LeBron and the Mighty White Lakers. Plus, Are You Proud to Be an American?

Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay

The Ringer

Society & Culture

4.7 • 11.6K Ratings

🗓️ 3 July 2026

⏱️ 137 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Van and Rachel react to the biggest news of the NBA offseason before questioning whether Kamala Harris is gearing up for a presidential run and discussing Barack Obama’s opinion of George Washington. Then Maureen Edobor, an assistant professor at Washington and Lee School of Law, joins to help break down the impact of some recent Supreme Court decisions before Van asks a patriotic question. (0:00) Intro (10:01) The new-look (white) Lakers (15:57) LeBron’s latest decision (41:02) Is Kamala Harris running in 2028? (50:50) Obama on admiring George Washington (1:21:24) Maureen Edobor on SCOTUS’s latest decisions (1:50:02) Are you proud to be an American? Hosts: Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay Guest: Maureen Edobor Producers: Donnie Beacham Jr. and Jade Whaley Social Producer: Bernard Moore Video Supervision: Chris Thomas and Jacob Cornett Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Yay, I'm Thought Warriors.
0:13.8	So much happening.
0:15.0	What is up?
0:16.1	Higher learning is on is I Van Lathen, Jr.
0:17.9	You can take the little IFB thing off.
0:19.8	Oh, yeah.
0:20.7	You just did an interview.
0:21.6	And it's me, Rachel and Lindsay.
0:23.9	We did an interview with Marine Edibor. She's a constitutional law professor. We talked to her about the Supreme Court. Supreme Court decisions that went down. Yeah, it's a lot. I mean, this actually crept up on me. It's the time of year. This always happens, right?
0:35.8	End of June, right at the top of July,
0:38.9	you get the most controversial decisions,
0:40.8	the ones the court holds out on before they take a break. But I forgot until they, even when we talked about this on Tuesday's podcast, it didn't even hit me. I was like, oh my gosh, yeah, it is that time.
0:50.9	The court time. It's just a lot of stuff going on all the time. They sneak it in in the summer. They want to come in there and do their racism. They want to crack down on us and stuff. Not just racism, all the, all the... You still believe in the court. You're still a court believer. You believe it, because you have to because you're that. Well, yeah, but all levels of the court. Right. Right? Like, you know, we'll talk about it with, you know, the professor when she comes on. But all levels of the court, you believe in the courts. We have to have a judicial system. Yeah. I mean, but it needs to change. Like, it's, it's extremely problematic. Yeah. They're contradicting themselves. like they're it's almost it's almost they're liars it's extremely problematic. They're contradicting themselves. Like, they're, it's almost, it's almost, they're liars.
1:30.1	They're liars.
1:31.1	It's almost laughable at the length that they will go to in these opinions to defend something
1:37.7	to align with their political beliefs or their moral values or their values, I should
1:43.0	just say, rather than what's good for the people or what's right or what precedent says.
1:50.0	Let's talk about the hat.
1:51.3	What about it?
1:51.8	I don't know if I've ever seen you wear something designer.
1:55.1	Now, when you told the story on the podcast about the hat, it wasn't Gucci.
1:59.5	I got two hats.
	...

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