Hi, I'm Dahlia Lithwick, and this is Amicus, Slate's podcast about the courts and the Supreme Court and the law.

Before we kick off the show proper, I really want to give a huge shout out to Mark Joseph Stern, who worked tirelessly the last couple of weeks so that I could

have a little bit of time off this summer. And, uh, hello, I'm back. Somewhat rested, somewhat

restored. Very, very happy to be with you again. Okay, on to this week's show.

National Guard troops deployed in D.C. amid Trump's crime emergency will now be allowed to carry weapons.

Trump has already sent 2,200 National Guard members to the nation's capital, where police say violent crime is actually at a 30-year low, down 26% from last year.

The president says Democratic-run cities are facing a crime emergency.

So the line is that I'm a dictator, but I stop crime.

And he says he may do the same in places like Baltimore, New York, and Chicago.

So a lot of people say, you know, if that's the case, I'd rather have a dictator.

But I'm not a dictator. I just know how to stop crime.

This is not about fighting crime.

This is about Donald Trump searching for any justification to deploy the military in a blue city,

in a blue state to try and intimidate his political rivals.

What he is proposing at this point would be the most flagrant violation of our Constitution in the 21st century.

The state of Illinois is ready to stand against this military deployment with every peaceful tool we have.

We will see the Trump administration in court.

There are so many chilling new developments as we roll on into this Labor Day weekend,

but this one feels especially seismic for people who think in terms of checks and balances states' rights and the rule of law.

The president's deployment of the National Guard in the District of Columbia, ostensibly to respond to an existential crime wave that isn't happening, but also to participate in immigration, enforcement, and domestic policing.

Some of this was trial ballooned in Los Angeles earlier this year. We covered it on the show.

But this past week, the president's despotic escalations, well, they escalated.

...