The Secret Memos Behind the Supreme Court’s Shadow Docket (with Jodi Kantor)
The Oath and The Office
Corey Brettschneider
4.9 • 591 Ratings
🗓️ 21 May 2026
⏱️ 66 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on The Oath and The Office, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor joins the podcast to explain the Court’s shadow docket: the emergency orders process that has become one of the most powerful and least understood parts of American government.
Kantor discusses the Supreme Court memos she obtained with Adam Liptak, what they reveal about Chief Justice John Roberts, and how they relate to the Court’s supposed image as a neutral “umpire".
Corey and John also discuss Trump’s proposed “anti-weaponization” compensation fund, the politics of abortion and the abortion pill at the Supreme Court, and the Court’s emergency order allowing Alabama to move forward with redrawn congressional maps.
In this episode:
- What the shadow docket is and why it matters
- Jodi Kantor on Supreme Court memos
- The two sides of John Roberts
- Why the “umpire” model of judging has collapsed
- Abortion, Alabama, and emergency Supreme Court power
- Trump’s “anti-weaponization” fund and the politics of grievance
- The immunity case and presidential power
Link to Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak's reporting on the secret memos of the Supreme Court: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/18/us/politics/supreme-court-shadow-docket.html
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to another episode of The Oath and the Office. |
| 0:14.4 | I am John Fuglesang, and on this week we've got us, very special guest in Jody Cantor |
| 0:19.5 | and Donald Trump's new $1.8 billion |
| 0:23.6 | anti-weaponization fund, which is the most honest corruption scheme in American history. |
| 0:28.6 | Friends, most politicians try to hide their bribes. |
| 0:32.6 | Donald Trump is basically stable to post-it note to the Treasury Department that says, |
| 0:36.6 | Money for my friends. For more, let's go to the Treasury Department that says, money for my friends. |
| 0:38.7 | For more, let's go to the star of our show, the author of The Oath and the Office, Ivy League |
| 0:43.4 | Political Science Professor, the Mac, Corey Brett Schneider. Welcome, Professor. It's good to see you. |
| 0:49.8 | Thanks, John. You know, the corruption is just getting so much more rampant, so much more blatant. |
| 0:56.2 | And yet, you know, every week we get to talk to each other. It focuses me. It gets me ready for the |
| 1:02.3 | fight ahead, to be honest about what's happening, but also to talk about, you know, how we can |
| 1:07.3 | have hope in the midst of that. And of course, after our discussion about |
| 1:11.1 | the important recent topics, we're going to go to somebody who I think is just the premier |
| 1:17.2 | person uncovering what's actually happening at the Supreme Court. So much of what we'll |
| 1:22.1 | discuss today is relevant to the shadow docket, the secret emergency orders of the court where they don't tell us |
| 1:29.0 | why they're doing what they're doing. Well, Jody Cantor did more to uncover this process, |
| 1:34.7 | the motivation and the reality behind it than anyone else. We'll talk about that. Also, |
| 1:39.4 | her reporting on the immunity case, revealing aspects of that that weren't in the light until she came to it. |
| 1:45.8 | So it's really an incredible person. Of course, she also is the person who wrote the Harvey Weinstein story and in many ways is responsible for the Me Too movement. |
| 1:53.8 | So it's really another incredible episode on the backs last week of an incredible episode with the ACLU legal director, Cecilia Wang, |
| 2:02.7 | and I've heard from so many of you about the power of that interview. So, John, I look forward |
... |
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