"Today the highest court handed Donald Trump a trio of losses"

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Hi there, everyone. Happy Monday. It's 4 o'clock in the East. It is not too often these days that we come on the air with any good news coming out of the United States Supreme Court. But today, the high court handed Donald Trump, a trio of big losses. The first, a win for the defenders of democracy. The Supreme Court ruled that Mississippi mailing ballots that are postmarked by election day, but that arrive within five days, still should be counted. as state law allows. It is a major blow to Donald Trump's all-out war against mail-in voting. Mark Elias, who argued that case, will join us momentarily. The second ruling today declares that Donald Trump does not have the power to fire a target of his ire that would be Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook from the Central Bank, at least for now. And thirdly, the one that's likely to sting Donald Trump the most, the court declined to take up a case by Donald Trump. to review the $5 million civil judgment that he sexually abused and defamed, the writer E. Jean Carroll, which means that the jury's verdict still stands, and Donald Trump must pay E. Jean Carroll, the $5 million he owes her plus interest. Now, that was the good news from the Supreme Court, and we'll get into all three of those significant wins in a second. But because this is the Supreme Court, that's not the whole story. There's also a major setback as another ruling threw away 91 years of precedent. In a 6-3 ruling on Trump v. Slaughter, the Supreme Court gave Donald Trump the authority to fire most of the government's independent regulators. This shifts even more power toward Donald Trump and the executive branch. The specific case deals with Donald Trump's March 2025 firing of Rebecca Slaughter. the former commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission, but it impacts dozens of agencies that are supposed to be politically independent. The Supreme Court, which already ruled in 2024, that Donald Trump is immune from criminal prosecution, now gives him, than any president, more authority, which Justice Sonia Sotomayor torched in a scathing dissent, which she read from the bench earlier today when she did that, she seemed emotional and was visibly angry. from Sotomayor's dissent. Quote, today this court undoes centuries of political practice and concludes that all three branches of government have been acting in open defiance of the Constitution all this time. Its conclusion is wrong. The text of the Constitution, along with its history, the longstanding practices of the political branches, and the precedence of this court. make clear that congress may limit the causes for which the heads of commissions like the f tc can be removed by the president in holding otherwise the court gives the president a power unknown even to the english crown against which the founders revolted, elevating him above his once co-equal branches by transforming a duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed into a license to act in defiance of those very laws. Sonia Sotomayor says that the majority's theory in this case, quote, promises to unleash only chaos. Sonia Sotomayor's dissent and that promise of chaos is where we begin today.

with a woman who sued the Trump administration for firing her from the Federal Trade Commission, Rebecca Slaughter. Also joining us, former top official at the DOJ, our legal analyst, Andrew Weissman, is here. Rebecca, your reaction to both the decision and Sonia Sotomayor's warning. Well, I'm really disappointed, honestly, Nicole, not so much for myself, but for an institution that I was incredibly honored to serve. And more importantly, for the American people who expect their government to work for them and not just for the rich and powerful. What the court did today was hand an enormous amount of power to the president, taking it away from Congress. And that's power that will enable government institutions. to work on behalf of President Trump or any president so that these government agencies that Congress set up to be economic watchdogs will turn into lap dogs. Rebecca, let me read you more from Sonia Sotomayor's dissent, which I've said this before, but she is, I feel like, writing to all of us to the American people with these warnings and these almost woeful worries about what the court is ushering in. She writes this, perhaps worst of all, the court today forgets its place. For most of our history, the court has rightly left the removal question. primarily to its co-equal branches. Today's majority, however, decides that it knows better. Better than members of the founding generation who created agencies like the Sinking Fund Commission and the Bank of the United States, free from unfettered presidential control. Better than a century and a half of Congresses and presidents, starting with Grover Cleveland and continuing into the 21st century. who created agencies in the FTC's mold, better than even Hamilton, Story, Webster, Holmes, Brandeis, Frankfurter, and Rehnquist. These great statesmen and justices knew something that today's majority apparently does not. That fealty to the Constitution means respecting not just what it says. But what it does not say, and by its silence, leaves to others to decide. It also means respecting precedent, not as a wooden exercise, but out of recognition that whatever our confidence in the theories of the present moment, the wisdom of our founding document, does not belong to today's justices alone. Because the court ignores these foundational tenets, and in doing so upends, rather than upholds the separation of powers, I respectfully dissent. She writes such a startling analysis of what the court has done, how active it is in this decision. One, do you agree with that? And two, what does it mean for where we're heading?

I think Sonia Sotomayor gets it exactly right. And I'll point out that she held a consistent position in my case and in Lisa Cook's case, which is that these laws that have been on the books for centuries and date back to our founding are valid and that they're important parts of the separation of powers. It is incredibly difficult to reconcile the two majority opinions in that case, of which only two justices, the chief and Brett Kavanaugh, were in both decisions, which... the best way you can understand them is to say, yes, we should not have removal protections except at the Fed because Wall Street is different. And I think that's part of the message that comes out of the court today that's really disturbing. I think she's absolutely right about all of the different kinds of chaos it will unleash and how a historical decision that this is. And Neil Gorsuch and his concurrence talks a little bit about... Wait, actually, maybe Congress wouldn't even have set up these agencies and given them the power that it gave them if it didn't believe that they would have the checks inherent in their structure. And I think he's exactly right about that. It's very disturbing and it's something we should really be worried about, not because we're all in the weeds about what the different alphabet soup of agencies is, but because we want a government that works for the people and not just for the powerful. Well, since you've been fired, we've seen Trump do what he wishes. I mean, now that this decision has been released, he's posted about it, he's claiming a political victory. What happens now? What do you think he'll do? Well, I think what we will see is what we have seen at these other agencies since he started on this removal crusade. Because I think what's important to remember is this isn't just about whether there are minority commissioners at these commissions, but about whether all of the commissioners. our answer to the rule of law rather than answer a call of loyalty to the president. So, for example, at the FCC, which has been on this massive and disturbing retribution campaign against speech that the president doesn't like, that's exactly the kind of thing that is empowered by this decision. And the kind of thing about which I am really, really concerned. What will you do to... I mean, what is the mechanism for undoing this? Is it a new set of laws? Is it reforms around a new leader or a new executive? I mean, it seems that all of your comments have pointed to how the American people are the real victims in this decision. What does the reform look like? So I think it's really important to remember that what the Supreme Court said today is that one type of check removal protections is not constitutional. I think they got it wrong. We're not going to stop talking about how they got it wrong. But that is one type of check. There are still other checks, and many of them come from Congress and need to come from Congress. So what I think we really need is a Congress made up of members of both parties that will reassert.

its institutional prerogative and really constitutional responsibility that it has been leaving by the wayside to provide the checks and balances that our constitution intended. And that can look like. use of the power of the purse. That looks like oversight and investigations. That can look like withholding confirmations if they think the executive is abusing power as they did at the Fed. So I think what we need to see is much more robust activity from Congress and creative thinking about new laws that can incentivize the same kinds of checks and balances that removal protections have served to provide for the centuries since our founding. So that's on the other side. In the next two years, how much damage can Trump and his administration do in the wake of this ruling? I think enormous amounts of damage, and we are already seeing that damage. We're seeing mergers that look like they get approved based not on whether they are good for the American people, but on what lobbyists is working on the deal and how well connected they are to the Trump administration. We're seeing efforts that I reference to silence political dissent and speech that the president finds favorable. And the list goes on and on. And I think at the end of the day, we have to remember that this really hurts Americans in their pocketbook. These alphabet soup of agencies that Congress set up to have this similar structure of independent boards and conditions have a common thread. And the common thread is that they're economic watchdogs. They're there to make sure that the American economy is working for the people and not just for the rich and powerful. And what we've seen instead since the beginning of this presidency. is enormous favors being handed out to those rich and powerful oligarchs who, for example, surrounded the president at his inauguration and nothing getting better for the American people who are struggling to make rent, to provide health care, to feed their children, to keep their kids safe online. That's all important work that the FTC should be doing, and it should be doing it without fear or favor. Andrew Weissman, let me bring you in on that point. What Donald Trump will do with this power is exactly what Rebecca articulates. And we know that because it's what he does with every sort of open runway before him. Everything from the sort of the small and tangible and easily understandable botch, no big contract to. enhance the reflecting pool, which was an absolute debacle, to contracts going to companies run by his sons for military contracts. I mean, what are your thoughts today when you read both the ruling by the majority and the dissent from Sonia Sotomayor?

It's hard to stress enough for people the ramifications of this decision. It is so far reaching. I think you were completely correct when you started by alluding to the Trump versus United States criminal immunity decision because the language from the chief justice here continues in a very scary way. his theory of presidential power, saying that it's necessary, what they rule today is necessary to have the vitality. And in a word, I found chilling the secrecy of the executive branch. That was a word that was not in the immunity decision. And should think about that, that this was trying to vindicate the presidential power. of vitality and secrecy from the American people. And I think Ms. Slaughter is absolutely correct that what this does is unleashes political patronage. Why should people care? Because you do not want a Republican president to come in and fire every Democrat. And you do not want every Democratic president to come in and fire every Republican. You want career people. in place with experience who are supposed to be apolitical regardless of party. And here you have a very ahistoric decision by the Chief Justice that has very, very long coattails in terms of how it's going to affect our justice system. I mean, Andrew, we know that Donald Trump wants that. Why does the Supreme Court want it? So that is a great question. People have noted that the Chief Justice, ever since he worked in the White House, has had this unitary executive view of the strength of presidential power and not to get too nerdy on you. But this is so in contrast to Supreme Court decisions, including one from Justice Robert Jackson in the 1950s. warning us, when he got back from being the lead prosecutor in the Nuremberg trials, he wrote a famous decision warning Americans, and he was in the majority, about the growth of executive power, the growth of presidential power, because he saw firsthand what can happen. And I feel like this decision is so contrary to that vision, that in my view, correct vision. about the need to check executive power. And Donald Trump embodies that. But you can take Donald Trump himself out of it and just think about what society do we want to live in. And I think that Chief Justice is just so dead wrong and should be adhering to the decisions, as Sonia Sotomayor pointed out, of people over not just decades, but centuries. who have viewed executive power is something to be careful about because we did not want to and do not want to have a king in the White House. I mean, Andrew, what happened to conservatives not wanting such an activist court? They seem incredibly active, and in this case, active in overturning 91 years of precedent.

So I think that old canard, which is that conservatives say that the liberals are the activists. I mean, that is, you know, and I think this is true for many justices, regardless of whether the conservative or a liberal, but that label of, oh, the liberals are activists, and they said that about the Warren Court, you know, that's one, your activists when you're criticizing a decision that you don't want, but here, because you have the conservatives in the majority, they're incredibly activist. And the other thing I would point out is there the idea of original I find just sort of laughable in reading this because all of the sort of tenants about this is very much in the weeds, but how do you sort of go about deciding constitutional issues? I think both what you're pointing out and the idea of originalism, I think you're sort of just put by the wayside to reach a political result. I think Ms. Slaughter is just completely right if you compare this to the Federal Reserve decision. that came out today, it is almost impossible to reconcile the two other than a result-oriented court. So I think Ms. Lauder, in kudos to her to have brought the case and also to be thinking about what do we do next, what are the other checks. But the Supreme Court has really curtailed, at least for now, until we have a court that would overrule this. at least one way of having necessary checks and balances on presidential power. So I set that up, Rebecca, to ask you this last question. Let me read you a little bit more of the reporting from one of the New York Times reporters who is in the room and reporting for the live blog. The reporting says this, quote, I was seated in the press section of the courtroom as the justices read opinions from the bench today. The most notable moment was Justice Sonia Sotomayor's dissent in Trump v. Slaughter when she criticized the court for extending its maximalist view of presidential power. She spoke firmly, often extending a look to Chief John Roberts, who delivered the majority opinion. He did not meet her gaze. As the minutes went on, she began to stumble over her words, as Sotomayor asserted that, quote, The one thing that does appear to be clear going forward is that chaos will follow. Her fellow liberal justice, Elena Kagan, seated several chairs to her left, looked overcome with emotion. What is it about this case do you think that divides them not just ideologically, but clearly, emotionally and very personally, Rebecca? Well, I think Sonia Sotomayor properly understands that this isn't a technocratic issue about my job. It really has nothing to do with me. It is very deeply about the principles underlying checks and balances and whether we're going to have a government that is administrable, accessible, accountable to the people that it serves, and not just a tool of an out-of-control executive. And so I think Sonia Sotomayor can see clearly what

has been clear to me about this case, which is that the downstream effects of it are going to be very far reaching and are going to be felt by everyday Americans when they cannot have the confidence that the price of their groceries or their access to medicine or their ability to keep their kids safe in line or their right to free expression and to access media voices of dissent are all going to be imperiled. And I think she understands. that consequence and that it is much, much more serious than an academic theory about a unitary executive, which I think is inconsistent with both the language and the sentiment of the Constitution. And our other decision. Rebecca Slaughter, thank you for being in the arena. Thank you for your service. And thank you for talking to us. It's really, really so important to our ability to understand the people and the stakes behind these cases. So thank you very much. Well, thank you for having me. I think this issue is enormously important, and it's not going to stop being important just because the decision came down today. And so figuring out how we can continue to fight for those principles that really matter to so many Americans is something that I'm very committed to. Well, let's keep the conversation going, because obviously this is about, as you said, as Sonia Sotomayor said, impacts a lot of agencies and a lot of Americans. Thank you very much. Andrew sticks around with us. When he and I come back, more news from the Supreme Court today and what is a rare win from them when it comes to voting rights in America, upholding something Americans, including Donald Trump, have been doing for a very long time, some Americans since the Civil War. Plus, Bill Pulte is on the job and heaven help us staffing up, putting an election fraud pusher in a top job at the nation's top spy agency, sending shock waves. and leading a lot of people to wonder if they're laying the groundwork for something highly nefarious ahead of the country's midterm elections. And later in the broadcast, Donald Trump clearly not caring about what voters in this country actually want. He spent the weekend dreaming up more home rentos and landscape projects. They involve trees, 47 of them. We'll have all that reporting. It is not from the onion. And much more when Deadland White House continues after quick break, so don't go anywhere.

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is, quote, cheating. Let's bring in one of the victors in this case, voting rights attorney, the founder of Democracy docket, Mark Elias. Congratulations. Andrew Weissman is with us as well. I don't know if it gets boring to keep citing your record in these cases, but because we know Donald Trump is in a world of hurt over this ruling, I'll let you give us your stats. Yeah, so this was a great victory today for democracy, and I'm proud of the work that my law firm did on behalf of our great clients that Voices Foundation and the Alliance, the Mississippi branch of the Alliance of Retired Americans. When Republicans filed this lawsuit, they chose Mississippi for a reason. You know, I've alluded to this before, but I'm going to come out and say it. I am pretty confident they chose to sue Mississippi because where we had tangled in swing states they had lost. So I think they thought they could go to Mississippi. No one would be paying attention. Probably the Mississippi Attorney General, who's a Republican, might go easy on them. So we intervened right away, and we got into this case in the trial court, and we have fought, and we have fought, and we fought. And, you know, today was a good victory. It was 5'4. It was close. But the net result is that voters throughout the country in a whole bunch of states will be able to. to make sure that the Postal Service delays and Donald Trump's efforts to make those delays greater will not disenfranchise them from having their ballots counted. And we're talking here about hundreds of thousands of voters. The RNC got into this case and brought this case because, as they point out, They believe that the voters who would be disenfranchised would be disproportionately Democrats. So this is a good day for democracy. It's a good day for voting rights. And it is a good day to make sure that Republicans are not able to target for disenfranchisement their political opponents. What does it say that four justices thought it was okay to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters? Yeah, look, I'm quite dismayed not only by the fact that it was close, but also what their reasoning was. I mean, you know, I'm old enough to remember, and Andrew, you kind of alluded to this, that, you know, it used to be conservatives wagging their fingers at people like me saying, you know, judges are there to just read the laws that Congress wrote and apply them as they're written. It's not the job of judges to impose their own. their own policy choices. Well, here, the RNC's argument was that the Election Day law that says that the election is held the Tuesday following the first Monday in November, that somehow that prevents these mail-in ballots for being counted. And if you read the dissent, what you get is a whole lot of policy arguments. You get a whole lot of, well, we think that this could lead. could open up fraud. We think that the country is better off with, you know, faster results being announced. I mean, that just isn't the role of a judge. I mean, like, that's a perfectly reasonable argument. I disagree with it, but it's a perfectly reasonable argument if you are a member of Congress introducing legislation. But it's not actually the role of a judge or a justice. And to her credit, Amy Coney Barrett calls them out on exactly that point. I want to...

read this stat because this this boggled my mind 31% of voters cast their ballots by mail in 2024 I mean they include Donald Trump but that is still a whole lot of Republican votes like what is the strategy on their side like what are they trying to do Yeah, so this is one of these places where the over and window of what is acceptable behavior on behalf of political parties has really shifted and it shouldn't go unnoticed. The Republican National Committee is bringing lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit in which they will acknowledge they are going to disenfranchise their own voters. But they're making the calculation that, yeah, and a lot of them, right? But they're making the calculation that as long as they disenfranchise more Democrats, that it's okay. And, like, you cannot have a healthy democracy in which one of the two major party believes that the way to win elections is not to persuade, but to disenfranchise. And that doing it not in the, as a side matter to some larger good, but as actually the point unto itself, right? The whole purpose of this lawsuit was to disenfranchise. As many as 750,000 voters, according to one study I saw of the 2024 election results. I mean, that is not just the byproduct of a lawsuit. That is the point of the lawsuit. Andrew Weissman, there's something so bananas and berserk about the overreach. And I know you often say I'm not a political analyst, but I think some laws of... law and laws of electorates sort of sink up in this matter. When you tell people they can't do something, and it is their right, and it is something they are lawfully allowed to do, it often, as in the Viktor Orban election, it often has the opposite of the intended effect. Well, one can only hope so, but I do think here, as much as Mark deserves so much credit, and many, many lawyers like him who are on the front lines, the real news here is the fact that there were four justices in dissent and the segment you just had that we had, Ms. Slaughter lose her case. The arguments here are so outlandish. And the fact that some are getting through and some just barely are defeated, that's the story. And it will be, I think, the same, you know, everyone's waiting for the birthright citizenship case. Everyone expects that that's one that the Trump administration will lose. But the story here is not, oh, look, the Supreme Court was. bipartisan, it is outrageous that these cases are not being lost at 9-0. And the window of what is acceptable, as Mark said, both in court, but also for political parties and the Republican Party is shifted so much.

That to me, that is the bigger story here, even when one can applaud the Amy Coney Barrett majority decision here. But the idea that it was 5'4, and just to footstomp what Mark is saying, it was 5'4 with the 4 not having a legal argument, but having a policy argument. That is not how the law works. The policy argument is for Congress or for the executive branch. There is no legal argument that they put forth that was at all cogent. And so we are really seeing judges acting as politicians. And that, to me, is so detrimental to the rule of law, to checks and balances, and to what is acceptable in this country. Well, I mean, to your point, this is what the public sees, right? So the majority of the majority votes against mail-in ballots counting up to five days after an election. This is what the American people think of that, of the court, according to Marquette Law School. The Supreme Court rules for Trump. Almost always or most of the time, 61% of all Americans, only some of the time are almost never, just 39%. What drives the justices decisions? The law, less than half. politics, 52%. I mean, this is a court that based on polling from Gallup, who's been asking this question, I think the longest, is that it's low point in terms of the public's approval of it. And I say that, Andrew, because it's this tension, right? They are the most unpopular, to me, the most activist in my lifetime. And three, they could end up being sort of our... our best hope at stopping some of Trump's most brazen excesses when it comes to taking over our elections. That's true. I mean, look, the chief justice in a sort of annual report bemoaned that people are viewing the court as political and, you know, quite famously said, you know, we don't have Obama justices and, you know, Trump justices. We're justices. But that is not how they are acting. Mark has it absolutely right in the analysis of the court's decision and the mail-in voting decision today. Ms. Slaughter had it absolutely right in comparing the decision in her case versus the Federal Reserve is that you see the court actually acting in a political fashion, not in a fashion that you expect of justices of the Supreme Court. All right. Both of you stick around after the break.

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There is brand new evidence that Bill Pulte, he's Donald Trump's acting director of national intelligence, the guy from the housing agency with no experience in Intel, is ready and willing to facilitate Donald Trump's attempts to nationalize and seize control of our elections. MS now has learned Bill Pulte's pick for chief of staff is a person named Christina Norton. She also has no intelligence experience, but qualifications that include loyalty to Bill Pulte. and an embrace of absurd election conspiracy theories. Norton has worked as the GOP election operative overseeing a poll watching program that included Jack Posavik, a promoter of the debunked so-called PizzaGate conspiracy theory. and other conservative conspiracy theorists. A former senior U.S. intelligence official says that choice is, quote, horrifying and, quote, signals as clearly as could be that Bill Pulte has been put at OD&I to misuse the awesome power of the U.S. intelligence community to interfere in the upcoming midterm elections. We're back with Mark and Andrew. How do we protect our elections from this, Mark? I mean, now with the OD and I. I mean, that's one way we're not going to predict it. I mean, this reminds me of, you know, what I've been living with for the last year, which is I'm used to having the DOJ on my side. And in the last year, it's been fighting the DOJ. We are used to the OD&I being out there protecting U.S. elections from foreign interference. I mean, you know, if you got a problem with foreign interference, my suggestion is you don't pick up the phone and call Bill Pulte. He was put there, obviously, not because he has any experience with... with national security because he doesn't. He was put there because he's a Trump loyalist. He's an election denier. And I think Jay Clayton, despite his auditioning to prove that he could be a good election denier, he couldn't possibly, you know, match up to Bill Pulte's sycophantic loyalty to Donald Trump. And now to just show that really this... office is going to have really nothing to do with protecting the american public they've they've hired as a chief of staff or are allegedly going to hire as chief of staff a woman who you know comes out of the election in iron movement not someone who comes out of a national security background who you might think the housing guy might want if he was to do his job andrew So to turn to what can you do about it? I mean, this is where the lower courts are going to be the first line of attack. Because unless we have a Congress that is functional, and that's obviously a huge, huge if, they're not a body that we can turn to. And so it is going to be lawyers like Mark, like Norm Eisen, like many, many others.

who are going to be carrying the burden here of counteracting these authoritarian tendencies that we are seeing in all sorts of agencies that are not set up to be doing that. They are now going to be engaging in political processes for the president. It's an unbelievable, unbelievable moment. Mark Elias, Andrew Weissman, thank you both so much for spending time with us on this today. When we come back, the Donald Trump, E. Jean Carroll case may have finally gone as far as it's going to go with the last and final say coming from the Supreme Court. We'll have reaction to that next. So the third of the big losses the Supreme Court handed Donald Trump today was one that was not exactly a ruling against him, but a decision to not even take up one of his pet cases. The Supreme Court declined to hear Donald Trump's appeal of the $5 million awarded to E. Jean Carroll after a jury in 2023 found Donald Trump was liable for sexually abusing her and defaming E. Jean Carroll. Let's bring in senior opinion writer for the Boston Globe and co-host of the Sisters in Law podcast. Political analyst Kim Atkins Storr is here. Kim, of the three defeats, I imagine this is the one that's going to have him rage posting all night long. I'm sure it does. There is nothing that seems to evoke his ire than the not one but two jury verdicts against him in cases brought by E. Jean Carroll. And as you pointed out, in this case, the Supreme Court declined to step in and take up an appeal that he made to a $5 million award. This was a defamation case. And what his attorneys were arguing was that the case should be thrown out. The verdict should be thrown. out because the court heard evidence that should have been inadmissible, things like evidence of his statements, his access Hollywood statements and claims by other women of sexual assault. Essentially, the courts below held that, listen, even if those were impermissible, there was a host of other evidence in this case that fully supported the jury's verdict and the Supreme Court, as is usual with cases like this, decided not to even touch it. Kim, what is your sense of what we got today from the Supreme Court? I think overall, despite the fact that, as you pointed out, there were some defeats issued to Trump, but I think the gravity of his win really dramatically overshadows it. I mean, it's hard to overstate what the slaughter decision does in expanding the power of the executive beyond all bounds that we have seen in the 250 years of this nation's history. It's basically saying the executive branch works at the beck and call of the president.

and he can impose loyalty tests on everyone who works beneath him, including the experts at agencies whose job it is to keep drugs safe, whose job it is to ensure that they're not unfair trade practices or unsafe working conditions or that the crib you put your baby in is safe. All of these people can be hired based on their loyalty to a president as opposed to their duty to the American people. And even worse, the Supreme Court overturned a 90-year-old precedent in doing so. So we can't even rely on precedent of the Supreme Court anymore. I think the Supreme Court, in a way, expanded its own power, but in another way just really, really did further damage to its own reputation. Sonia Sotomayor is sort of speaking for millions of Americans in her dissents. What did you make of John Roberts not even being able to meet her gays? I wasn't surprised when I saw that reporting. I wasn't in the courtroom, but I was not surprised when I saw that reporting. I think one thing we are increasingly seeing, which is really problematic in my view about this court, is not only the disdain that members of the conservative supermajority have shown to precedent, to constitutional interpretation, to history, to all of it, but also the growing... that the justices are at showing disdain for their colleagues in the minority who had last week Samuel Alito snapping at Justice Sonia Sotomayor on the bench. And today, John Roberts not even being able to meet her gaze. I find that so disrespectful. I wouldn't treat my most annoying coworker that way, let alone being a justice on the bench and doing that. I think to me it just shows. the disdain that some members of the majority have for even their own colleagues. Yeah, I mean, I've said this about MAGA voters, they're terrible winners, you know, Thomas Massie made this point. Like, we win everything. What's wrong with our election? It extends to the court. Like, they're in the supermajority. Like, they get to do whatever. And they're like awful, awful winners. They win everything. They control the court. And they're miserable about it. It would seem from what's reported again. Anyway, Kim, it's wonderful to see you. Thank you so much for being here today on this. Thank you. After the break, Congress hands Donald Trump, the affordable housing bill. He didn't want to sign. We'll bring it the latest on that next.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has formally sent the bipartisan housing bill to the White House for Donald Trump's signature. Trump now has 10 days to sign the bill. And if he doesn't, it automatically becomes law unless he vetoes it. Late this afternoon, he called it unimportant. The housing bill was supposed to be signed into law last week. However, Trump decided to take his toys and go home, canceling a vote signing ceremony because he wanted the Senate to prioritize his prized and deeply unpopular voter suppression law, the SAVE Act, which does not even have enough Republican votes to pass. While that affordable housing bill sits on Trump's desk, he once again demanded on social media that the Senate passed the SAVE Act in the wake of the Supreme Court dealing him a loss on the issue of mail-in voting. We'll keep an eye on all of this. When we come back, Donald Trump is still very, very, very mad that no one came to his party on the mall. We'll tell you about it next.

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