder, host Sam Seder delves into the ongoing ramifications of former President Donald Trump's tariff policies and the resulting legal battles that have ensued. Joining him is Matt Binder, a legal analyst and justice correspondent, who provides expert insights into the complex interplay between executive actions and judicial oversight. The discussion is rich with analysis on economic impacts, Supreme Court interventions, and the broader implications for American democracy.

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Trump’s Tariff Policies and Their Impact on U.S. Ports

The episode kicks off with a deep dive into the current state of U.S. ports, particularly focusing on the Port of Los Angeles. According to Sam Seder, a significant decline in shipments from China is anticipated, with a projected 35% drop in arrivals within two weeks due to halted shipments from major retailers and manufacturers.

Notable Quote:

"It's my prediction that in two weeks time, arrivals will drop by 35% as essentially all shipments out of China from major retailers and manufacturers have ceased."
— Sam Seder [08:31]

Sam emphasizes that the expected decline in imports undermines the Trump administration's strategy to generate revenue through tariffs. Without the influx of goods, the anticipated tariff revenue is unlikely to materialize, exacerbating inflationary pressures rather than alleviating them.

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Economic Consequences and Consumer Impact

The conversation shifts to the broader economic consequences of the tariffs, highlighting how consumers are bearing the brunt through increased prices. Matt Binder elaborates on the steep price hikes in various sectors, citing a 51% increase in beauty and health products and a staggering 377% rise in kitchen towel sets.

Notable Quote:

"The average price for the top 100 products in the beauty and health category increased by 51% from Thursday with several of the items more than doubling in price."
— Matt Binder [15:29]

Emma Vigland adds that these price surges are particularly detrimental to low-income households, as they frequent discount stores like Dollar Tree where imported goods are staples. The tariffs, thus, function as a regressive tax, disproportionately impacting the poorest citizens.

Notable Quote:

"These are the kinds of goods that are sold in things like Dollar Tree. Right. Which is where people are going to be feeling this the most."
— Emma Vigland [16:23]

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Supreme Court’s Intervention in Executive Actions

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to the Supreme Court's recent actions to curb Trump's attempts at mass deportations under the Alien Enemies Act. Sam Seder expresses surprise at the Court's swift response, which halted Trump's maneuvering to deport U.S. citizens without due process.

Notable Quote:

"It was really the first time during this second Trump administration where the Supreme Court has reacted with the alacrity and urgency that this moment requires."
— Matt Binder [37:35]

Binder explains that the Supreme Court issued an order preventing Trump from deporting a new class of immigrants, emphasizing that even under the Alien Enemies Act, due process must be maintained. This procedural ruling marks a pivotal moment where the judiciary actively restrains executive overreach.

Notable Quote:

"The Supreme Court has no army. The Supreme Court has no enforcement mechanism. The Supreme Court relies on the executive branch to enforce their rulings."
— Matt Binder [46:43]

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Challenges within the Democratic Party and Progressive Movements

The discussion transitions to internal dynamics within the Democratic Party, highlighting the absence of a unified progressive agenda. Matt Binder critiques the party's fragmentation, contrasting it with the cohesive strategies often seen within Republican factions.

Notable Quote:

"Progressives need to do a similar thing here. We need to take people out in 2026. And that will make the rest of the Democratic establishment at least take the left seriously."
— Matt Binder [31:19]

Binder emphasizes the necessity for progressives to consolidate their efforts, akin to the historical Tea Party's impact on the Republican Party, to effectively counteract Trump's influence and policies.

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Legal Battles and Ongoing Litigation Against the Trump Administration

Matt Binder provides an overview of the extensive legal challenges facing the Trump administration, noting that the number of active cases has surged to over 200. He criticizes the Department of Justice's (DOJ) overwhelmed state and the endless litigation strategy employed by Trump to stymie judicial processes.

Notable Quote:

"The Supreme Court is treating being sent to El Salvador like it would treat a death sentence with that level of severity."
— Matt Binder [44:56]

Binder warns that the Supreme Court may consolidate cases to issue broad, favorable rulings for Trump, potentially bogging down legal proceedings into endless cycles that benefit Trump's administration by keeping judicial constraints at bay.

Notable Quote:

"What we found is that we're living in a fascist dictatorship. Dictatorship, or we're in the midst of a constitutional crisis, this is what I'm talking about."
— Matt Binder [45:12]

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University Funding and the Fight Against Fascist Policies

A critical segment addresses the Trump administration's attempts to leverage federal funding as a means to influence university policies, particularly targeting institutions like Harvard and Columbia. Matt Binder discusses lawsuits filed by Harvard, asserting that the administration's actions violate the First Amendment and the Civil Rights Act.

Notable Quote:

"Trump is just completely ignoring, and the Republicans are completely ignoring it. And that's the other reason why Harvard's lawsuit has a real chance, I think, to succeed even in front of this conservative Supreme Court."
— Matt Binder [54:57]

Binder argues that institutions resisting the administration's pressure to alter hiring and admission practices are likely to prevail in legal challenges, despite a conservative judiciary, due to clear statutory protections.

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Concluding Remarks and Future Outlook

As the episode nears its end, Sam Seder and his guests reflect on the turbulent political landscape, emphasizing the need for progressive unity and strategic action to counteract the Trump administration's policies. They express concern over the erosion of democratic institutions and the increasing concentration of power in the executive branch.

Notable Quote:

"We are at his whim, and people need to get that."
— Matt Binder [49:21]

Seder concludes by urging listeners to stay informed and engaged, recognizing that the coming months will be critical in shaping the future trajectory of American politics.

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Key Takeaways

• Economic Impact: Trump's tariff policies are leading to significant disruptions in U.S. ports and escalating consumer prices, particularly affecting low-income households.
• Judicial Oversight: The Supreme Court has begun to actively restrain the Trump administration's overreach, particularly concerning immigration and deportation policies, though challenges remain.
• Democratic Fragmentation: The Democratic Party faces internal divisions, with a pressing need for a unified progressive agenda to effectively counter Republican strategies.
• Legal Battles: Over 200 legal cases are challenging the Trump administration's policies, with the judiciary playing a crucial role in maintaining checks and balances.
• Institutional Resistance: Universities and other institutions are resisting federal attempts to influence their policies, standing up for constitutional and civil rights protections.

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Further Resources

• Elie Mystal's Book: Bad Law: 10 Popular Laws That Are Ruining America - Offers a comprehensive critique of detrimental legislation impacting the nation.
• Litigation Tracker: For updates on the numerous legal cases against the Trump administration, visit Lawfare and Just Security.

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For more in-depth analysis and discussions on current political events, visit Majority.FM.

Transcript

[Sam Seder]

Hey folks, if you know me at all, you know I've had a interesting relationship with my cats over the years. But my kids absolutely love, they love the, the cats we had that passed away. And our new kitty, Griffin. Yes. I didn't name him.

[Emma Vigland]

I remembered that.

[Sam Seder]

I didn't name him. That's not the point. Point is I want to give my cat the, the best that they can eat at any time and also keep them from being picky because when they're picky it's a really, it's difficult for me. That's why my cats get smalls. To get 50% off your first order plus free shipping. Head to smalls.com use our promo code Majority. Smalls cat food is protein packed recipes. They are made with no, no preservatives, preservative and free ingredients that you'd find in your fridge. It's delivered right to your door. That's why cats.com named Smalls their best overall cat food. Matt was feeding. You had a great experience with Smalls.

[Ellie Mistel]

Yeah, I mean the various different form factors from the interesting style of dry food they have with the broth and the pates that you refrigerate which my cats were feeling, feeling themselves a little bit eating human typ refrigerated food that.

[Sam Seder]

Bro that broth is a serious go to. Still not a believer in Smalls. New York magazine called Smalls the best cat food according to veterinarians. Buzzfeed said my cats went completely ballistic for this stuff. Presumably it was a writer at BuzzFeed. I mean, the beauty about Smalls is you're giving your cat something healthy, something they'll eat and something that's easy because it gets delivered right to your door. After switching to smalls, 88% of cat owners reported overall health improvements. And that of course is a big deal, particularly having had two cats that were not that healthy at the end of their life. And yes, have a particularly picky cat. Smalls has a sampler so your cat can try everything Smalls has to offer. The team at Smalls is so confident your cat's going to love their product that you can try it risk free. That means they'll refund you if your cat won't eat their food. What are you waiting for? Give your cat the food they deserve. Head to smalls.com use the promo code majority at checkout for 50% off your first order plus free shipping. That's the best offer you're going to find. But you have to use our code majority. 50% off your first order one last time. That's promo code majority. 50% off your 1st order plus free shipping. Quick break and we'll start the show as in now the Majority Report with Sam Cedar. It is Monday, April 28, 2025. My name is Sam Seder. This is the five time award winning Majority Report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, usa. On the program today, Ellie Mistel, legal analyst, justice correspondent for the Nation, legal editor of the Radio Lab podcast More Perfect and a New York Times best selling author. His latest bad 10 popular laws that are ruining America. Also on the program today, Spain, Portugal, France hit with a massive power outage, presumably some type of atmospheric inky dinky thing. Meanwhile, Canada votes today in what may be in part a referendum on Donald Trump Day 99 and Trump's polls are the worst for a any president over the past 80 years. This as the US on a on the precipice of a good shortages in the wake of Trump's tariff fiasco. Rolling fiasco. Speaking of which, apparently Trump administration they're prepping a farmer bailout just in case the last one incidentally cost more than the tariffs raised. Practically U.S. deports three children, three U.S. citizens with U.S. citizenship to Honduras. Wisconsin judge threatening a boycott over the arrest of her fellow judge and this should work out well. The DOJ halts grants to programs for victims of hate crimes, child abuse, trafficking and more. Representative Republican Representative James Comer, remember him? The Biden, the investigations that blew up in his face. Well, now he's complaining that Donald Trump is refusing to release the Epstein files. Trump top University form a collective to fight Donald Trump's assaults. All this and more on today's Majority Report. Welcome ladies and gentlemen.

[Emma Vigland]

It is fun day Monday.

[Sam Seder]

Funday Monday.

[Emma Vigland]

Hello. Hello.

[Sam Seder]

Thanks so much for joining us at the beginning of the week, folks. It's Emma Vigland.

[Emma Vigland]

Hello.

[Sam Seder]

Wearing a shirt that apparently she said for almost 20 years.

[Emma Vigland]

Oh well, I guess we're sharing this.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah, you've commented on my shirts.

[Emma Vigland]

I mean this is, I'm very proud of this article of clothing. I've this from the Gap. I think I got it in 10, 10th or 11th grade. And I still have this thing and it's like stain free for now. What do you have on deck here? Okay. Anyway, so that's what we were talking about for two whole hours this morning at the office.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah, they did not do anything.

[Matt Binder]

I would love to know about being a 21. Sure.

[Ellie Mistel]

21 year old shirt.

[Sam Seder]

Let'S get into this. We got a lot to talk about today. Of course, I mean, we say that every day, but it is, it's the case. The ports. Apparently, LA Times is reporting that the ports in LA, or I should say imports at the Port of L. A are expected to plunge within the next two weeks because all of these shipments that have come from China are basically just, they turned them around. The executive director of that port of the LA port, Gene Soroka, had an update for the Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners. It's my prediction that in two weeks time, arrivals will drop by 35% as essentially all shipments out of China from major retailers and manufacturers have ceased. The cargo coming out of Southeast Asia locations is much softer than normal. Now, this is good news if, if Trump has secretly started to support manufacturing, building of factories and building of warehouses and has been training people to work in these factories, all in secret, all in a very accelerated plan to do this within the context of the next two weeks. But it's unlikely that's happening. So what's going to happen. Oh, and I should say what's also not going to happen is you're not going to raise money on tariffs on products that are not coming to the United States.

[Emma Vigland]

Right, Right.

[Sam Seder]

I know that seems like an obvious thing to say.

[Ellie Mistel]

That's not fair.

[Sam Seder]

But the reason why it's important to say this is because there's a lot of idiots out there going around saying we're going to raise a ton of revenue on these tariffs, but if the goods don't come in, you're not going to raise the revenue. Now that puts aside the fact that you're also going to get inflation if you do that. But just, just on that one point, here's some dude standing outside an airport making these very claims.

[Caller]

And a half years ago I left, and I'll tell you what, we didn't have any of these problems. The good news is costs are way down. Groceries are down, eggs are down, Gasoline is way down. It's down.

[Sam Seder]

It's all looking good.

[Caller]

The tariffs are strong. We've taken in a lot of money from tariffs. We were losing a lot before I got here. We were losing billions of dollars a day. And now we're doing great and we haven't even kicked in yet. And eventually we'll be reducing taxes very substantially for the people of our country because the money is so great coming in from tariffs that I'll be able to reduce taxes to a very large extent and maybe almost completely.

[Sam Seder]

I mean, the, the, the Amazing thing about this is that, first off, the reason why gas prices are down dramatically is because there's just a decreased demand for gas. Part of that could be a function of an economic slowdown. But also part of it is that now China, half of the cars in China now are ev. And without a war that is, or a war that is inhibiting the flow of oil, prices are dropping. And to some extent, that's good news. It would be nice if we had a program to go to renewables in this country. That, of course, is off the table.

[Emma Vigland]

But I also, I just like, what Are tariffs about negotiations or are they about raising revenue? It changes on an hourly, if not minute by minute basis from this administration.

[Sam Seder]

They're about all of those things simultaneously. The tariffs are everything. They're. Tariffs are magic. And all you need to do is invoke the word, and then things get better. Wow.

[Emma Vigland]

That panacea was sitting right in front of us the whole time. Tariffs.

[Sam Seder]

Okay, so we have. It's just like this is sort of like a math problem in a way. 35% less traffic at one of the biggest ports, if not the biggest port in the country, the Port of Los Angeles. So those things aren't paying tariffs because they're not coming in. There's no tariffs on those. All the money that we're not gonna have to pay taxes. And so that's the hope from the President. We're gonna raise a lot of money on all these tariffs, except for the fact that the tariffs are also going to go away. According to Brooke. What's her Name? Brooke Rollins. U.S. or Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.

[Unknown Speaker]

Okay, let's focus on the trade and on the deals. Yes, for sure, on the deals. We have 100 countries that are knocking on the door. I believe. I'm not in the room. I'm not negotiating the trade deals. But my understanding is we should have several this week that are coming forward that are very, very close. China is a very important one. Every day we are in conversation with China, along with those other 9,900 countries that have come to the table. Many countries have already flown to Washington and are meeting with Secretary Lutnick, meeting with Secret Secretary Besson, meeting with our ustr, Jameson Greer. And there is a tremendous amount of progress on all fronts that we'll see again, more this week.

[Sam Seder]

Probably two weeks. I would say two weeks. I mean, probably in two weeks, we'll have that. First off, wasn't it like last Thursday where Trump was like, we've got 200 deals on the table. Apparently the deals got up, walked out of the room and started to knock on the door and no one's answering the door because I got all these people knocking on the door. And just to give you example of what's going on, Passant is saying it's up to China to de escalate and listen to the reasoning because they sell five times more to us than we sell to them. So these 120%, 145% tariffs are sustainable. They already stopped a huge amount of shipments to la. They don't seem to be terribly worried about it. Subaru and this is painful to me because they're going to move the production of Subaru Outbacks at least almost 20,000 or their production capacity of 20,000 which they sold in Canada from an American manufacturer. They are now going to sell those from Japan. And I got news for you. Whatever the deal that they come up with, that's not coming back.

[Ellie Mistel]

Yeah. I mean so much of this was the exact same thing sold by the Tories to British conservatives about Brexit. We have all these great plans and actually none of that developed and just monopolies won. But China has been saying let he who tied the bell on the tiger take it off. Which is a good phrase of whoever creates a problem should maybe be the one to solve it. And you can do process of elimination with some of these trade deals. Japan pretty significant one for anybody who wants say the next Nintendo is saying hey we're not going to join a trade bloc against China so that one's off the table.

[Emma Vigland]

Well also the problem for the United States is that we are so dependent on these global supply lines in ways that you know, Russia has been insulated from it to a degree. But China as an economic powerhouse is even more so because they have onshored a lot of their capacity and they're less reliant. They can as the manufacturer or the factory of the world as they've been derisively called. But it's also kind of the truth. They have the capacity that we just simply do not have. So they have more ability to withstand this.

[Sam Seder]

They have plenty of other places to sell it. Fast Fashion Group Shine Group limited I'm not familiar with their clothes.

[Emma Vigland]

They're. They're a really a company that Fast fashion. It's some bad business practices but very, very cheap goods now no longer.

[Sam Seder]

Not cheap any longer. Yeah, they announced a bunch of price hikes for the US markup significantly higher in some categories than others. According to data compiled by Bloomberg News, the average price for the top 100 products in the beauty and health category increased by 51% from Thursday with several of the items. Items more than doubling in price. For home and kitchen products and toys, the average jump was 30%, led by a massive 377% increase in the price of a 10 piece set of kitchen towels. Women's clothing, the rise was closer to 8%.

[Emma Vigland]

These are the kinds of goods that are sold in things like Dollar Tree. Right. Which is where people are going to be feeling this the most. It's why we talk about tariffs as a regressive tax. The people that are shopping at Dollar Tree are going to experience this most acutely.

[Sam Seder]

100%. Now, I know this is impossible because supposedly the government's paying these. So I don't know how this inflation is happening.

[Emma Vigland]

The level of conspiracism from this administration, like talking about eliminating income tax. I mean, this is the kind of thing that, like we would mock, that conservatives would bandy about on a podcast or a radio show. How right, how insane it is. But individual income taxes estimated for 2025 are to bring in $2.69 trillion for one year fiscal year for the federal government. The current tariff estimate is $63 billion.

[Sam Seder]

Well, maybe I'll just cancel my taxes off of the tariffs. How's that?

[Emma Vigland]

And then if you replace it with just tariffs, then that's just regressive taxation on the poorest people to replace our already regressive tax system that should be rejiggered to make it so it's like higher taxes on the wealthy. It's insane.

[Sam Seder]

I know Trump just says stuff that comes into his head, but when he was saying that we've been paying out billions and now we're going to get that money back, just getting stuff in return. Do you like? Do you like. Is it possible he just has absolutely no idea what tariffs are?

[Emma Vigland]

Yeah, kind of. Or what a trade deficit is.

[Sam Seder]

That involved reading. And the pictures were just too complicated.

[Ellie Mistel]

Like, I think he views it as some sort of like sports league table and the America's Losing somehow. But it's like, no, we're getting stuff in return for this.

[Sam Seder]

It's so strange. In a moment, we're talking to Ellie Misstel, legal analyst, justice correspondent for the Nation magazine, author of his latest book, Bad Law, 10 popular laws that are Ruining America. Our sponsors today. I've been meaning to do this. I have a new prolon kit and I've been meaning to do it, but things have been a little bit difficult at home these days. A little. Hectic but long work weeks, busy weekends can leave you feeling and looking depleted. Hello. Prolon's five day fasting mimicking diet works at the cellular level to rejuvenate you from the inside out, providing real results. Now they're up in their game with the next with their new Next generation five day program delivering the same science backed benefits in a cleaner, more convenient and more flavorful format. Prolon is a plant based nutrition program, features soups and snacks and beverages designed to nourish the body while keeping it in a fasting state which triggers cellular rejuvenate, rejuvenation, rejuvenation and renewal. Next Gen builds on the original Prolong with a 100% organic soups and teaspoons, a richer taste and ready to eat meals. It was developed over decades at USC's Longevity Institute. Backed by top US medical centers, Prolon has been shown to support biological age reduction, metabolic health, skin appearance, fat loss and energy. I guess I did mine now over a year ago, year ago February. Right. And it was great. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't easy peasy but it was a lot easier than I thought and I thought I felt a lot better throughout the whole process. But it really is amazing how attached you can get to like even like a little cracker. Yeah. Crispy cracker at the end of the day. I lost one one day and it was like. I don't know, I felt like it was like losing a child. Like I mean not passing away but just. You can't find them.

[Emma Vigland]

Yep.

[Sam Seder]

I was very concerned. I looked everywhere but I felt great during it. I did the show during it and nobody here noticed anything except for had maybe a little bit more energy.

[Ellie Mistel]

Maybe an improvement.

[Sam Seder]

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[Matt Binder]

Ellie versus the U.S. yes, I would.

[Sam Seder]

Love to see that. And as a bestselling author, just came out with a new book, Bad Law, 10 popular laws that are Ruining America. And I just briefly want to say I, I have, I've read much of the book at this point and I was so excited to see the airline deregulation stuff in there because that's sort of like a pet, like a, just like a pet peeve of mine. But you outlaw 10 laws in there really sort of like bodies of laws, but specific laws and how they have effed up America in many respects. I encourage people to go read that. I imagine, like, you know, you've been out there talking about it quite a bit. Was. I also got to imagine on some level, you're like, well, there's. There's. We got a lot of problems right now with the law.

[Matt Binder]

You know, what's funny about the Airline Deregulation act is that it seems a little bit like one of these kids is doing his own thing. That's actually the first chapter I wrote. I was literally sitting on a plane that was delayed outside of its gate. What? It couldn't get back into its gate. And I just. I was losing. I was mo. I was molding. And I was kind of started to. To talk very loudly about the Airline Deregulation act and about how federal society fat cats at, like, put us in this position. And when I kind of was forced to sit back down and shut up, my mother told me to shut up. I was like, you know, if I could just tell this story, people would read it, right? And so as I started, initially, that chapter was just going to be like a long, long form piece for the nation. And then as I was kind of getting into it, I was like, you know, if I came up with a couple other of these things, this would be a book. And that's really how I. How I got the book. It was from being so pissed off about that law, because there are so many laws like that, that. And I've said this about the book a lot. You know, my first book, Allow Me to Retort, it was about how conservatives mainly are misinterpreting, according to me, the Constitution. This book, Bad Law. This is about how terrible laws are working exactly as intended, Right?

[Sam Seder]

I mean, the airline deregulation, I feel like there was just like a. It was. That was almost like more of. I mean, there was an attempt at it, but it was almost like more of a mistake. Like, there were airline executives who were saying, don't do this, don't do this.

[Matt Binder]

But not just the Republicans, but the Democrats didn't listen, Right? And so one of the things in the book, like, I call it 10 popular laws, all the laws that I talk about in the book were passed with broad bipartisan support, Right? At the time they were passed, they were popular. And a lot of them, belatedly, the Democrats are like, oh, that was a terrible mistake. We shouldn't have done that. But the law is still there, and you don't have Democrats kind of organizing and pushing around, getting their own mistakes stricken and removed from the books, right? So the Democrats will join some, like, horrible Republican idea, then five, ten years later be like, oh, my God, how could we be so stupid? And yet the law remains. And yet they don't organize around getting rid of the law. So, like I say, like, my book is kind of an attempt to start Writing Project 2029, right? To start writing what we should smash if we ever get in power. People have been asking me because, you know, I wrote the book before the election. They're like, oh, would you have written this book if you knew who was going to win? I was like, man, look, my book was locked before Joe Biden's first debate. I wasn't under a lot of illusions writing the book that things were necessarily going to go well for the Democratic Party. But I thought if they didn't go well again, I'm writing this in the. Assuming that Biden is going to be the candidate in 20, in 2024, I'm thinking, well, if it doesn't go well, this then becomes a blueprint for what we should be agitating for and organizing around as we head into the next free and fair election, whenever that is. I'm not sure that that's 2028, but if we ever have an opportunity again, these are the kinds of things that we should smash.

[Sam Seder]

And I do want to get to this other stuff, but I want to stay on this point because there does not seem to be an apparatus on the. Certainly on the left or even left of the center left. Did we just lose? Ellie? We are back again. Sam Cedar, Emma Viglan on the Majority Report. Still with Ali, the justice correspondent for the Nation who apparently has been saying some bad things about the Trump administration. And somebody snipped his Internet for a moment there. It's just a shot across the bow, Ali. So you just gotta, you gotta be careful in that regard. But I, you know what I happened.

[Matt Binder]

To me in a raid while I was, you know, playing an mmo. That would have, that would have really sucked.

[Sam Seder]

That would actually been great if the video was on. That would have been great for us. That would have been quite a clip for Tick Tock. The. You know, I can't really remember, frankly, what the last question I had. Oh, there, there is no. You were telling us about your book and how it's essentially like a to do list for the next Democratic administration in the event that there ever is one. But we center left, left, there doesn't seem to really be any entities that are capable or in the game of producing a project 2029, as it were. You know, we see some of, like the, the, the neoliberal organizations like the, the Nickisons and you know, producing stuff like that. And, you know, but there really doesn't seem to be a list. I mean, I think, like, you know, frankly, at the American Prospect, they do a lot of that in the run up to the Biden administration, but there's no sort of like, concerted movement expression of these things.

[Matt Binder]

Yeah, we don't have. It's one of the classic problems with liberals and leftists, if you will. We don't have buy in from all of the constituent parts. Right. Like, one of the things that I keep trying to get people to understand about Republicans is that one. One of the reasons they seem to be able to move so aggressively and so in concert is that they're all the same guy.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah, right.

[Matt Binder]

They're all the same socioeconomic guy, fundamentally. Right. And so the Republican who really cares about guns is also the Republican who really cares about Jesus, who also is the Republican who really cares about tax cuts. It's like they go from. They're fishing from the same pool. And so it's relatively easy to get all of them within, you know, within a margin of error here, like on the same track towards the same goals. You know, as much as I think Trump's style and proclamations are uniquely dangerous to the idea of American democracy, his policies are barely like the differences between Trump's policies and Mitt Romney's policies and John McCain's policies and George W. Bush's policies. It's not that much. They're within. They're within a center mass of each other. Democrats, we're all over the place. Liberals are all over the place and trying to get buy in from all the constituent groups. You want to get the LGBTQ community in there, you want to get the black community in there, you want to get the Latino community in there, you want to get workers and unions in there. Like, these are all people who don't necessarily see themselves as part of the same group, as part of the same class, as having shared interests. And so that, I think, really limits and weakens us. And it's why we end up having, you know, the thing that we could agree upon was that Trump was a fascist. Right. That Trump was the Orange man was very bad. And true, he is. But as we, I think, have seen in the last election, just saying Orange man bad is not actually the kind of thing that motivates people to vote. What motivates people to vote is an actual policy agenda that's going to address their interests. And we are too disparate right now to have a unifying agenda that hits all of our buried constituent groups. It is a long standing problem with the party and we see it play out again and again and again. But you said something interesting. You were talking about how the neoliberal groups tend to coalesce here and, and find ways. And this, this is the. To me, that is my fight right now. Right. Like, 2028 is a long way away. The, the fight that I got right now is 2026 and in the primary process. Because while I do not know if the 2026 general election will be free and fair, the 2026 Democratic Party primary sure as hell will be. And like, that is a point where liberals and progressives need to take a stand against the people who are insufficiently committed to fighting fascism. Right. And, and, and that has a historical valence here as well. Right. Because if you think about the Tea Party. Right, which is the proto Maga party. Well, I guess the Confederate States of America is the proto Maga party, but, you know, the more recent proto majority.

[Sam Seder]

Into the Tea Party. Exactly.

[Matt Binder]

The Tea Party announces itself on the political stage not by beating a Democrat, but by taking out a Republican, Eric Cantor in Virginia, an up and coming Republican, and they took him out in the primary and they put up a crazy Tea Party person who, by the way, lost the seat. The next Tea Party lost the seat in the general election because they put up a crazy person as opposed to a moderate, normal Republican person. But the entire Republican Party, they noticed that. They noticed when they got. When Cantor got taken out, they noticed that the Tea Party had to be dealt with as a legitimate political force inside their party long before Tea Party morphed into maga, morphed into the controlling white junta that runs the country. Right. Progressives need to do a similar thing here. We need to take people out in 2026. And that will make the rest of the Democratic establishment at least take the left seriously and at least take progressive seriously, which is not where we are right now.

[Sam Seder]

Yep, I couldn't agree more. And I will just say, though, in Donald Trump's defense, I don't think Mitt Romney would ever have such a strong desire to cut tax. I mean, to raise taxes on millionaires, but only be stopped because the public doesn't want that. So credit to Donald Trump for. For that. All right, so let's get into.

[Matt Binder]

Mitt Romney would take away his own voters. Social Security. Right. Big Mitt Romney was a little bit smarter than that, but we'll see.

[Sam Seder]

No, I don't know about that. I certainly, Paul Ryan was looking to, Ryan was his vice president, but. All right, well, let's get to, let's, let's go back two weeks because you wrote a piece where you were surprised by the Supreme Court, and in a good way. And I don't think, I mean, I, you rarely get surprised by the Supreme Court anymore, but it's always because you, I think, envision some of the worst things that they could do and they, they seem to rarely disappoint you. But you were surprised. I guess it was, was it one Saturday ago or two Saturdays ago by the Supreme Court? Let's talk about that. Because there's so many cases out there and it feels like we keep waiting for them all to rise to the supreme court.

[Matt Binder]

Yeah. So two Saturdays ago. So last, last Saturday, at 1:00 in the morning, the Supreme Court issued an order preventing Trump from deporting a new class of immigrants. The Trump had been under a court order to provide potentially out of status Americans with notice before their removal and with a clear opportunity and instructions for how to object, for how to appeal.

[Sam Seder]

And that's under the Alien Enemies Act.

[Matt Binder]

That's under the people that Trump is deporting under the Alien Enemies Act. Without ruling on whether or not Trump can use the Alien Enemies act in the way that he is, the Supreme Court said, even if you're using this act, which we haven't gotten around to deciding, if you can, you still have to give people notice and an opportunity to appeal their decisions in short order. After that, the aclu, doing the Lord's work as usual, got temporary injunctions preventing deportations from a couple of districts, including the Southern District of Texas. So what Trump started to do was put people on buses to send them to the Northern District of Texas, where there wasn't such an injunction against him, and then send people to El Salvador or whatever from the Northern District of Texas as opposed to the Southern District of Texas. So by Friday night, there are reports coming out that Trump administration is loading people on buses for their eventual deportation. And at 1am on Saturday morning, the Supreme Court said, no, stop, turn the buses around 7, 2. And they did it so quickly that the two justices that dissented, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, because of course, they didn't even wait for Thomas and Alito to write their dissent, which just as a courtesy, the Supreme Court usually does before telling Trump to stop and turn the buses around. So it was really the first time, and I don't think that I'm being hyperbolic here. It is the first time during this second Trump administration where the Supreme Court has reacted with the alacrity and urgency that this moment requires. Right. Where they didn't let Trump play legal time arbitrage and take advantage of the fact that he, as an executive, can move faster than the courts in most situations. Here in the middle of the night, they literally told him to stop. And it's one of the first. And that's what surprised me, Sam. Not that they kind of backed up their own order, with the exception of Alito and Thomas, because. Of course. But that they did it in a timely manner that actually got those buses to turn back around. That was the surprising part. And so, yeah, more of that, please. That urgency, please.

[Sam Seder]

All right. And so, just to be clear, like, are there not. They're not. And people should understand there are different ways in which you can deport people. And the Alien Enemies act is just like an extreme, very rare legal basis in which to deport people. And they felt like it gave them sort of carte blanche to do anything. But was the Supreme Court in that moment, it seems that they were not really addressing anything other than the ability of the administration to sort of, like, get around a court ruling by switching the jurisdiction in which they do the thing that other jurisdictions have said is contrary to the law.

[Matt Binder]

Exactly, Sam. It was completely procedural. I do not think that the Alien Enemies act provides a sound legal basis for Trump to deport people. The Alien Enemies act is something that you use in wartime, if you use it at all. We are not at war. Even if we were at war, I think under current constitutional understanding, the Alien Enemies act is flatly unconstitutional. So I do not think that it has any basis in sound constitutional law. And a truly urgent Supreme Court would already be striking down Trump's use of the Alien Enemies act on the merits of his. Of his actions. Right. The court isn't doing that. This was a completely procedural ruling. That, again, goes to Trump's trying to violate the. Not just the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law and the spirit of the court orders by playing jurisdictional games. Right. Again, the. The. The Supreme Court order applied, saying that he had to give these people notice. Applied everywhere. Right. But the ACLU got specific injunctions in specific districts where he was deporting people from. They applied for an injunction in the Northern District of Texas. But the judge. There is a Trump judge, and he wouldn't give it to them. And so Trump tried to get his people, get the people he wants to kick out of the country into the Northern District of Texas. And that was the Supreme Court, I think, obviously saw that it was a blatant and not even subtle attempt to get around a court order, which again, and let's just remember this court order, all the court order says is that you have to give these people notice before you send them to an El Salvadorian prison from which they will never escape.

[Sam Seder]

Well, you have to give them notice and an opportunity to contest. Right? I mean, now, was the court, was the court supporting that element of it, that, that under the Alien Enemies act, you must have notice and due process essentially, or were they just basically protecting the power of the court to issue an injunction and you can't escape it? Like one is, we're just protecting our power, not necessarily, you know, supporting due process rights.

[Matt Binder]

You know, the only ass that John Roberts cares about is his own. So, so this is, this was a straight up covering their own backside when with Trump kind of being willing, as he's shown in the past, to flout court orders and to flout injunctions. Trump does not care about the power of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court cares about its own power. And it's absolutely right to say that this was more of protecting their court orders as opposed to doing anything real to help the, to help the, the soon to be banished Venezuelans, however they did it, they could have done that on, you know, 12:00pm Monday afternoon. They did it at 1:00 Saturday morning. And so it does show. It does look the way I put in my piece. The only other time the Supreme Court is issuing orders, you know, in the middle of the night on the weekends, is when we're looking at death penalty cases. And when we're looking at, you know, your last appeal and the executioner is there with his ax or whatever they're using these days. And we're waiting for the Supreme Court to try to either prevent the literal acts from falling or to allow the person to be killed. Then they'll, they'll put out an order, you know, at 1:00 in the morning.

[Sam Seder]

So doing it, getting sent to El Salvador in that prison is certainly analogous, it appears at this juncture, because, you.

[Matt Binder]

Know, and that's my point, that's my point. Even the Supreme Court at this point is treating being sent to El Salvador like it would treat a death sentence with that level of severity, and thus they are responding with that level of urgency. And it's the first time in this entire administration that I've seen the Supreme Court do it that way. Now, look, I think eventually the six Republican judges on the Supreme Court will approve of Trump's, I call it unconstitutional use of this ridiculous law.

[Sam Seder]

I think they'll, they'll impose, they'll, they'll maintain the imposition of, of needing notice and due process for that. And then so at the very least, they're, they're going to put some constraints and put it within a legal framework, I guess.

[Emma Vigland]

But you're saying that you don't think that they're going to say you can't use the Alien Enemies Act.

[Matt Binder]

Right. They're not going to stop his, his use of power. They're going to try to limit the process with which he uses the power. They sane wash Trump for him. And that's what they've always done. If we can go back to the first term Trump be Hawaii, the Muslim ban the Supreme Court, the Republicans on the court seem to think that their job is to sane wash Trump to legal wash Trump to take his blatantly illegal and unconstitutional orders and reframe it in a way where it could be constitutional in some, in some universe. That's what they think their job is. And that's, I think, what they're ultimately going to do with these deportations to El Salvador. They're going to let him do it, but they're going to want them to do it within a certain kind of due process parameter that will make it easier for them, not me to swallow over the objection of the three liberal judges who will be screaming in dissent to the heavens about this. Again, unconstitutional use of a wartime power when we're not at war. That's what I think is, that's where I think this is ultimately going. But they'll sane wash it enough to put it within some kind of legal parameters.

[Sam Seder]

I mean, it hadn't even really occurred to me until you explained it this way, but it feels like there's a disease amongst, like lawyers.

[Emma Vigland]

Yes.

[Sam Seder]

And that, I mean, because when you talk about sane washing what Trump is doing, putting it into a legal framework, it's very much, it reminds me of what Obama did in trying to clean up George Bush's abuse of war. Like we're going to create a legal framework for this stuff, so it's not sort of cowboy freelance stuff. And I mean, it's almost as if like the idea is like, well, as long as we're doing it in a legal framework at the end of the day, the society is protected. And then, you know, there were other people in history who've had that sort of idea, too, of consolidating this stuff within a legal framework, because then we can go forward. I mean, this is what's so problematic about it.

[Matt Binder]

Look, I like to use the Emperor Palpatine line, right from Revenge of the Sith, which just had its 20th anniversary this weekend. Don't ask me how I know. And there's that line where the guy is, the Trade Federation guy is like, oh, Palpatine, is that legal? And Palpatine goes, I'll make it legal. That's what fascists do, yo. They. They make it legal. It doesn't. This, this question of what's legal, what's illegal, what's constitutional, what's unconstitutional, what's legal or illegal is at this point, what six Supreme Court or five Supreme Court justices say is legal, say is constitutional. And what's illegal. And what's illegal, at some point comes down to whether or not the executive is going to enforce it. I said this point so many times before. The Supreme Court has no army. The Supreme Court has no enforcement mechanism. The Supreme Court relies on the executive branch to enforce their rulings. What happens when the executive branch doesn't? Trump is the person who controls the military. He's the one who controls the paramilitary at the FBI. He's the one who can send boots on the Grounds into Hannah Duggan's courtroom to arrest her. Right. They're not going to arrest themselves. No matter how many court orders you get saying that that wasn't legal or that shouldn't have happened. Trump's not going to arrest himself. He's not going to arrest his own people. He's not going to arrest Elon Musk. He's not going to sic the FBI on Elon Musk. Right. So Trump controls raw power, not political power, not judicial power, not theoretical power. Trump controls raw power, and he's out.

[Emma Vigland]

Nerd you for a sec, Ellie. That's Cersei Lannister saying power is power. And, but, but it's also like the, the we, when we talked to Rachel Cohen, gosh, that must have been a month ago or so. She was, I think, think one of the people that resigned as an associate of one of the big law firms over their decision. She was saying, we were asking her, you know, what is the reasoning? And a lot of these lawyers and partners think that they're smarter than Donald Trump. And I think there's a bit of that disease that goes all the way up to the Supreme Court, where they may take umbrage with his kind of disrespect of the court's authority. I think appealing to their ego is maybe one of the only things we have left. But they still, at the, at the end of the day, feel like they fetishize the argument process so much to. To the point that they don't understand how to combat somebody using raw power like this, where you can outsmart him. Because it's not about an argument or outsmarting somebody. It's about using your power and doing so decisively.

[Matt Binder]

I think it goes further than Emma. I think they agree with him. They want the same policies that he wants. They might not like the way that he's doing it all the time. They might wish that he would do these things in a more normal, argumentative, due process kind of way, but they want to get to the exact same place that Trump is already going. Right? And I think that we give almost these Supreme Court justices or these lawyers a little bit too much credit by assuming they are on the right side of history at some level, by assuming that they also believe. And a multiracial, multi ethnic, pluralistic democracy that's built on. We think they agree. We want to say that they agree with that, but there's scant evidence that they do.

[Emma Vigland]

But I think they believe in their own power, right? I think that they are motivated to protect their own power. That's the one thing we have here. That's my main point.

[Sam Seder]

Right.

[Matt Binder]

That I agree with totally, Emma. But again, part of the way that you protect your own power during a fascist administration is to let the fascists have what he wants. Right?

[Sam Seder]

Conserve your power. Don't get into conflict with them unless it's sort of like a direct assault on you. If you can deflect it in any way and be on. I mean, this is, you know, conserving.

[Matt Binder]

Your power at this point also just means surviving, you know, the Trump administration, right? It's like it's the difference between Columbia's approach and Harvard's approach. Right?

[Sam Seder]

Well, let's talk about that because you wrote about Harvard's approach, and I just saw a story today that is talking about 10 universities, mostly in the Northeast, that have basically formed, you know, a loose, I guess, collective to strategize how to deal with what the Trump administration is doing.

[Matt Binder]

Right. Colombia is acting like the University of Heidelberg in 1938. Germany. Right. TRUMP and the fascists are coming to crush education. And Columbia has made the executive, the business decision, if you will. The executive decision that all they want to do is survive. All they want to do is survive through it. And they're willing to sacrifice their entire reputation to do it, figuring that they will be able to get it back when this is all over. Right? If they can survive the takeover, then at some point in the future, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, they'll, just like the University of Heidel, Heidelberg still exists today and is, doesn't always get tarnished with what they did in the 30s and 40s, right? Like that. Columbia is trying to survive, Harvard is trying to fight it. Harvard is trying to take a stand and saying this far and no further, Harvard is not going for the okie doke. Now, there are a couple of, there are a couple of advantages Harvard has that Columbia doesn't have. Columbia is a very wealthy institution. Harvard is the first or second most wealthy university on the globe. Right. There are very few institutions, you know, Trump has frozen $2.2 billion of research funding at Harvard. There are very few institutions where $2.2 billion doesn't represent an existential threat to your existence. Right. If somebody throws $2200 from me, I'd be like, oh, how am I gonna replace that money? I need, right? Harvard, 2.2 billion. It hurts, but it ain't gonna. They'll keep stepping. I got my, I got my 25th reunion coming up. I've joked they could probably raise a billion from my class heading into, heading into June if they had to. Right? Like, Harvard is one of the places that can not afford to lose, but can lose $2.2 billion without it being an existential threat to their entire existence. So they're in a stronger position to fight than Colombia, but still they're actually fighting, right? And they're fighting, I think, and I wrote about this in the Nation. Their lawsuit, I think, is very elegant by making it both a very clear First Amendment concern. What Trump is asking these universities to do goes directly to who they hire as professors and who they admit as students. And that is, that is a straight up First Amendment issue. You don't get to tell a university what kind of professors they hire, Right? Because you can see it seems totally.

[Sam Seder]

Like such a slam dunk. And also like, we don't, we don't like how you're handling protesters. I mean, the Columbia stuff, it seems to me, and I think this is the case with some of the law firms too, is that there is, there is, they may not be full throated support in terms of like, you know, every entity, because no, none of These institutions are individuals, but the force of whatever their. The influences are on these institutions, and it's more narrow, I guess, at some of these law firms, too, is, you know, somewhat aligned with the idea of you need to punish these pro Palestinian protesters. More like there is a Zionist influence in these spaces that I think absent Trump doing this stuff, they wouldn't necessarily invite it, but it makes it easier for them to go along with it because, like, some of the outcomes are probably ones that they're happy with.

[Matt Binder]

And you can see it. So obviously, if you just reverse the races, Reverse the races, reverse the victims. Just for two seconds, right? Imagine I'm president or somebody look just like me is president. And then you showed me the clip of Ole Miss. Really, any day at Ole Miss, probably, But specifically the clip where the frat boys are menacing, are menacing that black woman on campus at Ole Miss. If I'm president and I have Trump's powers with the powers that Trump claims to have, you know, as president, then I could just go to Ole Miss and say, you know what? You didn't punish those students enough, so I'm pulling your federal funding. Boom. What's to stop me from doing that? Well, in fact, there are tons of laws and tons of constitutional principles, to say nothing of the First Amendment that should stop me as president from punishing Ole Miss for insufficiently punishing racist people on their campus. And I'm just using Ole Miss because that's the most recent one I could think of off top of my head. You don't want.

[Sam Seder]

A week ago at this time I was driving through Ole Miss. That's. That's a different story I'll tell you about. But I was there last week.

[Emma Vigland]

But it's a jarring video because of what you're describing, how white supremacy and Zionism are completely interlinked. Do you think those frat kids at Ole Miss are, like, think, you know, go into Israel all the time? No, they just fundamentally understand there's something about Zionism that works very neatly with my white supremacy. And I'm going to meld these two things in my ideology.

[Matt Binder]

Again, the easiest way to understand this is to think about what powers a president should have or shouldn't have. Right. I shouldn't be able to pull taxpayer funding from Ole Miss because I don't like how they punish their protesters. I shouldn't be able to go to the University of Alabama and say, like, you know what? You haven't hired enough black football coaches. So unless you hire more black people to coach football, I'm going to pull your taxpayer funding. Like I shouldn't be able to do that. And in fact, and that's the other brilliant thing about the Harvard lawsuit, it's not just that they shouldn't be able to do that under the principle, principles articulated under the First Amendment. There's also a law here, it's called the 1964 Civil Rights Act. And the Civil Rights act specifies exactly what you're supposed to do if you feel like an institution that gets federal dollars is insufficiently committed to fighting racism, which would include anti Semitism. Right. And there's a whole procedure. You got to have a hearing, you got to give them an opportunity to voluntarily comply. If they don't comply, you have to submit a letter to the House and the Senate, except explaining exactly how the university didn't comply. And then if you're going to pull their funding, you can only pull the funding for the tailored narrow program you say is out of compliance with the Civil Rights Act. Somebody please tell me how Harvard's cancer funding, cancer research, has anything to do with anti Semitism. Right. They only giving cancer treatments to Palestinians? I don't think so. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's not how cancer research works. Right. So again, not just the First Amendment up here, the Civil Rights act tells us exactly how we're supposed to handle the situation. And Trump is just completely ignoring, and the Republicans are completely ignoring it. And that's the other reason why Harvard's lawsuit has a real chance, I think, to succeed even in front of this conservative Supreme Court. And it's why the other universities should have fought, too. It's why a place like Columbia doesn't get off the hook even though it's in a weaker position than Harvard, because there's a clear statutory requirement that the Trump administration fails to do when forcing Columbia's hand.

[Sam Seder]

And I mean, on some level, that should have happened. I feel you could say the same argument for law firms even. It seems like, even more so.

[Matt Binder]

Like the law firms are just cowards. Like, you know, the, the, the, the, the universities have real funding concerns. And again, I, I don't think that they're all handling them well, but there's, there's real money involved here. The law firms are just straight sniffling cowards. You and I, Sam, know how much these law firms actually collude in the marketplace when it suits them, right? They collude on associate salaries, they collude on bonuses, they collude on partner pay compensation, they collude on their billable hours. Like, literally the rates that they charge to clients for the work that they have colluded to figure out what the right price point is that the market will bear. So you can't tell me that they can't collude to figure out how to fight fascism. If they wanted to, they could and they would. Again, they just, they already want to go where Trump is leading them.

[Sam Seder]

I mean, I just. If I was a law student today, aside from desperately wanting to not be one anymore, I would be just the idea that anybody would go work for one of these firms. Like what? Like, are you kidding me?

[Matt Binder]

You know what's interesting?

[Sam Seder]

And all of their pro bono work, I think, is going to end up being actually defending the government against some of these removal cases.

[Emma Vigland]

Yeah.

[Matt Binder]

People have argued, just as an aside, people have wondered why the pro bono work at large law firms leans liberal towards liberal organizations as opposed to conservative organizations. And it's like, well, do you not understand what pro bono means? It means that you're doing legal work for free. If the client can afford to pay, you would want them to pay for your legal services. Right. The conservative aligned organizations have money, and so when we do legal work for them, we want them to pay a bill. The liberal aligned organizations, for the most part, don't have money. And so that's why it is pro bono for free. We're going to do this because when we want to get paid, we go. That's when we do the Republicans and the conservatives bidding. Right. If I want to represent Exxon, I'm going to be able to get a check for that. If I want to represent Habitat for Humanity, I might need to do that pro bono. That's the difference. Right. But, but. So that's just an aside. One thing that's weird, though, Sam, is that. And I wonder if you've got this, too. I have a lot of people asking me through any network that they can get in touch with me saying that now I really want to go to law school. The Trump administration makes me want to go to law school because it feels like the lawyers are the ones who are doing the fighting right now. You know, certainly not the Democratic Party. Right. It's the lawyer.

[Sam Seder]

Well, Chuck Schumer's writing a letter. There's been a very strongly worded letter. I'm not sure if you're aware of that placard.

[Matt Binder]

Ready to go about, like, how.

[Sam Seder]

It's all very, very strong questions. Ellie, don't be so. I mean, the strong questions.

[Matt Binder]

Right. And so what I've told these people who are coming to me, like, you know, should I go right now? I'm always like, well, if you do go, go to go for free. Because if you want to go specifically to fight things like the Trump organization, things like MAGA, you can't graduate 200, 300, $400,000 in debt, because if you do, you're gonna end up working for one of these sniveling, coward big law firms and representing Exxon, because that's how you're going to be able to pay your debts. And you might say, oh, I'll only do it for two years, three years, four years, until I pay the money back. But life of banking, you in. So if you're thinking about going to law school specifically because you want to do things like fight the Trump administration or whatever Trump administration progeny exists, by the time you get out, then it becomes imperative that you do those three years as cheaply as possible so that you're not locked in to only taking a Manhattan Wall street law firm job in order to pay back those debts.

[Sam Seder]

Just pivoting to that last sort of, I guess, vertical of questions here. The. This dynamic we have, I don't know how many active cases there are now against the administration. It feels like it's well over 100 at this point.

[Matt Binder]

Over 200. It's over 200, 300 now.

[Sam Seder]

Okay, what. Give me your sense of this dynamic, because, you know, I've mentioned this before, the Bannon theory of governance, which certainly seems like the. The Trump administration is doing this time around, is to flood the zone. It feels like what's happening, not without reason and certainly it's all called for, but that, the, the universe of.

[Emma Vigland]

That's my stomach grumbling. Sorry.

[Sam Seder]

The universe of organizations that are challenging the Trump administration on various grounds legally seems to have overwhelmed the doj, maybe even the legal system in and of itself. Like, that's a lot of cases in a short amount of time. And the DOJ has to provide an answer in each one of these cases. And it seems to be like, we need to punt, we need to punt, we need to punt. And so just give me your sense of, like, the overall trajectory of these things and what cases you think are going to be the ones to rise to the Supreme Court and we're going to get some sort of resolution on.

[Matt Binder]

I mean, look, the flooding. Look, I can't even keep my Internet connection working, right? Like, the flooding, the zone is happening and it's overwhelming. And I think it's not just. Just short circuiting the doj it's short circuiting the news media, the news media can't even totally keep up with everything that's going on. Even for people who have legal training, it's overwhelming. Can you imagine if you don't, if these are the first times you've been introduced to some of these? It's completely overwhelming. And it all accrues to Trump's benefit because it just sounds, it makes it sound like a legal morass. Right. You lose, you lose the humanity in it. Trump deported a 2 year old American citizen over the weekend and you lose that aspect of it. I was, there was a story in the Gothamist about how because Trump has cut funding for legal aid for, you know, children ages 4, 5 and 6 who are facing deportation hearings are having to go to those hearings without a lawyer because no lawyer can be provided for them because Trump cut the footing. And that story gets almost completely missed. Right. Four year olds having to go to court and talk to a judge without legal representation. What kind of country is that? It's ours and we don't even know it in some, in some cases. Right. So yes, the flooding of the zone is terrible and it's absolutely working. The way that the Supreme Court will handle that, I think, is to consolidate many cases, as many cases as possible, and issue again what I think are going to be fairly aggressively pro Trump rulings in terms of his use of executive power. Right. So you don't maybe even get to the point where the Harvard case gets all the way up to the Supreme Court because you make a general statement. Trump is allowed to freeze funding in the various ways and that kicks all the cases back down for relitigation and further remand and further litigation. Right. You make one pronouncement about his deportations, about his mass deportations, and it kicks all the cases back down, back down the ladder. So they have to be re litigated and re argued again under the new guidance given by the Supreme Court. Right. So I think that that's how the court is going to handle it, to lock people in endless litigation. And again, that helps the person, Trump, who's already in power, who has that real physical power. I've said a lot with the funding cases, all the court orders in the world, if Trump doesn't turn the money back on, what then? Right, Trump turns the money off and then you have to fight like, like dogs to try to get him to turn the money back on. But you, that whole time you didn't have any money and you know, for a lot of people that means your organization was done. And we've already seen with El Salvador. If he gets you El Salvador, good luck ever getting back. Like, good luck ever getting back. No matter what legal court order ruling happens after, afterwards. Right? And so I think in a lot of these cases, it's going to accrue to Trump's benefit to lock people in endless litigation because he's got the physical power right now. And so I think that's where I think when I say, like, we're living in a fascist dictatorship. Dictatorship, or we're in the midst of a constitutional crisis, this is what I'm talking about. What happens or doesn't happen in our country right now is entirely up to the whim of one man. There is no congressional oversight. There is no judicial oversight. There are no states rights. There are no individual rights. What happens to people in a really physical way has everything to do with what one guy feels like that morning. If he wakes up on the wrong side of the Big Mac, you get deported. If he feels like having golf that day, you maybe get to stay in the country for another two days. That is tyranny. That's not the rule of law. We're at his whim, and people need to get that.

[Sam Seder]

Ellie missed out. Thanks so much for your time. Is there a. Do you know, is there a clearinghouse of those 300 cases or so? Is there some type of, like a Google document that people are adding it to or something?

[Matt Binder]

The website Lawfare has a litigation tracker that. That has. Just list them all and. And the current procedural disposition of each of the cases. They've been doing excellent, excellent work.

[Emma Vigland]

Oh, okay. Good too, though, right? They do. They've been followings.

[Matt Binder]

Does a great job following up. Just Security has the full litigation tracker of just everything that's there. And they've been doing. They've been doing great work.

[Sam Seder]

Well, you have to. Ellie. Ellie Mistal. The book is bad law. 10 popular laws that Are Ruining America on Top of How Ruined America is Getting. Thanks so much for your time. We'll put a link to that book and of course, to your columns and your newsletter. Ellie Mistal versus the U.S. is that what it is? Takes on the U.S. yeah.

[Matt Binder]

No. Lev. Us. Let's go.

[Sam Seder]

Appreciate the time.

[Matt Binder]

Round 23.

[Sam Seder]

All right, thanks.

[Emma Vigland]

Thanks.

[Matt Binder]

Have a nice one.

[Sam Seder]

Okay, folks, that's the good news for today.

[Emma Vigland]

Yep.

[Ellie Mistel]

Bit ominous that his par went out and the whole, like, what? Solar flare causing cable cars to die in the middle of their course in Spain, Like.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah. Weird stuff. Weird stuff. I guess maybe we're entering into that period of the. The Trump administration be a good time.

[Ellie Mistel]

For the magnetic polarity of the Earth to shift. Look up what happens when that. Whenever that happens.

[Sam Seder]

Wait, what happens?

[Ellie Mistel]

We lose our ability to block radiation from the sun for about a few hundred years. So.

[Emma Vigland]

Wait, what?

[Sam Seder]

Wait, why would you be excited about that?

[Ellie Mistel]

I am being sarcastic. Just one of the morbid, sort of apocalyptic.

[Sam Seder]

I wouldn't mind one of those, like, EMT things where it. Is that what it is. Like the EMTs where it shuts down all the communications.

[Ellie Mistel]

Yeah.

[Sam Seder]

For a week. We would have to take the show on hiatus.

[Ellie Mistel]

I mean, we could just do that.

[Sam Seder]

We do it live.

[Ellie Mistel]

As long as these tubes work, we have to fill them.

[Sam Seder]

Exactly, exactly.

[Emma Vigland]

We'll shout the show in the square.

[Sam Seder]

Meanwhile, I'm gonna have some granola in the.

[Emma Vigland]

In the. I'm dieting for the wedding. I don't know what to tell you guys.

[Sam Seder]

Your body is basically said, I'm so.

[Emma Vigland]

And this weekend I'm like, pizza, beer, like, like going all. So now I'm on my Monday back to like, so you're behind dieting? And now my stomach's like, I miss all that pizza and wings we were having this weekend. But anyway, so they're eating the dogs.

[Caller]

The people that came in.

[Sam Seder]

It's emp. Thank you. And also, apparently Ellie was wrong on which Star wars it was or whatever. I don't. I can't. I don't know. Wow, everybody. All of a sudden, we became a podcast.

[Emma Vigland]

We get to take his nerd card away.

[Sam Seder]

Folks, it's your support that makes this show possible. Oh, wait, we should do this news. Actually. Jerry Conley, the raking member of the Government Oversight and Accountability Committee, is stepping down. Is he resigning? He's not resigning from Congress.

[Emma Vigland]

He is stepping down from his chairman. His chairmanship. But he said that he's going to be basically making an announcement about his future, I think in Congress as well. He's stepping down from Congress?

[Sam Seder]

Oh, yeah.

[Emma Vigland]

The sun is setting on my time in public service and this will be my last term in Congress. I will be stepping back as ranking member of the Oversight Committee soon. With no rancor and a full heart, which is all that matters, I move into this final chapter full of pride and what we've accomplished together over 30 years. Look, it's sad that he has. Has had a recurrence of his cancer. What were we doing? So he got. This is the make a wish, like, ranking situation. So he got to be it for four months. Yeah, it was her. His Turn.

[Ellie Mistel]

The American people love when people take turns in the right order.

[Sam Seder]

Right. And you know, that's what it's, it's all about, the turns.

[Emma Vigland]

It's his turn.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah.

[Emma Vigland]

Right.

[Sam Seder]

So my understanding now I just, we should remind people this is the committee that AOC also ran to within the Democratic caucus to be the chair of. And she, I can't remember what the vote was, but she lost by like.

[Emma Vigland]

I don't know, dozens. But she got a good amount.

[Sam Seder]

Oh yeah, she, for, for, for, for someone who did not have seniority. She got a 84 votes. I think it was.

[Emma Vigland]

I can't go memory 131 to 84.

[Sam Seder]

And so there's a question as to who fills in when a vacancy occurs. This is my understanding that the steering committee, which is like the nominating committee, will usually recommend a replacement. This committee, as you know, is led by the Democratic leadership. And then the full House Democratic caucus would vote on that recommendation. The vote can be contestant if you know, one or more candidate seeks the chairmanship, which is what happened last time. Seniority is not the final deter determinant. But of course, as we saw with Connolly winning, if you're the oldest person running and you know, even and maybe it helps to have like some type of terminal illness, you get the benefit of the doubt. Apparently in the Democratic Caucus you get.

[Emma Vigland]

Nancy Pelosi to intervene on your behalf.

[Sam Seder]

First off, let me just say that this is an indictment of the caucus because it was quite clear, I take no join this, but it was quite clear that Connolly was not going to serve out this term. In fact, I think after that, first we played one or two videos of him. One, maybe it was the second one when he like it was gone for a month and he came back and we were all like three or four months. That's it.

[Emma Vigland]

Ken Klopenstein have been tracking this. He didn't do a cable news appearance as the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee for a month.

[Sam Seder]

For a month.

[Emma Vigland]

This is the top House Communications committee.

[Ellie Mistel]

And how long was he the leader of that Oversight committee? Like four months.

[Emma Vigland]

Less.

[Sam Seder]

The to deny AOC this position now like the leadership needs to come out and strongly endorse her.

[Emma Vigland]

Yup.

[Sam Seder]

To deny her at this point they might as well just blow up the caucus, the party, I mean honestly like to deny her of the leadership is an, is an all out declaration of war by the Democratic leadership. Make no mistake about it. It is an all out declaration of war. They prevented her from getting onto this, you know, chairing this committee before, if they prevent her again, it is an all out declaration of war. They are basically saying we know how this looks, we have no justification for it.

[Emma Vigland]

Yep.

[Sam Seder]

We're just, we are willing to risk this.

[Emma Vigland]

And to AOC's credit, she has put them in a very difficult position to and has put Hakeem Jeffries between a rock and a hard place on this front because of exactly what you're saying, it becomes immense, immensely clear. And then pairing this with the way that she's polling against Chuck Schumer, like even if you wanted to protect Chuck Schumer, I think it would be the best move to put her on site committee. So you can sell it to those members who like Chuck and the conservative dinosaurs in the, in the party and be like, you want to satiate her appetite to have a more prominent leadership position in the party. She could primary a Chucky, which she should still do anyway if she gets oversight. But we can put that aside for a point for a second. Give her this. At least give her this. I mean remember when there was that whole fight about not putting Marjorie Taylor Greene on committees and she ended up getting on for, for the Republicans? Like yeah, this is part of it. AOC is connected to the base. Not the same person as Marjorie Taylor Greene but, but similar fundraising apparatus. And Marjorie Taylor Greene fundraises a lot from the base.

[Sam Seder]

Unfortunately, the Democratic leadership is in a very, very tough situation now because they either put her on, you know, have her chair that committee and nobody's going to believe that they don't have the ability to make this happen. Nobody. They either have her chair that committee and she's going to do so much better than Connolly in getting these stories out and in getting like people engaged in this stuff. And we'll play this clip of Pritzker who's decided to run for president basically in support of this anti oligarchy tour. It's ironic. He's a billionaire. Class traders welcome. But he has come out and you think about like the people who have really come out strongly. There's been three right waltz, Pritzker and what's his face in Connecticut, Murphy. Murphy. And they've all been very aggressive. Aggressive in the way that AOC would be. They either put her in a position where she's going to get more and more publicity in terms of her fighting or they basically create a outsider martyr in her.

[Emma Vigland]

Yes.

[Sam Seder]

Which I think would be more problematic for someone like Chuck Schumer or for.

[Emma Vigland]

Her to run for president. Like, I mean there was concern and you know, I Follow Edinger Mentum's writing in his substack where he was saying, has she tarnished her brand by. And her outsider status. That is so, like, why she can get Trump voters who vote for. For her down ballot in her own district with her support for Biden and Kamala Harris and stomping for them. The poll numbers haven't shown that to be the case. And if they want to make an even further martyr out of her, somebody who is outside of the party and voters hate both parties, they make her stronger by denying this. I mean, this is why she's done an expert job at the inside and outside game. They deny her, they're screwed. And they give her more publicity. They're screwed.

[Sam Seder]

Yep. So it's good.

[Emma Vigland]

Good luck.

[Sam Seder]

We'll see what happens with that. In the fun half. We'll play some of those clips from Pritzker. We'll play Chuck Schumer's big move, big move to fight Donald Trump.

[Ellie Mistel]

You see, Cory Booker and Hakeem Jeffries are doing a sit in on the steps of the Capitol that we're supposed to care about Again, another simulated bit of resistance to get the polling numbers up among progressives that don't really pay attention to things.

[Emma Vigland]

Yeah, they're threatened by that.

[Sam Seder]

This is the weather, those rallies. I want to see a sit in on the steps of in D.C. in like, you know, late July. How about. That's where I. That's where I start to have respect.

[Ellie Mistel]

I want Cory Booker to sit in at Shabtai, the Jewish outreach sort of group that he co founded in the 90s that invited Ben Gvir to Yale. I'd like him to do a sit in there. If it's time to speak up for freedom and you can never keep your voice silent, do it now, buddy.

[Emma Vigland]

Some people are saying their money's on oversight for Crockett. I don't agree with that. I think that would be a huge mistake. I also think that Crockett is too smart to. To Bigfoot AOC and then put herself in an opposition to her because she's kind of like, even though her politics aren't as good, she's still riding some of that momentum with this newer generation of Democrats. You don't want to put yourself on the opposite side of AOC if you're just. In my view, she's also too. She's even greener. She's even newer to Congress.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah, I just. I don't agree.

[Emma Vigland]

Highly unlikely it's AOC or somebody else who's old as shit.

[Ellie Mistel]

Yeah, Steny Hoyer, he's. Is he out?

[Sam Seder]

Can't we find Pelosi for Pelosi is.

[Ellie Mistel]

Not even the top five for the oldest House members. So at a young 83, she's only number six.

[Sam Seder]

Is there, is there not a Democrat who has missed significant time for illness that we could put in there?

[Matt Binder]

Yeah.

[Ellie Mistel]

Let's ask the doctors. Who's most likely to go soonest.

[Emma Vigland]

Pelosi meets the criteria with that hip she cracked right before putting Connolly to the forefront.

[Sam Seder]

We got to check and see if anybody has pancreatic cancer first before we do anything too rash.

[Emma Vigland]

That's our DEI.

[Ellie Mistel]

Die.

[Sam Seder]

Folks. It's your support that makes this show possible. You can become a member @join the MajorityReport.com when you do, you not only help this show survive and thrive, you get the free half free of commercials and then you get the fun half. And gosh, it's, it's so fun in the fun half these days. Join themjorityreport.com Also Just Coffee Co op, fair trade coffee, hot chocolate. Use the coupon code. Majority get 10% off. Try this coffee, folks. Right now I would buy a five pound bag because price of coffee ain't going down 200. We've got so many deals, we're going to make so much money. Copy coffee in every cup.

[Ellie Mistel]

We're going to do coffee factories, the Ozarks.

[Sam Seder]

We're going to have beautiful avocados. Nobody's going to grow avocado.

[Ellie Mistel]

The greenhouse.

[Sam Seder]

Left reckoning Matt Vincent Bevins Tomorrow, 7:00.

[Ellie Mistel]

Eastern Time, talking about his movement semtera on Brazil's landless people, Landless workers movement. A really great interview. Talking to him for about 40 minutes. So check that out. Patreon.com left reckoning.

[Sam Seder]

See you in a fun half. Three months from now, six months from now, nine months from now. And I don't think it's going to be the same as it looks like in six months from now. And I don't know if it's necessarily going to be better six months from now than it is three months from now, but I think around 18 months out, we're going to look back and go like, wow, what, what is that going on? It's nuts. Wait a second. Hold on, hold on for a second. Emma, welcome to the program. Fun half. Matt, Fun hat. What is up everyone? Fun hat. Nomi Keen, you did it. Fun half.

[Emma Vigland]

Let's go Brandon.

[Sam Seder]

Let's go. Brandon on hat. Bradley, you want to say hello?

[Matt Binder]

Sorry to disappoint everyone. I'm just a random guy.

[Sam Seder]

It's all the boys today.

[Matt Binder]

Fundamentally false.

[Emma Vigland]

No. I'm sorry. Women.

[Sam Seder]

Stop talking for a second. Let me finish.

[Matt Binder]

Where is this coming from?

[Emma Vigland]

Dude.

[Sam Seder]

But.

[Matt Binder]

Dude.

[Sam Seder]

You want to smoke this? 7A. Yes.

[Matt Binder]

I'm sweet.

[Sam Seder]

Yes.

[Matt Binder]

Is this me?

[Sam Seder]

Is it me? It is you.

[Matt Binder]

If it's me. Oh, if it's me.

[Sam Seder]

I think it is you. Who is you. Goes out every single freaking day. What's on your mind? We can discuss free markets and we can discuss capitalism. I'm gonna go snow white.

[Emma Vigland]

Who?

[Sam Seder]

Libertarians.

[Ellie Mistel]

They're so stupid.

[Sam Seder]

Though common sense says. Of course.

[Emma Vigland]

Gobbledygook.

[Sam Seder]

We nailed him.

[Emma Vigland]

So what's 79 plus 21?

[Sam Seder]

Challenge. Man. I'm positively quivering. I believe 96. I want to say 8, 5, 7, 2, 1, 0. 8, 5, 5, 0, 1, 1 half.

[Matt Binder]

3, 8, 9, 11.

[Sam Seder]

For instance.

[Emma Vigland]

$3,400. $1900. 5, 4.

[Sam Seder]

$3 trillion. Sold. It's a zero. So I'm game.

[Matt Binder]

Actually.

[Emma Vigland]

You're making me think less.

[Sam Seder]

But let me say this.

[Matt Binder]

You call it satire.

[Sam Seder]

Sam goes satire on top of it all. My favorite part about you is just like every day, all day.

[Matt Binder]

Like everything you do.

[Sam Seder]

Without a doubt. Hey, buddy. We see you.

[Matt Binder]

All right. Folks.

[Sam Seder]

Folks. Folks.

[Emma Vigland]

It's just the me week being weeded out. Obviously.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah. Sun's out, Guns out. I. I don't know.

[Emma Vigland]

But you should know, People just don't.

[Ellie Mistel]

Like to entertain ideas anymore.

[Sam Seder]

I have a question. Who cares?

[Ellie Mistel]

Our chat is enabled, folks.

[Sam Seder]

I love it.

[Emma Vigland]

I do love that.

[Sam Seder]

Gotta jump.

[Matt Binder]

Gotta be quick.

[Sam Seder]

I gotta jump.

[Matt Binder]

I'm losing it, bro.

[Sam Seder]

2:00. We're already late and the guy's being a dick. So screw him. Sent to a gulag.

[Emma Vigland]

Outrageous.

[Sam Seder]

Like, what is wrong with you?

[Matt Binder]

Love you. Bye.

[Sam Seder]

Love you. Bye.