Hunger Games for Legal Hackery
Strict Scrutiny
Strict Scrutiny
4.6 • 5.7K Ratings
🗓️ 14 July 2025
⏱️ 99 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Katie Phang, independent journalist and trial lawyer, joins Leah to run through the week’s legal news–and there’s a lot of it! They unpack, as KBJ puts it, “this Court’s demonstrated enthusiasm for greenlighting this President’s legally dubious actions in an emergency posture” and break down the latest thirstiness from the judges angling to be Trump’s next SCOTUS pick. Then, all three hosts are joined by Strict Scrutiny’s official roadie, Chris Hayes, to talk about his book, The Sirens' Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource.Â
Hosts’ and Guests’ Favorite Things:
- Chris: What we won on Election Day, Zohran Mamdani
- Kate: Mamdani, Trump and the End of the Old Politics, Ezra Klein & Chris Hayes (NYT); Moral Ambition: Stop Wasting Your Talent and Start Making a Difference, Rutger Bregman
- Melissa: Dirty Dancing; Ruin Their Crops on the Ground: The Politics of Food in the United States, from the Trail of Tears to School Lunch & Skimmed: Breastfeeding, Race, and Injustice, Andrea Freeman
- Leah: Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, V.E. Schwab; Bone Valley: A True Story of Injustice and Redemption in the Heart of Florida, Gilbert King; Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter tour
- Katie: A Lawsuit against Alligator Alcatraz! (Katie’s Substack)
Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2025!Â
- 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 | Strict scrutiny is brought to you by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. |
| 0:04.2 | You don't destroy 250 years of secular democracy without gutting precedent, shattering norms, and dropping a few billion. |
| 0:11.3 | The same people in groups that backed Project 2025 are part of a larger shadow network that's relentlessly pushing to impose a Christian nationalist agenda on our laws and our lives. |
| 0:22.1 | Church state separation is a bulwark that blocks their agenda. |
| 0:25.7 | One of the last bastions of church state separation is our public school system. |
| 0:29.6 | So they are pushing vouchers everywhere. |
| 0:32.3 | They are arguing for religious public schools. |
| 0:35.3 | Yes, you heard that right. |
| 0:37.0 | Religious public schools. And they argued for it |
| 0:39.5 | at the Supreme Court last term, which we talked about a lot on this podcast. If you're listening to us, |
| 0:46.7 | you already see the writing on the wall. You know that we can and we must fight back. Join Americans |
| 0:53.7 | United for separation of church and state |
| 0:55.6 | and their growing movement because church, state separation protects us all. You can learn more and |
| 1:01.4 | get involved at AU.org slash crooked. As the day wraps up, get the scoop on what's been happening |
| 1:07.9 | with Here's the Scoop, a new podcast from NBC News with me, your host, |
| 1:12.2 | Yasmin Vesugian, along with Morgan Chesky and Brian Chung. We'll take a deep dive into the day's |
| 1:17.0 | top stories with NBC News's trusted journalists. It's a fresh take that's sharp, thoughtful, |
| 1:21.9 | and it's informative, bringing you closer to the headlines and conversations that are shaping |
| 1:25.8 | our world, from the front page to the zeitgeist, all in 15 minutes or less. |
| 1:31.0 | Here's the scoop from NBC News. |
| 1:32.8 | Listen daily wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 1:36.5 | Mr. Chief Justice, may it please support. |
... |
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