Strict Scrutiny

Melissa and Leah cover this week’s legal horrors out of the Trump administration, including the President’s ban on certain media outlets from the White House, as well as his attacks on the Kennedy Center and the Presidential Records Act. Also covered: Kash Patel on bestiality, ammosexual wins of the week, a proposed ballot measure in Idaho to protect reproductive freedom, and Donald Trump Jr.’s Russian oligarch sugar daddy. Then, Melissa sits down with Crooked’s very own Alex Wagner to talk about her new book The Steal: Four Right-Wing Hard-Liners, One Republican Presidency, and the Raid on America's Courts. Check out Alex’s show, Runaway Country, wherever you pod.

Favorite things:

• Leah:Alex Wagner’s The Steal; PONIES (Peacock); The Women of Yesteryear, Kate Manne (More to Hate); The Retirement Plan, Sue Hincenbergs
• Melissa: The Steal; Kash Patel getting roasted on social media

Take the Strict Scrutiny survey.

New Strict merch available here.

You can now listen to Strict Scrutiny for CLE credits in California, New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Washington, and Oregon! More info at crooked.com/strict_cle

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE on November 6th in Washington, DC: Crookedcon.com

Buy Melissa’s book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader

Buy Leah’s book, Lawless, now out in paperback

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

For a transcript of an episode of Strict Scrutiny please email [email protected]

In the third installment of our Hot Supreme Court Reform September series, Leah sits down with Daphna Renan and Nikolas Bowie to discuss how judicial supremacy became the default operating system of the federal government, and how limiting the Supreme Court’s power to decline to enforce federal statutes is a crucial tool for reining it in. Niko and Daphna’s book is Supremacy: How Rule by the Court Replaced Government by the People. Enter the giveaway here!

Take the Strict Scrutiny survey.

New Strict Scrutiny merch available here.

You can now listen to Strict Scrutiny for CLE credits in California, New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Washington, and Oregon! More info at crooked.com/strict_cle

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE on November 6th in Washington, DC: Crookedcon.com

Buy Melissa’s book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader

Buy Leah’s book, Lawless, now out in paperback

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

For a transcript of an episode of Strict Scrutiny please email [email protected]

Kate, Leah and Melissa hop on to break down the Supreme Court’s decision to block the Trump administration’s Postal Service regulation announcing it would not deliver mail-in ballots unless states adopted a bunch of last-minute, unnecessary, burdensome, and impossible policies governing mail in ballots. They cover Trump’s tantrum over the decision, Brett Kavanaugh’s endlessly pathetic pick-me energy, and Sam Alito’s God tier false equivalencies.

Take the Strict Scrutiny survey.

New Strict merch available here.

You can now listen to Strict Scrutiny for CLE credits in California, New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Washington, and Oregon! More info at crooked.com/strict_cle

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE on November 6th in Washington, DC: Crookedcon.com

Buy Melissa’s book,The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader

Buy Leah’s book, Lawless, now out in paperback

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

For a transcript of an episode of Strict Scrutiny please email [email protected]

Melissa is joined by guest co-host Rashad Robinson, political strategist, media advocate, and former president of Color Of Change, to run through last week’s legal news, which involves SCOTUS’s latest shadow docket shenanigans, campaign finance fights, and Missouri Republican efforts to push a mid-cycle congressional redistricting plan that could eliminate a Democratic seat. Also: a Strict Scrutiny history lesson on the “segregation academies” created across the South in resistance to school integration, and how new proposed regulations from the Trump administration have the potential to utterly remake education and turn the dial back to a time when American education was racially divided. Then Melissa, Leah and Kate sit down with Niko Bowie & Daphna Renan to talk about their new book, Supremacy: How Rule by the Court Replaced Government by the People. Enter the giveaway for Supremacy here! Public comments on racial nondiscrimination in private schools here.

Favorite Things: 

• Melissa:Rashad Robinson’s From Presence to Power: How to Take On the Fights That Matter--and Win; Where the Girls Were by Kate Schatz; A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck by Sophie Elmhirst

• Rashad: U.S. Open specifically Coco Gauff, Frances Tiafoe, and Ben Shelton; ADULTS, The Scrub Episode (FX); The Disappearers by Marlon James 

Take the Strict Scrutiny survey.

New Strict merch available here.

You can now listen to Strict Scrutiny for CLE credits in California, New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Washington, and Oregon! More info at crooked.com/strict_cle

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE on November 6th in Washington, DC: Crookedcon.com

Buy Melissa’s book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader

Buy Leah’s book, Lawless, now out in paperback

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

For a transcript of an episode of Strict Scrutiny please email [email protected]

Nate Silver, Clare Malone, and Galen Druke discuss the most competitive Senate races heading into the midterms in this excerpt from their new podcast, Still Counting. To hear the rest, head over to Still Counting and subscribe! New episodes drop every Wednesday evening.

You can request a transcript by emailing [email protected]. Include the podcast name, episode title, and air date. Please allow 48 hours for delivery.

In part two of our Hot Supreme Court Reform September series, Kate and the Brennan Center’s Alicia Bannon make the case for term limits for the Court. The idea has bipartisan support, but what would they look like in practice? And, crucially, does Congress have the power to impose them? 

Take the Strict Scrutiny survey.

New Strict merch available here.

You can now listen to Strict Scrutiny for CLE credits in California, New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Washington, and Oregon! More info at crooked.com/strict_cle

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE on November 6th in Washington, DC: Crookedcon.com

Buy Melissa’s book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader

Buy Leah’s book, Lawless, now out in paperback

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

For a transcript of an episode of Strict Scrutiny please email [email protected]

How do you solve a problem like SCOTUS? Kate kicks off our Hot Supreme Court Reform September series with the New York Times’ Jamelle Bouie. They dig into the ins and outs of expanding the Court: what the process could look like, the argument for making the entire federal judiciary bigger, and how to avoid an FDR-style fail.

Take the Strict Scrutiny survey.
New Strict merch available here.
You can now listen to Strict Scrutiny for CLE credits in California, New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Washington, and Oregon! More info at crooked.com/strict_cle

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE on November 6th in Washington, DC: Crookedcon.com

Buy Melissa’s book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader

Buy Leah’s book, Lawless, now out in paperback

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

For a transcript of an episode of Strict Scrutiny please email [email protected]

In this bonus episode, Leah and Melissa break down the Supreme Court’s decision to let Trump move forward with plans for a White House ballroom, despite lower courts finding that the project cannot proceed without congressional authorization and appropriated funds. They also discuss a whistleblower’s allegations that the federal government is defying court orders on voting by mail, and new reporting from Jodi Kantor on the Supreme Court’s secretive policies governing when the justices’ papers and internal records will be made public.

• Take the Strict Scrutiny survey.
• New Strict merch available here.
• You can now listen to Strict Scrutiny for CLE credits in California, New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Washington, and Oregon! More info at crooked.com/strict_cle
• Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE on November 6th in Washington, DC: Crookedcon.com
• Buy Melissa’s book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader
• Buy Leah’s book, Lawless, now out in paperback
• Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky
• For a transcript of an episode of Strict Scrutiny please email [email protected] 

Kate and Leah break down last week's atrocious shadow docket order on the President's wildly illegal executive order concerning elections and absentee ballots, which furthers the administration's effort to, as Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warns, "foment chaos ahead of the November elections." Then, after touching on other legal news from the week, Leah speaks with former Governor of North Carolina—and current Senate candidate—Roy Cooper about the Court’s gutting of election law and what he’ll do about it when he’s elected. Finally, we kick off Hot SCOTUS Reform September with a conversation about docket reform featuring One First’s Steve Vladeck. Look out for our bonus series on Supreme Court reform every Thursday in September!

Favorite things:

• Leah: Pumpkin spice latte season; Taylor Swift’s Icon Session; Operation Metro Surge resistance takes center stage in State Fair art (MPR News); KBJ’s dissent in Trump v. California
• Kate: Paradiso 17, Hannah Lillith Assadi; Ordinary People, Extraordinary Times, Skye Perryman; The Political Supreme Court, Rachel A. Shelden; End Times Fascism, Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor; meeting Mikey Friedman and learning about Page Break; Dolly Parton tributes

Take the Strict Scrutiny survey.

New Strict merch available here.

You can now listen to Strict Scrutiny for CLE credits in California, New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Washington, and Oregon! More info at crooked.com/strict_cle

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE on November 6th in Washington, DC: Crookedcon.com

Buy Melissa’s book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader

Buy Leah’s book, Lawless, now out in paperback

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

For a transcript of an episode of Strict Scrutiny please email [email protected]

In the second episode of our Know Your Rights series, Leah and Melissa sit down with NYU Law’s Daniel Harawa to break down what you do—and don't—have to say when law enforcement stops you. They cover the difference between being seized and a consensual encounter, and the crucial distinction between knowing your rights on paper and using your judgment to stay safe in the moment.

You can now listen to Strict Scrutiny for CLE credits in California, New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Washington, and Oregon! More info at crooked.com/strict_cle

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE on November 6th in Washington, DC: Crookedcon.com

Buy Melissa’s book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader

Buy Leah’s book, Lawless, now out in paperback

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

For a transcript of an episode of Strict Scrutiny please email [email protected]

Huge news for lawyers: You can now listen to Strict Scrutiny for CLE credits in California, New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Washington, and Oregon! More info at crooked.com/strict_cle

Leah is joined by guest co-host Somil Trivedi, advocacy director & senior counsel at Court Accountability, to run through last week’s legal news, which involves a whole lot of straight up fascism, the corruption that enables it, and the rising tide of Christian nationalism. They also ask the important questions: Who’s the richest SCOTUS justice? And…what exactly is Trump babysitter Natalie Harp’s whole deal? Then Melissa sits down with Jesse Wegman for a conversation about his book, The Lost Founder: James Wilson and the Forgotten Fight for a People's Constitution.

Favorite Things:

• Leah: The Natalie Harp saga; The Five-Star Weekend (Peacock); Lost Weekend, Phoebe Bridgers; He Was Deported to a Country He’d Never Heard Of. He May Never Go Free, Nicholas Casey (NYT); Kate’s conversation with Julia Angwin and Ami Fields-Meyer about their book, On Courage; The Wrong Kind of American, Julia Curlee (The Atlantic)

• Somil: Lost Weekend, Phoebe Bridgers; Frozen Charlotte, Jack White

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE on November 6th in Washington, DC: Crookedcon.com

Buy Melissa’s book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader

Buy Leah’s book, Lawless, now out in paperback

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

For a transcript of an episode of Strict Scrutiny please email [email protected]

Huge news for lawyers: You can now listen to Strict Scrutiny for CLE credits in California, New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Washington, and Oregon! More info at crooked.com/strict_cle

Kate is joined by Liz Oyer, former DOJ pardon attorney and federal public defender, to tick through last week’s news. Among the items covered: Todd Blanche’s swearing-in by lackey Emil Bove, the latest attempt by the administration to expand executive privilege, the renewed vendetta against the Fed’s Lisa Cook, and John Roberts’ Substack debut…That’s right, the Chief is out here postin’. Then, a conversation with Julia Angwin and Ami Fields-Meyer about their new book, On Courage: How to Be a Dissident in an Age of Fear. Check out Liz’s podcast, Is This Really Legal?.

Favorite things:

• Kate: Just Security’s Reinvention Blueprints; One Woman’s Message From the Hell of ICE Detention, Maryam Tahmasebi; John Oliver on the DOJ; Trump’s catering cart caper 

• Liz:How to Rule the World: An Education in Power at Stanford University, Theo Baker; The Things We Never Say, Elizabeth Strout; Ponies (Peacock)

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE on November 6th in Washington, DC: Crookedcon.com

Buy Melissa’s book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader

Buy Leah’s book, Lawless, now out in paperback

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

For a transcript of an episode of Strict Scrutiny please email [email protected]

In part one of our two-part Know Your Rights series, Leah speaks with Brooklyn Law School’s Jocelyn Simonson about copwatching. They cover what the law says about filming police and federal officers like ICE agents, the line between protected observation and unlawful interference, and how to think about navigating the gap between exercising your constitutional rights and personal safety. Jocelyn’s book is Radical Acts of Justice: How Ordinary People Are Dismantling Incarceration.

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE on November 6th in Washington, DC: Crookedcon.com

Buy Melissa’s book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader

Buy Leah’s book, Lawless, now out in paperback

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

For a transcript of an episode of Strict Scrutiny please email [email protected]

Melissa and Justice Correspondent for The Nation Elie Mystal sift through the results of last week’s primaries, including good news from Missouri and Kansas, with a detour on why Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed needs to shape up on Court reform. Then, the latest installment of Todd Blanche’s confirmation process for Attorney General and the many misdeeds at the department he hopes to permanently lead: letting insurrectionists off the hook, the targeting of the Southern Poverty Law Center as well as a progressive judge who used to work there, and assaults on the fourth estate. Also: welcome to the resistance…Jeanine Pirro? And finally, a late-breaking update on the Trump administration's continuing war on birthright citizenship. 

Favorite things:

• Elie: Jouppi v. Alaska

• Melissa:Crash Into Me, Robinne Lee

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE on November 6th in Washington, DC: Crookedcon.com

Buy Melissa’s book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader

Buy Leah’s book, Lawless, now out in paperback

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

For a transcript of an episode of Strict Scrutiny please email [email protected]

Huge news for lawyers: You can now listen to Strict Scrutiny for CLE credits in California, New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Washington, and Oregon! More info at crooked.com/strict_cle

Kate and Leah have good news and bad news. The good: The Paramount/Warner Brothers merger is on hold, the Tate brothers are facing extradition, and Todd Blanche’s nomination for AG has hit a roadblock. The bad: …Everything else. They also cover the ongoing prosecution of Jim Comey for seashell art, and speak with UCLA Law’s Rick Hasen about Trump’s effort to assert presidential control over federal elections. Then, Kate checks in with Farah Diaz-Tello, senior counsel and legal director for If/When/How, on what she and her colleagues are seeing when it comes to the use of the criminal law to target both abortion and people who experience pregnancy loss after Dobbs.

Favorite things:

• Kate: Olga Dies Dreaming, Xochitl Gonzalez; A Setback for the MAGA Media Takeover, Michelle Goldberg (NYT); Dancing to Stave Off Dementia, Emily Goligoski (Harper's Bazaar); Creating the Administrative Constitution: The Lost One Hundred Years of American Administrative Law, Jerry L. Mashaw
• Leah: Music, Fashion, Film, Charli xcx; Who's the Clown?, Audrey Hobert; This Is the Plan: How to End America's Meltdown and Save Democracy, Ben Wikler; Why Do We Tolerate Elon Musk's Racist Commentary?, Jamelle Bouie (New York Times); Supreme Court Job Approval Slumps to Record Low (Gallup)

• Rick: Jo Nesbø's Detective Hole (Netflix); Lucky (Apple); The Elephants in the Room: How Trump Voters Seized the Party from Republican Leaders, Seth Masket; Backlash Presidents: From Transformative to Reactionary Leaders in American History, Julia R. Azari

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE on November 6th in Washington, DC: Crookedcon.com

Buy Melissa’s book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader

Buy Leah’s book,

Huge news for lawyers: You can now listen to Strict Scrutiny for CLE! More info at crooked.com/strict_cle

Friend of the Pod Emily Amick of Emily in Your Phone joins Leah to break down the week’s legal news, and the various and sundry ways due process is getting railroaded by Trump, the courts, and the terrible (mostly) men therein. While no discussion of bad decisions would be complete without the Fifth Circuit, we also have an appearance from Senator Josh Hawley, whose effort to limit information on medical abortion options has disturbing links to the playbook used against gender-affirming care. Then, Leah speaks with Kalpana Kotagal, Commissioner at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, about being the lone Democratic appointee after Trump fired the others, and the work of the Commission in a post-independent agency world. Check out Emily’s Substack, Instagram, and her book, Democracy in Retrograde.

Favorite things:

• Leah:The Off Campus Series, Elle Kennedy; Game of Rogues, Julie Anne Long; Andrew Tate's Empire of Abuse, Heidi Blake (+ Blake’s interview with WITHpod); Autonomy News; this decision from the Hawaii Supreme Court; Subpoenas About Reporting on Qatar Gifted Air Force One Are Withdrawn After Argument in SDNY, Matthew Russell Lee (Inner City Press)
• Emily: Careless People, Sarah Wynn-Williams; The God of the Woods, Liz Moore; Ride or Die (Amazon Prime); Smitten Kitchen’s zucchini pasta
  
  

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE on November 6th in Washington, DC: Crookedcon.com

Buy Melissa’s book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader

Buy Leah’s book, Lawless, now out in paperback

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

For a transcript of an episode of Strict Scrutiny please email

Kate brings you a triptych of legal happenings this week. First, the latest news with friend of the pod Katie Phang, including a look at Todd Blanche’s Senate confirmation hearing, which certainly confirmed one thing: once you’re Trump’s personal lawyer, you’re forever Trump’s personal lawyer. Then, a conversation about making the courts an electoral issue and why we need fresh candidates for judicial seats with Run for Something’s Amanda Litman. Finally, ahead of a crucial August 4th ballot measure in Kansas, Kate speaks with Micah Kubic, Executive Director of the ACLU of Kansas, and Emily Wales, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, about how Republicans in Kansas are trying to change how justices are selected for the state supreme court in order to walk back abortion rights. Check out Katie’s YouTube channel & Substack and pre-order Amanda Litman’s book, When We’re in Charge, in paperback.

Favorite things:

• Kate:Road trips, HUMBE

• Amanda:This Is the Plan: How to End America's Meltdown and Save Democracy, Ben Wikler; Ungodly Rich, Katharine McGee; Down to Earth, Julia Turshen

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE on November 6th in Washington, DC: Crookedcon.com

Buy Melissa’s book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader

Buy Leah’s book, Lawless, now out in paperback

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

For a transcript of an episode of Strict Scrutiny please email [email protected]

Kate is joined by returning guest and friend of the show, Kim Lane Scheppele, the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Sociology and International Affairs at Princeton, and one of the world’s leading scholars of democratic backsliding, autocracy, and the rule of law. They discuss how the Supreme Court has been “captured,” the ways Donald Trump is attempting to remake Washington, D.C., in his image, and what Hungary can teach us about autocracy and how to recover from it.

Favorite things:

• Kate:Emil Bove Defended Trump in Court. Then Trump Made Him a Judge, Mattathias Schwartz (NYT); Mailman: My Wild Ride Delivering the Mail in Appalachia and Finally Finding Home, Stephen Starring Grant

• Kim:Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, Maggie Haberman & Jonathan Swan; Into the Wood Chipper: A Whistleblower's Account of How the Trump Administration Shredded USAID, Nicholas Enrich; The Dual State, Ernst Fraenkel; The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt; It Can't Happen Here, Sinclair Lewis; Borgen - Power & Glory (Netflix); Gok Wan's Easy Asian (Prime Video)

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE on November 6th in Washington, DC: Crookedcon.com

Buy Melissa’s book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader

Buy Leah’s book, Lawless, now out in paperback

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

For a transcript of an episode of Strict Scrutiny please email [email protected]

Melissa, Kate, and Leah take a look back on this Supreme Court term as a whole. The hypocrisy, the racism, the sheer stupidity... it's all here!

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE on November 6th in Washington, DC: Crookedcon.com
Buy Melissa’s book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader

Buy Leah’s book, Lawless, now out in paperback

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

For a transcript of an episode of Strict Scrutiny please email [email protected]

In their second emergency episode in two days, Leah, Melissa, and Kate break down the Court’s final day of the term and folks, it’s a doozy. We’ve got America’s preeminent “father of daughters” Coach Brett Kavanaugh’s majority opinion allowing states to exclude trans women and girls from female sports teams, a massive blow to campaign finance law, and the survival of birthright citizenship by the skin of the 14th Amendment’s teeth. To top it all off, we got an Alito retirement fakeout courtesy of NPR.

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE on November 6th in Washington, DC: Crookedcon.com

Buy Melissa’s book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader

Buy Leah’s book, Lawless, now out in paperback

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

For a transcript of an episode of Strict Scrutiny please email [email protected]

In this emergency episode, Leah and Kate break down today’s incredibly consequential decisions in Trump v. Slaughter and Trump v. Cook, which followed the Project 2025 playbook to rewrite almost a century of precedent regarding presidential power. They also discuss how close the Court came to ruling that states can’t count absentee ballots that are cast by election day but received after election day in Watson v. RNC.

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE on November 6th in Washington, DC: Crookedcon.com

Buy Melissa’s book,The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader

Buy Leah’s book, Lawless, now out in paperback

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

For a transcript of an episode of Strict Scrutiny, please email [email protected].

Melissa, Leah, and Kate briefly recap the Court’s two major immigration decisions last week (for a deeper dive, check out last week’s emergency episode), before digging into the Second Amendment case, Wolford v. Lopez, which featured a cage match between private property rights and the right to bear arms, as well as Sam Alito’s funhouse-mirror version of history. Also covered: opinions involving green card holders, tax foreclosures, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, corporate liability for human rights abuses, and pesticides. They wrap up the show with some of the latest voting rights news.

Favorite things:

• Leah:Kate on Hasan Minhaj’s podcast; JD Vance’s Richard Nixon revival; SDNY on trans minors

• Kate:Judge Patrick J. Schiltz’s opinion quashing the subpoenas to state and local Minnesota officials

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE on November 6th in Washington, DC: Crookedcon.com

Buy Melissa’s book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader

Buy Leah’s book, Lawless, now out in paperback

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

For a transcript of an episode of Strict Scrutiny please email [email protected].

In this emergency episode, Kate, Melissa, and Leah unpack the two major immigration opinions handed down by SCOTUS today. The brutal TL;DR, courtesy of Justice Sotomayor: “The consequences of today’s decision are predictable. More people will die.”

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE on November 6th in Washington, DC: Crookedcon.com

Buy Melissa’s book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader

Buy Leah’s book, Lawless, now out in paperback

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

Leah, Melissa, Kate, and special guest Elie Mystal of The Nation speculate about why the Court is hoarding opinions this late into bad decision season before diving deep on the ruling in United States v. Hemani, which features drugs, the Second Amendment, and Amy Coney Barrett’s iconic Ambien jar. Plus: a new summer cocktail makes its debut, and no holds are barred, especially when it comes to Trump’s flop makeover of the Reflecting Pool. This episode was recorded live at the Gramercy Theatre in New York City.

Favorite things:

• Leah:Barack Obama’s speech at the opening of his presidential center, 
• Kate:Michelle Obama’s speech; Obama and Mamdani Show How It’s Done, Jamelle Bouie (NYT) 
• Melissa: Becoming (Netflix); her award-winning audiobook
  
  

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE on November 6th in Washington, DC: Crookedcon.com

Buy Melissa’s book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader

Buy Leah’s book, Lawless, now out in paperback

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

Kate and Leah cover this week’s three Supreme Court opinions—one featuring a killer Ketanji Brown Jackson dissent—before turning to legal news, where bad behavior is everywhere. We’ve got a violent judge who can’t park in Idaho, politically motivated prosecutors in Chicago, and Trump’s generationally incompetent personal lawyers failing to do basic lawyering. Finally, Leah speaks with Mary Moriarty, Hennepin County (MN) Attorney, about the charges her office has filed against ICE agents, the breakdown in cooperation between local authorities and the feds, and FAFO, the new coalition of prosecutors fighting back against federal overreach. The paperback edition of Leah’s book, Lawless, featuring brand-new material is out on Tuesday, June 16. Buy it here!

Favorite things:

• Leah: The Supreme Court Doesn’t Own the Constitution, Jamelle Bouie (NYT); Supreme Court rejects Alabama's request to let it kill Jeffery Lee with nitrogen gas this week, Chris Geidner (Law Dork)

• Kate: The Hill, Harriet Clark

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2026! 

• 6/20/26 – New York City

Leah and Melissa break down what may be a new low for the Court: granting Alabama’s request to reinstate racially discriminatory voting maps. Then, they turn to the big questions: how dead is Trump’s slush fund for insurrectionists? Just how awful are Acting AG Todd Blanche and Acting DNI Bill Pulte? Will Michigan’s Democratic senators stand up to Trump’s appalling nominee for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan? They also cover three SCOTUS opinions from last week before Melissa speaks with Yale Law Professor Judith Resnik about her recent book, Impermissible Punishments: How Prison Became a Problem for Democracy.

Favorite things:

• Leah: Maria Collett’s speech to the PA Senate on LA v. Callais; Autocratic Judging, Rebecca L. Brown and Lee Epstein (UCLA Law Review); AOC for President, Megan Wachspress (Liberal Currents); A Shocking Betrayal of Black Americans, Mara Gay (NYT)
• Melissa: Imar Lyman at the Kreeger Museum in DC

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2026! 

• 6/20/26 – New York City
  Learn more: http://crooked.com/events
  
  

Preorder Lawless in paperback (out June 16)

Buy Melissa’s bestselling book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

Leah, Kate, and Melissa recap another busy week in legal news, covering the continued fallout from the Voting Rights Act case, Louisiana v. Callais, the ongoing saga of the DOJ’s insurrectionist slush fund, wild twists with the Broadview Six, more ballroom drama, the curious case of the Georgia judge who had loud sex in her chambers and then lied about it, and more. They also cover SCOTUS opinions involving compassionate release for prisoners and compelled arbitration before Leah speaks with University of Michigan law professor Barbara McQuade about her book, The Fix: Saving America from the Corruption of a Mob-Style Government.

Favorite things:

• Kate: Trump's Illegal $250 Bill: A Micro-History of Autocracy, Ruth Ben-Ghiat (Lucid); How Callais broke the Voting Rights Act and weaponized the equal protection clause, Issa Kohler-Hausmann & Kevin Z. Yang (SCOTUSblog); Beg For Me (JADE Remix), Lilly Allen; Harmeet Dhillon Is Not Wasting Any Time, Quinta Jurecic (The Atlantic); Brown’s Advancing Impact on Maternal and Reproductive Health Lab
• Leah: Ronny Chieng’s Harvard speech; Hit the Wall, Gracie Abrams; Midnight Sun, Zara Larsson

• Melissa: Strangers, Belle Burden; her event at Politics and Prose at The Wharf on 6/3/26; Liar's Kingdom: How to Stop Trump's Deceit and Save America, Andrew Weissmann

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2026! 

• 6/20/26 – New York City

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

Buy Melissa’s bestselling book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader

Preorder a signed paperback of Leah’s book, Lawless, here.

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

Kate, Melissa, and Leah try to wrap their heads around Trump’s nearly $2 billion DOJ slush fund, which they agree may be—despite extremely stiff competition—the biggest act of trolling and self-dealing of his second term. The professors count the ways this is so, so illegal, and speculate on how it can be challenged (looking at you, Congress). They also cover other legal news and some SCOTUS opinions before speaking with Dorothy Roberts about her book, The Mixed Marriage Project: A Memoir of Love, Race, and Family. Enter Leah’s merch giveaway for the paperback edition of Lawless here!

Favorite things:

• Kate: Nikolas Bowie’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee
• Leah: It’s Not That Deep, Demi Lovato

• Melissa: Kin, Tayari Jones

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2026! 

• 6/20/26 – New York City

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

Buy Melissa’s bestselling book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader

Preorder a signed paperback of Leah’s book, Lawless, here.

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

Kate and Leah break down the Supreme Court’s extension of a stay allowing for continued mail-order access to mifepristone, from the Court’s unconscionable failure to meet its own arbitrary deadline to the unhinged dissents from Justices Thomas and Alito. They also cover last week’s other legal news before speaking with Ari Berman, national voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones, about the devastating fallout from the Court’s ruling in the Voting Rights Act case, Louisiana v. Callais. Finally, Melissa speaks with Kenji Yoshino and David Glasgow about their book, How Equality Wins: A New Vision for an Inclusive America.

Favorite things:

• Kate: Kavanaugh Hegseth Patel Bar Cold Open (SNL); The Shadow Docket (Last Week Tonight with John Oliver); This Is Getting Dangerous, Jamelle Bouie (NYT); Lawyering Without Law (The Knight First Amendment Institute); Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, Ari Berman
• Leah: Rock Music (Charli xcx); Sam Alito’s typos

• Ari: Blame John Roberts for Destroying the Voting Rights Act (Mother Jones); Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory and Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, David Blight; Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877, Eric Foner

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2026! 

• 6/20/26 – New York City

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

Buy Melissa’s bestselling book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader

Preorder a signed paperback of Leah’s book, Lawless, here.

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

Kate & Leah talk to Melissa about her new book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader, or, as we like to call it at Strict HQ, The Constitution (Melissa’s Version). Then all three unravel what happened with the Virginia Supreme Court invalidating voter-approved redistricting maps, along with other voting-related shenanigans in the wake of Callais. Finally, they talk with Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, about why and how anti-abortion forces are once again targeting mifepristone.
Favorite things:

• Kate: Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke; NYC Mayor Mamdani skipping the Met Gala to hang out with fashion industry workers; Chris Hayes’ interview with Molly Crabapple on Why Is This Happening?; the Artemis II crew answering kids’ questions on The Daily
• Leah: Middle of Nowhere, Kacey Musgraves; Dancing on the Wall, MUNA; “Who Will Stand Up to the Supreme Court Justices?” By Niko Bowie and Daphna Renan; “John Roberts Believes in an America That Doesn’t Exist,” by Jamelle Bouie
• Melissa: Amy Sherald’s Met Gala look
  
  

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2026! 

• 6/20/26 – New York City

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

Buy Melissa’s book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader

Preorder a signed paperback of Leah’s book, Lawless, here.

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky