How SCOTUS is Making Project 2025 a Reality

Strict Scrutiny

News, Philosophy, Society & Culture, Government

4.6 • 5.7K Ratings

🗓️ 15 September 2025

⏱️ 100 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Our fearless hosts continue to slog through this sh*tty shadow docket summer, covering an order from the Court okaying racial profiling by ICE officers, some ominous administrative stays, Amy Coney Barrett’s ongoing press tour through right wing media, and the lower courts’ continuing frustrations with this Supreme Court. Then, Leah and Kate speak with special guest Symone Sanders Townsend, co-host of MSNBC’s The Weeknight, about how the Supreme Court is carrying out key parts of Project 2025, and enabling and facilitating other parts of the government to do the same.

Hosts’ favorite things:

Leah: The Guatemalan Children’s Case and the Judicial Learning Curve, Anna Bower (Lawfare); What Should a Lower Federal Court Judge Do When SCOTUS Plays Calvinball? By Michael Dorf (Dorf on Law).
Kate: Bonus 177: A Closer Look at Justice Kavanaugh's ICE Raids Opinion, Steve Vladeck (One First); Zohran Mamdani’s ‘Stop Sending Us Money” TikTok
Melissa: “Trump’s Treasury Secretary Threatens to Punch Housing Official in the Face,” Maggie Haberman and Shawn McCreesh (Washington Post)

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2025!

3/6/26 – San Francisco
3/7/26 – Los Angeles

Learn more: http://crooked.com/events

Order your copy of Leah's book, Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes

Transcript

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0:00.0	Struck scrutiny is brought to you by Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
0:04.7	You don't destroy 250 years of secular democracy without gutting some precedent,
0:09.6	shattering norms, and dropping a few billion. The same people in groups that back Project
0:14.5	2025 are part of a larger shadow network that's relentlessly pushing to impose a Christian
0:20.1	nationalist agenda on our laws and
0:22.5	our lives. Church state separation is the bulwark that blocks their agenda. One of the last bastions
0:28.2	of church state separation is our public school system. So they are pushing vouchers everywhere.
0:33.7	They're arguing for religious public schools. Yes, you heard that right, religious public schools. And they're arguing for it at the Supreme Court in a case that we talked about just this year, St. Isidore. If you're listening to us, you're already seeing the writing on the wall. You know that we can and we must fight back. Join Americans United for separation of church and state and their growing
0:54.7	movement because church state separation protects us all. Learn more and get involved at
0:59.8	AU.org forward slash crooked. Mr. Chief Justice, please support. It's an old joke,
1:07.6	but when I argue, man argues against two beautiful ladies like this, they're going to have the last word.
1:13.6	She spoke not elegantly, but with unmistakable clarity.
1:19.6	She said, I ask no favor for my sex.
1:24.6	All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet or for next.
1:49.3	Hello and welcome back to strict scrutiny, your podcast about the Supreme Court and the legal culture that surrounds it.
1:57.3	We are your host today. I'm Kate Shaw. And I'm Leah Lippman. And because it's just the two of us, you might not want to have this on 1.5 speed or higher.
2:01.2	So one point two might be tolerable, but... Maybe.
2:02.0	Maybe.
2:03.5	I'm going to get pretty amped, my guesses.
2:09.2	But it's still summer pumpkin spice season, meaning the Supreme Court is in summer, even though it's fall.
2:10.1	So we will be covering legal news before we share a conversation we had with the wonderful
2:14.2	Simone Sanders Cousin, host of MSNBC's show The Weeknight.
	...

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