Welcome to the political scene from The New Yorker, a weekly discussion about the big questions in American politics.

I'm Susan Glasser, and I'm joined by my colleagues Jane Mayer and Evan Osnose.

Hey, Jane.

Hey, Susan.

Hey, Evan. Great to see you guys. This week, we're back with our

summer interview series. Last week, I sat down to discuss the impact of Trump 2.0 on democracy and the

world through the eyes of a friend of mine, Fiona Hill. This week, we'll look at another major theme of the first six months of Donald Trump's second term in office.

His relationship, if you can call it that, to the rule of law.

Jane, you've long had an interest in the Supreme Court and its radicalization.

You're writing a book on it right now, which, by the way, I cannot wait for. In the meantime, you're sitting down this week with someone who I think can really add a lot

to the conversation, the co-host of the strict scrutiny podcast, Leah Littman. What were you

thinking about going into this conversation? I think there has been a growing realization that the Supreme

Court justices are not the apolitical oracles of Delphi that they have often been treated as,

but rather they are political actors at the top of a branch of the U.S. government that has enormous power over every

American's life, especially these days with the Trump administration when it's pushing the

barriers of the rule of law in our society. And so the reason I wanted Leah was that nobody I

know has done a better job of demystifying and deciphering what's really

going on behind those marble walls on the Supreme Court. She was herself a Supreme Court clerk,

so she was up there behind the scenes. She's now a law professor at the University of Michigan,

and she's the co-host of strict scrutiny, which is a fabulous podcast. It's highly entertaining and also really smart. She is also the author of a new book called Lawless that tries to make the court accessible to people who are not lawyers and just want to understand what's going on.

So I really wanted her to translate and explain what is happening up there,

particularly in terms of the relationship between the court and Donald Trump.

...