AO on K Street

No Summer Associates were harmed during this recording.

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Kannon Shanmugam rejoins Sarah and David for another SCOTUS opinion wrap-up and barbecue showdown for this live taping in front of a lucky audience of summer associates. The trio discuss the implications of SCOTUS cases versus the notoriety of them and:

-Sarah and David’s SCOTUS beefs

-Sarah’s impasse for longer arguments and more cases

-Attire for oral arguments (don’t forget the lucky suspenders)

-A review of Judge Jackson’s first term

-Barbecue and burger debates

-Summer Associate questions

Show Notes:

-Matt Levine for Bloomberg Opinion on Twitter/Musk saga

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Comments (66)
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  1. Avatar photo
    Alan

    Any chance of getting some merch with the new AO logo? I like it!

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    1. Avatar photostaff-badge-circle
      Valerie Smith staff-badge Staff

      Currently in production! Stay tuned!

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  2. Pohl

    Good guest. I enjoyed his views on different justices. And I love barbecue. I usually get ribs or a 1/2 chicken. Sometimes, I get smoked mac’n’cheese with pulled pork or brisket on top, sprinkled with Fritos. But, as a sandwich, burgers edge out barbecue. David is right.

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  3. Avatar photo
    Michael.P.Cotter

    I saw the new show logo for AO and I feared the worst. ( David French is one of my favorite “NYT writers” who I can never read since I’m too cheap to pay for a Times subscription). I was glad to hear that he is still doing AO when I listened to the pod. BUT… I can’t help thinking of the dialogue between Jonah and David (and between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader when they reunite of the forest moon of Endor) when Luke (Jonah) says, “then [David French] is truly dead [to me]”… or words to that effect.

    https://youtube.com/watch?v=wb9CJKE5Xbc&feature=share

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  4. Echack

    A friend of a friend is an attorney at a high level of DOJ. I mentioned to the FoaF that it seems that the DOJ indictment of Donald Trump seemed pretty well done and damning. The FoaF smiled and said "I can't comment on that". I brought up the part about Trump showing the classified document to the journalist and Sarah's comment that Trump was "Here, I'm criming right now". The FoaF totally lost it, but said nothing.

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  5. Avatar photo
    Daniel Jett

    Kannon is correct: In N Out > Five Guys

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  6. Jeffweist

    Long time listener (from the beginning!), first time commenter. I am doing so in the hopes David or Sarah will talk or write about another major problem in how the media covers Supreme Court decisions. The media portrays almost every decision as merely a policy call made by nine unelected people. The reporter will quote extensively from the more polemical portions of the decision, but hardly ever discuss the actual legal basis for the opinion. I know the polemics is sexier than the boring old law. But this laziness understandably leads readers to think that, yup, the Court is just voting along pre-conceived ideological lines and underpins much of the talk about the illegitimacy of the Court. Because that is all they read. David, how about that as a topic for your next NYT column? Even Adam Liptak is guilty of this. Help your reporter colleagues learn how to actually cover court opinions with integrity. Love the show! Thank you!

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    1. Avatar photocircle-angle-nib
      Sarah Isgur vertical-nib Author

      Hopefully that’s what we’re doing a litttttle with this show. I think the problem is that for political reporting, for example, you can assume a certain level of knowledge from your reader—they know what a poll is—but the equivalent isn’t true in law. So how do you explain why the court ruled that way when it would take 800 words just to explain major question doctrine?

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    Ben Connelly

    I like the new AO logo

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  8. Martin

    Of all of Sarah's wrong takes, the Five Guys take might be the most wrong. She even made the absurd claim that were there In-N-Out in the DC area, Five Guys would be more popular. This is a reasonably falsifiable. I live in the border regions of the People's Republic (San Diego) and I have three Five Guys and five In-N-Outs within about 10 minutes of me. I should say, rather, I HAD three Five Guys. One closed because it was always empty. And it was in Pacific Beach mere blocks from the ocean. I didn't know it was possible for a burger business to fail blocks from the ocean? The other one, despite also being in an amazing location with abundant parking (a rarity) has been empty every time I've gone near it. On the other hand, every In-N-Out is totally slammed at all hours of the day despite either crappy locations and, in all cases, limited parking.

    Side Note: Though I have regularly consumed In-N-Out for almost all 44 years of my life, I just recently discovered that you can add chopped banana peppers to your burger there. The rich just get richer.

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      Daniel Jett

      Thank you for your integrity. Much respect.

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  9. Sean Smith

    Regarding the standing issue that eternally vexes us, I propose a partial solution that should actually address a fairly wide swath of these questions: If a citizen--any citizen--has a credible/non-frivolous claim that the federal government is violating the Constitution, whether it's a separation of powers issue or violation of the Bill of Rights, that citizen has standing to sue the government. Actual injury or damages shouldn't matter, because the Constitution is a charter between the people--meaning every individual person--and their government, thus every individual citizen has standing to sue the government for breaching that charter. I found it preposterous that so many rhetorical contortions, legal fictions and leaps of faith had to be explored in order to figure out who, IF ANYONE (?!?!?), had standing to sue the Biden Administration for attempting to extra-constitutionally, extra-statutorily wipe out hundreds of billions in freely contracted debt. Upholding contracts is a basic function of government; arbitrarily wiping them from existence is a common tactic of despots. This was a flagrant assumption of nonexistent powers by the executive that would have profoundly significant, lasting effects on the federal deficit and national and international financial markets, and potentially NOBODY has standing to sue to put a stop to it? Could anything be more manifestly absurd? I'm a citizen of the US. My government is obligated to follow certain rules. If it doesn't, I should have standing to sue it. It's that simple.

    Secondly, I'm devastated to report that my longstanding crush on Sarah died a sudden, spectacular, fiery death yesterday upon learning she's a Dave Matthews fan. I'll grant that it was a forlorn, hopeless, altogether pointless crush, as we're both married, I'm too old for her, and she'd be out of my league even if I were her age, but a crush all the same. Ugh! Why, Sarah? Why? I'd rather listen to elephant seals mate for 14 hours than listen to ANYTHING by Dave Matthews for 14 seconds. I have no idea what elephant seals mating even sounds like, mind, but I'm nonetheless willing to gamble--and with absolute, unwavering confidence--that it's a sound I'd rather hear.

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      Daniel Jett

      Concur re DMB.

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    2. MathewA

      I think allowing any citizen to sue that would be just too many cases. But it makes perfect sense to allow the states to sue. That keeps the case load down, but there's pretty much always going to be a state that doesn't like what the federal government is doing.

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      1. Sean Smith

        I considered that, but it would have to be a pretty substantive claim to survive summary dismissal at the district court level and AWOP at the appellate level. And of course SCOTUS is discretionary review, so it's hard to say to what extent such claims would actually choke up the works in the real world. I've run into standing issues in many other contexts, and they've always exasperated me. If the government is behaving lawlessly, people need to be able to access the courts to put a stop to it because we ALL have a justiciable interest in keeping the government in line and ensuring that it's ultimately answerable to the people. They work for us, and you shouldn't need special status to hold them to account.

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    3. Avatar photocircle-angle-nib
      Sarah Isgur vertical-nib Author

      That’s how I feel about U2 and Coldplay. I think there’s something generational about the jam band that you came of age with tho. But most of what I listen to these days is Texas country or chick rock:)

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      1. Sean Smith

        U2 is easily the most overrated band in history. They have perhaps 7 good songs and 7000 mediocre-to-awful ones. And I don't know enough about Coldplay to comment intelligently.

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  10. Avatar photo
    KP

    “Lump it”- polite way to say “stuff it up your dorsal nether region”

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