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<p>A show about the law and the nine Supreme Court justices who interpret it for the rest of America.</p><br><p>Get more Amicus with Slate Plus. Join to unlock weekly bonus episodes with exclusive legal analysis—plus ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe directly from the Amicus show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.</p><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>
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Grab Them by the Constitution
Published: October 10, 2026 07:00
Donald Trump brags about his boundless freedom while the same Supreme Court that handed him that power has curtailed everyone else's. Confidence in the court has cratered to historic lows, and waiting for a justice to retire is not actually a plan. Could a…
Cruel and Unusual, Bought and Paid For
Published: October 3, 2026 07:00
This week, the Supreme Court blessed the torture of a condemned woman, and the court is set to kick off the new term by doing fossil fuel's bidding. So here at Amicus, we’re not really in the mood for a razzle-dazzle “curtain raiser.” Instead, we’re taking…
Everybody Out of the Pool
Published: September 26, 2026 07:00
President Trump announced on Truth Social that he was banning CNN, Politico, and MSNow from the White House because he didn't like their coverage. Within days, a federal judge ordered the outlets be reinstated—but the White House dragged its feet. Hours…
One Ballot After Another
Published: September 19, 2026 07:00
You’ve seen the headlines about the lists, the claims, the THREE times this same executive order about voting by mail has gone to the Supreme Court. But is Trump’s interference with mail-in voting settled—at least with respect to the midterms? Our go-to…
Capitulation Nation
Published: September 12, 2026 07:00
Capitulation under Trump 2.0 has been devastating to the rule of law. To review a couple of lowlights: One of the nation’s leading lawyers, Brad Karp, cut a deal with Donald Trump in the first days of the bully-in-chief’s second administration that turned…
SCOTUS Rewrites the Rules for One Special Boy
Published: September 5, 2026 07:00
It’s past time to say it. This Supreme Court is helping President Donald J. Trump evade accountability. Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the Berkeley School of Law, joins Dahlia Lithwick to break down the conservative majority's procedural toolkit—standing,…
Becoming Justice Gorsuch | 3. A Lunch Room for Life
Published: August 29, 2026 07:00
With Amicus on a brief summer break, we’re bringing you the final installment of Slow Burn’s latest season, Becoming Justice Gorsuch. Host Susan Matthews enlists Slate’s jurisprudence team—Amicus co-hosts Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern—to discuss…
Becoming Justice Gorsuch | 2. The Stolen Seat
Published: August 22, 2026 07:00
With Amicus on a brief summer break, we’re bringing you the second installment of Slow Burn’s latest season, Becoming Justice Gorsuch.When Justice Antonin Scalia died in February of 2016, the Supreme Court appeared to be headed for a 5-4 liberal majority.…
Becoming Justice Gorsuch | 1. Man With a Plan
Published: August 15, 2026 07:00
Our friends over at the Slate podcast Slow Burn are good at taking events that we think are settled history, then unlocking a new understanding of those stories through interviews, archives, and fresh analysis. They’ve reexamined Supreme Court history…
By the People | Now It’s Your Turn
Published: August 8, 2026 07:00
In the final episode—for now—of our series on reclaiming constitutional power for every American, Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern urge you to consider the many ways you can make constitutional meaning in your life, your community, and your…
By The People | Two Steps Forward, One Step Back
Published: August 1, 2026 07:00
Long before the Supreme Court handed down the landmark Obergefell ruling on equal marriage in 2015, activists were canvassing door-to-door, courting any lawmaker who would listen, and losing at the local level—a lot. Their scrappy determination helped…
By the People | For the Children
Published: July 25, 2026 07:00
In 1867, an 8-year-old girl named Elizabeth Turner became the epicenter of a legal battle that would help define what freedom really meant after the Civil War. Days after Maryland abolished slavery, her former enslaver had her re-indentured under a sham…
By the People | Who Owns the Constitution?
Published: July 18, 2026 07:00
For the better part of two centuries of U.S. history, the American people understood that they—and not the Supreme Court—were the final arbiters of the Constitution. But in recent decades, nine unelected justices have claimed that mantle for themselves.…
The Term the Court Stopped Pretending
Published: July 11, 2026 07:00
The Supreme Court just wrapped one of its most consequential terms in decades—and Amicus brought together three heavyweight legal experts to break down the damage. Their conversation centers on the biggest themes of the recent term: Congress has been…
Bad History Will Kill America
Published: July 4, 2026 07:00
The Supreme Court just wrapped the term with a blitz of extremely consequential decisions, and the smoke hasn’t cleared yet. (In fact, it’s looming like a dark storm cloud over our Fourth of July and America 250th festivities…) In this week’s episode,…
A Constitutional Travesty Narrowly Avoided
Published: June 30, 2026 20:37
It was a weird and wild ride as the Supreme Court handed down the last decisions of the term that started all the way back in October of 2025. We were so much younger then. After 58 argued cases and a steady, sneaky stream of shadow docket orders, the…
Preview: Trump Can Fire (Almost) Anyone Now
Published: June 29, 2026 20:12
The end is nigh! Or, the end of this Supreme Court term is nigh, at least. On the second to last day of this term, the court’s right wingers delivered a sweeping ruling that will reshape the federal government for years to come. In Trump v. Slaughter, the…
The Roberts Court Shows Its True Colors
Published: June 27, 2026 07:00
Donald Trump ran for office threatening to use mass deportations, closed borders, and emergency wartime powers to “clean up” American immigration. On Thursday, the Supreme Court’s right-wing supermajority gifted him with two stunning victories in that…
Preview: All Gas, No Brakes for this 6-3 Court
Published: June 25, 2026 21:10
In this exclusive Opinionpalooza extra, Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern take stock of today’s truly horrendous decisions handed down by a right-wing Supreme Court supermajority that’s marching in perfect lockstep on immigration, gun rights, and…
Guns, Weed, and the Forgotten Framers
Published: June 20, 2026 07:00
The Supreme Court handed down a unanimous ruling this week in United States v. Hemani, holding that a marijuana user cannot be stripped of his Second Amendment right to own a firearm simply because he sometimes uses cannabis. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the…
A Huge Shift is Underway at SCOTUS
Published: June 13, 2026 07:00
The Second Reconstruction is being dismantled piece by piece, and this past month has seen that project attain terminal velocity. On this week’s Amicus podcast, Dahlia Lithwick talks with Stanford law professor and leading civil rights lawyer and scholar…
Concrete Plans to Restore Law, after Trump
Published: June 6, 2026 07:00
One of the challenges of modern legal journalism is recalling that case law, doctrine, and Supreme Court decisions aren’t a complete picture, without including the lived realities of the people whose lives and communities are often turned upside down by…
Preview: A Shattering Blow to Fair Elections
Published: June 3, 2026 19:42
The Supreme Court’s Republican-appointed justices seem to be in a big rush to dismantle voting rights for non-white people. On Tuesday night, the right-wing supermajority handed down an unsigned shadow docket order that greenlights racial gerrymandering in…
The Myth of John Roberts vs. Donald Trump
Published: May 30, 2026 07:00
Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern, Slate’s dynamic legal duo, preview the final weeks of the Supreme Court term. It’s a “three-ring circus”: the merits docket, the shadow docket, and the justices’ increasingly public intramural snipings and gripes.…
Trump’s Slush Fund Is Even Worse Than You Thought
Published: May 23, 2026 07:00
Donald Trump's $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization" settlement fund has stunned legal experts—not just because it's corrupt, but because of how skillfully and transparently it is designed to protect the Trump Family and reward loyalists. On this week's…
Return of the Abortion Pill Wars
Published: May 16, 2026 07:00
This week on Amicus, hosts Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern break down a whirlwind stretch of reproductive rights legal battles, from the Fifth Circuit's sweeping nationwide ban on telehealth medication abortion, to the Supreme Court's emergency order…
The “Civility” Problem for Judges
Published: May 9, 2026 07:00
Over the last few years, there’s been an undeniable uptick in threats against American judges and their families: they’ve been doxxed, swatted, even killed. Many jurists are not all that comfortable having conversations around these threats. This…
Racism’s Over and Seashells Can Be Deadly
Published: May 2, 2026 07:00
Dahlia Lithwick reviews what has been an “exceptionally bad week” for American democracy. Former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade explains why the charges against former FBI director James Comey, rooted in the claim that he threatened to kill President Trump…
Preview: The Worst Voting Rights Decision Since Jim Crow
Published: April 29, 2026 21:33
On Wednesday, Justice Samuel Alito delivered the latest, probably lethal blow in the Supreme Court’s decades-long campaign against multi-racial democracy in America, with a 6-3 majority opinion gutting what remained of the Voting Rights Act in Louisiana…
MAGA Media Law 101
Published: April 25, 2026 07:00
As journalists, a-listers, and some of the most vociferous critics of journalism from the Trump administration gather for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Dahlia Lithwick tackles the president and his allies’ tactics to chill the press and…
Trump Thwarted, Orban Toppled: The New Roadmap for Democrats
Published: April 18, 2026 07:00
Hungary’s autocratic creep was turned back at the ballot box last weekend, in a stark rebuke to the forces of illiberalism and to the American conservatives who invested so heavily in former Hungarian leader Viktor Orban’s mission. It’s good news. But it’s…
Time to Impeach Trump Again?
Published: April 11, 2026 07:00
The events of the past week have revealed a terrifying disconnect between the constitutional remedies available to us and the gravity of the threats posed by an utterly unfit President with his finger on the nuclear button. On this week’s Amicus, Dahlia…
Was it Worth it, Pam?
Published: April 4, 2026 07:00
It was a rough week for two of the top lawyers in the Trump administration, and it couldn’t happen to a nicer pair ... Ever since Donald Trump’s return to office and the installation of his (second choice) Attorney General, we’ve been tracking the toxic…
Preview: A Blowout for Birthright Citizenship at SCOTUS
Published: April 1, 2026 21:23
This bonus episode of Amicus, with full access exclusive for Slate Plus members, is a comprehensive exploration of Wednesday’s arguments in the Trump v. Barbara case on birthright citizenship. This landmark case challenges the executive order aimed at…
Trump Has a Plan for the Midterms, SCOTUS May Help
Published: March 28, 2026 07:00
On this week’s Amicus, Dahlia Lithwick checks in with Protect Democracy co-founder Ian Bassin about the United States’ speedy retreat from democracy, and how lawyers seeking to protect the constitution are adapting their strategies for Trump 2.0. While…
The Roberts Court’s Internal Reckoning
Published: March 21, 2026 07:00
This Supreme Court term has seen threats against the Justices – from the President, a slew of game-changing shadow docket opinions, justices sparring in public, and some of the most consequential cases of our lifetimes. If you’re feeling a little…
Immigration Myths and Birthright Citizenship
Published: March 14, 2026 09:00
Next month, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in the birthright citizenship case, Trump v. Barbara. It’s still somewhat unbelievable that the high court will entertain arguments in favor of gutting an utterly clear constitutional commitment.…
Church and State are Being Reunited, Thanks to SCOTUS
Published: March 7, 2026 08:00
On this week’s Amicus, Dahlia Lithwick explores the rise of Christian nationalism in America, its influence on the Supreme Court , and the implications for democracy and civil rights. Featuring Rachel Laser, CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church…
Preview: This War is Obscenely Illegal
Published: March 2, 2026 23:23
Trump’s actions in Iran have massive global impacts, but they also have serious legal implications. On this extra episode of Amicus, exclusive to our Plus members, Mark Joseph Stern is joined by military law expert Eugene Fidell, a visiting lecturer and…
Yes, Supreme Court Decisions Really Matter
Published: February 28, 2026 08:00
“Not on the level” is how Donald Verrilli Jr. describes the Trump administration’s general, current Supreme Court practices. The former United States Solicitor General joins Dahlia Lithwick to discuss the ways this radical new posture is forcing judges to…
Trump’s Tariffs Overturned
Published: February 21, 2026 08:00
The Supreme Court struck down Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on Friday, ruling 6–3 that they vastly exceed anything federal law allows a President to do. It was a massive loss for a signature component of Trump’s economic agenda, and a coalition of…
The Concentration Camp Next Door
Published: February 14, 2026 08:00
The machinery to enable Stephen Miller’s darkest deportation dreams is both tangible and legal. In this week’s show, Dahlia Lithwick explores the statutory and regulatory foundations of the Trump administration’s expanding network of detention camps, plus…
Trump Has a New “Big Lie” for the Midterms
Published: February 7, 2026 08:00
According to Marc Elias, Dahlia Lithwick’s guest on Amicus, “This week will be looked back on as a pivot point in terms of how the midterms play out.” Elias is a nationally recognized authority on voting rights, redistricting and campaign finance law. He…
Legal Blinkers, Moral Hazards
Published: January 31, 2026 08:00
Lawyers love legal reasoning. It promises a clean, clear path through sticky, tricky territory. But legal reasoning can enable grotesque real-world outcomes, like torture, or arresting journalists, or masked government agents detaining and disappearing…
Who Gave ICE Permission to Trample the Constitution?
Published: January 24, 2026 08:00
The evidence is mounting that ICE is not only unbothered by moral boundaries, but immigration and customs enforcement agents acting on behalf of President Trump believe they are not constrained by constitutional red lines, either. According to a…
Preview: Fed Up
Published: January 21, 2026 22:42
In this member-exclusive episode, co-hosts Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern discuss the Supreme Court’s fact-free foray into Trump v. Cook, a case that economists warn could crater the economy. President Donald Trump spent the first weeks of his…
Invoking the Insurrection Act
Published: January 17, 2026 08:00
President Trump REALLY wants to invoke the Insurrection Act. He’s fallen hard for this 200-year-old law that would allow him to deploy active duty military to enforce civilian law on American streets. On this week’s Amicus podcast, co-host Mark Joseph…
Renee Good and Trump’s Age of Immunity
Published: January 10, 2026 08:00
You saw it. We all saw it. We all saw what happened in Minneapolis when an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good for the crime of being in her car. This week on Amicus, Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern attempt to digest this week’s horrific events and…
The Fast Track To Autocracy
Published: January 3, 2026 08:00
In a special new year retrospective, Amicus host Dahlia Lithwick revisits an important episode from early 2025. Back at the beginning of February, Kim Lane Scheppele, the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Sociology and International affairs at Princeton…
What We Got Wrong About SCOTUS in 2025
Published: December 27, 2025 08:00
Over the past calendar year, the Supreme Court’s center has shifted to the right and then more to the right, and the justices’ decisions have time and again facilitated Trump’s agenda. But the Roberts majority is not simply focused on what the current…
The Forgotten Lawsuits Targeting Trump’s Worst Abuses
Published: December 20, 2025 08:00
In mid-March of 2025, ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt and his colleagues started hearing that the Trump administration might attempt a flagrantly lawless publicity stunt, involving migrant men, secret flights to El Salvador, a notorious gulag, and a total…
One Amendment Explains It All
Published: December 13, 2025 08:00
Trump decided this past week that there was no downside to fully embracing the racist “shithole countries” rhetoric he denied seven years ago; but this mask coming fully off is just the latest chapter in a decades-long campaign to gut a very specific part…
SCOTUS Greenlights Trump, Gaslights America
Published: December 6, 2025 08:00
While the Secretary of Defense pursues lawless boat strikes with a laser focus on maximum trolling, the Supreme Court is working to undermine voting rights with a laser focus on maximum support for Republicans. In this week’s episode of Amicus, Dahlia…
The Three Faces Of Trumpism
Published: November 29, 2025 08:00
By design – and also by dint of unbridled, undisciplined extremist exuberance – Donald Trump’s second stint in the White House is thus far a tricky thing to characterize. While many of the administration’s moves seem copy/pasted from a manual for…
The DOJ's Prosecutorial Malpractice Keeps Spilling Out in Court
Published: November 22, 2025 08:00
Dahlia Lithwick is joined by former federal prosecutor Mimi Rocah, who brings her extensive experience trying and supervising federal criminal cases to a discussion of what the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse can teach us about justice. She…
He Quit the Bench to Raise the Alarm
Published: November 15, 2025 08:00
Dahlia Lithwick welcomes retired federal judge Mark Wolf for his first ever podcast interview. The Reagan-appointed jurist made headlines last week with his searing indictment of the threat posed to the rule of law and democracy by the current…
When Tariffs Crashed Into SCOTUS
Published: November 8, 2025 08:00
The Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices have been treating the Trump administration with such extreme deference that we were honestly a little flummoxed listening to this week’s arguments over his “Liberation Day” tariffs. Shockingly, during…
The Federal Judiciary Is Trapped
Published: November 1, 2025 07:00
“The Chief Justice… is presiding over the end of the rule of law in America”. That quote did not come from host Dahlia Lithwick, but this week’s guest, former Federal Circuit Court Judge and George H. W. Bush appointee, J Michael Luttig. On this week’s…
Demolition Man
Published: October 25, 2025 07:00
Bulldozers and bulwarks are the twin themes of this week’s show, as Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Joyce White Vance, a longtime federal prosecutor and clarion voice in defense of the rule of law, despite its flaws. As Pam Bondi’s Justice department chases…
Voting Rights, But Mainly for White People
Published: October 18, 2025 07:00
Janai Nelson, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund argued in defense of the Voting Rights Act in the pivotal Supreme Court case, Louisiana v Callais this week. Nelson joins Dahlia Lithwick on this episode of Amicus to probe the implications of the…
Trump’s Insurrection Claims Could Lead American Democracy Off a Cliff
Published: October 11, 2025 07:00
Troops on America's streets, threats of “plenary powers”, and extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean have prompted members of the military past and present to say that we are in the biggest civil/military crisis since the Civil War. On this week's Amicus,…
This Will Be Trump’s Best Term at the Supreme Court Yet
Published: October 4, 2025 07:00
Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern are joined by Vox’s Ian Millhiser to discuss the upcoming Supreme Court term, which officially starts on Monday. The term begins with a slew of wildly significant cases that feel all but decided in the Trump…
“Color-Blind” Admissions Continue to Hurt Us
Published: September 27, 2025 07:00
The week ended with a Grand Jury Indictment of former FBI Director James Comey for what looks to be a pair of unprovable crimes. Indeed the US Attorney overseeing the case declined to bring the indictment for that very reason. He’s gone and Donald Trump’s…
Free Speech Is The Enemy of Free Speech, Apparently
Published: September 20, 2025 07:00
Dahlia Lithwick talks to First Amendment law professor Mary Anne Franks to explore the inversion of free speech in America this past week, and to trace the ways our assumptions about the First Amendment helped to tip us into this upside-down. Dr. Franks,…
Dear Justice Kavanaugh, “I’m American, Bro”
Published: September 13, 2025 07:00
In this week’s episode of Amicus, we delve into the recent Supreme Court shadow docket order in Noem v. Vasquez-Perdomo, which in essence legalized racial profiling by roving ICE patrols, and in practice may have ushered in America’s “show your papers” era…
How To Fix Our Broken Constitution
Published: September 6, 2025 07:00
There is a “stuckness” to American political life right now, which has become a seemingly inexorable centrifuge of polarization, victimization and power grabbing. The constitution is brandished as sword and shield, and also as though it is the word of God.…
Is The National Guard Coming To Your City?
Published: August 30, 2025 07:00
In this episode of Amicus, Dahlia Lithwick discusses the recent deployment of the National Guard in Washington D.C. and its implications for checks and balances in the U.S. legal system. She is joined by Elizabeth “Liza” Goitein from the non-partisan…
Punished For Their Pregnancies
Published: August 23, 2025 07:00
Women were prosecuted for experiencing miscarriage or stillbirth even before the Supreme Court swept away the protections of Roe v. Wade. But these prosecutions have ramped up since, in both red and blue states. The stakes are ramping up too, with…
When Trump Hits New Jersey, This Lawyer Hits Back
Published: August 16, 2025 07:00
Law firms, universities, and businesses are bending the knee to the Trump administration at the slightest threat. Amid this shocking cowardice, blue states have been a bastion of defiance against the president’s escalating power grabs—with attorneys…
Who Gets Left Out of Originalism?
Published: August 9, 2025 07:00
The official history of America’s founding is often told as a whites-only story, a heroic tale of wealthy white men forging a new nation—with no mention of the people they excluded, displaced, or oppressed. But who gets left out of the story that…
Don’t Give Up on the Law Just Yet
Published: August 2, 2025 07:00
It’s easy to give up on the courts right now. SCOTUS is throwing down unreasoned decisions expanding Donald Trump’s authority, and Senate Republicans keep confirming the president’s cronies to lifetime judgeships, tarnishing the entire judiciary with their…
When Unaccountable People Come for Your Vote
Published: July 26, 2025 07:00
Civil rights are under attack. The Supreme Court seems to have its sights set on the Voting Rights Act. The Trump administration, meanwhile, is taking every issue to the court knowing that it will never have to face accountability there. And with states…
How To Build A Police State (With The Supreme Court’s Blessing)
Published: July 19, 2025 07:00
Over the last six months, life has been upended for millions of people in America as Stephen Miller's extreme immigration policies have been unleashed. And while the first weeks of the second Trump administration saw some genuine pushback from the Supreme…
The Call Is Coming From Inside The Court
Published: July 12, 2025 07:00
In this episode of Amicus, Dahlia Lithwick sits down with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse to dissect the most recent Supreme Court term and its implications. They explore Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson's emerging role and influence, the patterns of bias within…
Opinionpalooza 2025
Published: July 11, 2025 15:52
The Supreme Court wraps up a momentous term. Dahlia Lithwick, Mark Joseph Stern and guests break down the cases and the controversies, explaining what it means for you, and for American democracy. Need to set up your Slate Plus feed? If you subscribed…
Sneak Preview: SCOTUS Made it Worse
Published: July 5, 2025 07:00
Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern answer your questions about threats to federal judges, how far religious opt-outs can go in public schools in light of Mahmoud v. Taylor, and whether or not the rule of law in America is, in fact, cooked. This episode…
Our All-Star SCOTUS End-of-Term Breakfast Table
Published: July 2, 2025 07:00
Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern host the panel that’s guaranteed to help you understand what happened during the Supreme Court’s latest term – examining the major decisions, the emergency docket, and the evolving dynamics on the court. Dahlia and…
“No Right Is Safe”
Published: June 28, 2025 07:00
The cataclysmic opinions from SCOTUS on Friday certainly suggest that the courts can no longer save us. In fact, in Trump v. CASA., we learned that it’s somehow not actually the job of the courts to save us from blatant violations of our rights. With…
Sneak Preview: The Supreme Court's Worst Move Since Trump Returned to Office
Published: June 24, 2025 20:03
In this member-exclusive Opinionpalooza episode of Amicus, Dahlia Lithwick and co-host Mark Joseph Stern discuss the Supreme Court's shadow docket decision in the case of DHS vs. DVD, which allows for the deportation of migrants to third countries without…
The Many Compromises of Elena Kagan
Published: June 21, 2025 07:00
The Justices seem intent on packing their summer vacation bags and getting on their way. Earlier in the week, the court’s conservative supermajority upheld a Tennessee ban on gender-affirming care for trans kids. The logic behind the decision was…lacking…
Sneak Preview: SCOTUS Apparently Doesn’t Believe Trans People Exist
Published: June 18, 2025 20:00
In this Slate Plus exclusive episode, Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern analyse the Roberts Court's decision in Skrmetti, effectively bans gender-affirming care for trans minors in more than 20 states.This is part of Opinionpalooza, Slate’s coverage…
Tanks On DC’s Streets And A US Senator In Handcuffs
Published: June 14, 2025 07:00
America feels very different this weekend. While the president’s planned military parade (that just happens to coincide with his birthday) will see tanks and armored vehicles rolling through Washington DC, federalized National Guard and US Marines have…
There Is No Musk-Trump Feud Without The Roberts Court
Published: June 7, 2025 07:00
Money talks, and sometimes it speaks as law by fiat from the highest court in the land. In this episode of Amicus, Dahlia Lithwick delves into the impact of money on the judiciary and, eventually, on, democracy with Michael Podhorzer, a senior fellow at…
Sneak Preview: Unanimous Opinions Out Front, Desperate Dealmaking Out Back
Published: June 5, 2025 21:05
This is part of Opinionpalooza, Slate’s coverage of the major decisions from the Supreme Court this June. The best way to support our work is by joining Slate Plus. (If you are already a member, consider a donation or merch!)Also! Sign up for…
This End Of Term At SCOTUS Is Unlike Any Other in History
Published: May 31, 2025 07:00
The end (of the Supreme Court term) is nigh. This week, Amicus goes into June Opinionpalooza mode with some meta-analysis of what to look out for as the Supreme Court delivers dozens of decisions over the next month or so. Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph…
The Two Tracks of Justice
Published: May 24, 2025 07:00
This week’s episode attempts to understand the ways in which the law of Trump unfolds along two tracks at the same time. First, Mark Joseph Stern joins us to talk about the Supreme Court’s decision to let Trump fire the heads of independent agencies,…
SCOTUS Is About to Suffer Buyers Remorse, Again
Published: May 17, 2025 07:00
Our eyes this week were trained on the arguments over birthright citizenship at the Supreme Court on Thursday. While Solicitor General John Sauer advanced wild arguments on behalf of the Trump administration, four of the justices (hint: the women) seemed…
SCOTUS, Meet The Broligarchs
Published: May 10, 2025 07:00
After Silicon Valley’s yeet to the right after Donald Trump was elected in 2016, and the DOGE-ification of the federal government (read: chaos and abuse as the driving ethos of HR), it felt like high time to delve into the evolving relationship between…
The Un-American Project
Published: May 3, 2025 07:00
Whether it’s attempting to overturn birthright citizenship, effectively stripping citizenship from American children, or claiming Alien Enemy Act war powers under an imaginary invasion, Trump’s anti-immigrant moves are outlandishly unconstitutional. They…
The Anti-Trump Cases That Have Changed The Game
Published: April 26, 2025 07:00
As we approach President Trump’s 100th day in office (this time around) this Wednesday, Dahlia Lithwick checks in with one of the key architects of the litigation strategy that is successfully confounding the administration’s most exorbitant executive…
Playing Chicken With the Constitution
Published: April 19, 2025 07:00
Ever since March 15, when three flights carrying hundreds of men who had been afforded zero due process left United States airspace and landed in El Salvador, American democracy has been hurtling toward an internal conflict that the federal judiciary would…
A Lawyer’s Guide to Not Caving to the President
Published: April 12, 2025 07:00
On this week’s Amicus, autocratic creep in high and low gear. In high gear: The Supreme Court finally issued its order in Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s case, requiring that the government “facilitates” Abrego Garcia’s return from the El Salvadoran prison to which…
Sneak Preview: The Supreme Court Just Gave The Trump Administration Everything It Wanted—Almost
Published: April 8, 2025 19:30
Here’s a question for you. If you are scooped up by ICE (masked, covering badge numbers), then moved from one detention center to another in quick succession, before being hastily forced onto a flight to El Salvador where you are imprisoned in a “terrorism…
He Was Deported by Administrative Error. We Talked to His Lawyer.
Published: April 5, 2025 07:00
The US government’s use of a prison in El Salvador as an extra-judicial due-process free black site has been rendered starkly visible by the story of one man they tried to disappear. On this week’s Amicus, Dahlia Lithwick interviews Simon…
Trump’s Plan To Put A Chokehold On Voting
Published: March 29, 2025 07:00
The Trumpian inversion of reality was threaded into so many areas of the law and active litigation this week. Slate senior writer Mark Joseph Stern joins Dahlia Lithwick to discuss the apparent evaporation of judicial patience for Trump lawyers…
The Rule of Law Took A Very Dark Turn This Week
Published: March 22, 2025 07:00
If you’re overwhelmed by the sheer volume of lawless acts, constitutional crises (we count five), and huge Trump administration losses in court this week - honestly, same. But if anyone can render this swirling storm of lawsuits and orders and injunctions…
Sneak Preview: An Escalating Constitutional Crisis
Published: March 18, 2025 20:41
In this urgent extra episode of Amicus, host Dahlia Lithwick and Slate's senior writer Mark Joseph Stern discuss the unfolding constitutional crisis triggered by the Trump administration's defiance of a court order to halt flights carrying Venezuelan…
Big Law Stands Up
Published: March 15, 2025 07:00
Donald Trump continued his almost uninterrupted losing streak in the courts. Across the country we saw federal judges openly criticizing his Administration officials and their lawyers for overreach, bullying and misrepresentations about not only their…
The Constitutional Truth At The Heart Of The DOGE Cases
Published: March 8, 2025 08:00
Elon Musk’s moves at DOGE have been legally dubious from the start. And the more we learn, the more questions we have about this not-an-agency helmed by Musk –– who is apparently both in charge, and also not in charge. That’s why we wanted to talk with…
Sneak Preview: What Trump’s First Big Loss At SCOTUS Means
Published: March 5, 2025 19:00
On Wednesday morning the Supreme Court dealt a blow to the Trump administration's effort to withhold $2 billion promised for foreign aid work. Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern discuss the Court’s decision to reject the Trump administration's request…
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