Harvard Law & Holy Wars: Trump’s Attack on Courts, Campuses, and Religious Freedom

The Oath and The Office

Corey Brettschneider

Government, News, Politics

4.9 • 591 Ratings

🗓️ 4 June 2025

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Trump’s battles are spreading everywhere: from the Ivy League halls of Harvard to the Supreme Court’s shifting stance on religious liberty. Brettschneider and Fugelsang dive into Trump’s controversial attack on the Harvard Law Review—twisting the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to target student editors—and his shocking showdown with his one-time allies in the Federalist Society. Plus, the Supreme Court might soon allow religious opt-outs from school lessons about LGBTQ+ rights and could even greenlight religious charter schools, eroding the wall between church and state. Get ready for sharp insights and witty analysis in an episode about how Trump’s latest attacks on constitutional freedoms threaten America’s most fundamental freedoms.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to another edition of The Oath and the Office with Professor Corey Brezhneider and me, John Fiegel-Seng.
0:16.0	It's so good to have you with us.
0:17.6	We have a lot of big topics I get today with the professor.
0:19.8	Before I bring him on, I just want to say we are at present witnessing the Republican Party starting to
0:26.0	eat itself alive in this profound pork-scented barbecue of betrayal, grift, and petulant, burnt billionaire
0:33.5	egos. This budget fight that's happening as we speak is like watching a family of
0:39.0	feral raccoons fighting over a dumpster. You got these guys saying, cut Medicaid, and these guys
0:44.5	gnawing on a Ukrainian flag. And then there's Elon Musk saying, shame on those of you who
0:50.5	voted for this. You know you did wrong. You know it. Which is kind of like being lectured
0:54.5	on personal hygiene by a porta potty at Burning Man. I mean, the whole thing's a mess. Medicaid cuts are
1:00.9	being sold like a gym membership. The cuts will strengthen Medicaid. Like, oh, let's strengthen
1:06.1	a parachute by cutting some of the straps. But in the middle of all this madness, a Republican feud no one could have seen coming. Donald Trump went on true social, or as I call it, his Etsy store for fascism, to call Leonard Leo a sleaze bag, blaming him for bad judicial advice. Leonard Leo, my friends, the architect of the Supreme Court's conservative supermajority, the man who
1:28.1	handpicked Neil, I never met a corporation I didn't love, Gorsuch, and Brett, I like beer.
1:33.4	Kavanaugh and Amy, our lady of eternal subservience, Connie Barrett. Friends, Trump attacking
1:39.0	Leonard Leo is like Frankenstein's monster yelling at Dr. Frankenstein for giving him the wrong body parts.
1:45.3	And I have waited all week to talk to Professor Brechtnyder about this because
1:49.6	this clearing war on the same right-wing legal puppeteers, the Federalist society, who spent
1:55.4	decades grooming judges like they were prized Pomeranians. Professor Brechtznyder, I'm so glad
2:00.8	you're with us. Corey, of course,
2:02.2	is the star of the show. He's the author of the presidents of the people, five leaders who threaten
2:06.2	democracy and the citizens who fought to defend it. And of course, he is the Ivy League professor
2:10.0	who gave us the essential book, the oath in the office, a guide to the constitution for future presidents.
	...

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