The Oath and The Office

What is the Supreme Court doing when it acts without full briefing, oral argument, or a real explanation?

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's book, How to Start: https://jodikantor.com/how-to-start

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

This week on The Oath and The Office, Corey Brettschneider and John Fugelsang begin with the new redistricting wars, as southern states move to dilute Black Americans’ voting power after a green light from the Supreme Court. They look at Tennessee, Alabama, and the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision striking down a voting plan approved by voters.

Then, they turn to citizenship itself: DOJ support for stripping citizenship from naturalized citizens and Trump’s attacks on his own Supreme Court justices.

Corey then speaks with Cecilia Wang, National Legal Director of the ACLU, who argued before the Supreme Court against Trump’s executive order attacking birthright citizenship, with Trump himself watching from the courtroom. Wang explains why the text and history of the Fourteenth Amendment are on her side, how Reconstruction transformed the Constitution, and why the fight over citizenship is part of the larger battle for voting rights, civil liberties, and democracy itself.

The Supreme Court is reshaping American democracy — weakening voting rights, empowering the presidency, and narrowing the protections that have defined modern civil rights law.

John Fugelsang and Corey Brettschneider begin with the Court’s assault on the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the fallout for democratic participation across the country. They also discuss Trump’s attacks on James Comey, threats against ABC and Jimmy Kimmel, and the broader campaign of intimidation against critics and dissenters.

Then constitutional law scholar Kate Shaw joins the show to discuss how the Court is enabling Trump’s authoritarianism, including the pending fight over Temporary Protected Status, the shadow docket, emergency rulings on immigration and executive power, and her recent exchange with Senator Josh Hawley over nationwide injunctions.

What happens when the courts weaken voting rights while expanding presidential power? And what does it mean for the future of constitutional democracy?

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Trump briefly talked about “cooling things down.” Then came the escalation.

This week on The Oath and The Office, Corey Brettschneider and John Fugelsang look at how President Trump is using political violence not as a reason for restraint, but as a weapon against his opponents. Jimmy Kimmel and Trevor Noah are targeted for jokes. A 60 Minutes interview becomes another venue for attacking the press. And the administration’s suit against the Southern Poverty Law Center raises a larger question: is law enforcement being turned into a tool of political retaliation?

We also turn to the Supreme Court’s major Fourth Amendment case over geofence warrants and cell location data. The old law-school hypotheticals about government surveillance no longer feel hypothetical. With companies like Palantir helping build the modern surveillance state, the threat of databases tracking protesters, dissidents, and political opponents is suddenly very real.

Then Corey is joined by James A. Morone, Professor Emeritus at Brown University and one of the country’s leading political scientists, to discuss his new book with David Blumenthal, "Whiplash: From the Battle for Obamacare to the War on Science". The book tells the inside story of how Obama, Trump, and Biden transformed health care politics, from the fight over Obamacare to COVID, Operation Warp Speed, anti-poverty policy, and Trump’s war on science itself.

Get the book from Yale University Press:
https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300263480/whiplash/

Has Trump changed American politics so deeply that what once seemed dangerous now feels normal?

In this episode of The Oath and The Office, we begin with the Supreme Court: the shadow docket, Clarence Thomas, and a judiciary that increasingly operates with extraordinary power and too little accountability.

We then turn to the case against the former CIA director, along with the resignation of a Justice Department prosecutor, and ask what these developments reveal about the state of law, accountability, and political pressure inside the justice system.

Then Aaron Parnas joins us. Parnas has built a massive audience by reporting breaking political news to a younger generation in real time, often outside traditional media. We ask him a bigger question: can the news be reported outside the wider context of the threat to democracy? And when Parnas argues that much of this feels normal to people who grew up in the Trump era, Corey asks what it means when democratic crisis starts to feel ordinary.

We also discuss Trump’s reported pressure on the IRS, the questions surrounding Kash Patel and the FBI, and why these stories may be part of a much broader pattern.

This is a conversation about power, accountability, and the risk of treating democratic erosion as the new normal.