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The Gist

SCOTUS's Shadow Docket, Calibrated + Steven Vladeck

The Gist

Mike Pesca

News, Politics, Arts, Daily News

4.43.6K Ratings

🗓️ 11 October 2025

⏱️ 40 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Mike previews the new Supreme Court term: Colorado's conversion-therapy ban, transgender athlete cases out of Idaho and West Virginia, a Louisiana Voting Rights Act fight, and a Rastafarian grooming claim, then dials in the panic meter on the "shadow docket": what it is, why Trump's emergency-order wins look so lopsided, and where concern beats catastrophizing. From the vault, law professor Stephen Vladeck explains how the Court's stealth rulings amass power, and why explanations matter.

Produced by Corey Wara


Production Coordinator Ashley Khan


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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hi, it's Saturday. It's the Saturday show. We bring you one from the vault and one from the week.

0:08.1

A best of. I don't know if it was the best of the week when I previewed Scotis's new term.

0:13.8

I know that the shadow docket is on the docket, also called the emergency docket, and these are the series of rulings.

0:20.5

21, according to my spiel of

0:22.4

this week, where Trump won before the Supreme Court, and a lot of people who know better

0:27.4

than me, in fact, are saying this portends bad things for our democracy, the Roberts Court

0:33.0

rubber stamping Trump's agenda, or listen to my tone, right? Listen to my tone. It's where you do the thing,

0:38.6

where you exaggerate the potential harm. And I do not want to do that. And I did not want to do

0:44.8

that in the spiel. So I try to explain these things every so often. And what I'm going to do now is

0:50.1

another crack at where I am in terms of concern. I am very concerned. You look at the shadow

0:54.8

docket. You look at the fact that the Trump administration has this big track record. You can't

1:00.0

help but be concerned. Not just that. The Trump administration is winning, but they're winning on

1:04.5

issues that abrogates to them more power. And that could be concerning. On the other hand,

1:09.8

there are reasons to be not at maximum panic.

1:12.9

I am an under-panicker.

1:14.6

The classic way to present the refutation of worries is to say, there's nothing to worry

1:21.5

about.

1:22.2

That would be good in the audio form where it's binary, where I could set up a bunch of chicken littles and

1:29.1

then come along and say, no, don't worry, I am the calm, steady hand of the non-heny-penny

1:35.8

crowd.

1:36.9

And then I could come along and say, no, listen to me.

1:40.2

I am not panicking.

...

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