Hey, this is Kai. I want to share something that got my mind churning in an unexpected

way recently. We've of course had a lot of conversations on this show about the Supreme

Court and its impact on our society. And in those conversations, we have often turned

to my friend and colleague, Ellie Mistal. He's the Justice Correspondent for the Nation

Magazine and author of the book Allow Me to Retort a Black Guys Guide to the Constitution.

And he is unapologetic about his belief that the Supreme Court has way too much power

and has caused way too much harm to just leave that power unchecked. Ellie is an advocate

for the kind of big bold reforms that many liberals and certainly many democratic elected

officials have rejected because they feel like they're too much, too fast, too radical.

Anyway, Ellie has a new podcast. It's called Contemptive Court. It's aptly named. And

in it, he's breaking down some of these bold ideas that he's got for reigning in the court.

And I want to share a short episode in which Ellie goes deep on one of those ideas that

he's brought to our show previously, which is packing the court with more justices. Now

court packing is itself controversial, but Ellie's version takes the idea and runs to

what at first might sound like an absurdist extreme. But when I hear him out, I'm actually

caught off guard by how practical the idea is. I mean, how it's really kind of just making

the court function, how the rest of the judiciary already functions. So enough for me coming

up, I'm going to let Ellie make the case himself. And at some point, we'll have him back

on notes from America to dissect this idea further. After the break, Ellie moustalls

court packing plan. When most people talk about expanding the Supreme Court, they're talking

about adding a few justices to or for to the bench. But I am not most people. I do not

think we should add a few justices to get into an endless tit for tat with Mitch McConnell

...