Amicus | SCOTUS, Meet The Broligarchs

Slate Technology

Slate

Society & Culture, Technology, History

4.6 • 636 Ratings

🗓️ 10 May 2025

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

After Silicon Valley’s yeet to the right after Donald Trump was elected in 2016, and the DOGE-ification of the federal government (read: chaos and abuse as the driving ethos of HR), it felt like high time to delve into the evolving relationship between tech billionaires like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel and the U.S. government. Their influence has massive implications for core constitutional issues such as mass surveillance, privacy, and deregulation. Kara Swisher joins Dahlia Lithwick on this week’s Amicus to highlight the dangers of tech giants' encroachment on government oversight and the implications of AI and cryptocurrency. This week’s episode concludes with a heartfelt tribute to Justice David Souter who died on Thursday. Dahlia and former Souter Clerk Mary-Rose Papandrea reflect on the late Justice’s humility, judicial philosophy, and the profound loss felt by his former clerks and the legal community. 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	Adobe Express is the quick and easy Create Anything app.
0:05.0	It's a game changer for my business, my go-to for creating content.
0:09.0	From social posts to images, videos, flyers, whatever I need to stand out.
0:15.0	With customizable templates and smart features, it saved me endless hours.
0:20.0	And the best bit, it's free.
0:23.6	Search for Adobe Express to find out more and get started today.
0:28.6	Amazon offers term time working to their employees, like Anton,
0:36.6	who's home to look after his daughters during their holidays.
0:40.0	Hello!
0:40.9	To him, this is the best sound in the world.
0:47.2	Actually, maybe that's the best sound of all.
0:51.4	Now that's term time working.
0:53.7	Offered at Amazon. Ten weeks off guaranteed per year.
0:57.1	Mix of paid holiday and unpaid time off. Conditions apply. I'm Dahlia Lithwick and this is
1:08.4	Amicus, Slate's podcast about the courts and the law and the Supreme Court.
1:13.9	The nation lost a profoundly humble, brilliant, and consequential jurors this past week.
1:20.6	Like the character of an individual, the legitimacy of the court must be earned over time.
1:25.9	If the court's legitimacy should be undermined, the country would
1:30.0	also, in its very ability to see itself through its constitutional ideals. The court's
1:36.4	concerned with legitimacy is not for the sake of the court, but for the sake of the nation to which
1:41.4	it is responsible. Later on in the show, we're going to be spending some time with one of Justice David Souter's
1:48.3	former clerks to reflect on his life and legacy. Souter clerks are kind of famously some of the
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

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

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