Amicus | Don’t Give Up on the Law Just Yet

Slate Daily Feed

Slate Podcasts

News, Business, Society & Culture

4 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 2 August 2025

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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 corruption. But there are judges—courageous, hard-working men and women—who have chosen a different path and are fighting to protect democracy and restore our civil rights. In his new book, Better Judgment: How Three Judges Are Bringing Justice Back to the Courts (out Sept. 2), Reynolds Holding tells the story of three of these judges and how they are laying the groundwork for a post-Trump future in which the courts serve as guardians of liberty rather than instruments of autocracy. Holding speaks with co-host Mark Joseph Stern about these judges’ refusal to accept business as usual and vision of a court that truly delivers equal justice to all. Want more Amicus? Join Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes with exclusive legal analysis. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Amicus show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Ready to launch your business? Get started with the commerce platform made for entrepreneurs.
0:04.8	Shopify is specially designed to help you start, run and grow your business with easy customizable themes that let you build your brand.
0:12.4	Marketing tools that get your products out there. Integrated shipping solutions that actually save you time.
0:17.4	From startups to scaleups, online, in, and on the go. Shopify is made for
0:22.8	entrepreneurs like you. Sign up for your $1 a month trial at Shopify.com slash setup. I'm Mark Joseph Stern, and this is Amicus, Slate's podcast about the courts, the law, and the Supreme Court.
0:52.4	Courts still have a very important role to play,
0:54.8	and we need not to forget that. A question I've been asking myself a lot these days is whether
1:00.8	the law still matters. We live under a president who thinks he's a king and a Supreme Court that
1:06.7	often lets him rule like one. It's easy to start wondering why we should care about the law at
1:12.1	all when those who swore to uphold it seem more intent on breaking it. A lot of this despair
1:18.4	centers on the courts, where law should be the coin of the realm, but raw partisan power has
1:24.2	become the true currency. I've spent much of Trump's second term criticizing
1:28.7	judicial rulings, and more and more, the response is, we know, the courts are broken. What are we
1:34.9	going to do about it? I don't have an answer to that question, or frankly, to the broader puzzle of how
1:40.8	we save the rule of law from one president and six justices who appear dead set on
1:46.8	destroying it. But I do know that I'm not the only one asking these questions. I've spoken to
1:52.5	multiple judges who've expressed deep sorrow over the state of our democracy today. Even if these
1:59.1	judges know the Supreme Court may well smack them down,
2:02.6	there is still courage to be found in the judiciary and judges who are determined to hold the line,
2:08.2	to protect civil rights and equality and other constitutional guarantees that may have fallen
2:13.5	out of fashion among too many of their colleagues.
2:18.3	I find myself looking to these judges more and more because they don't really have the luxury
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 17 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate Podcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Slate Podcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.