The Supreme Court Is Backing Trump’s Power Grab
About this episode
Early in Trump's second term the courts were the main check on his power — until the Supreme Court began ruling overwhelmingly for him through the shadow docket. Legal scholar Kate Shaw (co-host of 'Strict Scrutiny' and former Supreme Court clerk) explains the shadow docket's emergency rulings and walks through three clusters of cases: mass firings of federal workers, the firing of independent agency heads in defiance of statutes, and the functional dismantling of agencies like the Education Department. They unpack the unitary executive theory driving these moves, the deportation cases (CECOT removals, third-country transfers), the birthright citizenship order, and the court's limits on nationwide injunctions. Klein and Shaw debate whether Chief Justice Roberts is an institutionalist or an architect of executive power, and what democratic reforms — filibuster reform, D.C. statehood, House expansion — could constrain a presidency the court won't.