I'm Brian Lerer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Tuesday, March 1st.

Back with us now, Ellie Mistal, just as correspondent for the Nation magazine. Some of you remember, he was legal editor for the Radio Lab series on the Supreme Court called More Perfect.

And Ellie has a new book called Allow Me to Retort, a Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution.

This is the book that says, among many other things, that the law is not science.

It's more like jazz.

We'll see what's in the book,

as well as talk about some of today's jazzy legal news, including the Katanji Brown-Jackson

Supreme Court nomination. The trouble of the Trump real estate fraud investigation is reportedly

in now in the Manhattan DA's office and maybe a few other things. Ellie, always great to have you.

Congratulations on the book.

Thanks for having me, Brian.

How are you?

Good, thank you.

There are many takes on the Constitution out there already.

So what was your central organizing principle in writing a book on your take?

It's bad.

The Constitution is a problem.

A problem. Look, this is a problem. A problem.

Look, this is a document that was written by slavers, colonists, and wealthy white people who were willing to make deals with slavers and colonists.

And it has some really obvious flaws and problems.

You know, the law is not objective. It picks winners and losers. It can be

applied objectively. That's a little bit different. But in terms of what it actually says,

...