Good morning to you. It is Saturday, June the 7th. We begin this hour with what is probably the most consequential legal development of Donald Trump's second term, which is that the president is now publicly turning on the Federalist Society, the same conservative legal group

upon which he relied to pick judges during his first term, the same powerful group that helped

carry him to power. Their picks include a majority of the Supreme Court and hundreds of other

federal judges, but this brewing feud could make Trump's next wave of judicial appointments more

dangerous. From the start, this was a marriage

of convenience. Trump leveraged the Federalist Society's credibility to win Republican votes.

The fallouts spilled into public view this week after Trump lost his tariff case before the U.S.

Court of International Trade. Although a federal circuit stayed the ruling the very next day,

Trump was still fuming, and on Thursday he lashed out on truth social.

Quote, I was new to Washington, and it was suggested that I used the Federalist Society as a recommending source on judges.

I did so openly and freely, but then realized that they were under the thumb of a real sleaze bag named Leonard Leo, a bad person who,

in his own way, probably hates America and obviously has his own separate ambitions, end quote.

Now, Trump owes much of his impact on the federal bench, including, on the Supreme Court majority,

to the longtime federalist leader, this man, Leonard Leo.

So yes, Trump's insults are out there, but even when a broken clock is right twice a day,

the Federalist Society does have its own ambitions. Their loyalty tends to be to conservative

legal doctrine, not necessarily to Trump. And on occasion, federalist society-affiliated judges have stood up

to Donald Trump. Case in point, when Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election, many of his

hand-picked Federalist Society vetted judges refused to rubber-stamp that effort. One Trump appointee

even opened his opinion with a sharp rebuke, quote, free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy, end quote.

Since then, Trump's resentment toward the conservative legal establishment has grown, and the feeling appears mutual.

As Vox's Ian Milheuser has reported, Federalist Society insiders have grown increasingly ambivalent about Trump,

...