Leah, Melissa and Kate join forces to dig through the Trump administration’s latest affronts to the law and the possibility that its officials could be held in criminal contempt. They also react in real time to the Court’s decision to take up the question of birthright citizenship and cheer Harvard’s stand against the administration. Finally, they take a look at what’s in front of SCOTUS this week, including a new opportunity for the conservative majority to use the EPA as a punching bag and its latest foray into the culture wars.

Hosts’ favorite things:

• Melissa: White Potus (SNL); Good Dirt, Charmaine Wilkerson; Hacks (Max); Confessions of a Female Founder (with Reshma Saujani)
• Kate: So You Want to be a Dissident Julia Angwin & Ami Fields-Meyer (New Yorker); Who Is Government? The Untold Story of Public Service, Michael Lewis; Just Security (Substack); Judge Wilkinson’s opinion for the 4th circuit on the Abrego Garcia case; Catalina, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
• Leah: Never Again Will I Visit Auschwitz: A Graphic Family Memoir of Trauma & Inheritance, Ari Richter; The Vibe Shifts Against The Right, Michelle Goldberg (NYT); Harvard’s new website
• Also mentioned this episode: The Supreme Court threatens to bring “Don’t Say Gay” to every classroom in America, Ian Millhiser (Vox); Five Questions About Domestic Use of the Military, Steve Vladek (One First)

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2025!

• 5/31 – Washington DC
• 6/12 – NYC
• 10/4 – Chicago

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Pre-order your copy of Leah's forthcoming book, Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes (out May 13th)

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This week, the Court weighed in on two cases arising out of the Trump administration’s use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport people to El Salvador. Kate, Melissa, and Leah break down both rulings, looking at how SCOTUS is giving leeway to the administration. For the second part of the show, Deborah Archer, professor of law at NYU and president of the ACLU, joins to talk about her new book, Dividing Lines: How Transportation Infrastructure Reinforces Racial Inequality.

Hosts’ favorite things this week:

• Leah: Dividing Lines, Deborah Archer; Why Universities Must Start Litigating—and How (The Nation), David Pozen, Ryan Doerfler, and Samuel Bagenstos; The Case for Suing, Adam Unikowsky
• Kate: Princeton President Chris Eisgruber on The Daily; Who Is Government? The Untold Story of Public Service, Michael Lewis
• Melissa: Up Home: One Girl's Journey, Ruth J. Simmons; The White Lotus (Max)

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Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2025!

• 5/31 – Washington DC
• 6/12 – NYC
• 10/4 – Chicago

Learn more: http://crooked.com/events

Pre-order your copy of Leah's forthcoming book, Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes (out May 13th)

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Jon Lovett joins Leah and Melissa to talk about what’s at stake in this week’s Wisconsin Supreme Court election and what it was like campaigning for Susan Crawford in Madison and Milwaukee. Then, the ladies run through a busy week of argument recaps, opinions, and legal news, covering the relitigation of the Voting Rights Act, the sunsetting of the administrative state, and that text chain.

Hosts’ favorite things this week:

• Leah: After Dobbs, David Cohen & Carol Jaffe; Mayhem, Lady Gaga; Black Bag, Steven Soderbergh; Wrexford & Sloane mystery series by Andrea Penrose; Lawsuits by Wilmer & Jenner challenging wildly unconstitutional executive orders; Judge Howell’s order rejecting the request for her to recuse in the challenge to the EO targeting the Perkins Coie order
• Melissa: Last week’s episode of Strict Scrutiny; A Season of Light, Julie Iromuanya; The Note, Alafair Burke; Yacht Rock: The Dockumentary (Max); Gwyneth and Meghan on Instagram; New Phone; Houthis? (Christian Schneider on X); Text STOP to opt out of war plans (Leta McCullough Seletsky on Bluesky)

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2025!

• 5/31 – Washington DC
• 6/12 – NYC
• 10/4 – Chicago

Learn more: http://crooked.com/events

Pre-order your copy of Leah's forthcoming book, Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes (out May 13th)

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

After a deep dive on the Trump administration’s horrifying misuse of the Alien Enemies Act to deport people from the US without due process, Kate and Leah preview upcoming SCOTUS cases about the Voting Rights Act and the Environmental Protection Agency. Along the way, they also touch on the Trump administration’s targeting of certain law firms and its continued attacks on DEI.

Hosts’ favorite things this week:

• Leah: Fight! Fight! Fight!, Rebecca Traister; AOC’s Bluesky feed during the CR debates/debacle; The Hidden Motive Behind Trump’s Attacks on Trans People, M. Gessen; This Election Will Be a Crucial Test of Musk’s Power, Kate Shaw; Trump Has Gone From Unconstitutional to Anti-Constitutional, Jamelle Bouie
• Kate: The Feminist Law Professor Who Wants to Stop Arresting People for Domestic Violence, Sarah Lustbader; The Dangerous Document Behind Trump’s Campus Purges, Daphna Renan & Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof; The Cost of the Government’s Attack on Columbia, Christopher L. Eisgruber

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2025!

• 5/31 – Washington DC
• 6/12 – NYC
• 10/4 – Chicago

Learn more: http://crooked.com/events

Pre-order your copy of Leah's forthcoming book, Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes (out May 13th)

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

Leah, Kate, and Melissa are joined this week by Elie Mystal, justice correspondent for The Nation, whose new book is Bad Law: Ten Popular Laws That Are Ruining America. They talk about what rotten laws should be done away with while touching on the latest news, including the detention of Mahmoud Khalil and the dismantling of the Department of Education.

Hosts’ favorite things this week:

• Melissa: The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir by Martha Jones; Paradise (Hulu)
• Leah: Bad Law by Elie Mystal; The Bee Sting by Paul Murray; Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar; Corruption & the Maximalist Theory of Presidential Power by Bob Bauer (Executive Functions); Five Questions about The Khalil Case by Steve Vladeck (One First)
• Kate: Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter by Kate Conger and Ryan Mac; Interview with Lindsay Nash on Mahmoud Khalil by Isaac Chotiner (New Yorker)

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2025!

• 5/31 – Washington DC
• 6/12 – NYC
• 10/4 – Chicago

Learn more: http://crooked.com/events

Pre-order your copy of Leah's forthcoming book, Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes (out May 13th)

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After covering the latest goings-on in Trumpland, Melissa and Kate turn to this week’s SCOTUS arguments and opinions, touching on the Court’s decision to weaken the EPA’s clean water regulations and Mexico’s bid to hold American gun manufacturers liable for cartel violence. In the second part of the episode, Kate and Melissa talk with David Enrich of the New York Times about his new book, Murder the Truth: Fear, the First Amendment, and a Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful.

Hosts’ favorite things this week:

• Melissa: Never Caught: The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge by Erica Armstrong Dunbar; Due Care in a Conservative Court by Hila Keren (forthcoming in the Wisconsin Law Review); With Love, Meghan (Netflix)
• Kate: Towards A New Equal Protection Paradigm by Issa Kohler Hausmann, co-authored with Kevin Yang and Charlotte Lawrence; Severance (Apple TV+)

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE - The Bad Decisions Tour 2025! Listener presale Wednesday March 12 at 10am local time - Thursday March 13 at 10pm local time with code YOLO, general sale starts Friday March 14

• 5/31 - Washington DC
• 6/12 - NYC
• 10/4 - Chicago

Learn more: http://crooked.com/events

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2025!

• 5/31 – Washington DC
• 6/12 – NYC
• 10/4 – Chicago

Learn more: http://crooked.com/events

Pre-order your copy of Leah's forthcoming book, Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes (out May 13th)

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

Leah, Melissa, and Kate once again wade through the latest malevolence from the Trump White House in a segment they’re now calling “Pod Save the Separation of Powers.” Then, they turn to what’s going on at One First Street, covering some new opinions, as well as this week’s arguments, including a case about “reverse discrimination.”

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2025!

• 5/31 – Washington DC
• 6/12 – NYC
• 10/4 – Chicago

Learn more: http://crooked.com/events

Pre-order your copy of Leah's forthcoming book, Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes (out May 13th)

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky