To wrap up our series on Project 2025, Kate, Leah and Melissa are joined by NYU's Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of Strongmen: Mussolini To The Present to share her perspective as a historian on the Heritage Foundation's terrifying plans for the country.
Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2025!
We are excited to bring you a fascinating conversation with Attorney Diana Adams (they/them) of the Chosen Family Law Center, a New York City-based non-profit which advocates for LGBTQIA and other non-traditional families of all backgrounds and descriptions. Diana is one of the nation’s leading advocates for rethinking how governments, courts, employers, and other institutions can accommodate committed relationships beyond the norms of romantic and/or sexual monogamy, including those involving more than two people, platonic partnerships, non-traditional parenting arrangements, and the many other ways in which people can choose to be in family relationships. Topics include (among many other things) the surprisingly racist history of the term “nuclear family,” developments in local and state law since the Supreme Court’s monumental recognition of full marriage equality in 2015, and what an immigration system not fundamentally based in a 1950’s conception of white heteronormative marriage might look like.
Former President Donald J Trump keeps figuring out ways to escape criminal liability. The Supreme Court has thrown a wrench into the insurrection case and delayed sentencing in the campaign finance hush money case, while a Florida judge helped him slip out from under charges of recklessly mishandling classified documents… at least, for now.
But Trump has seen less success defending himself in civil courtrooms - including two judgments against him in defamation cases brought by writer E. Jean Carroll. Trump owes tens of millions of dollars.
On this episode of our series “The Law According to Trump,” is the civil court path to holding Trump to account in a way that actually sticks? Damon Hewitt, President and Executive Director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, speaks with host Andrea Bernstein about his case that uses the 150-year-old KKK Act to make Trump face consequences for his actions on January 6th.
This episode is member-exclusive. Listen to it now by subscribing to Slate Plus. By joining, not only will you unlock weekly bonus episodes of Amicus—you’ll also access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Amicus show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.
We begin with a brief update on Disney’s truly Mickey Mouse arguments in a Florida wrongful death lawsuit before discussing three other questionable legal claims from the week’s news:
As expected, Hunter Biden has tried to use findings from a Florida federal court that special counsel Jack Smith was unlawfully appointed to have his own pending federal tax charges dismissed in California. Can this creation of Aileen Cannon’s imagination survive in the wild?
Speaking of the BIDEN CRIME FAMILY: we review the final report from the House Republicans in support of impeaching Joe Biden--for, well you know. Something. If anyone wants to get around to it. What are we even doing here?
News this week that presidential candidate Donald Trump may have discussed delaying a Gaza ceasefire agreement with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu until after the election has set off yet another round of online demands for prosecution under the Logan Act of 1799. What’s the deal with this 225-year-old law--and are we ever going to get around to actually using it?
On June 13, 2024, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine holding that the plaintiffs lacked Article III standing to challenge the Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory actions regarding mifepristone. Join us to hear our panel break down the decision and discuss its potential ramifications.
Featuring: Adam Unikowsky, Partner, Jenner & Block LLP Megan M. Wold, Partner, Cooper & Kirk (Moderator) Prof. Teresa Stanton Collett, Professor and Director, Prolife Center, University of St. Thomas School of Law
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has been overruled by the Supreme Court more often, and more forcefully, than any other circuit during the past term. Why? What are the consequences for the judges of the Fifth Circuit, if any? Is this a problem for our judicial system, and if so, are there any remedies available? Listeners to Amarica’s Constitution will not be surprised to learn that Professor Amar has some ideas on this topic. He also grounds the problems and the solutions in history and structure, and lest one think this is a partisan attack on a conservative court, he tells of his past criticism of the then-ultra-liberal ninth circuit for analogous behavior.
Ben Rhodes of Crooked's Pod Save the World joins Leah and Kate to break down Project 2025's truly frightening foreign policy goals. Then, Leah and Melissa are joined by The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City's Meredith Marks. In addition to braving the "rumors and nastiness" of reality television, Meredith is also a graduate of Northwestern Law School. So who better to help analyze the intersection between reality TV and the law?
Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2025!
This week Matt shares a mostly under-the-radar story which has completely changed his understanding of the events of September 11, 2001.
As the 23rd anniversary of the attacks approaches, a mountain of information emerging from lawsuits filed by 9/11 families has revealed far more extensive ties between both al-Qaeda and at least two of the hijackers to the Saudi government than were ever previously known. Why has justice taken so long? How does the law even allow this suit to proceed, and why did Congress have to override Barack Obama’s veto to allow it to move forward? Why has some of the best journalism about this lawsuit been from Golf Digest? And has the time come for a second 9/11 commission to re-evaluate everything we thought we knew about the day that changed everything?
The power of the presidential pardon is a holdover from America’s colonial roots. But no one had used it like former President Trump. Over and over he kept pardoning his allies, and then, he’d welcome them back into the fold. . It seemed like he was rewarding these criminals for their loyalty, and belittling whole categories of crime, like fraud, campaign finance violations, and corruption. Is that what was really happening?
This week in our series called The Law According to Trump, we go deeper into Trump’s use of the pardon with Ciara Torres-Spelliscy. Torres-Spelliscy is a professor of law at Stetson University and the author of Corporate Citizen?: An Argument for the Separation of Corporation and State and Political Brands. Torres-Spelliscy speaks with host Andrea Bernstein about how Trump’s pardoning has hurt democracy, and what it means for the future of the country.
This episode is member-exclusive. Listen to it now by subscribing to Slate Plus. By joining, not only will you unlock weekly bonus episodes of Amicus—you’ll also access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Amicus show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.
