Podcast
The Oath and The Office
Hosted by Two Squared Media Productions · EN
Mixing sharp wit and serious political fire, The Oath and The Office is where hard-hitting constitutional analysis meets razor-sharp comedy. Distinguished political science professor Corey Brettschneider teams up with comedian John Fugelsang to break down the most powerful 35 words in American democracy—the presidential oath of office. Every president swears to “preserve, protect, and defend” the Constitution, but what happens when one openly attacks democracy and the rule of law itself? Each week, Corey and John pull no punches, exposing the latest threats to the rule of law and demanding accountability. Smart, fearless, and wickedly funny—this is the civics lesson you can’t afford to miss.
23episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Trump’s War on Habeas Corpus and DOJ Independence — with Harry Litman
5d ago00:59:56Tap to summarizeCorey Brettschneider and John Fugelsang open with explosive new reporting that Stephen Miller pushed a plan for President Trump to suspend habeas corpus — the fundamental constitutional safeguard that allows people detained by the government to challenge their imprisonment in court.They explain what habeas corpus is, why it has been central since the Founding, and why suspending it to speed mass deportations would mark an extraordinary expansion of presidential power.Then Harry Litman joins Corey and John to discuss the crisis at the Justice Department: the fight over Trump’s so-called “anti-weaponization” fund, the destruction of DOJ culture, the role of Todd Blanche, and what it would take to rebuild a Justice Department committed to law rather than personal loyalty.Plus: threats to mail ballots, the Epstein files, and whether courts and Congress can still constrain an increasingly unbound presidency.https://harrylitman.substack.com/p/its-the-fraud-stupidhttps://harrylitman.substack.com/p/playing-chicken-in-a-pinto
Transcribe →Trump Melts Down as Congress Pushes Back
2w ago00:58:54Tap to summarizeTrump melts down in a chaotic Meet the Press interview, lashing out when pressed on his “anti-weaponization” fund and his false claims of rigged elections. Corey Brettschneider and John Fugelsang break down what the moment reveals about Trump’s larger project: turning government power into personal protection, personal revenge, and an attack on democratic legitimacy.Then: Congress pushes back. The House rebukes Trump over Iran war powers and passes new Ukraine aid over his objections, raising a central constitutional question: can Congress finally reclaim its role in foreign policy?Corey and John also look at the next front in the separation-of-powers fight: appointments. Todd Blanche may be headed for a permanent attorney general nomination, while William Pulte’s appointment as acting DNI avoids Senate confirmation despite serious concerns about experience and politicized investigations.Plus: the crisis at 60 Minutes, John Bolton’s guilty plea, selective prosecution worries, and a federal judge blocking Trump’s $100,000 H-1B visa fee.It’s a week of meltdown, weaponization, war powers, appointments, and resistance — with the constitutional stakes coming into sharper focus.
Transcribe →Trump’s Bad Week Is Democracy’s Opening
3w ago00:56:30Tap to summarizeDonald Trump’s revenge politics hit resistance this week — not by accident, but because citizens, journalists, lawyers, judges, and lawmakers kept pushing.This week on The Oath and The Office, Corey Brettschneider and John Fugelsang break down a rare hopeful stretch for democracy: a judge blocks payouts from Trump’s so-called “anti-weaponization” fund, another judge reopens questions around Trump’s IRS settlement, courts reject Trump’s attempt to put his name on the Kennedy Center, and thousands of federal lawyers are leaving rather than serve an authoritarian agenda.Corey and John also discuss the fight inside CBS and 60 Minutes, the role of independent journalism, and why democracy depends not just on courts, but on citizens willing to expose corruption, demand accountability, and keep the constitutional system alive.
Transcribe →Trump’s Imperial Presidency: Bogus Charges and Foreign Wars
4w ago01:00:48Tap to summarizeTrump’s claim of power above the law is showing up on every front: bogus prosecutions, deportation threats, attacks on speech, war powers, and military escalation abroad.This week on The Oath and The Office, Corey Brettschneider and John Fugelsang start with the dismissal of human trafficking charges against Kilmar Abrego Garcia. A federal judge found the prosecution vindictive and selective, a major rebuke to a Trump DOJ that tried to punish a man after he fought back against his unlawful deportation.Then Corey and John turn to Mahmoud Khalil, where the Trump administration is pushing another dangerous claim: that noncitizens can be detained and deported for political speech. They also discuss new congressional pushback against Trump’s war in Iran and the DOJ indictment of Raúl Castro, as the administration invokes “law and order” while expanding American military power in Latin America.Then filmmaker Andrew Glazer joins the show to discuss "Spring of the Vanishing", his investigative documentary on the American military’s alleged complicity in killings of innocent civilians by the Mexican military during the drug war. The conversation becomes a broader warning about how the war on drugs has been used to destroy civil liberties at home and abroad.The theme running through all of it: Trump’s imperial presidency is not just a foreign policy problem. It is a threat to constitutional democracy here at home.Subscribe to The Oath and The Office wherever you get your podcasts, and help us expose abuses of presidential power before they become the new normal.Watch Spring of the Vanishing: https://www.primevideo.com/detail/0LAGR1QS4QZ2PIWOMLFK18KJ2K
Transcribe →The Secret Memos Behind the Supreme Court’s Shadow Docket (with Jodi Kantor)
May 2101:04:05Tap to summarizeWhat is the Supreme Court doing when it acts without full briefing, oral argument, or a real explanation?This week on The Oath and The Office, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor joins the podcast to explain the Court’s shadow docket: the emergency orders process that has become one of the most powerful and least understood parts of American government.Kantor discusses the Supreme Court memos she obtained with Adam Liptak, what they reveal about Chief Justice John Roberts, and how they relate to the Court’s supposed image as a neutral “umpire".Corey and John also discuss Trump’s proposed “anti-weaponization” compensation fund, the politics of abortion and the abortion pill at the Supreme Court, and the Court’s emergency order allowing Alabama to move forward with redrawn congressional maps.In this episode:What the shadow docket is and why it mattersJodi Kantor on Supreme Court memosThe two sides of John RobertsWhy the “umpire” model of judging has collapsedAbortion, Alabama, and emergency Supreme Court powerTrump’s “anti-weaponization” fund and the politics of grievanceThe immunity case and presidential powerLink to Jodi Kantor's book, How to Start: https://jodikantor.com/how-to-startLink to Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak's reporting on the secret memos of the Supreme Court: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/18/us/politics/supreme-court-shadow-docket.html
Transcribe →Can Trump Undo Our Citizenship Rights? (with ACLU’s Cecilia Wang)
May 1401:05:53Tap to summarizeThis week on The Oath and The Office, Corey Brettschneider and John Fugelsang begin with the new redistricting wars, as southern states move to dilute Black Americans’ voting power after a green light from the Supreme Court. They look at Tennessee, Alabama, and the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision striking down a voting plan approved by voters.Then, they turn to citizenship itself: DOJ support for stripping citizenship from naturalized citizens and Trump’s attacks on his own Supreme Court justices.Corey then speaks with Cecilia Wang, National Legal Director of the ACLU, who argued before the Supreme Court against Trump’s executive order attacking birthright citizenship, with Trump himself watching from the courtroom. Wang explains why the text and history of the Fourteenth Amendment are on her side, how Reconstruction transformed the Constitution, and why the fight over citizenship is part of the larger battle for voting rights, civil liberties, and democracy itself.
Transcribe →The Supreme Court’s Assault on Our Rights (with Kate Shaw)
May 701:12:30Tap to summarizeThe Supreme Court is reshaping American democracy — weakening voting rights, empowering the presidency, and narrowing the protections that have defined modern civil rights law.John Fugelsang and Corey Brettschneider begin with the Court’s assault on the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the fallout for democratic participation across the country. They also discuss Trump’s attacks on James Comey, threats against ABC and Jimmy Kimmel, and the broader campaign of intimidation against critics and dissenters.Then constitutional law scholar Kate Shaw joins the show to discuss how the Court is enabling Trump’s authoritarianism, including the pending fight over Temporary Protected Status, the shadow docket, emergency rulings on immigration and executive power, and her recent exchange with Senator Josh Hawley over nationwide injunctions.What happens when the courts weaken voting rights while expanding presidential power? And what does it mean for the future of constitutional democracy?Subscribe to The Oath and The Office wherever you get podcasts.
Transcribe →Trump’s War on Truth and Science (with James Morone)
Apr 3000:58:04Tap to summarizeTrump briefly talked about “cooling things down.” Then came the escalation.This week on The Oath and The Office, Corey Brettschneider and John Fugelsang look at how President Trump is using political violence not as a reason for restraint, but as a weapon against his opponents. Jimmy Kimmel and Trevor Noah are targeted for jokes. A 60 Minutes interview becomes another venue for attacking the press. And the administration’s suit against the Southern Poverty Law Center raises a larger question: is law enforcement being turned into a tool of political retaliation?We also turn to the Supreme Court’s major Fourth Amendment case over geofence warrants and cell location data. The old law-school hypotheticals about government surveillance no longer feel hypothetical. With companies like Palantir helping build the modern surveillance state, the threat of databases tracking protesters, dissidents, and political opponents is suddenly very real.Then Corey is joined by James A. Morone, Professor Emeritus at Brown University and one of the country’s leading political scientists, to discuss his new book with David Blumenthal, "Whiplash: From the Battle for Obamacare to the War on Science". The book tells the inside story of how Obama, Trump, and Biden transformed health care politics, from the fight over Obamacare to COVID, Operation Warp Speed, anti-poverty policy, and Trump’s war on science itself.Get the book from Yale University Press:https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300263480/whiplash/
Transcribe →Trump’s Supreme Court, the Shadow Docket, and the New Normal (with Aaron Parnas)
Apr 2300:51:33Tap to summarizeHas Trump changed American politics so deeply that what once seemed dangerous now feels normal?In this episode of The Oath and The Office, we begin with the Supreme Court: the shadow docket, Clarence Thomas, and a judiciary that increasingly operates with extraordinary power and too little accountability.We then turn to the case against the former CIA director, along with the resignation of a Justice Department prosecutor, and ask what these developments reveal about the state of law, accountability, and political pressure inside the justice system.Then Aaron Parnas joins us. Parnas has built a massive audience by reporting breaking political news to a younger generation in real time, often outside traditional media. We ask him a bigger question: can the news be reported outside the wider context of the threat to democracy? And when Parnas argues that much of this feels normal to people who grew up in the Trump era, Corey asks what it means when democratic crisis starts to feel ordinary.We also discuss Trump’s reported pressure on the IRS, the questions surrounding Kash Patel and the FBI, and why these stories may be part of a much broader pattern.This is a conversation about power, accountability, and the risk of treating democratic erosion as the new normal.
Transcribe →Trump vs. the Pope
Apr 1600:44:52Tap to summarizeTrump says the pope should stay out of politics. But when Trump posts himself as Jesus, attacks independent moral authority, and demands loyalty from every institution, the real goal is not religious neutrality. It is control.In this episode of The Oath and The Office, Corey Brettschneider and John Fugelsang begin with Trump’s clash with the pope and what it reveals about the authoritarian impulse: not keeping religion out of politics, but bending religion to serve power.Then they turn to Hungary, where Viktor Orbán’s loss offers a real sign of hope. Even after gerrymandering and years of democratic erosion, autocrats can still be challenged and defeated.They also break down two more revealing stories: a judge throwing out Trump’s defamation suit over the Epstein birthday-card report, and the administration’s move to abandon civil-rights settlements protecting trans students. Taken together, these stories show the same pattern: attacks on truth, attacks on vulnerable people, and attacks on any institution unwilling to bend to raw power.This episode is about more than one controversy. It is about the larger authoritarian playbook — and why resistance still matters.
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