Trump’s Supreme Court Power Grab (with Leah Litman)

The Oath and The Office

Corey Brettschneider

Government, News, Politics

4.9 • 591 Ratings

🗓️ 11 December 2025

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Leah Litman — University of Michigan law professor and constitutional law expert — joins Corey Brettschneider and cohost John Fugelsang to explain how the Supreme Court may be clearing the way for Donald Trump to fire independent regulators at will. She breaks down the Court’s turn toward the unitary executive, what that means for Trump’s control over the executive branch, what’s at stake in the coming fight over birthright citizenship, and where she still sees possibilities for court reform.

Corey and John open the episode by unpacking the stakes of a recently heard case on independent agencies, its impact on watchdogs like the FTC and the Federal Reserve, and how it might further concentrate presidential power. They then connect the dots to concrete examples from government and the courts — including Pete Hegseth and war crimes allegations and Judge Boasberg’s handling of the administration’s defiance of a court order — before their in-depth conversation with Leah about whether any institutions will be able to hold President Trump to account.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to another edition of the Oath and the Office, the only constitutional law podcast with inappropriate humor you need.
0:17.9	I'm John Fugles saying, people of Earth, let me welcome the man with a PhD in
0:21.8	politics from Princeton, a law degree from Stanford, and he uses them to enrich the lives
0:25.7	of students in the Polyside Department at Brown, the author of the oath and the office professor
0:30.3	Corey Brett Schneider, but around here we call him the Mac. Corey, it's good to see you. Congratulations
0:36.0	on the ratings for this thing, huh? This thing is
0:38.9	getting popular in spite of me. People are coming, I think, largely because of you for our dynamic.
0:44.6	And we hit number two on Apple Podcast Government last week, that amazing discussion with Cheldon
0:49.8	White House. We have an amazing episode today with our return guest, Leah Littman from strict scrutiny,
0:55.8	also the author of the amazing book Lawless. And what a moment, too, because we're going to be
1:01.4	talking not just about the birthright citizenship case, but also about the argument,
1:05.5	oral argument this week, about the question of whether or not the president can fire at will for political reasons,
1:12.3	the head of the independent agency, the Federal Trade Commission.
1:15.7	That sounds dry.
1:16.7	We're going to unpack it, but we're also going to talk about why it's nothing less than the future of our democracy that's at stake.
1:22.4	Yeah, this is not the sexiest way to begin a show, but I promise we'll get to Pete Hackseth murdering people very shortly.
1:29.3	I mean, Corey, how do we begin the sad story of Rebecca Slaughter? Once upon a time,
1:35.3	this woman helped the FTC sue big corporations for abusing their power and for ripping off American consumers,
1:42.3	and then Donald Trump, who enjoys ripping off American consumers and respects corporations that do it better than him, pretty much said, fire that woman.
1:50.7	She's cutting into my business model.
1:52.8	Because Donald Trump doesn't just tolerate companies that rip off Americans.
1:56.9	He admires them.
	...

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