Did the Supreme Court Just Save Trump?

says he's stepping down as minority leader. House Republicans impeachment blows up in

their face. RFK Jr. may be on the ballot in Arizona and Georgia. And later, strict scrutiny's

Leah Littman stops by to talk about the Supreme Court's latest gift to Donald Trump. But first,

we had ourselves a showdown in Texas on Thursday, Dan. One border, two presidents, a few hundred

miles apart from each other. Trump was in Eagle Pass ranting and raving about a migrant

invasion, which seems like exactly the kind of event he had in mind when he ordered Republicans

in Congress to kill a bipartisan border deal that would have made it tougher for him to

demagogue the issue. Here's a clip. Because everybody I speak to says how horrible it is.

Nobody explained to me how allowing millions of people from places unknown, from countries unknown,

who don't speak languages. We have languages coming into our country. We have nobody that

even speaks those languages. They're, they're truly foreign languages. Nobody speaks them.

What do you think he's talking about with the languages? You always have to, you have to do

like a little deep dive into the, uh, the dark recesses of his mind. It feels like something.

Did you hear about a language that he, someone said something about a language that he hadn't

heard about before that he hadn't heard of before. So now people are coming in. They don't even speak

languages. They don't even speak languages. I mean, he's heard of what, five languages,

maybe total. And Pig Latin, Pig Latin's one of them. I like, I don't, I don't know. I'm sure

Elijah knows the answer as to whatever weird thing is going around. MAGA media that they bring

it up on Terminal Online or something. I don't know. Okay. That's great. Uh, meanwhile, president

Biden was in Brownsville to meet with border patrol and accurately point out that the border

isn't more secure right now because Donald Trump wants to scare people into voting for him so that

he can spend another four years not doing anything to fix our immigration system. Uh, here's Joe

Biden. We need to act. It's time for the speakers and some of my Republican friends in Congress

for blocking this bill to show a little spine, pass a bipartisan board. Bipartisan is another

member. Bipartisan conservative leaders supported this border security bill. Let's remember who we

work for, for God's sake. We work for the American people. Let me end with this. I understand my

predecessors in Eagle Pass today. So here's what I would say to Mr. Trump, instead of playing

politics this year, instead of telling members of Congress to block this legislation, join me

or I'll join you in telling the Congress to pass this bipartisan border security bill.

We can do it together. You know, and I know it's the toughest, most efficient, most effective

border security bill this country has ever seen. I don't know how that's going to work. They're

going to join each other. Maybe they'll, uh, give a co-state of the union together.

What'd you think of the dueling visit, Stan? I think it's great that president Biden went to

the border. Trump was going there first. Biden made his trip afterwards. I'm operating the

assumption they did that on purpose. He says he didn't. He said, I didn't know my friend was going.

Well, he may not have known, but I imagine someone inside the White House did know. And I think

that's the right choice. I think it's a good thing that the president intentionally went to the

border because it shows that he is becoming more aggressive as this election goes on.

Going to the border on Donald Trump's strongest issue on the same day as Donald Trump is not a

low risk endeavor. It is, it's, it's a sign of aggressiveness. I think it's good. It means also

it's going to get more attention. CNN carried it live. MSNBC carried it live.

We're talking about it here, which is a sign of a gigantic news story in and of itself. And so,

so I think, I think that that was the right thing to do. I also took note of the fact that the

president brought up comprehensive immigration reform at the beginning of this. And I think one

of the things I've noticed about the conversation around this issue is we have gone entirely to

border security and border security only. And it's leaving out the fact that comprehensive

immigration reform, fixing the whole system, remains incredibly popular. And we ought,

and I think there's a benefit to Biden to broaden the conversation back that yes,

we have to secure a border. Yes, we have to deal with a specific crisis happening right now,

but we also have to fix the bigger problem. And Donald Trump sure as hell not going to fix the

bigger problem. Yeah. Pathway to citizenship. Very popular. Citizenship for dreamers. Very popular.

Very tough bipartisan border deal. Also popular when you test all the polls that have tested it

so far. 66% in the Navigator poll out today. And popular with Democrats as well. This is not just

a like independent Republican thing. Yeah, no, I think it was, I'm glad that he went,

met with Border Patrol, whose union supported the bipartisan deal, something that he noted.

And then, you know, he's just, the message is I'm willing to compromise with Republicans because I

care about solving the problem. Donald Trump doesn't care about solving the problem, cares

about himself. It's, you know, the border is maybe the most salient example of that, but it works for

any number of issues over the, that we'll be talking about over the course of this campaign.

New polling from Gallup says immigration is now people's number one concern. They asked him a

question, open-ended question about issues, immigration number one. And voters also say

that they trust Trump a lot more than Biden, even though Trump brags about killing the border deal,

takes credit for it, tells people that he killed it. And yet still, people trust him a lot more

than Biden. This does seem to me more of a policy issue than a messaging issue. But what do you

think? You mean in terms of the deficit on the, between the two? Yeah, it's obviously a policy

problem, right? It's, I don't know whether this Gallup poll is correct. I'm a little skeptical

that immigration has now gone ahead of inflation, jobs, the economy, but that's beyond the point.

In every poll, the salience of immigration has gone up and the intensity of concern about it has

gone up. Even a majority of Democrats in some polls now say what's happening at the border is a crisis.

And so it, this is not, Biden's not saying the right thing. It's not that he's not talking about

it enough. It's that there's a very real thing happening. People are seeing images of it. And

because largely the cynical ploys of Republican border state governors, the problem is arriving

in people's states, right? There are cities are dealing with the influx of migrants. It's putting

straight into social services. If you walk around places, you will see people with signs saying

they're migrants who were brought there. It is, it's in people's face in a way that is very, very

real and is why President Biden is, you don't generally just go pick the issue your opponent

has a 35 point advantage on to go talk about, but the salience has gone up so much that you have to

do it and you have to address it. And that's why he was doing it today. Yeah. And, and to the point

that it's a policy issue, Biden says he might act without Congress to curb the flow of migrants

across the border, but that his options are limited without legislation. So there's been

reporting that he's considering an executive action that may allow him to, um, close down

the border between ports of entry when the border is as crowded as it has been, uh, over the last

several months. He's also getting some pushback from progressives on this who think that the

rumored, um, executive action would be too tough on a legitimate asylum seekers. There's also a

huge question as to whether it would survive a court challenge since when Trump used a similar

authority in the Trump administration, basically the courts ruled that yes, the president has a

lot of leeway and power when it comes to the border, but, uh, they can't run afoul of asylum

law. So thoughts on what the right move is here? Like, I just don't feel like I know I'm deeply,

steep enough in the policy to be able to parse the arguments made on both sides of this, right?

People we really respect have said that it is going to have a, you know, certainly an unfair

disproportionate impact on some legal asylum seekers who we should be trying to help in this

country. That's what America is about. But then you also have these democratic governors, progressives

who are begging the president to do something. Biden's just in an impossible situation. There are

no good answers, right? There is not something that is going to ensure access to as many legitimate

asylum seekers as possible and deal with the crisis at the border. And he had this crisis

being exploited politically by his opponents and they will not give him the help to address it.

And so he's, I think from a purely political standpoint, right? Just to set me aside for the

actual policy implications in general, you were at your strongest as president when you were taking

executive action and then hitting Congress for refusing to give you the tools to further address

the challenge. And so I understand politically why that would be the right thing to do.

I just am uncomfortable declaring it's the right thing to do without fully understanding the details

of the plan and what it would mean for the people we do care about and are trying to help, if that

makes sense. It does make sense. And I was going to take the politics out of it for a second. And

let's imagine that Joe Biden is not running again as a lame duck president, didn't care about the

politics, but does deeply care about a border crisis that, as you said, even democratic governors

and mayors are asking for help with because it's just more migrants crossing than in any time in

recent memory, right? So what would you do? The policy problem is only solved, as the Biden

administration is saying, with legislation. And the legislation you would want is not just

legislation that addresses the border, but as we were saying, legislation that fixes the immigration

system, that probably increases legal immigration, that gives a pathway to citizenship for the

millions of undocumented immigrants in this country already, that provides more resources at

the border and more resources in the interior. So that's what you would do. Since he can't do that

because of the politics, the only other policy solution is like everything else that he has to

do that Congress has blocked, which is executive action, right? And the challenge with executive

actions is you just don't know if they're going to hold up in court. And because a lot of them

aren't meant to be taken by the president alone, they're meant to be legislation, but we have a

broken fucking Congress because Republicans refuse to do anything that might help Joe Biden politically.

So he's probably looking for policy solutions like this executive action that would help a little bit,

but as the Biden White House is saying, it's not going to solve the problem,

and it might be struck down in court. But I do think you're right, showing that at least

he tried every available option, working with Congress, being willing to compromise on a

bipartisan border deal that is not the one he would write himself if he had his wishes,

and then taking executive action, even if it's knocked down by the courts. He's at least at that

point saying, look, I tried everything I could to solve this problem, and no Republicans wanted to.

This is why it's so much harder to run for re-election than it is to just be an insurgent

challenger, because Biden has to actually make decisions that have impacts on people's lives.

And I remember when we were in the White House, just sitting in one of these meetings,

not on the border on another topic, where Congress wouldn't do what we wanted them to do.

So going through a series of suboptimal policies to try to address it that wouldn't solve the

problem wholly, would fix some of it, have some effects in the wrong direction in other ways,

and could be struck down by the court. And I remember someone in that meeting saying,

welcome to the White House, the department of shitty options, because that's exactly what it is,

right? Well, I mean, it's kind of what we went through with the Dreamers, right? We wanted to

make sure that Dreamers in this country were protected, that they couldn't be deported,

the legislation could not pass Congress because Republicans refused to work on that with us.

And so everyone was like, oh, why did Obama wait so long to protect the Dreamers and do an

executive action? Well, when he finally did, because the lawyers told him, I don't know how

much that's going to hold up in court. And sure enough, he took the executive action. Dreamers

were protected temporarily, but then as soon as Donald Trump took office, they weren't,

because an executive action is not as strong as legislation. So when everyone says, oh,

why doesn't the president do something, do something, do something? Congress,

like the Congress is, you need Congress to pass laws. You can't just take executive actions,

student loans, immigration, whatever you may want. Like, yes, the president should try,

and this president has tried on a whole host of issues, but like, there's only so much you can

do. The laws of the country are that you need legislation passed by Congress. Particularly

if you need funding. Particularly if you need funding, especially if you need funding. It says

so in the fucking constitution. All right. Speaking of Congress, Republicans are on quite a run lately.

Killed the border deal, blocked a bill to protect IVF. Did that yesterday? Remember,

they were all like, oh yeah, no, we're for IVF. What are you talking about? Those,

those kooks in Alabama? No, not us. We're Republicans. We value life. We're for IVF.

Tammy Duckworth's like, okay, well, here's a bill that would protect IVF on a federal level. No,

absolutely not. No, I think it's a state thing. We're good. We're good.

Oh, it's just, they think it's a state's thing.

It's a state thing. Oh, just like, just like abortion.

Yeah. Yeah. That seems familiar. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Just like everything else. They are still refusing to help Ukraine fend off Putin's

invasion. Still can't figure out how to keep the government open. So they just pushed the

funding deadline another few weeks. I guess they got that done. They legislated procrastination

this week. That's what they did. But the reason they can't get to all of this is because,

you know, they are just using all their time to focus on what's really keeping people up at night.

Hunter Biden, uh, house Republicans asked him the dumbest possible questions for over six hours on

Wednesday and still can't find a shred of evidence that Joe Biden did anything wrong, let alone

illegal, which is making impeaching the guy a bit tricky, especially after their star informant

turned out to be a Russian double agent who's been charged with lying to the FBI about a fake

bribery allegation involving Joe Biden, just totally made up, given to him by Russian intelligence,

foreign intelligence sources. He passes it on Republicans, you know, they, they believe it

hook, line, and they take it. They take the bait. They launch an impeachment inquiry against the

president of the United States based on entirely on Russian disinformation. They were victims of

a Russian operation, a Russian intelligence operation, because they're that fucking dumb.

So, uh, not much left after that, uh, in the impeachment inquiry, uh, and even Republican

media is having a tough time defending the impeachment inquiry and Hunter's testimony.

Uh, let's listen constant. Do you think maybe the American public is getting a little tired of this

because they can't, they can't understand it. It's complicated. They don't know all the names

and places and faces. Uh, you haven't proved the basic point yet that president Biden was directly

involved. Is the public getting tired of it? Well, large scale international money fraud

schemes are, are by their very nature complicated. I just don't know how much longer this

investigation can, can go on without bearing some fruit. Now I think that there are Republicans in

the house that would like to see, Hey, Hunter might be in the courtroom at the same time that

Donald Trump is in the courtroom if that happens over the summer. And that would be hugely

embarrassing for the white house. Have you had any conversations with our new house speaker,

Mike Johnson or James Comer or Jim Jordan about moving the ball down the field here? Because

every time I have a member of Congress on, I understand, I hear you, but they say the exact

same thing you just said. So I think when the transcript comes out, it's going to read,

it's going to read well for him because they did a great job prepping for a read,

but that's how it is. But the reality is, yeah, yeah. But when you, when you get down to it

and you start parsing the words, you start realizing, Oh yeah, yeah. That's, that's very

interesting. Okay. So that was, um, that was Stuart Varney on Fox business. Uh, and then

it was a Newsmax host interviewing a Republican member of Congress. And then that, that last

interview was Republican house member, Andy Biggs. He's one of the people that, uh, I'm not a fan of

Kevin McCarthy. Uh, so pretty extreme. And he was basically saying, yeah, you know, I think when

everyone reads the Hunter Biden transcript of the interview, uh, it's going to read pretty well for

him because it reads well because they prepped him well. But, but if you really parse the words,

you might be able to find something. It seems pretty bad for them, huh? Yeah. It's just,

it's so embarrassing because they launched this, they launched this entire thing only, uh, to throw

red meat to the freedom caucus to make them believe their own Fox news pickled brain maggot conspiracy

theories without any plan, any evidence in the evidence they had was completely and totally made

up by someone hanging out with Russian spies. Just absolutely. It's just an amazing self-owned

from these people on an issue. The American people could not have given two shits about to begin with

just while you know how complicated this story is. Like we have not talked about this a ton,

partly because you have to put up your fucking whiteboard and get out your red string to

understand all the allegations, just about all of which are completely just false wrong. They

continue to say all these like crazy things that aren't true. They keep saying that he had Hunter

Biden had a bunch of shell companies. Not true. Uh, they said that a Russian woman had paid

millions of dollars to Hunter Biden. Not true. Disproven by one of their own witnesses. They did

the whole story about how Joe Biden's brother paying back Joe Biden alone was somehow nefarious

when Joe Biden wasn't vice president or president, just, uh, just alone. And this whole claim that

Hunter and James Biden had $20 million. They keep repeating that cable news hosts keep debunking them

like during their interviews that they're saying this there's, there's nothing, there's nothing

all they get. Like you have Hunter Biden who, um, suffered through addiction is now facing charges

for anything that he did wrong. And yet they can't get beyond that, right? They can't get beyond

Hunter's issues and to connect them to Joe Biden. In fact, just about everything that has come out

about what Joe Biden hasn't done shows that he's, he was acting exactly as he should have acted

as a, as a, as a father who very much cared about his son who was going through a lot and did some

bad stuff, but like didn't do any, like didn't do anything wrong himself. Forget about illegal,

nothing even improper from Joe Biden. These people are, it's ridiculous. Yeah. This is what happens

when a group of particularly dumb people who consume really bad information, get power.

They're all swimming in the, in the crazy swamp and they're just like, they're hearing all the

shit from right-wing media and they believe it. And they believe it. Totally believe it.

Totally believe it. I just love that the, the, um, the entire basis for the impeachment turned

out to be like a Russian Intel operation. It reads like a bad episode of the Americans. It's not

like the guy's name is Smirnoff. There are no bad episodes of the Americans. I just want to

stipulate that. I know. That's what I'm saying is if it was just like a, I should have said like a

bad ripoff of the Americans. So apparently their next step is a public hearing where they ask

Hunter all the same questions that they asked him in the private hearing. Hunter originally wanted

a public hearing. They said, no, they wanted to do it behind closed doors. Now the behind the

closed door hearing was a disaster for them. And so now they want to go back into the, out to the

public and Democrats reaction. I guess Jamie Raskin was asked about this. He's like, I mean,

I don't think we should have a public hearing, but like we need a public hearing, but go for it.

They want to go for it and make asses of themselves to the public by doing what they

did behind closed doors. Like go for it. It doesn't matter. Great. Fully support it.

Just more, just more wasting time, wasting everyone's time because their boss, Donald Trump

needed one more talking point to go after Joe Biden in the general election. That's

all right. Let's turn to the Senate where they've got 99 problems, but a Mitch ain't won Dan.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I have to say this, but you saw the script, you saw the, I saw the script,

but I was, I was, I was going to surprise you, but I read, I read the script. I know that's

unusual, but he, not all the, not all the codes, but the playbook subhead was, uh, Mitch move,

get out the way, which I thought was pretty good too. That was pretty good. Good for playbook,

but it's true. On Wednesday, McConnell announced that he'll be stepping down from his leadership

position in November, ending his run as the longest serving Senate leader in history.

The news led to a lot of tears here at crooked. Uh, we appreciate all the condolences. McConnell's

Republican colleagues in the house also took it pretty hard. Uh, here's a statement from the

freedom caucus. Our thoughts are with our democratic colleagues in the Senate on the

retirement of their co-majority leader, Mitch McConnell in parentheses, D Ukraine.

Oh, unreal. Uh, one thing you can't say about Mitch, he's well aware of how much he's despised.

Uh, here's a clip from his announcement. Believe me, I know the politics within my party

at this particular moment in time, I have many faults. This understanding politics is not one of

First of all, Dan, how are you doing? Well, Jen, I was doing pretty good this morning.

Then I woke up early as I do. And I opened up my computer. I started reading some news

and I read a lot of lionization of one Mitch McConnell.

Where did you find that? I just, I mean, the tributes from Capitol Hill reporters,

we've covered them. What is this? This could, is this the end of the old Republican party?

One of the last institutionalist, one of the lions of the Senate.

And I wanted to tell every one of those people to go fuck yourselves because

just the idea, the way that this is being portrayed is that Mitch McConnell is the

one last Republican standing in the way of the MAGA takeover of the party.

And then he waved the white flag and handed it to Donald Trump.

But here's the thing. I know you're going to disagree with this. I prepared myself for that

fact. I know you're going to come in with some more common sense than I'm going to bring here,

but so be it. There is no person walking the planet today, more responsible for America

being on the cusp of stumbling ass backwards into authoritarianism than Mitch McConnell.

I completely agree. Go ahead. I was going to come at it from,

I was going to arrive at the same point from a different direction.

Just, I want to think about this. You go first.

No one has done more to give billionaires corporations access to our political system

than Mitch McConnell. The first big suit challenging campaign finance on this country

was McConnell versus FEC. After his judges gutted campaign finance and when we tried

to close the Citizens United loophole, Mitch McConnell blocked it. After his judges gutted

the Voting Rights Act, he was the person who stopped bipartisan efforts to reinstate the

Voting Rights Act for a decade now. We've gone a decade without reinstatement of the Voting Rights

Act. The person who helped elect Donald Trump by stealing a Supreme Court seat from Barack Obama,

the person who then rigged the court that is now trying to rig the election for Donald Trump.

And most importantly, more than anything else, after a violent mob of people were sent by Donald

Trump to almost murder Mitch McConnell, he came out and he blamed Donald Trump. He believed Donald

Trump was responsible. He held the ability in his hand to convict Donald Trump in the Senate,

ensure that Donald Trump could never run for office in this country again. And what did he do?

He walked away. He blinked at the last minute because he thought it would hurt fundraising for

the NRSC. That is Mitch McConnell. He's not an institutionalist. He's not a bulwark against

right-wing populism or Donald Trump. He is someone who brought Donald Trump to us because he cares

more about right-wing judges and low tax rates for corporations than the country itself. And

he could just go away and never come back. And any effort to... I'm going to scour the internet

to fight back against efforts to try to lionize this man because he has been a evil figure in

history. Was that unhinged? I think he's misunderstood.

You're like, I was just texting my friends with a bulwark yesterday.

What I was going to say is I have some begrudging respect for how Mitch McConnell,

throughout most of his career, understood power and used power to further his own political

interests and his own political agenda, which is an agenda that I find abhorrent. But the way that

the guy was able to stack the courts and get... You talked about a lot of horrible things he did,

but he cared about judges from the get-go, cared about the Supreme Court,

cared about the rest of the judiciary. And all he wanted to do was just stack those courts with

judges, stack the majority. And he really cared about keeping the Senate majority more than

anything else. Those are the two things that Mitch McConnell cared about more than anything else.

I want Republicans keeping the Senate so that we can appoint as many of those judges as possible.

And he figured out all these underhanded, bend-in-the-rules, break-in-the-institutions

type way to get that done. But you're right. He hates Donald Trump. I don't think he is true

MAGA in his heart, but he made... Whether it was a calculation, whether it was cowardice,

whatever the fuck it was, we would not be sitting here today dealing with the possibility,

the good possibility of another Trump presidency were it not for Mitch McConnell's failure to take

action in the days after January 6th. I was reading some of the Mitch McConnell stuff today,

although I didn't see any of the lionizing that triggered you so hard. But I was reading

the Washington Post story about what McConnell said to Jonathan Martin for his book. And I

forgot about this, but he apparently said to Jay Mart, this is right after January 6th,

I feel exhilarated by the fact that this fellow, meaning Donald Trump,

finally totally discredited himself. He put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger.

Couldn't have happened at a better time. What do you hear about the 25th Amendment?

This is how Mitch McConnell was talking privately the day of January 6th. I think it was that night

he said that to Jay Mart. He thought that Donald Trump would just screwed his own political career,

that we'd never hear from Donald Trump again, that he wouldn't have to rally at least 10 or 12

Republican senators to join Democrats and the other Republicans in impeaching Donald Trump and

convicting Donald Trump. And if they had convicted Donald Trump, he would not have been allowed to

run for president again. We wouldn't be here right now. No, Mitch McConnell thought that he

just looked at the polls or he just in his gut, oh no, people aren't going to like this guy again.

And he had the power to do something about it. He chose not to. And that's where we are today.

And honestly, all the other stuff you said, bad stuff, it's like normal bad policy stuff. And

then it gets to like, yeah, you're sort of like breaking norms and institutions. Yeah,

it gets to that kind of stuff too. But on his tombstone, it should just say he didn't

let Donald Trump free after January 6th. That's it. That's all you need to know.

Whatever the intent was, whatever the motivation was, that was his decision,

his decision alone, and he made it. And now we are all living with the consequences of it.

And it is somewhat fitting that one of his last acts of power will be to

get on his hands and knees and endorse Donald Trump.

Endorse Donald Trump. Endorse Donald Trump, the guy who just makes racist jokes about his wife

and sent a violent mob to his workplace. That's the guy he's endorsing. And why? Because what does

Mitch McConnell care about most? Got to keep the Senate. Thinks that if he doesn't endorse Donald

Trump, Republicans might not keep the Senate. And that would be bad because he loves that Senate,

because the Senate is a right-wing judge's machine. That's what he wants.

So the race to replace him is on. So far, Republicans have their choice of Johns,

John Thune from South Dakota, John Cornyn of Texas, John Barrasso of Wyoming are the front

runners. But even though they've all endorsed Trump, Trump may want someone who has their

head even further up his ass. What do you think, Dan? What's going to happen here?

This is different than the House because the rules are different. In the House, you need

a majority of the entire House, which is why Kevin McCarthy, first Kevin McCarthy and Mike Johnson had

to get almost the entire Republican caucus to support him. In the Senate, it's not a real

constitutional position. Senate majority leader is just decided by, it's a secret vote in the

caucus and you only need a majority of the people voting. And so the ability to hold him, 12 MAGA

senators can't hold the leader hostage. But if these three people named John all run against

each other, they're all just, they're all kind of somewhere between McConnell and Trump. They're not

really, they've all endorsed him, but they've all endorsed him. Cornyn kind of tries to pretend to

be a little more MAGA friendly, but in general, they're none of them. Trump doesn't love any of

them. So if all of them ran, could another person, you would only need like 11 votes at that point

if four people ran to win. So that is possible. But the secret ballot thing is really critical here

because you're not, you can vote and Donald Trump doesn't have to truth about

you afterwards, right? You can vote for a random John and get away with it in a way you can't in

the house. Until J.D. Vance steals all those secret ballots and like sends them to Donald

Trump and tells on everyone. Yeah, I guess that... I hope they lock him away somewhere.

Yes, I'm sure. Yeah. I do think that the secret ballot might save those three more than anything

else because some of these Republican senators really don't want a MAGA minority leader or

majority leader, but they're afraid of Donald Trump like everyone else in the Republican party.

They usually just want someone who will get them out of there by Thursday evening and ask them to

come back until midday Tuesday. So that's less about... These majority leader things are less

about large policy positions and more about quality of life for elderly, wealthy Senate.

There's some reporting that Trump might want Steve Daines, who's Senator from Montana and

head of the NRSC. So he's in charge of trying to get Republicans to win the Senate. I guess

he succeeds. Yeah, maybe that works. If not, probably not. All right. Some news about another

politician who's helping Trump win the election. The Super PAC supporting RFK Jr. says they've

gathered enough signatures to help get him on the ballot in Arizona and Georgia. He's so far only on

the ballot in Utah, but the Super PAC has pledged to spend $15 million to get him on the ballot in

every other state. So it's my understanding this doesn't make it a done deal in Arizona and Georgia,

right? No, it's not a done deal. These signatures have to be validated by the Secretary of State.

The way people get these signatures is they often stand outside of supermarkets and just ask people

to sign. And they have to be valid signatures, real people who live in the state, accurate

addresses. Now, the Super PAC is expressing real confidence that they have done this, which

usually means they have gotten not the exact number of signatures, but well beyond that.

There's a number you generally have to get that assumes that a certain percentage of your

signatures will get tossed because people fill it out incorrectly, don't take it seriously,

are visiting from somewhere else and just fill it out or whatever else. So I think it's not a

complete done deal, but it seems we should prepare for the fact that he's going to be on the ballot

in these two states. And they announced they have 60 to 70 percent of the signatures they need

to get on the ballot in Michigan too. So they're getting close there. So what's your level of

concern over this news? I see like I'm more concerned, obviously, because now he's on the

ballot in swing states. But try this out. If he's on the ballot in every state, I do think that some

of the very low info voters who show up and and see his name on the ballot in Arizona, Georgia,

Michigan, wherever else he is, like they could just vote for him. But I think if you can message to

other voters who are RFK curious that, oh, you know what, this guy is on the ballot in 10 states.

And so it's impossible for him to win because he's not even on the ballot everywhere. So he's not a

real candidate because he can't win the election. Then you might be able to persuade more a lot of

those people that like they're just throwing their votes away if they vote for him. But maybe that's

just too optimistic. I would never say too optimistic. But yes, you can do all those

things. It would be much better off if he was not on the ballot in swing states.

Given. Yeah. And he is more concerning to me than Jill Stein or Cornel West.

Well, Cornel West is also not on the ballot anywhere.

Anywhere. Yes. I'm just picking other potential candidates. Jill Stein is already on the ballot

in some pretty alarming places, but because as the Green Party nominee. But RFK Jr. gets up to

double digits in some of these polls. Seven, eight percent. Everyone else is two, three percent.

And those third party numbers tend to go down as you get closer to Election Day and people sort of

sort into voting for someone who might actually be president. But it's starting at seven to 10

is more problematic than starting at two to three. So, yeah, I find it. I find it. It's not great.

That's what I would say. Where are you on best strategy to deal with this? Is it like is there

a concern that if you talk about him too much, you're elevating him is or should you just go at

him hard now and try to disqualify him in the minds of voters? Like what do you think? I think

you have to. He is a Rorschach test for a lot of voters right now. Right. Some people just see him

as a Kennedy. Right. That's all I know. And they think of his father and his uncle and the and the

and the family legacy. Other people see him as a truth teller. Right. Or an environmentalist or

an antiwar candidate because he's but he's talked a lot about opposing what's opposing

funding for Ukraine and he's talked about Gaza. So I think we have to define him as a mega adjacent

kook because that's what he is. And I think if we just you can't leave this one a chance because

I've mentioned this on the podcast before. How he brings up to me all the time.

There is a lot of RFK Junior stuff happening on TikTok and Instagram. It is he is talking to he's

very big because of his environmental history. A lot of what he said about eating and farming

and his very discredited views on vaccines. He's very big on health lifestyle influencer media.

And he says out there seeming normal to these people who do not consume any political news at

all. And we can just not lay that to chance. So I think we should be aggressive. The DNC

recently brought on board Liz Smith. You and I both work with on the Obama campaign,

who is sort of the media mastermind behind Pete Buttigieg's campaign to

work on the third party problem. And she is a very strategic and aggressive rapid response person.

And so I imagine that this is in the offing as we get closer and as he is getting on the ballot.

But I think ignoring this problem is only going to make it worse in this media environment.

Yeah, no, I agree with that. Okay, one quick thing before we go to break next week is State

of the Union. And last week, I had the great privilege, Dan, of sitting down with our good

pals and former White House colleagues, Alyssa Mastromonaco and Cody Keenan.

What a fun group.

I know we had a great time. Talk about how these speeches get put together,

why they're important or not important. The notes that we think Biden should hit

and some fun stories like these.

Did you ever get a wild or really funny policy pitch?

The wildest situation I had been in was the great salmon controversy of 2011.

Yes, this is one of my favorites. Please tell it.

Interior and Commerce were very angry that we were going after the duplicative salmon

supervision that was happening in the federal government. And I was like, what am I supposed

to do? He's about to give the State of the Union. And Bill Daley's like, no, it's true.

You don't have to change it. And Gary Lux, like, I think you should change it. And I was like,

you know what? It's a funny joke. Let's just deal with it.

The Interior Department is in charge of salmon while they're in freshwater. But

the Commerce Department handles them when they're in saltwater.

I hear it gets even more complicated once they're smoked.

It's not a funny joke. That's the thing.

It was better than the spilled milk joke, but it's still not a funny joke.

All right. Anyway, you need to be a Friends of the Pod subscriber to hear the episode. So

great chance to sign up. You can also start listening to episodes of Polar Coaster with

Dan Pfeiffer if you become a friend. All kinds of great content. I don't know what you're waiting

for. Go sign up. Cricket.com slash friends. Go be a Friends of the Pod subscriber.

All right. When we come back, Lea Lipman will join us to talk about the Supreme

Court's decision to take Trump's immunity case.

The Supreme Court has ruined yet another week for freedom-loving democracy enjoyers everywhere.

The court announced on Wednesday that they will take up Trump's claim that presidents should be

able to commit whatever crimes they'd like while in office because apparently only the nation's top

jurists can figure that one out. Real legal quandary. But the real concern is their timeline.

They won't hear arguments until April 22nd, which could mean Trump's election subversion trial

doesn't happen until late summer or fall, and it may not happen before the election at all.

Here to help us understand what the hell is going on is our brilliant pal,

Lea Lipman from Strict Scrutiny. Welcome. Thanks for having me.

Okay. What is your best guess on what happened here and why the court did what they did?

It's extremely messed up. I mean, why they did what they did and why it took them so long.

I'm sure there were probably three votes for just Donald Trump's position of grant the stay,

delay to decide it until next term, effectively prohibiting any trial from happening before the

election. And then the chief justice, right, who is ostensibly leading this fine institution,

thinks, okay, well, I need to compromise with those crazy pants and the people who recognize

that actually there should be a trial before the election. And so he comes up with this great

strategy of taking two weeks to come up with a briefing schedule, granting the case and scheduling

argument for two months out from now, and potentially creating a situation in which

they release a decision sometime in June and thereby block a trial happening before the election.

Like, let's pretend for a second that this decision came from a court where all the

justices were acting in good faith. Can you think of a legitimate reason for the decisions they've

made on this case and the schedule they've set out? Because I did read a couple, you know,

legal analysts who were like, well, they're moving faster than they would normally move

on a case like this. They're just not moving at Jack Smith's preferred pace.

Well, they're moving faster in this case than they do in most cases. But the point is,

this isn't most cases. And they have acted more quickly, particularly at Trump's request,

when they have been asked to do so. In the Colorado case, right, they granted that,

you know, request within days, and then they schedule that case for argument a month out.

In the Bush versus Gore case 20 years ago, right, the court was granting petitions within days,

issuing decisions within weeks. That wasn't exactly a model for great decision making.

And I think the best defense of what the court is doing is it is trying to act in this case with a

sort of, you know, judicious behavior and, you know, thinking about all of these issues that

courts try to do. But the point is, that's not really necessary given the frivolous underlying

legal issues. And the fact that they could have taken this case up months ago in January when

Jack Smith asked them to take the case before the DC Circuit ever weighed in.

Yeah, why do you think they didn't take the case then and then if they were only going to take it

this many months later? I mean, they didn't take it because

that's the normal process for judicial review, right? Wait until you have a court of appeals

decision. And then after the court of appeals acts, then the Supreme Court weighs in. But the

fact is, they depart from that model of decision making sometimes when it suits them. They have

a case on their docket this term that they just heard last week in which Ohio has asked the

Supreme Court to block an EPA, you know, climate regulation, a clean air regulation before the DC

Circuit has even weighed in. And the court was like, yeah, we'll schedule argument on that baby.

So, you know, they sometimes depart from usual procedures. And the question is, like, why didn't

they do so in this case? Again, given the timing that was staring them in the face.

If the liberal justices are worried that some of their colleagues might be intentionally dragging

their feet on this, will we ever know? Like, can Jack Smith ask them to, like, blink twice during

oral arguments? You know, we have asked them to propose safe words. So we know what's going on.

They haven't yet taken up that suggestion. But I don't know that we will ever know,

really, because they are in a position where they are effectively coerced into silence. This is

partially why you see Sonia Sotomayor utterly beclowning herself on the speaking circuit with

Amy Coney Barrett talking about how, you know, friendly all the justices are and what a warm

and happy place it is, right? When you need to secure the votes of Chief Justice Roberts and

Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, right, in order to keep the place kind of not from

descending into the nihilism of Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito, like, you are not really in a

position to poke the bear that much. And so they don't really have the luxury of speaking out in

the way that we might want them to. That makes a lot of sense. Can you help people understand

why an oral argument in late April could mean a trial that might not happen before the election?

You just said that they could hand down the decision in late June, which I guess is the end

of their term. But couldn't they also, like, if oral arguments were the 22nd, couldn't they

issue a ruling in one week, two weeks, three weeks from then? Oh, absolutely. Right. They

could issue a decision, you know, as soon as it is ready. There's some possibility that any

justices, you know, who might want some delay or who might dissent from that ruling might try to

draw it out and say, oh, I'm still, like, wordsmithing this absolute, like, shitpost of a

writing. But, right, assuming that that doesn't happen, there's already considerable delay built

into the system. Because what the Supreme Court did in its order granting this case is it said

the Court of Appeals, that is the D.C. Circuit, shouldn't actually release its mandate until

the delivery of the Supreme Court's judgment in that case. That sounds super technical,