Episode Details

The Washington Roundtable is joined by Stephen Vladeck, a Georgetown Law professor and self-proclaimed “Supreme Court nerd,” to examine President Trump’s increasing defiance of the Supreme Court. The panel discusses whether the Court’s strong rebuke of the President’s tariff policy obscures a broader pattern of expanding executive power through the use of emergency “shadow docket” rulings, a kind of shortcut for dealing with emergency requests. “I think that’s where the Justices have shown the most inclination to vote in ways that might be inconsistent as a matter of legal principle, but consistent as a matter of partisan political preference,” Vladeck says. Vladeck is the author of “The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic.” 

This week’s reading:

• “Donald Trump’s State of the Union Was Long and Wrong,” by Susan B. Glasser
• “The Supreme Court’s Complicated Takedown of Trump’s Tariffs,” by Amy Davidson Sorkin
• “The Right-Wing Nonprofit Serving A.I. Slop for America’s Birthday,” by Jessica Winter
• “The Media Merger You Should Actually Care About,” by Jon Allsop
• “Donald Trump’s Pantomime United Nations,” by Ishaan Tharoor 

The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. 

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