Al and Dahlia Lithwick on The Monarchic Supreme Court

The Al Franken Podcast

News, Comedy, Politics, Government

4.6 • 8.1K Ratings

🗓️ 28 June 2026

⏱️ 78 minutes

🔗️ Recording | Apple Podcasts | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

For the final episode of The Al Franken Podcast, we're joined one last time by our good friend Dahlia Lithwick, Senior Editor at Slate and host of the Amicus podcast! As we await the Supreme Court’s remaining decisions, we turn to Dahlia to recap a bleak judicial term, including the decisions to gut the Voting Rights Act, strip immigrants of their Temporary Protected Status, and expel transgender servicemembers from the military.

Dahlia and Al look past the mainstream media's narrative of a "moderate" bench to reveal an institution deeply aligned with MAGA's political playbook that continues to make way for an imperial presidency. On a more hopeful note, Dahlia offers a blueprint for how regular citizens can find their lane and fight back from the ground up. Dahlia issues a call for Americans to move past "learned helplessness" to dismantle the cult of the Court and return constitutional power to the people.

LISTEN to Dahlia's podcast, Amicus:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/amicus-with-dahlia-lithwick-law-justice-and-the-courts/id928790786

READ Dahlia in Slate Magazine: https://slate.com/author/dahlia-lithwick

Transcript

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1:12.6	Hey everybody. Today we have a great show and just in time too because it's our last
1:19.5	episode. And I can't think of anyone better to end with than one of our faves,
1:26.1	Dahlia Lithwick. Well, maybe Obama, but we couldn't get him.
1:30.1	He said he'd do the next episode. Damn. Anyway, Dahlia was available and thank God because
1:38.2	the Roberts Court continues to attack our basic constitutional rights, one, six three decision after another. Dahlia, of course,
1:46.6	is host of Amicus for a brilliant podcast about the courts, and she'll join us to unpack
	...

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